Maitland McDonagh

If you were watching it at home you wouldn't feel compelled to pause the film before going into the kitchen to fix a snack.

Though the performances are surprisingly good - the characters are drawn with a broad brush, but the actors, almost all professional comics, hit all the right notes - the material just isn't funny enough to justify the film's length.

Yes, it's a testosterone cocktail, but at least it doesn't leave you feeling as though you've been tumbled around in a gem polisher for two-and-a-half hours.

Cinematographer Alain Dostie's stunning, painterly cinematography is the best -- and perhaps only -- reason to endure this stunted epic.

The film is relentlessly peppy, often quite funny, sometimes a bit too convinced of its own adorableness and ultimately as smoothly reassuring as a TV sitcom.

Casting Caine as Austin's father is a stroke of pure genius.

The performances are rough and sometimes amateurish, but that works in the film's favor more often than it doesn't -- there's none of the false slickness that comes with hot young actors playing rock 'n' rollers.

Stiller's performance throws the whole enterprise out of whack -- he's a grotesque mass of tics, twitches and swaggering macho shoulder action.

An oversized National Georgraphic special whose images of the Nile and Egyptian ruins are absolutely breathtaking on the oversized IMAX screen.

It's all pretty entertaining in a shallow sort of way.

Horror buffs looking for a novel twist on genre formulas should look elsewhere, but this body-count potboiler about a sinister video game and the poor dopes who make the mistake of playing it is the movie equivalent of junk food: It's not good, but it's predictable and even satisfying, in a low-expectations way.

Sweet and sort of cute -- watch and see if it doesn't kind of sneak up on you.

A leaden excuse for family entertainment, loosely inspired by Jules Verne's 1873 novel, coarsened almost beyond recognition and dominated by Jackie Chan's comic martial-arts schtick.

Kilmer slips in and out of a series of ludicrously elaborate disguises, some more convincing than others, while poor Shue shuffles through the role of a sexy, book-reading babe pretending to be a dowdy lady scientist in kneesocks.

Smarter and more engaging than it has to be.

The conclusion, clearly meant to feel ambiguously poetic, is distinctly unsatisfying.

Such a glorious cast, deployed to such trivial effect!

This film's rhythms suggest nothing so much as a weirdly macho telenovela, full of family drama, isn't-it-ironic humor and maudlin twists of cruel fate.

The film's 85 minutes drag by painfully slowly, because there's no respite from Chapman's tedious, self-pitying reveries.

The film's characters, computer-animated over motion-caputure footage of flesh-and-blood performers, are as blank-eyed and rubbery-looking as moving mannequins -- the stuff of nightmares, not dreams.

A disappointing hodgepodge of rehashed clichés.

Animator Bill Plympton's seventh feature is a must-see for fans of his often witty, always scabrous, hand-drawn work.

The first half of Lover's film is surprisingly affecting...But the film comes apart in its second half, when James' flight triggers a long series of flashbacks to the brothers' childhood.

The story works, in that everything fits together, but the film feels hollow and unfinished, like a run-through for a movie rather than the movie itself.

Exactly the kind of sporadically clever, button-pushing fright-fest that keeps genre fans hanging on until something more fulfilling comes along.

In the end, the sheer obviousness of Shainberg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson's take on Diane Arbus' perverse determination to examine and document the forbidden overshadows even Kidman's beautifully modulated performance, which takes Diane from brittle neurosis to a vaguely predatory ingenuousness.

The trouble with this satirical take US involvement in Iraq, penned by Mark Leyner, John Cusack and Jeremy Pikser, is that the real thing is equally absurd and only marginally less funny.

Scott swaddles this fundamentally straightforward revenge story in a jumble of bleary freeze frames, random changes of color saturation and film stock, jump cuts and stuttering montages, splashing text from some menacing word soup onto the resulting collage of chicly disturbing images.

It's all very well to say that laughter and tears are just a heartbeat apart, but both variations on Melinda's story bear the unmistakable mark of Allen's morose sensibilities.

None of it really amounts to anything, even as a nostalgic snapshot of a time and place.

You can't accuse the film of making speed addiction look glamorous, but the freak-show kick is too compelling for it to be called cautionary.

