Megan Lehmann

Lacking a solid narrative beyond the worsening marital crisis, this humor-flecked domestic drama ends up relying heavily on directorial tricks such as splashes of magic realism, giving it a self-satisfied air that quickly becomes grating.

Phoenix gives an electric performance as amoral Army supply clerk Ray Elwood.

Lacking quite the zip and zing of "Run Lola Run," this lively indie tale of a drug deal gone awry could be alternately titled "Walk Fast Bobby Walk Fast."

There's nothing particularly startling or new in the script by Siegel and his co-writers Lisa Bazadona and Grace Woodard - except that it, refreshingly, draws its characters in real-life shades of gray.

Suffers from an air of frosty detachment and a disappointingly stiff performance from Jagger, who also provides an unnecessary voice-over narration.

A tightly drawn, propulsive thriller with some pleasingly unexpected kinks in the tale and a couple of believable performances from Charlize Theron and Kevin Bacon in the leads.

Coppola sure knows his late-'60s cinema and he's meticulous in reconstructing the style of the era.

Keaton's overamped girlishness, and the adolescent shenanigans she engages in, make a mockery of this overlong romantic comedy's stance as a celebration of mature love.

Some of the plot points are confusingly vague, the tone lurches wildly between genres, and the film's epilogue pushes the bounds of believability - but The Hard Word could never be accused of being predictable.

The central narrative is ultimately too one-dimensional to sustain interest.

A visual treat diminished by lifeless dialogue and self-conscious acting.

Although deft editing provides neat segues, "Safety" suffers from a case of too many dramas, too little time. Characters are given no chance to develop and, too often, their behavior turns on a dime, hurtling off into a parallel universe of extreme acts.

Often so silly, it's surreal.

Only really little tykes will find the surplus of pratfalls and poo and fart jokes a hoot.

This slow-moving Swedish film offers not even a hint of joy, preferring to focus on the humiliation of Martin as he defecates in bed and urinates on the plants at his own birthday party.

The feel-good finale -- an ending even less in doubt than that of the most predictable Hollywood fare -- is as rousing as you'd hope and the fast-paced, on-ice action is satisfyingly authentic.

Without Branagh's pitch-perfect comedic skills the entire movie could have been crushed under the avalanche of quips and wisecracks tumbling from Kalesniko's too-clever-by-half pen.

S.W.A.T. boasts the kernel of a good idea - but it gets buried in the chaff of half-baked plot threads, partly realized characters and unstructured pandemonium.

Twinkles and glows, but all the surface razzle-dazzle fails to mask the emptiness at its core.

From the incessant rain that blurs the joyless Boston setting to the mysterious decision to make a brunette Hudson look as plain as possible, it's an evanescent fancy devoid of sparkle.

The majority of Dickie Roberts winds up looking like a tame episode of the "Brady Bunch" -- spiked with Spade-esque crudity.

Middleton deals with the various male and female perspectives in an even-handed way, concocting a slice of New York life that's frothy as meringue pie.

Has laugh-out-loud moments of inspired idiocy. The problem is that this one-joke skit (done first and better by Britain's Ali G) has been given the Hamburger Helper treatment and stretched to feature length.

Hokey, overstuffed plot and a messily hand-stitched, often illogical script.

Much of the action is strident and cartoonish -- but the romance at the core remains tender and true.

Stevens has a keen sense of the absurd, but the whole thing is too forced - and his use of "rotomation" (last used in Richard Linklater's "Waking Life") to give a Timothy Leary-swirl to key dramatic moments winds up looking incongruous.

A good edit would have allowed the film's worthy, obviously heartfelt, message to shine.

The tiny stage can barely contain Reno's gale-force personality, as she paces and rants a stream-of-conscious monologue.