Mark Holcomb

Fans of Hellblazer are bound to be disappointed.

These after-school specials are distinctly depoliticized and seem tailored for Western audiences, so the African settings feel oddly superfluous.

As with the director's other films, all that keeps Unfinished from being a complete, treacly bore is its robust performances.

Unfortunately, Rae's film is split down the middle, and the appeal of its latter half depends on your tolerance for earnest politico-poetry set to wailing rock guitar and Native American chants and extraneously endorsed by celebrity talking heads. The backstory portion of the film, though, is riveting.

Close enough in spirit to its freewheeling trash-cinema roots to be a breath of fresh air.

It has Adrien Brody in his last pre-"Pianist" role, leading one to assume that the film -- which veers torpidly from antic humor to mortifying sentimentality -- would have remained shelved were it not for his Oscar coup.

As earnest and smart-alecky as an entire season of Designing Women, Ya-Ya is sure to score with its redemptive family melodramatics and stock eccentric characterizations.

The Great Raid is ultimately scotched by History Channel–worthy nostalgia.

This Dick & Jane is precisely the kind of social-problem comedy you'd expect from well-intentioned millionaires unaccustomed to putting their money where their mouths are.

A competent if overlong blend of policier, sci-fi conspiracy thriller, daikaiju eiga (giant monster) stompfest, and tragic romance. It's also anime (short for "cheaper than live-action").

This Phoenix screams hack job.

A valueless kiddie paean to pro basketball underwritten by the NBA.

Like a jigsaw that's more fun to assemble before you know how all the pieces fit, Greg Harrison's brain-teasing meta-thriller November is less compelling the more apparent its solution becomes.

There's a certain gutsy allure to the wildly improbable proceedings.

Stilted and gloomy as it sounds (and sometimes is), The Tenants gets by on its nimble approximation of Malamud's robust prose, subtle turns of deadpan humor and gut-tingling menace, and remarkable performances. McDermott does credible work here, but Snoop's casting is a stroke of genius.

With its toilet-bobbing and blood spurting and Elwes's fey, Vincent Price–like mugging, Saw succeeds in capturing something like Takashi Miike by way of William Castle. Happy Halloween, indeed.

Spear has all the earmarks of a middling Indiewood product, from its competent second-tier cast (including "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" hunklet Chad Allen in a dual role as a slain missionary and his grown son) to its earnest plotting and leaden pacing.

Rosenfeld's film doesn't have much of a story to tell and tells it rather routinely.

Skeleton may be 100 percent cult-in-a-can, but aficionados should feel sated. All others are advised to bring copious amounts of controlled substances.

Despite Herrington's skill at capturing the physicality of the game, Stroke is strictly for golf nuts and masochists--assuming there's a difference.

Woo's film is in some ways closer to Dick's -- and his own -- pulp roots, and if he lazily quotes himself (and, inexplicably, Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly") once too often, he at least gets loose, spirited performances from his cast -- Uma's post-"Kill Bill" gravitas notwithstanding.

What's unexpected is how thoroughly The ABCs of Death's ample duds overshadow its treasures, and how uninspired it feels as a whole.

Rote sequel that surely no one was waiting for: Like the serially thwarted Death (the only "character" to return from the first two Final Destination movies), audiences are required to endure banal exposition and junior-high-level foreshadowing before being treated to the nauseatingly detailed scenes of CGI slaughter.

Laughably unscary.

An engagingly grim psychological thriller.

The resolution is as surprise-free as it is improbably sunny.

Manages--before faltering under the weight of its own pretensions--to be pretty scary.

No "Triplets of Belleville," this French animated feature was hatched as an idea for a video game, and it shows.