The irony is that Shakur's speaking voice is the film's greatest asset: His transformation from eager-to-please teenager to gangsta icon is vividly apparent in the sound bites.

It's all densely imagined and more than a little goofy -- perhaps too goofy for the average American viewer.

This lighthearted meditation on life, death, love and timing contains some genuinely lovely scenes, but they're buried in a shapeless jumble of cutesy-pie vignettes.

The crime story here is lazily constructed, mostly an excuse for the give-and-take between Tucker and Chan, which is shrill and raucous without being especially clever.

Fans of the series may be disappointed to see so little of Barker's sadistic Cenobites, but while they're used sparingly, they're used to good effect.

Despite, or perhaps because of, a flurry of 11th-hour recutting and reshoots -- the film feels rushed and unfocused.

That Carrey, who's a bit old for the part, always seems one facial muscle away from a smirk doesn't help matters.

It doesn't pay to look too closely at this sumptuous fantasy, but if you're in the right mood to let it wash over you it's very warm and fizzy indeed.

It desperately wants to be a paranoid political thriller, but this cobbled-together collection of corruption-on-Capitol Hill and cop movie cliches is so implausible that it's hard to care about any of the conspiratorial cover-ups and counter cover-ups.

There's nothing under the goofball gags and gushing gore, and its welcome is worn out well before it's over.

Fleder delivers the requisite shocks, and his direction is brisk, efficient and occasionally stylish; Judd and Freeman both give more than the material demands.

This teen-oriented gloss on Shakespeare's tale is cute and occasionally quite funny, but it's undermined by slack direction.

Eastwood, ironically, is the weak link in the cast, a less-than-ideal choice to play a screw-up who squeaks through life on personal magnetism: He's got star quality, sure, even a certain remote sexiness, but he's no charmer.

Director Joe Chapelle knows how to stage a spooky scene, and Going and McGowan supply a refreshing alternative to the shrieking bimbos so familiar to horror fans.

James Woods adds another hateful, embittered creep to his gallery of losers, neurotics and junkyard dogs with vampire slayer Jack Crow.

Unfortunately, the trajectory of Mueller and co-screenwriter Kevin Kennedy's repetitive screenplay echoes "Taxi Driver" so closely as to invite unfavorable comparison with Martin Scorsese's benchmark chronicle of alienation.

A dismal misfire that attempts to make black comedy out of the adventures of war correspondents and the dirty business of international politics.

There's no denying the freak-show appeal and you don't see frontal nudity like this on TV, but otherwise it's all as contrived and artificial as "Survivor."

Though ultimately flawed, the film's depiction of velvet-gloved cruelty and matter-of-fact betrayal is surprisingly potent, and it's pure pleasure to watch Bacall prowling the corridors of power, tossing her golden mane and tossing off world-weary observations in a voice pitched somewhere between a purr and a growl.

Grace fares better than Linney, and both escape with more dignity than Harden, whose blowsy, wanton Missy is a coarse, soap-opera caricature of a suburban hoyden.

If you're charmed from the outset, this is an enjoyable trifle; if you're not, it never gets any less mannered and convinced of its own wit.

Unfortunately, the remake is as toothless as the original and gets bogged down in the humiliations of the Harpers' down-slipping life.

The film is relentlessly formulaic -- it's like a super-sized Afterschool Special with PG-13-rated bad language -- and is weighed down by Trevor Rabin's bombastic score, which telegraphs the appropriate emotional response to every feel-good moment.

The whole thing is fun for 11-year-olds of all ages.

The characters are two-dimensional and the story is intensely formulaic.

The title refers to a diorama at New York City's American Museum of Natural History that depicts a whale and a giant squid locked in mortal combat.

The film's Buck Rogers-style graphics are cool, but the shrilly squabbling brothers -- realistic though they may be -- are insufferable, the story's your-turn/my-turn structure is tedious, and its relentlessly reiterated message about brotherly love and cooperation is really grating.

Wobbles unsteadily between broad humor and paranoid thrills. The result is a bland muddle.

Light, formulaic and soft around the middle.

Makes you wish consumer automobiles were built to NASCAR safety standards.

Van Sant's film feels as dated as Hitchcock's, and Hitchcock's has the better excuse.

