Kirk Honeycutt

The characters are so over-the-top with emotional pain -- that they are hardly credible as characters.

The real problem is that Brugge and Haythe fail to satisfactorily pull off either the thriller or the marital deconstruction.

Cheerfully disconnected from the real world, bearing a great resemblance to screwball comedies of old.

Fugitive Pieces has a sharp, devastating story to tell.

There is something really nasty about this cold, calculating exercise in mob psychology and human venality.

For a man apparently making his first film, Woolard carries the movie like a pro. Cross your fingers that this is no fluke, for this guy could be a real comer.

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."

Long on atmosphere and Old World charm.

The film deliberately works against most cinematic expectations.

Director Curtis Hanson has made a chick flick with substance as well as style.

International audiences will be confronted by a rather predictable and highly implausible road movie that strains to achieve too many agendas.

Macy once again brightens an otherwise mundane character.

You don't have to be an enthusiast of Bollywood to embrace RA.ONE, but it sure would help.

A true story of courage, determination and guts that deserves a more exciting approach.

Director Robert Zemeckis not only deploys 21st century movie technology at its finest to turn the heroic poem into a vibrant, nerve-tingling piece of pop culture, but his film actually makes sense of Beowulf. In Zemeckis' hands, it's an intriguing look at a hero as a flawed human being.

Director-cinematographer Ryan Little neatly ratchets up the suspense while throwing emotional spotlights on the inner struggles of each combatant trapped in this hostile, frozen wilderness.

The movie gathers momentum with a steady, assured pace, accumulating incidents, characters, secrets and lies until the rush of events is absolutely transfixing. Cinema can sometimes rival the novel in compulsive intensity and Sarah's Key is one such example.

So much is unspoken and this slice of reality is so thin and slow as to make the film downright unsatisfying.

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.

Shaky story and predictable developments make this an off-key ballad.

A more accomplished film than "Yards." Yet it will fail to satisfy police movie buffs, as procedures are de-emphasized, and the drama is too perfunctory and obvious.

Predictable, cutesy and surprisingly short on genuine humor, Legally Blonde gets by thanks to the magnetic presence of Witherspoon.

Day Watch does dazzle and even at times amuse. But its imagination is limited. The backstory is shallow and pat. Its characters are mostly one-note. And everything goes on much too long at 133 minutes.

The film works best as a kind of mindless, action-packed B-movie. But on the A-level at which recent science fiction/fantasy films operate -- meaning the "Spider-Man," "Harry Potter" and "Terminator" series -- this movie falls woefully short.

That rare sequel that took its time -- 23 years -- so it not only advances a story but also has something new to say.

This is one helluva good movie that craves the eyeballs of as many American high schoolers as it can possibly get.

The Banishment (Izgnanie) starts off like a thriller with a car roaring into the city and a clandestine surgery by a man to remove a bullet in his brother's arm. Then, ever so slowly, the movie falls into the clutches of long, solemn stares into space, meaningful drags on cigarettes, cryptic dialogue revealing little and a tiny drama that feels old, tired and empty of real purpose.

Recycles just about every sentimental ploy and cliche from a raft of horse racing movies.