Marrit Ingman

Even at its most contrived, the filmmakers believe in this project so passionately that its atmosphere seems absolutely real.

There’s much to enjoy, even if the funny bits don’t add up to Spinal Tap greatness. And the titular anthem, performed in a star-studded closing jamboree, has a wickedly funny payoff.

Ill-suited to casual viewing. But its challenges are worthwhile, and the gifted Gleize is one to watch.

Hallström's latest is fine but unambitious, content with what it is – an arthouse trifle for the masses.

A suitably rigorous sports movie. On the other hand, at no time does it break out of the "sports movie" mold.

The film is set in post-WWII Scotland, but its tone and its telling are so stark, so Medieval, that it seems anachronistic when one of its characters picks up a telephone or plays a bebop jazz record.

The action set-pieces, double crosses, and narrow escapes are handsomely mounted and suspenseful as a Saturday matinee.

A paradox, balancing the contradictions and ambiguities of its characters and setting with a careful hand that rarely falters, even though the film seems dramatically thin at times.

I can tell you in two words why to see this movie, which is otherwise an unspecial Cinderella farce...and those two words are: Queen Latifah.

Everybody’s sleepwalking here. Vincent D'Onofrio is fantastic with Vaughn in a small part as his brother, but it's as if he’s running in during a break from "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

Schepisi underscores each emotional note by pulling the camera away from his actors and pointing it at family photographs, a saccharine conceit that becomes more irritating each time it appears.

Mainly it's messy, and I don't just mean the gouged-out eyeball in a puddle.

This is not a conventional love story but a philosophical one.

Acted with such venomous restraint that it hurts to watch.

It is really gory, for the record -– though it's too silly and insufficiently twisted to slake the appetite of the hardcore gorehound, it's not something to take a kid to.

In casting an all-American Jersey girl and surrounding her with Manolo Blahniks and the Strokes, Coppola draws a connection between her audience (domestically, at least) and the doomed dauphine, who is likewise insulated and distracted from her country's pointless involvement in a disastrous foreign war that is bankrupting its government and starving its people – and all the while she spends, spends, spends.

It’s a shame when a movie brings together so many underutilized thespians of color – even Ajay Naidu of "Office Space" is in here someplace – and gives them absolutely nothing to do.

The elements of the film don’t quite mesh: The villains are cartoony, but Du Chau aims for soggy family drama in his father-son story.

A pleasant and often surprising ensemble dramedy set almost entirely within the walls of a busy, fashionable Tribeca trattoria on a spectacularly busy Tuesday night.

A slick, sexy little package with fast cars, big explosions, dazzling locations in the south of France, a trip-hop score, and about as much plot to fill a thimble.

Monster is, at its best, simply a chronicle of people trying to get along, which makes it compelling viewing indeed.

It feels mechanical, more conceptual than realized, like a senior project by a particularly ambitious student who's recently read "West of Everything" – and who's lucked into working with a world-class actor.

It's a soggy drama said to be inspired by actual events – too serious to be trashy, too trashy to be serious.

Though the story is thinly conceived, Antal throws a fantastic curveball in the second act. Kontroll is a hot ticket.

It’s too didactic to be a spaghetti Western but lacks the moral compass required of a more evolved philosophical statement.

Sweet enough while it lasts.

Fans of "The Graduate" should skip this strange comedy.

Parents might appreciate a lighter hand with the barnyard whimsy and food fights, but overall the movie doesn't condescend about heavy matters (grief, healing, and blended families) and is pleasantly diverting.