That's not to say it isn't entertaining, only that the scenes which rely entirely on the fragile interplay between Jessica and Ryan suggest a more compelling movie that got lost in the welter of high-speed highway recklessness.

The cast is strong and work together flawlessly, and romantic comedies that take an unabashedly male perspective without being relentlessly vulgar or misogynistic are rare indeed.

Nearly strangles in its own stylishness but benefits from smoldering performances.

Gorgeous but seriously unsatisfying.

Tries to be all things to all people and winds up a tedious muddle.

The impish Wood is a little light as Sean, who's inextricably bound by same family ties that robbed him of a promising future and made him a fugitive from the only life he's even known, but the supporting cast is top-notch.

A hokey monster mish-mash that plunders the richly textured histories of Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein's monster.

Features a nutty mix of broad comedy, romance and maudlin melodrama.

While sometimes evocative, they don't add up to a satisfying movie any more than, as several characters are cautioned, coffee and cigarettes constitute a healthy lunch.

Actor-turned-filmmaker Ethan Hawke's second feature, an adaptation of his own novel about youthful heartbreak, is hobbled by its singularly unappealing lead characters.

The rhythms of Charlotte's mannered, artificial dialogue are better suited to stage than screen -- each segment started life as a one-act play and overall the film works better as a conversation starter than drama.

Overall, it's a curiously lifeless affair.

The production design is phenomenal, reproducing the series' swinging '60s decor and techno-geek flourishes, from the launch pad under the swimming pool to Lady Penelope's pink roadster, which turns into a mini-plane.

Despite its admirable sobriety for most of its running time, the film's climax is a parade of ludicrous clichés.

Cronenberg's brand of body horror isn't to everyone's taste, but to call him a reactionary anti-sensualist who metes out grotesque punishment for sins of the flesh -- as detractors have -- is to miss the point.

It's little more than a disjointed succession of kick-ass action scenes.

The supporting cast is a riot of stock exotic characters, verging on the offensively stereotypical.

Director/co-writer/co-producer Jon Gunn's Christian agenda is evident without being intolerably sanctimonious, and he's a competent filmmaker who shows sign of having a little style.

A goofball gore picture with aspirations to cult status.

A successful thriller makes you forget such impossibilities, but here they poison every scene.

This is a shameless, straightforward soap opera (no Almodovarian excess here!), but it's pretty entertaining on its own sudsy terms.

Despite earnest performances by Mueller-Stahl, Bierko, Mol and Vincent d'Onofrio (in the duel role of a programmer and a VR bartender), the movie feels like a bit of a rehash.

An unvarnished look at the emotional havoc that ensues when middle-class housewife Kira (Stine Stengade) returns home after a lengthy stay in a mental hospital, anchored by devastating performances.

Features phenomenally beautiful background animation and complex characterizations, and offers glimpses of a poverty-stricken Tokyo underclass that's rarely featured -- let alone portrayed sympathetically -- in mainstream Japanese films.

It's as hard not to ask what former New York Doll David Johansen is doing in their company, prancing his way through an irrelevant version of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," as it is not to wonder why the audience is so overwhelmingly white.

It's a deftly executed crowd-pleaser, but it's dishonest to the core.

To call Christian's film unpolished is an understatement.

Given his way with witty banter, Stoppard's obvious, even leaden, dialogue is especially disappointing; director Michael Apted's handling of the story's frequent flashbacks is equally infelicitous.

Film feels like a parody of Mamet mannerisms, and the trouble lies with the play, which Mamet first penned some 25 years for an Actors Equity showcase.

A sweet-natured coming-of-age/raising-of-consciousness drama.

There's no faulting this movie's Capra-esque concept, equal parts optimism and sad recognition of the world's intrinsic harshness, but its manipulative execution may rub you the wrong way.

The film is juvenile when it should be adult, coarse when it ought to be bubbly, and upfront when witty circumspection is indicated. The result feels a bit like a drag show, a camp blend of pitch-perfect mimicry and anachronistic raunch.

Arguing that you shouldn't expect rich characterization from a comic-book movie misses the point: Vivid relationships separate the graphic novels from the funnies and, in the end, spectacular set design is just window dressing.

It's clever, in a "dare you to name this hommage" kind of way, but it's fundamentally heartless and coldly hollow.

