Kirk Honeycutt

Despite shortcomings and implausibility linked to their roles as written, Rogen and Banks come off with surprising charm and grace.

In Channing Tatum, who also starred in "Saints," the film has a good-looking, magnetic hunk to draw a crowd. Terrence Howard lends the pedigree of great screen acting, and Zulay Henao adds charm and glamour.

By avoiding sentimentality, Millions emerges as a simple tale told with sympathy for a child's point of view.

This odd collection of oddballs doesn't quite play out as a satisfying movie.

What should have been an inspirational story about fortitude and courage in the face of mind-numbing tragedy becomes a compendium of sports cliches.

More character study than sports movie, the people in this film come across very much as flesh-and-blood personalities despite the script's tendency to indulge in cliches and let characters deliver highly emotional speeches.

It contains all the elements from the original film...But that's the problem: It's virtually the same movie with new locations. Oh, plus Helen Mirren. Not a bad addition, but the popcorn fun is gone.

Cross "Body Heat" with "No Way Out" and you wind up with Out of Time, a slick crime melodrama with more style than substance.

While the film bristles with cinematic verve, it also is as second-hand as an antique store.

Taylor does capture the Jim Crow era and its anxieties well, but his characters tend toward the facile and his white heroine is too idealized.

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.

Enough goodwill has been built up in the early sections that most viewers will not take offense when the movie abandons its plot and characters.

The film is by no means terrible -- its two hours and 32 minutes running time races by -- but those things we think of as being Tarantino-esque, the long stretches of wickedly funny dialogue, the humor in the violence and outsized characters strutting across the screen, are largely missing.

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

As an introduction to this mind-spinning festival, the film gets the job done.

This is a hand-me-(dumbed)-down chick flick that is counting on Kutcher's tabloid popularity and Peet's unmistakable though here underutilized talents to cover up for rote characterizations, tired plot devices and a general lack of inspiration.

Chases romance and comedy across Europe for nearly two hours without ever quite catching either. Essentially a teenage rendition of William Wyler's immortal "Roman Holiday."

The film's Italian director does achieve in his second American outing a pleasing blend of Hollywood professional sheen and European sensitivity to character details and nuances.

The film is always watchable, and the confrontations contain undeniable edgy excitement. But even if this weren't a remake, it would be a remake. Hollywood filmmakers have fished these waters so thoroughly that it's virtually impossible to land a big catch.

The saving grace to the utter predictability in Christina Mengert and Joseph Muszynski's screenplay is reasonably personable characters and spirited acting by director Bruce Beresford's cast.

Unlike "The Matrix," all fights and stunts -- including a 14-minute freeway chase -- have a disturbing tendency to repeat intricately choreographed action. Thus, computer technology and overkill supplant the ingenuity of the original film's action.

A respectable and at times an exciting film that should appeal to males of all ages, history buffs and -- yes, it's inevitable -- patriots.

While it can be labeled a thriller or a murder mystery, the film is talky, unhurried, contains little action and shows more interest in how characters think and behave than in its plot.

Not a bad film and veteran star Daniel Auteuil makes any film he inhabits an interesting place to visit. Perversely, its tissue-thin substance may even make the comedy more commercial in North America than such films of his as "Monsieur Hire" and "Ridicule."