Peter Brunette

Little Voice is that rarity, a filmed adaptation of a stage play that actually works.

It has its moments.

Gorris has beefed up the role of Natalia (Watson), with the end result that the film's emphasis is appropriately divided between the two characters in an emotionally satisfying way.

As a primer on the arcana surrounding the profession of personal injury lawyer (more familiarly known as ambulance chaser), A Civil Action is deeply, and even passionately, informative. As a drama and character study, though, it mostly misses the mark.

What makes the film so special is that while tickling your postmodern funnybone, it never forgets to make you care for its characters, in a welcome, and almost traditional way.

A quiet film, certainly, but it's filled with small touches that manage to get deeply under your skin by the time the final credits roll.

Consistently runs the danger of substituting cool but ultra-hyper, modern special effects for boring old human sentiment.

It plays lots of cool mind games with the audience -- if in an occasionally incoherent way -- and ends up providing a surprising amount of fun.

It's far more loquacious and cerebral than your average run-of-the-mill thriller, but boy, when the relatively infrequent scares do come, they will pull you out of your seat and raise the hair on your arms.

Altman is just as nastily misogynistic as ever.

Harron's adaptation of Ellis's novel is brilliant, probably better than the book itself.

Thoroughly artificial and overly schematic, to the point of caricature even, but often lively and witty nonetheless.

This is a film like no other this year, and on that grounds alone you should see it.

What makes the film ultimately successful, though, is the outstanding comic talents that inhabit it, especially Zahn and Macy.

Has a charm that keeps you involved throughout.

It's witty, entertaining, often funny as hell and even, at times, surprisingly wise about the human condition.

Wargnier is also a lousy storyteller who seems not to understand how to shape a narrative.

Sure, the territory is not exactly fresh...but the chemistry between the two leads is so explosive yet assured, and the comic timing so perfect, that the cliches are given new life.

A deliciously romantic story, in all senses of the word.

A rich and challenging variation on the serial-killer genre.

While most reviewers will accuse it of sentimentality (a charge that is justified), audiences, who don't feel the need to appear rigorous and tough-minded all the time, will flock to it in droves.

Don't be misled by claims that you've seen this one already. You haven't, and you should.

Breaks no new ground and is tedious in the extreme.

Fancher seems uninterested in developing real suspense, or incapable of it, at least until the end, when there's plenty of it, but artificially imposed.

The real problem is that it's not a very good Hollywood film, and its flaccid style, cardboard characters, and paint-by-the-numbers plot make watching it a chore.

The first half of The Third Miracle is very good...but the second half of the film, alas, turns into deep TV-mode.

It's all overblown: too much music, too much cutting, too much zooming, too much computerized special effects, too much clanky symbolism that never works.

Never more than a dull, paint-by-numbers, overly literal transcription of the book.