Pete Vonder Haar

A perfectly serviceable action movie…better than most, in fact. The entire premise is growing creaky, however, leading us to think we might want to leave this particular spy out in the cold a while, before he becomes completely tiresome.

What sets Bier's film apart from similar fare are the consistently fine performances and powerful scenes of surprising ferocity.

It isn't until the ending, which turns the squirm amplifier up to 11 and exceeded even my horrific expectations, that we finally see the story's potential realized.

Actually one of the better comedies I've seen this year speaks volumes for the quality of the performances and the caliber of the script.

Jarhead does feature stunning visuals. Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins have created some fantastic imagery.

Say what you want about Mel Gibson, but that sadomasochistic anti-Semite knows how to shoot a movie.

Skills Like This is not a movie that asks to be taken seriously.

Desperate Acts of Magic is a pleasant little film.

Whatever the final analysis, Reno 911!: Miami is a welcome breath of fresh air in a year that's already forced audiences to endure the likes of "Norbit."

While Howl’s Moving Castle is far from perfect, it’s still a very good movie. It’s just not a great one.

Burton fans and those eager for a more accurate adaptation of the novel will be happy with this new movie, while nostalgia-addled Gen X-ers and stoners of all ages will always have the original.

Strong performances from Vera Farmiga and Hugh Dillon keep things from becoming overdramatic.

Golf's become such a ridiculously well-heeled pastime that it's refreshing to see it portrayed in its infancy, when clubs were carried like a bunch of kindling and the desolate greens of St. Andrews were more like the hazards of today's game.

In spite of the tatty "coming of age" familiarity, Johnson's vision seems fresh and vibrant.

Leatherheads is as trifling as Clooney’s second movie (“Good Night and Good Luck”) was significant, but that’s okay. It succeeds where so many other romantic comedies fail because of a superior script and because everyone involved has the good sense not to take themselves too seriously.

It has its share of eye-rolling moments, but at its heart there's a decent story.

The movie is engrossing and well-acted throughout (especially Khan), but ultimately leaves us less optimistic about the prospects for peace.

1. It has the potential to supplant "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" as the greatest audience participation movie of all time. 2. It is, simultaneously, one of the worst and best movies I’ve ever seen.

What ultimately keeps The Weather Man from being a better film than it is that it doesn't no when to quit.

Hunky Dory isn't blazing any trails, but if you're not wholly burned out by the genre and/or look back fondly on the Glam era, you'll find musicals haven't yet completely gone to the (diamond) dogs.

Let's be honest; a great deal of the sh-- you find funny when you're high really isn't (as anyone who's smoked a few bowls and laughed like a hyena to "Assy McGee" can attest). So hopefully nobody will be too disappointed when I tell them that "Express" is largely hit and miss.

A handful of nifty battle scenes and some decent performances aren't quite enough to make Kingdom memorable.

How much you join in will depend on how big a fan you are of the collegiate comedy formula, how many times you've seen "Animal House" and "Caddyshack," and how much you hate Long in those smarmy Mac commercials.

It's worth a look, even taking into consideration the lack of zombies.

Intermittently amusing.

Your enjoyment of Alpha Dog may very well depend on how put off you are by these facts, as well as how much you buy Timberlake in his role, and how in the mood you are to sit through "River’s Edge" set in the "Entourage" universe.

An above average film, and features fine performances (Theron and McDormand are probably stone locks for more Oscar nominations), but be wary of the advertising pointing out the film's similarities to movies like "Erin Brockovich."

Younger children getting in on the ground floor of fantasy will enjoy the film.

The action IS pretty engaging, Sao Feng and his gang of South Asian cutthroats are a nice addition, and the constant plot explication does require you to pay attention.

It's a simple and sweet-natured movie, and one that seems appropriate even for the very young.

The doc affords us a look into a world rarely seen by the lumpenproletariat, though we could have done with fewer aerial/time-lapse shots and more history.

The movie's front-loaded with puerile, junior high humor (and, admittedly, several laugh out loud moments), which is fine, but all this still followed by an increasingly awkward and clichéd third act.

Overall, New York Doll is an affectionate (occasionally too much so) look at Arthur Kane.