It's impossible to overstate how deeply dumb all of this is, but it skims along at a brisk clip and manages not to overdo the nudge-nudge, wink-wink humor.

An equally discomfiting mix of popular science and ballyhoo, serves up amazing images of the bizarre life that flourishes in the deepest ocean depths.

The story wears thin long before it's over, but Machado draws strong performances from his leads and makes excellent use of its rundown locations.

But the soundtrack will delight anyone whose blood stirs at the strains of "I'm Coming Out," "Le Freak" or "Doctor's Orders."

For a slick pop entertainment, more than the usual quotient of timely ideas rattle around between the relentless product placements and futuristic geegaws.

Though conceptually clever, the results look stagy and schematic and recall nothing more than a pale imitation of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" (1985).

Oddly, the most appealing thing about the movie is that in an age of ever-escalating special effects, it's refreshingly low-tech, more like a '70s action movie than a modern-day one.

Without the gloss of novelty, the film's underdeveloped characters and thin -- though busy -- story are forced into the foreground, and its 88-minute running time feels far longer.

8-year-olds of all ages, prepare to storm the multiplex!

This violent action is stylish but painfully formulaic, even by the undemanding standards of video-game narratives.

Never boring, often excruciating and occasionally transcendent.

The story is formulaic, but this brutal, fast-paced thriller makes excellent use of Li's martial arts prowess.

Ironically, it's most engaging when the focus shifts to Hurt's matter-of-factly amoral enabler, whose glistening suits and jewel-colored shirt-and-tie combinations suggest a particularly poisonous tropical reptile.

The film's much-vaunted stunts are deliberately unrealistic, from over-the-top wire-work to CGI-soccer balls that streak through the air like flaming cannon balls.

It's repetitive and obvious but somehow endearing, like a truly ugly dog with sweet eyes.

Gets the details right while missing the big picture.

Overall it's slick, brainless entertainment.

The real trouble is that the filmmakers consistently choose gags over character.

Overall, it's an interesting experiment, but the idea is stronger than the end result.

The quintessential cotton candy movie: It's pleasant, brightly colored and the minute it's done it's as though it were never there.

Courtroom dramas that favor the courtroom over the drama are always in danger of eye-glazing dullness.

The script, based on a Dark Horse comic-book series, is hugely predictable, but the robot effects by veteran Phil Tippett are nastily entertaining.

The results isn't especially engaging, despite a quietly charismatic performance by Weiss, a relative newcomer who holds his own against far more experienced actors.

It's hard to imagine anyone who isn't familiar with Graham and her place in 20th-century dance history getting drawn into Move and Herrmann's hall of Martha mirrors, but for the right viewer it's a fascinating exercise in self-reflexive mythmaking.

A throwback to the slickly entertaining melodramas of Hollywood's golden age.

Screenwriter Chris ver Weil's directing debut is good-natured and never dull, but its virtues are small and easily overshadowed by its predictability. It's the kind of film that plays better on video than in theaters.

It's not a cheap rip-off -- it's a credible sequel to a horror classic, and a sad reminder that some things never change.

Stylish but shallow story.

The puzzle pieces are all there. But when you put them all together, the result is a bit of a gyp — neat but utterly forgettable.

This tale of crime and punishment is wrapped in a veneer of flashy attitude but founders on mundane details.

Clearly, neither screenwriter Randall Wallace nor director Michael Bay ever met a cliche he didn't embrace.

The film's woozy, digital-video gorgeousness is undeniable, and the glittering shots from atop the Brooklyn Bridge could make a tough guy weep.

One youngster -- even a youngster as talented as Rossum -- can't transform a mess of clichés into a little gem.

Under the veneer of hip lies a bland romantic comedy wrapped in a layer of less-than-biting lifestyle satire, whose single most authentic moment involves an old woman and her scruffy mutt Buddy. Not cool.

Wang's film doesn't really have anything more to say about power, manipulation and the wild unpredictability of sexual energy than "Last Tango" did 30 years ago.

Broomfield's film is typically self-aggrandizing but filled with unsettling moments.

Dawson actually delivers the film's most persuasive performance.

But clichéd rapid-fire editing and cheap-looking digital-image manipulation drain away every ounce of atmosphere, and overexplanation blows what could have been a darkly ambiguous ending.

