Lawrence Van Gelder

Its winning cast, spirited music and mordant view of establishment figures, from the police to cocaine-sniffing record industry executives, make Bandits a stylish, buoyant entertainment.

The kind of silly summer fun that gives family entertainment a good name.

The overall effect, especially given the gorgeous setting and liquid-gold cinematography, is less a discussion of the divine than a commercial for it.

Instead of sending up their cinematic sources, the creators of Muppets From Space rely too much on this spent screen fuel. Frenetic movement and loud music overwhelm warmth and compassion, and the balance of character, plot, irreverent humor and innate decency that made some of the earlier Muppet movies so welcome is lost.

The portrayals by the fetching Ms. Yoshikawa and Mr. Takeda are consistently absorbing, and Mr. Limosin's plotting, though essentially gimmicky and manipulative, packs mystery and tension.

May not be dispassionate filmmaking, but it is certainly entertaining.

But while rooted in British sensibilities, Bean is not to be confused with a Noel Coward comedy. Not every gag in Bean succeeds, but compared with most comedies, this one is a keeper.

Amounts to recycling rather than reinvention.

In the failure of Electric Dreams to blend and balance its ingredients properly, plot elements are lost (the brick), credibility is overtaxed (the lovelorn computer), and what remains is high tech without being high art.

Sublime in its involvement with the yearning of mankind to explore the heavens.

For horror film devotees eager to know how this unseasonable visit from the darker spirits of autumn rates, frankly, it's more marketing trick than moviegoer treat.

Though it flies in the face of credibility and becomes downright silly by its end, I Know What You Did Last Summer knows its way around the rules of the popular horror-film genre.

Poverty, capable of stunting lives, can also blight films. A case in point is the earnest and heartfelt but undernourished and plodding Off the Hook.

In the end, The Baxter is a Baxter of a movie: well meaning and mildly likable, but unlikely to sweep you off your feet.

Establishes its ominous mood and tension swiftly, and if the suspense never rises to a higher level, it is nevertheless maintained throughout.

A sadistic, bloody, foul-mouthed action movie.

The director's attention to details of character and locale makes for a precise evocation of a New York seldom seen in feature films.

Not a subtle film; and, most curiously -- to put it mildly -- for a sermon on tolerance, it resorts to history's eternal scapegoat.

Gang Related is a preposterously overplotted tale of two police detectives with moral compasses so defective that they have buried their brains and consciences along with 10 of their murder victims long before the film even begins.

Leelee Sobieski and Albert Brooks, especially Mr. Brooks, deliver outstanding performances in the first feature film to be directed by Ms. Lahti.

The novelty of a bloody horror film built around a malevolent doll carrying the soul of a serial killer has worn thin.

An offbeat little charmer of a mystery.

Director Curtis times his audience immersions into the ice bath of terror with such skill that moviegoers will scarcely have the leisure to ask why some of the renters aren't a bit more observant and curious about their dwelling.

To make a film in 2005 that asks audiences to sympathize with the plight of a band of terrorists is an intellectually audacious gesture.

The movie only really comes alive when the music plays and people sing and dance.

Torturously boring.

This well-cast film does with a lighter hand for art what "The Producers" does for show business.

The law of averages demands that every once in a while a movie must come along starring young nonprofessional actors who aren't very good. That's unfortunately the case in 15.