Maitland McDonagh

Brawny, he-man spectacle combined with a surprisingly solid story and buttressed by excellent performances.

The end is hardly in doubt, since this sweet-natured film treads a path worn smooth and hard by countless other tiny feet. Its message is as unimpeachable as it is familiar, differentiated from countless similar tales only by the Filipino setting.

The final irony is that it's tailored for a PG-13 audience: The violence is bloodless, the sex is all come-on and the surreally reckless stunts cater to viewers too young to drive.

A must-see for martial arts enthusiasts.

Only McKellan seems to understand the profound silliness of the film in which he finds himself, and he camps it up accordingly.

Screenwriter David Auburn's awkward dialogue spells out the film's themes with painful literal-mindedness.

To an outsider, it's pretty thin stuff.

Neither Ketchum nor the filmmakers take an exploitative approach to the material; their focus is the way the youngsters' petty cruelty erupts into murderous sadism.

First and foremost a showcase for the latest developments in motion-capture and 3-D technology.

The result is the farthest thing from a bland, spineless sequel: It's a brutal, insanely excessive successor to grindhouse pictures of yore.

Heir to a long tradition of apocalyptic scare stories, the film wears its influences proudly.

The soundtrack, which relies heavily on melancholy Sinatra standards like "The Good Life," "This Town" and "Summer Wind," casts perfectly modulated warning shadows over the film's light, bright look.

Feels soft without being especially affectionate, and only sporadically funny.

Often technically rough, but it's painfully compelling.

This live-action cartoon tries to walk the line between pleasing the faithful and appealing to a broad-based action audience. It fails on both fronts: It's too lifeless and watered-down to stand on its own high heels, but commits the cardinal sin of messing with the original.

Werner Herzog's self-proclaimed "science-fiction fantasy" is a meticulously constructed fiction made from a combination of real-life footage repurposed in ways a conventional documentarian couldn't imagine.

The action is confined to a single set and atmosphere is appropriately claustrophobic, but the image quality is harsh and flat. This accentuates the oppressive meanness of Vince's hotel room, but makes for some unpleasant viewing.

28 Weeks Later is flawed -- the constant reappearance of one key character verges on the absurd -- but it knows where it's going, and it gets there in a chilling blaze of fire, blood and poisonous fog.

Gypsy music is the music of pain, poverty and oppression, all of which she's experienced; it's their blues.

So low-key that it verges on unconsciousness.

Steeped in what may be the ultimate postmodern irony: Talen's impromptu, defiant piece of performance art with political undertones has actually taken on a spiritual dimension.

The impulses that produced this project, which brings together three short, English-language films by African female filmmakers into a feature-film package introduced by rap icon Queen Latifah, are commendable, but the results are uneven.

Has a certain weird charm, but it's too seamy for children and too simplistic played for adults.

Do director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Brandon Boyce really mean to suggest that the roots of genocide lie in homosexual desire?

The politics get pretty short shrift, but cigarettes and liquor are everywhere.

This slight slice of L.A. life is distinguished by two fine, subtle performances. Redgrave is quietly heartbreaking-- Penn accomplishes the daunting task of revealing the spine beneath Melanie's sweet-natured tolerance of her perpetually disagreeable husband.

The film's strident tone also serves to undermine its generally above-average performances.

Melodramatic look at alienated California high school students.