Though unpolished and formulaic, this tribute to the power of faith and music benefits from the contributions of musicians Tamyra Gray, a first-generation American Idol contestant who plays D.T.'s wholesome love interest; Grammy winner Kirk Franklin, who contributed six songs — three original — to the rousing soundtrack; and faith-based singers Yolanda Adams, Martha Munizzi, Fred Hammond (who also executive produced) and Delores Winans.

It's tremendously clever, but ultimately pointless.

What's most disappointing is the thoroughly cliched story.

Ultimately, the more intensely you buy into the notion that golf is a complex metaphor for the human condition, the more susceptible you'll be to the film's insipid blandishments.

The weighty themes of loss, regret and abdication of personal responsibility are undermined by the reverential use of baseball as a symbol of mankind's potential for selfless greatness.

The film looks great, but there's nothing under the high-gloss veneer.

It works its gilded butt off to give you your money's worth.

The action is ridiculously overwrought, a state-of-the-art combination of CGI wizardry and Hong Kong-style wirework so removed from the laws of physical reality that it might as well be animated.

A hip-hop reimagining of "The Great Gatsby" that fails both as an update of F. Scott Fitzgerald's dissection of American aspirations and class barriers and on its own boorish terms.

Before it goes down in a soggy mess of scary movie cliches and insultingly stupid plot contrivances, director and co-writer Nick Willing's adaptation of Madison Smartt Bell's novel Dr. Sleep gets in some good, seriously creepy licks.

As meticulously deranged as its paranoid protagonist.

With his spidery fingers and his velvet eyes, the lean, languid Snoop Dogg was born to be an undead player, and clearly relishes the role of Jimmy Bones.

This film got made because Seinfeld is famous, but it's still hard not to wish the filmmakers had devoted a couple of years to following Adams instead. The guy's such a throbbing bundle of arrogance, raw nerves and self-destructive insecurity that you can see the flame-out coming.

No two ways about it: The screenplay is derivative. But the location adds a little novelty to the standard-issue running and screaming.

Everyone involved obviously had a blast, but in the end this is a one-joke movie, and the joke is stretched too thin.

It's a must-see for horror buffs and anime fans; and while it lacks the haunting thematic underpinnings of "Blood The Last Vampire," -- it's a more satisfying movie-going experience.

The film's most fully realized performance is Chris Cooper's.

Robles and Hidalgo ring enough changes on a stock situation that you're never sure where it's going.

Music video-trained director Francis Lawrence whips up a witch's brew of gray-on-gray atmosphere, but for all the end-of-the-world mumbo jumbo, nothing much ever seems to be at stake.

Suffers from an excess of material crammed into too little screen time. There's so much story that the characters get short shrift; you have to wonder, for example, what became of Siddalee's three siblings.

A thoroughly respectable affair: Your high school English teacher would approve, and parts are terrifically enjoyable.

For the first hour director Arau and his co-writer and wife, actress Arizmendi, negotiate the story's tricky mix of comedy, social satire and science fiction with surprising aplomb.

Feels hokey, generic and dated.

Driven by sheer enthusiam (much of it for the worst excesses of Hollywood filmmaking), which makes it fun to watch in spite of its fundamental ridiculousness.

The voice-over narration is obvious, but overall the message is integrated into an unusual story that's enhanced by Liberato's and Fulton's appealing performances as the youngsters who see through their elders' lies and help right a terrible wrong.

An utterly formulaic, teen-oriented romance whose greatest asset is charming leads Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas.

Epic, meticulously researched and ultimately disappointing, Martin Scorsese's bloody valentine to the birth of his beloved city is less than the sum of its parts.

Cocaine Angel may be a fine counterpoint to glammy cocaine-scare films like "Less Than Zero" (1987) and "Blow" (2001), but it comes on so strong it risks being dismissed along with the "this is your brain on drugs" school of dope-scare PSAs.

And while it was always clear that Lucas cared more about special effects than acting, here his lack of interest has produced phenomenally wooden performances from newcomers and veterans alike: Only the imperious Christopher Lee, as baleful Count Dooku, emerges unscathed.

The soundtrack, which ranges from Johnny Cash to Serge Gainsbourg to the Wu-Tang Clan, is admirably eclectic but can't be said to pull things together.

