Michael Sragow

Despite the cunning mixture of live-action footage and animatronic effects in Two Brothers, there's more imagination and wonder in a good old Sabu picture like "The Jungle Book" (1942). Two Brothers is more like a tacky jungle comic book.

A terrific social drama, the work of an artist, not a pleader.

With everything this film has going for it - humor, intelligence and a splendid ensemble - Richard Linklater's nightmare drug movie, A Scanner Darkly, should be continually compelling. But it loses its fizz after a strong series of pops.

Seabiscuit revives the sweeping pleasures of movies that address and respect the mass audience, raising the common denominator instead of pandering to it. This crowd-pleaser rouses honest and engulfing cheers.

A scary movie that's also funny, touching and good for you.

It's the pushiest film around - "in your face" is still in-your-face, even if the dancers are in white-face.

Plays like Abbott and Costello Meet Conan the Barbarian.

The movie, brief though it is, feels as padded as a travelogue.

On the plus side, the casting is superb - and the acting, too. Although the context is overwrought and the moviemaking over-the-top, Washington acts from the ticker out.

The movie is a monument to egomania - and I don't mean Alexander's.

When it comes to what's great about King Kong, it's not the harum-scarum. It's the girl.

No matter how good-natured, The Holiday ends up a glutted farce.

In its peak moments, the movie delivers, all at once, genuine street wisdom and psychology and wrenching expressions of family and friendship.

The first half is diverting and inventive. But the filmmakers use the second half as a box-office insurance policy. They fill it with the conventional super-heroics and heartbreak that they spend the first 45 minutes gleefully deconstructing.

It's disconcerting to see Ferrell, a master of macho psychosis, adopt the stop-and-go dithering of Woody Allen-style neurosis.

The film is hapless. The gap between the moviemakers' ambition and their wit is dizzying. It's as if they thought they were filming The Importance of Being Unimportant.

Himalaya does for yak caravans what "Red River" did for cattle drives: it sees them as the stuff of epic conquest.

The unearned air of moralism that wafts through 15 Minutes pollutes its entertainment value.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon makes Bicke suffer the greatest indignity: it turns him into a relentless bore.

Les Mayfield doesn't know how to stage showdowns and chases so they're exciting or funny.

A masterpiece of psychological suspense.

Takes a chaotic moment in the long history of "the Troubles" and turns it into a keening, air-clearing epic.

Enough flair and conviction to keep the movie buoyant even when its plot is abrupt and its emotionality conventional.

The movie's generosity of spirit and artistry swamps its flaws.