Kirk Honeycutt

It might even live up to that title: When it ends, you wouldn't mind a bit more, please.

The freshness and ingenuity of this techno-thriller should spark a cult following among sci-fi fans at the very least, but the film could make inroads among cineastes, adult adventure-seekers and the Latino community as well.

If you were keeping score, it would be Quentin Tarantino 1, Robert Rodriguez 0.

A smooth blend of visual special effects, exceptional stunts, fluid photography, sharp design and a possible best-selling soundtrack.

Red Eye has a devilish charm. It pulls just about every nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat trick imaginable, yet gets away with it through what is, admittedly, a clever and original gimmick.

Four terrific performances make the transition to a U.S. setting go smoothly for British director Udayan Prasad.

The second half feels heavy and unfulfilled, potential greatness reduced to a good movie plagued with problems.

Nicely balances action and adventure with American Indian wisdom and a modest romance to provide a graphic-comic-book movie experience for males in urban markets.

A fascinating film even if it never completely pins him (Verges) down.

While it makes no bones about where its sympathies lie, these fictional stories show a genuine fascination with the role politics plays on both sides of such confrontations and how things can spin out of control with no single person to blame.

The six penguins cast in this amiable family comedy steal the movie -- along with any fish they can find -- although the film's star, Jim Carrey, does manage to hold his own. Barely.

The film falls into an interesting intersection between documentary and feature, between reality and fiction.

Dick's strongest points are that these raters receive no training and are given no standards by which to judge movies. Experts in child psychology or media or social studies are not consulted. Nor are they allowed on the board. The days of counting F-words or pelvic thrusts need to end, and in the film's quieter moments, Dick makes this case compellingly.

A sensitive but not sentimental story about a romance involving a mentally challenged young man never makes a misstep.

While nearly every shock comes at predictable moments, there is genuine ingenuity behind many, and the movie is surprisingly fresh for one made by a guy on his third go-round with the same material.

A neatly packaged Walt Disney Co. picture with bone-crunching football action; a nice sense of the blue-collar, male-dominated milieu that nourishes football fanaticism; and a few too many tugs at the heartstrings.

Thumbsucker is a head-scratcher. It's well directed and acted. Yet the story has little emotional pull.

The film's characters are lively, the women all look terrific (the guys do too, for that matter), and its many romantic story threads weave into artfully told tales of love lost and found.

By the movie's end, writer-director Karen Moncrieff's The Dead Girl delivers considerable emotional impact. But that doesn't mean you've enjoyed the journey.

Fast & Furious is the first film since the original to be smart about how far to stretch logic without sacrificing the desired macho swagger and revved-up emotions.

Say Anything is an easy film to like. Ex-rock journalist Cameron Crowe, known for two screenplays about teenagers caught up in the fast lane, has written and directed (for the first time) a surprisingly gentle comedy about teens that concerns itself with values and love.

This is a coolly efficient, tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy.

Depp is the comic gel that holds the whole enterprise together. The performance is a total delight that somehow combines Bugs Bunny, Peter Pan and Charlie Chaplin.

James Newton Howard's music picks up its comic cues perhaps a bit too swiftly and loudly, but little of this detracts from the movie's many pleasures.

Does a good job of reviving stale material. Thanks to a snappy script by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa and an effervescent performance by Jennifer Garner, this romantic comedy has a buoyant personality.

Keira Knightley is a terrific choice to play the 18th century socialite.

Reminds you of an elaborate Christmas card that tumbles apart with pop-up figures, silly/charming greetings and perhaps even a jingle. It probably cost more than the gift it heralds, and you can't help but laugh at the audacity of such an aggressively cheerful card.

What makes the film so much fun is an ingenious plot device embedded in Rashid's sharply observed screenplay.

All the acting is solid including a knock-'em-dead single scene by Annabella Sciorra as Jackie's ex-wife.

The movie entertains, but it's a shallow entertainment where you have no rooting interest in the outcome.

Beat has a moody, furtive quality that jibes perfectly with the perplexed life of a pianist-gangster.

The story is about musicians and how music connects people, so the movie's score and songs, created by composers Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer, give poetic whimsy to an implausible tale.

The movie has a cheerful good nature and a solid cast of youngsters - including Aimee Teegarden and Thomas McDonell - but any resemblance between this and real high school is, of course, purely coincidental.