Abel Ferrara's gift for getting actors to dredge up the ugliest muck in their souls and bare it onscreen is used to strong effect in this psychological thriller.

From her speech patterns to her body language, Roberts's performance is wrong for the period.

Ultimately, the material is so familiar that it's hard to work up any enthusiasm for another trip though the seamy underside of glittering gaming life.

As a document of the ever-mutable musician's signature persona, a wraithlike androgyne with a head full of apocalyptic dreams, it's fascinating.

This efficient but soulless funhouse ride eschews suspense in favor of frantic scrambling from disturbing specters, like the naked female ghost who lurks around bloody bathtubs.

The storytelling is jerky (perhaps in part because the running time was trimmed from 185 to 142 minutes for U.S. release) and character development takes a backseat to a breathless rush through battles, assassinations and dynastic plotting.

Douglas and Sutherland do crackling hostility with devilish glee, and the fireworks are nothing if not entertaining.

Shot in gloomy shades of gray, this earnest but banal story about the legacy of bad parenting strands fine actors in a contrived situation and lets them squirm.

Dithery, nattering and a bit long for such a conspicuously airy trifle.

More isn't always better; everything feels slightly forced, and the funny bits -- make no mistake, there are several -- are all but lost in the noise.

There's a thin line between fable and twaddle, and this feel-good trifle veers dangerously close to the latter.

With its brisk pace, breezy dialogue and gently jaundiced view of the rites of filmmaking, this is one of Jaglom's most accessible and genuinely enjoyable films.

For the first time, Allen's trademark shtick sounds less like the anxious kvetching of an endearingly neurotic New Yorker and more like the ramblings of a tired, elderly man fumbling for the right words.

The character relationships are solid and there's blessed little in the way of smug, smart talk

Its talky, sluggish script is so bereft of thrills -- intellectual or otherwise -- that even the film's one masterfully staged sequence... falls flat.

Sentimental and predictable, Meily's sweet-natured feature-film debut was hugely popular in the Philippines; its day-to-day details will be exotic to non-Filipino audiences but the characters' dilemmas are couched in the universal language of sitcom complications and fortuitous resolutions.

Like most contemporary romantic comedies, the film's plot works only if you accept that everyone behaves like a complete and utter idiot at all times.

A sweet-natured ode to rave culture saddled with a ridiculously clichéd plot line.

Unfortunately, the result is little more than a glossy parlor trick, a stripped-to-the-bone "Of Human Bondage" recast with two women.

More music and less melodrama would serve audiences better.

While the cast is uniformly committed, some are able to make more of the material than others.

The story isn't much -- the ever-evolving aliens are better served by the cute-but-icky effects than the simplistic script -- but it skims along on the cast's chemistry.

The first full-fledged Indian musical coproduced and distributed by a major Hollywood studio, this fanciful love story takes its unlikely inspiration from Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story "White Nights."

Essentially an extended trailer for the 2008 Cartoon Network animated series.

It's seldom boring and always beautifully photographed, but it's also considerably less than satisfying, perhaps because its internal logic never comes into focus.

Situations don't come much more claustrophobic, and if the payoff doesn't quite live up to the build-up, the film is still an enjoyable exercise in claustrophobic suspense.

It's an amiable enough picture, and genuinely insightful about the emotional appeal of devoted fandom.

For all the updated riffs and personal noodling, it's best when it doesn't stray too far from the original material.

Walks a thin line between refreshing irreverence and shameless exploitation of offensive gay stereotypes.

Small children should be delighted by the menagerie of chatty critters, but their parents may be less than thrilled by what the animals have to say.

The result is strictly for those who like their comic-book movies short and stupid.

(Salerno-Sonnenberg's) determination and resilience should speak to a broader audience.

The bones of a great Western remain barely visible under the layer of mush he and screenwriter Ken Kaufman smooth over them, reminders of the viciously memorable film that might have been.

The result is often quite funny, without ever managing to say anything especially new or perceptive about fame and the culture of celebrity.

At a certain point, its sheer can you top this excess, and credibility files out the window three's no reason to continue paying attention.

Dillon makes an assured directing debut, neither indulging in unnecessary stylistic flourishes nor allowing scenes to run too long, a tendency in actors-turned-director.