While his story is moving, Godspeed would perhaps have been more powerful if Barry spent more time balancing Jones's relative good fortune with the monumental hurdles faced by the less fortunate with similar injuries, instead of touching upon the issue in the film's final minutes.

Seriously, that kid is creepy as hell.

Cash is a legend, and deserving of a more thoughtful portrayal than what we’re offered here.

Sommers's script relies on rapid-fire banter between Odd, girlfriend Stormy Llewellyn (Addison Timlin) — yes, that's her real name — and Chief Porter (Dafoe), but occasionally feels forced.

Isn't as dark or sinister as its source material, but it comes closer than any other filmed attempts to this point. It may only be a decent movie, but it's a pretty fine PKD adaptation.

In the plus column, Poseidon is a tightly-paced action movie that doesn’t depend too much on special effects for its thrills.

Dumb, loud, and ludicrous in the extreme, and I actually enjoyed it.

It's a reasonably entertaining actioner, and Zwick doesn't shy away from depicting violence or the horrors of war, but as a social statement it falls a little short. And emeralds are prettier anyway.

Home Sweet Hell is a pleasantly unpleasant dark comedy, one that gives new meaning to "detached and subdivided" in the mass production zone.

In the end, nothing about The Interpreter strikes us as very original.

As an official history, Spark shines adequate light; I just wish it had spent a little more time on the shadows.

Standoff holds up as a welcome alternative to its more strident brethren.

The movie's strength is in the performances. And they're enough to make Steel City worth a look.

Could have been both a gripping courtroom drama and a chilling "is she or isn’t she?" horror tale. What we have instead is a movie that drifts, almost unmanned, from plot point to plot point.

Stop-Loss is a bit uneven. Mixed messages abound.

It’s more than adequate as an old school action movie slightly updated for modern audiences.

Granted, you'e going to enjoy it a lot more if you spent a healthy chunk of your late teens/early 20s playing Bullshit and doing keg stands, but it's far from the worst comedy of the year.

The tension in Missionary is surprisingly effective, especially given how easy it should be to put out an APB on a guy on a freaking bicycle, and there are enough scares to remind you to keep the chain latched when those polite young men in the slacks and neckties drop by.

Is Walk Hard” funny? Sure; very much so, in places. At least I think it is. It might just be the “Date Movie” talking.

Let’s not lose sight of what's really been accomplished here. Alex and Marty – just like Batman and Robin, Fred and Barney, and Snagglepuss – are welcome additions to the gay animation pantheon.

The plot is paper-thin, and the set-up is beyond contrived (a plant waterer?), but there are a surprising number of laughs, and the saccharine content is kept to a minimum. A mostly enjoyable experience, all told.

As a look at the disenfranchised of America, Explicit Ills could use some work. As a debut, however, it's quite promising. I'm looking forward to seeing what Webber comes up with next.

1408 isn’t great cinema, but does an adequate job in spite of its flaws.

Once you become accustomed to her material and begin to anticipate it, some of the shine comes off the act.

A film about a family billed as "bizarrely dysfunctional" – is a pleasant enough experience. However, it probably could have used a little more of the bizarre or dysfunctional to spice things up.

Waiting… is only intermittently funny, but when it is, it's hilarious.

While I could probably spend an entire weekend watching Milla twirl her kukris, it's obvious from the rather lazy pacing that Anderson is growing increasingly self-indulgent with his creation.

Firewall’s predictable second half betrays the film's early promise.

Works best when it sticks to some of the tenets of successful horror; namely, gore and surprise.

It's noisy, nonsensical, and will fade from your consciousness even before you make it out of the theater lobby, but it's entertaining enough, and Tamahori throws us a few curve balls to keep things interesting.

Like all of his previous films, it's visually arresting - if any recent film embodies the concept of cinema as poetry, this it it - but unlike "Pi" or "Requiem for a Dream," these aren't characters we're ever invested in.

Too much of the time, Jackson is a complete blank, like he's bored with his own story.

Right out of the gate, we realize that bringing the series to the big screen makes the flaws that much more obvious. The voices are too thin, the music and lyrics too simplistic, and the production values are – frankly – too "televisual."

