Michael O'Sullivan

A mediocre production that nevertheless will strike a deep and resonant chord with viewers.

There are a number of surprises in the idiosyncratic film, and one of its pleasures is the oblique and unchronological way in which Ward peels away the layers of the story, flashing backward and forward in time and jumping between Earth and the Beyond, separating his scenes with blindingly blank, white-out screens.

Feels like a hazy high that takes too long to shake.

In the end Monsieur N. could use a little less cloak-and-dagger and more of what made "The Emperor's New Clothes" work, i.e., heart.

Despite the unforced humor and honesty in the performances of its young and talented cast, The Wood spends too much time wallowing in arrested adolescence to make you feel you've traveled anywhere.

A well-crafted story with a unique voice. But its literary gifts are outweighed by its pictorial prosaicness. Dimming the screen in every shot is the unmistakable shadow of the page.

Despite this tale's surface sheen and propulsive momentum, it never transports one very far.

The smart but slight film implodes under the weight of its own "excessive linguistic pressure."

It's no worse than any number of other cookie-cutter slasher flicks geared for the slightly post-pubescent market.

It's effectively frightening. It's just not the kind of frightening that stays with you very long, unless of course someone decides to make the same movie . . . yet again.

There's actually a lot going on in this little movie, and first-time feature director Stephen Daldry, turning his talents from the theater, handles all of it deftly.

What modest pleasure the film affords is largely thanks to the charisma of its genial stars.

Plays like a piece of mediocre music, gorgeously rendered.

That script – co-written by Terry Hayes and director Brian Helgeland – is almost too noir for its own good at times, but Gibson somehow manages to pull its implausibility off.

In trying to compose a poetic love letter to a time of liberation and freedom, Haynes has merely conjured up memories of druggy excess, egotism and tight trousers. The only mementos worth saving from the experience are available on the soundtrack.

Although Monkeybone will undoubtedly make you laugh at its slapstick highjinks, the irony is that for a movie that's ultimately about soul, that's the one commodity that's in precious short supply up on the screen.

The movie is pretty unabashed about the all-but-corny sentiment: Each of us has something to give.

As a rule, the drawn and computer-animated imagery is top notch and seamlessly integrated, but the central characters' tawny complexions and the often chiaroscuro lighting sometimes obscure all but the whites of their eyes and their pearl-perfect teeth.

Meet Joe Black is Hopkins's movie and, despite the film's unnecessary length, his quiet and dignified performance almost carries the ball across the finish line.

It's the Weather Channel on steroids.

The film as a whole, while possessing a kind of vicious beauty, feels as cold and as embalmed as a corpse.

A generally well-made tale of humor and hard luck.

A tad preachy and more than a little bit sanctimonious.

A jaundiced view of litigation, however authentic, is not necessarily the stuff of great drama, even of the legal-thriller variety, which by definition is confined to a claustrophobic courtroom.

Charming but slight comedy.

If these repugnant people were really your friends and neighbors, your time would be more profitably spent reading the real estate listings than the movie reviews. But for 1 1/2 hours in a darkened theater, the derailment of their unhealthy emotions makes for one compulsively watchable train wreck.

Yes, Knowing is creepy, at least for the first two-thirds or so, in a moderately satisfying, if predictable, way.

The kind of stunning and contentious work of art that will leave a lot of folks speechless.