Runs out of story a good half hour before it runs out of spooky images, but it comes to a quietly chilling conclusion far more haunting than any bloody mayhem.

It is message filmmaking so blunt you might be tempted to root for the parasitic reprobate over the saintly old man, and that's just not right.

Fans won't want to miss this addition to the canon.

Stanzler's ideas about the psychic legacy of 9/11 are so confused -- that by the time he unveils the final plot twist, his film has lost every shred of credibility.

This convoluted, time and continent-tripping tale is heavy on the adolescent angst and swoony romanticism.

Team M-I knows its way around James and ignores the lazy stereotype of Americans as gauche rubes bumbling around Paris like barbarians at the ballet in favor of sly digs at French and American mores alike.

Satanic silliness undermines this gloomy horror picture.

Clearly Phish's appeal is fundamentally experiential, and the experience doesn't lend itself to being captured on film.

Sweet-natured and as inconsequential as can be, shored up by smooth, low-key ensemble performances.

This psychological horror picture is harrowing and occasionally macabre -- you'll come away wondering what kind of father would cast his daughter in such a sexually brutal film.

There are fewer laughs and more lectures -- but there's plenty of sass and soul in between.

The film's dark heart is Valentinov's mephistophelean scheming: He sets about sabotaging his former protégé's game for no apparent reason except sheer malice.

The premise is pretty simple, and at two hours the murky sound, muddy low-light images and frequently dreadful acting are a little tough to take.

This flashy fright flick doesn't break any new ground, but puts an attractive gloss on genre conventions.

Where "Pitch Black" relied on shadowy threats and sharply drawn relationships between a small group of stranded victims-to-be, Twohy's bloated space opera is an eye-popping three-ring circus of fabulously freaky costumes, over-ripe declaiming and computer-generated spectacle.

History gets short shrift from screenwriters William Nicholson and Michael Hirst -- starting with the not insignificant fact that in 1585, Elizabeth was 52 years old – but Kapur is clearly more interested in spectacle and soap opera than dusty old facts.

Shot largely in Toronto and cast with the best of the B-list, this film has the low-rent gloss of a made-for-cable thriller.

Wrapped in a layer of psuedo-spookiness that leads viewers to think the story is going somewhere it isn't.

Henkel's directing debut isn't incompetent: It's just derivative, pointless and tediously repetitive.

The combination of Lee's discomforting subject matter and distancing style -- calculating artlessness punctuated by occasional flights of lyrical fantasy -- makes this slow-moving drama a challenge that doesn't seem entirely worth the effort.

Hopkins possesses a Candide-like equanimity in the face of bizarre happenstance that is thoroughly charming and keeps the story's excesses from becoming exasperating.

The effect is hypnotically disorienting, but the less familiar you are with this period in 20th-century Chinese history, the easier it is to get hopelessly lost in the tangle of personal and political loyalties and betrayals.

Naim's potential is evident, but his debut is a frustrating exercise in missed opportunities.

Has the distinctive Heavy Metal magazine meets "The Neverending Story" (1984) vibe of Euro-science-fiction comics, complete with ponderous philosophical noodling, weirdly whimsical aliens and seriously creepy creature sex.

While his film is less than satisfying, it's a refreshingly off-kilter experience.

Though beautifully photographed, acted and written (the three source stories are skillfully blended into a single narrative), this leisurely, bittersweet look at a child's loss of innocence ends rather abruptly and inconclusively.

The second attempt to bring a dark corner of the Marvel comic-book universe to the screen, this comic-book-based revenge story is undermined by its inconsistent tone.

Todd McFarlane's Spawn plays better on the page, but the adolescents of all ages who buy Spawn comics will probably enjoy the movie. Others should consider themselves forewarned.

Ambles to a surprisingly affecting conclusion, almost despite itself.

That it feels so predictable is, ironically, a tribute to the universality of the experience it explores.

The film's greatest assets are leads Susie Porter and David Wenham, whose considerable personal appeal make its trite observations about the war of the sexes seem charming, at least for a while.

This southern-fried mess of poetic crime-movie cliches is redeemed by standout performances.

MacDowell, Staunton and Chancellor are terrific, tearing into their juicy roles and reveling in first-time feature writer-director Jim McKay's sharp-tongued dialogue.