The "star-studded" cast seems to have been cast according to their Premiere power ranking and/or desperation for exposure.

The direction is lackluster, the child actors – with the exception of Eisenberg – are pretty dismal, and the whole thing is about 15 minutes too long.

A curious little film. On the surface, it's a story about one man's mission to create an Orthodox monastery in Denmark, and along the way it manages to say something about everyone's desire to be remembered after they pass away.

Something of a letdown. Previous statements aside, I understand Warner Bros. has to set the table for "Half-Blood Prince" and "Deathly Hallows," but too much of Phoenix is filler. And with only two movies left, we better get to the main course in short order.

Unfortunately, Black Sheep takes so long to get going and misses so many easy opportunities for classic comedy it has to be regarded as a noble failure.

It's impressive enough to look at, and the voice talent – especially Black and Hoffman - doesn't disappoint, but all the CGI wankery and high-end talent only barely allows Kung Fu Panda to rise above cliché.

Comes up short in many ways, but none more so than its failure to fulfill Penn's and Zaillian's desire to provide the catalyst for political sea change.

It's funnier than "Wild Hogs," which is about as ringing an endorsement as I'm capable of these days.

As with "Napoleon Dynamite," Hess' sense of humor is an acquired taste, where all the characters speak in peculiar cadences and are afflicted with a terminal case of the "quirkies." What’s unfortunately missing from Nacho Libre is much in the way of humor.

What starts as a somewhat charming — if prosaic — story of love in the time of gentrification inexplicably spends most of its third act mired in the finer points of apartment hunting, like a tastefully lit HGTV show.

Land falls well short of the greatness of Romero’s previous zombie efforts.

Exactly the kind of thing most of us have in mind when we think "popcorn movie." It's largely brainless, pretty to look at, and produced solely as a lead-in to another moneymaking sequel for Disney.

Has some nice touches. Cheadle is capable as always, and Paula Newsome kills as his acerbic receptionist.

Every so often you catch glimpses of a better movie behind the simplistic structure and formulaic plot.

If you're over the age of 11, there's obviously not much reason to see this.

Fracture may be smarter than the majority of movies out there, but it's not half as clever as it thinks it is.

Fortunately for Redford, Lions for Lambs is a less ham-handed effort than Sayles’ “Silver City,” but it’s a near thing.

Spends too much time straddling the line between exuberant carnage and serious plotline when it should've gleefully backflipped into the former. Grudgingly recommended, but only if you've put your cerebral cortex in neutral for the evening.

I wanted to like Superman Returns, but Singer and company are so concerned about doing justice to Superman’s past, they fail to generate much interest in what, if any, future the franchise might have.

Diggers isn't a bad film, but the underlying premise - the longing one feels to escape from a dead-end, small town life - has been so beaten to death in the movies that no amount of accurate 70s design or subtlety in the performances can hide the fact.

"The Beginning" is a better movie than the 2003 remake, even if the plot is understandably similar. There are only so many ways hapless teens can get brutally slaughtered, after all, but Liebesman and company keep things appropriately creepy, right down to aping the look of the 1974 original.

It ain't art, and it's dumber than I'd like, but I don't imagine you were expecting Kieslowski.

Formulaic and creaky as a Harrison Ford action sequence, but sufficiently gussied up with good actors and a decent director so that you don’t entirely mind.

Mostly, Guilty of Romance seems content allowing characters to verbally abuse each other before eventually reaching the inevitable conclusion that life is a burden and all love is illusory.

There’s a lot of talent up there on the screen, and some authentic laughs, but too much of it is comedy territory that was claimed long ago.

Intermittently refreshing yet thoroughly unpleasant.

Some of the footage is exceptional, yet several of the more impressive stunts are shot from so far away on digital cameras that the resulting onscreen resolution is just a shade above god-awful.

Starts off promisingly, but gets bogged down when it abandons humor for gravity.

There are glimpses of the wit McKenna displayed in “Prada,” but these brief gasps of life are quickly suffocated by the inevitable schmaltz.

Far from a disaster, but doesn't rank with Mann's best work.

There are some genuine scares to be had here, and not just of the “Boo!” variety.

Isn’t exactly dull, but it isn’t scary either.