It has style to burn, eye-catching acting by an international cast and a story that harkens back to many literary classic with its themes of a family torn apart, brothers in conflict and a son's rivalry with a towering father figure.

The 134-minute film jams in much information, incidents and characters without losing any entertainment value. And, fortunately, its heroism isn't pumped up or glorified.

Despite a virtually unplayable premise, The Switch overcomes this handicap to turn itself into a friendly, offbeat romantic comedy.

This family comedy adventure from Walden Media is likable in a scruffy way. Its characters, especially the youngest one, are engaging, and few adults are immune to childhood fantasies about secluded tropical isles.

In the end, this is a smart movie that could have been smarter. The script feels like it was a draft or so away from total clarity and focus. But the energy of the cast and a dive into an unfamiliar world make the movie rather addictive.

This is resolutely a film of the imagination. As with all films in Malick's slim body of work, its imagery, haunting sounds and pastoral mood trump narrative.

Mostly, Good Boy! exists for the middle section where youngsters and dogs speak the same language. These escapades, all taking place under the adults' radar, generate many sound laughs.

The film is stylish as hell with sharp dialogue, a tongue-in-cheek plot and visual and editing razzle-dazzle.

The film is only "superior" though, not great. The themes feel shopworn and devotee of crime fiction can point to the any number of antecedents for these characters.

To borrow from TV terminology, the series hasn't jumped the shark yet, but the strain of inventing bizarre deaths is beginning to show.

The biggest hole in this picture is not so much whether an audience will buy its miracles but whether an audience will care about Henry Poole. Wilson hits the same notes in virtually every scene without any change to his physical rhythms or moods.

The situations tend toward contrivance, but the atmosphere is easygoing and the actors seem relaxed even when everyone at the family table is yelling.

Downey and Monaghan are wonderful at playing characters that compensate for the harshness of their past with flippant swaggers.

Who Do You Love, directed by Broadway veteran Jerry Zaks, pays attention to the music but to its credit pays even more attention to the actors and story.

In this film, directed by Mike Nichols in one of his most satirical moods and scripted by Hollywood's most politically astute writer Aaron Sorkin, a womanizing, alcoholic, easily tempted bachelor gets elected in a Texas district that doesn't care what he does as long as he brings home the bacon.

The results are entertaining -- up to a point.

Films about serial killers have become so ubiquitous that they now form a subgenre of the crime movie. Even so, Antibodies, has a bracingly original take on the matter.

The movie is fast, funny and light on its feet, dipping less into politics or religion than into cultural quirks and characteristics.

This is the kind of film that will leave many audience members groaning with laughter -- and others simply groaning. It's skit/situation comedy that exploits stereotypes with a vengeance and knows no shame in borrowing from much better movies ranging from "Some Like It Hot" to "Tootsie."

The movie observes and dramatizes, yet seeks no overriding social moral.

It's an exuberant, fanciful fable set amid the scruffy outskirts of American society, where people's need for escapism coincides with their desire to participate in its creation.

A sobering yet hysterically funny documentary.

Bookending the film is the relationship between Jessica and the grandmother who raised her. This role is delightfully played by Suzanne Flon, who recently died at age 87. The film is dedicated to the veteran actress.

This topsy-turvy funeral produces a number of smiles, giggles, pleasant guffaws and several solid, sustained laughs. Not a bad batting average as comedies go.

The movie does achieve something nearly impossible: Someone who doesn't even like the sport may care about Billy Beane and the 2002 Oakland Athletics.

Farrelly brothers films are looking better and better, but aren't nearly as funny as their grungy early films that hit with the stealth and vigor of guerrilla commandos. Maybe there is a kind of heartbreak here after all.

The result is an entertaining comedy for young girls and older girls who still like a good romantic fable.

A sometimes clever, other times grating mix of live action and animation that plays tricks with levels of movie reality as the world of fairy-tale animation invades contemporary New York.

There is enough compelling adventure, awesome cinematography and dynamic stunt work involving horses to keep one entertained by Hidalgo.

Writer-director Richard Shepard assembles all the elements for a dark suspense comedy only to lose his way in a surfeit of plot mechanics and unlikely behavior.

It's a low-wattage film about a high-wattage event. Which is somewhat disappointing, though you do get a thoughtful, playful, often amusing film about what happened backstage at one of the '60s' great happenings.