In all, it's a peculiar mishmash, simultaneously bland and suggestive.

The manipulative climax works, even as you feel like the jerk in tear-jerking.

Bright, bubbly and thoroughly inconsequential.

Climaxes in an ending of such sleazy preposterousness that it's almost worth the price of admission alone.

Handsomely photographed and acted...defiantly old-fashioned testament to the power of love.

Boyle's movie jettisons much of the telling detail; it has the shambling rhythm of a shaggy dog story and so simplifies the characters' ethical dilemmas that it's hard to care what they do.

Classic Italian splatter directed by Lucio Fulci, reviled and adored in equal proportions by Euro-horror fans.

Bodrov's staging and cutting does a perfectly good job conveying their anthropomorphized feelings and motives; the spoken drivel is just a distraction. The film's human characters are largely inconsequential.

Fart, feces and gonad gags notwithstanding, this knockabout comedy is no more vulgar than most contemporary children's films, and more good-natured than many.

This multiple-twist thriller gets off to a fine, creepy start but eventually becomes too preposterous for its own good.

The lives of three deeply unhappy New Yorkers crisscross in unexpected ways in writer-director Joe Maggio's uneven but strangely affecting film.

Unfortunately, this flawed but interesting film will be Wassel's only legacy; the director was murdered in 2001 by Nathan C. Powell, who helped finance this film.

It's larded with blinding glimpse-of-the-obvious homilies.

Ellis' slight film has its charms, and the backstory he concocted to lead into the original 18-minute short is effective. But the film lags badly in the middle.

We've come a long way from the filthiest people in the world: Who knew Waters could be so bland?

The first-rate cast is lost at sea.

Overall, how funny you find it will probably depend on whether or not the mere sight of Stiller sucking in his cheeks, widening his eyes and striking preposterous poses makes you laugh uproariously.

Jamal's comedy of family dysfunction is essentially a sitcom episode writ large; it's not subtle, but it's good-natured and hits its marks with ruthless efficiency.

Tediously predictable thriller.

Feels forced and awkward, as though it's trying too hard to be weird, culty and profound.

Overall, this is the kind of thing that gives literary adaptations their bad name.

Once you get past the lengthy, graphic geyser-of-liquid-excrement gag, it's not as irredeemably vulgar as it might have been.

What charm the movie has is almost entirely due to Grant and Barrymore -- the master of smarmily irresistible self-deprecation meets the sweetly vulnerable queen of awkward self-sabotage. While they have no romantic chemistry, they're certainly appealing.

This unnecessary and overlong sequel fails to recapture its predecessor's zing.

Milos Forman's film is a series of incredible simulations that never quite cohere into a movie.

Swaddled in terms so trite and cliched that they're almost guaranteed to bring out the closet cynic in even the most sympathetic viewers.

Although phenomenally well-acted, the film's leisurely pace ultimately makes it feel as oppressive as the tropical heat and humidity that gradually turn the characters into slow-moving heaps of damp, dirty rags.

Despite some lovely performances (though, sad to say, Patricia Neal's isn't one of them) and charming moments, this meandering ensemble piece and its Tennessee Williams-ish finale is oddly out of character.

The formulaic mechanical plot machinations benefit greatly from the presence of the vivacious Stiles, gravely beautiful Blair and personable Lee, who radiates fundamental decency without seeming like a sap.

A taut, literate tale of civilized men pitted against implacable nature, encumbered by a meaningless and not especially enticing title.

It's an overblown campfire tale that doesn't know when to stop.

It's sad to see such subtle, wrenchingly emotional work expended on such trifling material.

It's all pure, brainless fluff, but it's unpretentious and "Wannabe" is damnably catchy.

Desperate-to-shock slice of sleaze life.

This version moves like a freight train, but suffers from a debilitating charm deficit. Wahlberg is no Michael Caine and Norton delivers what must be the sourest, most lifeless performance of his career to date.

Director Joseph Ruben's best efforts can't keep Gerald Di Pego's puzzle-picture script from toppling into absurdity as it lurches from melodrama to psychological thriller with supernatural overtones to full-blown exercise in X-Files-style nuttiness.

Sporadically funny... occasionally very funny.