The decision to approach Johnny's life as a love story causes Mangold to neglect the development of Johnny's music.

Results in an edgy comedy, where laughs stem at times from uncomfortable situations. In other words, Mean Girls lives up to its title.

Reygadas has hitched his austere and protracted style to an allegorical tale of subtle strength and depth.

This is, in a way, a real horror film about everyday things and a disconnected family.

In a sense, this is not a financial thriller so much as a financial mystery. Which gets a bit lost in the movie's stylized presentation.

It's formulaic but with a big heart.

The movie never really gets below that surface. It sticks to the mean streets of Los Angeles without much introspection or analysis. But those surfaces are slick and beguiling.

No question, watching this film is a tough go. Horror films cause less seat-squirming.

Veteran actor Richard E. Grant makes his writing and directing debut with Wah-Wah, a startling portrait of his own startling and unusual childhood, growing up in Swaziland in the waning days of the British Empire in Africa.

Who knew Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy would make such a dynamic comic duo?

The average age of the band's members is 62. They don't even bother to disguise that fact. These men look like your grandfather, right up until the downbeat. Then the magnificence of their playing sweeps away all concepts of age. Rock on.

Less a political movie than a boxing film without the gloves.

A simple story yet told with such conviction, delicacy and instinct for truth that it carries keen emotional power. This is the first film from actress Joey Lauren Adams, so one can only hope she has more stories inside her for she has genuine storytelling talent.

Starts off an aggressively derivative sci-fi thriller, then morphs into an above-average chase melodrama.

While nothing truly new or shocking emerges, the film does bring clarity and compassion to its depiction of an act that baffles, angers and sickens people the world over.

An earnest drama about the search for self-esteem and sense of responsibility among young black people that successfully relies on its fine actors.

Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are two highly attractive, naturally funny actresses on the cusp of stardom so their pairing here as two lost souls is genius.

Furhman plays pure evil with such supreme calmness that only her eyes shine with madness. Indeed, all of the child actors are superb, especially the expressive Engineer.

What Meyers doesn't do is take chances. She sticks to formula and predictability. In "Complicated," this is as much a matter of casting as writing.

The result is a much more playable film than recent efforts, though Murphy will have to share the applause with young Yara Shahidi.

The result is something like an old-fashioned Costa-Gavras film but without the leftist sentimentality.

Lacks the wonder, surprises and supercool attitude Cameron achieved. "T3" is no weak sister, though. With Arnold Schwarzenegger back as the iconic title character and an often witty, fast-paced script by John Brancato, Michael Ferris and Tedi Sarafian, audiences worldwide will embrace the new film.

The movie is awfully close to a video game with its own specific rules, but its characters are appealing and funny, "Aliens" doesn't have a mechanical feel that drags down most video-game movies.

It's a pleasure to experience Scorsese as a circus master. One just hopes he doesn't continue in this vein.

While following a fairly predictable story line, the film has enough ambushes, treachery and irony to sustain audience involvement with a range of characters that stand for diverse points of view about that war.

A likable movie for kids that will make adults chuckle as well because of the movie's key ingredient -- wit.

Christian McKay's impersonation of young Orson Welles is sensational in this enjoyable, though slight, historical fiction about a teen who spends a memorable week with the legendary wonder.

By keeping things simple and understated, director Chris Weitz and screenwriter Eric Eason have crafted a little gem where humanity is observed with compassion, not condescension.

The project is not without insights into Hancock's career and musical philosophy and holds moments of inspiration with these stars. Yet the result does feel a bit promotional as the focus is on a particular CD and not on the sum and substance of this keyboard legend's extraordinary career.

Adult actors pretty much let the youngsters upstage them. The two leads, Bennett and Vanier, do a nice job holding the center of gravity while the film goes nuts around them. Best of all, Shorts is short, finishing before you can truly get tired of all those wishes gone wrong.

The film, while slavishly faithful, contains little innovative juice outside of its visual richness.

The fun of a movie like this is not found in its logic, but in scary stunts and supercharged emotions.

You learn as much as you need to know to understand Gehry's architectural process and to appreciate his enormous contribution to modern art and architecture. Which is not a bad thing. Just sketchy.

So strong are the emotions - and, yes, the melodrama - that Snow Flower and the Secret Fan represents one of Wang's best films to date.