Rick Kisonak

Beyond any contention is Morgan Spurlock's gift for metabolizing common knowledge into uncommonly entertaining cinema.

Proyas creates a futurescape that's snazzy in a “Blade Runner” lite sort of way and one or two of the film's effects are eye poppers.

The best they were able to manage, apparently, was a grabbag of spectral sights and spooky touches grabbed from better horror films and a final act that raises more questions than it answers.

The movie does an admirable job of juggling political, dramatic and comic elements.

Not since the breakthrough days of Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler and the Farrelly brothers have two hours of movie comedy simultaneously felt so wrong but oh so right.

I'm not sure Sam Mendes' latest is a masterpiece as so many critics are exclaiming but it is very probably the most artful and earnest drama ever adapted from a comic book.

Manages to be impressively unsettling given the flaws in its foundation.

Costner sets course for one of the most stirringly choreographed shootouts in movie history.

The movie doesn’t even try to break new ground–it’s shot entirely on location in familiar Ferrell-McKay territory.

I feel guilty and somehow unclean. And all I did was watch it.

Here's the sliver of hope: In contrast to everything we've been told, the people who run Al Jazeera turn out to be decent and level headed.

Watanabe's charismatic performance and a couple of colorful minor characters aside, The Last Samurai has little to recommend it.

A silly comic book movie with provocative psychological overtones. Or a provocative character study with silly comic book overtones. Take your pick. Either way, it's hardly the cinematic milestone it's widely hailed as being.

Movies about writers are almost always romanticized affairs but Starting Out in the Evening is the rare exception. It is at once an elegy for the vanishing generation of Bellow, Cheever, Mailer and Updike and a dead on indictment of our culture’s current state.

This is a tale of friendship, corruption, betrayal and desperation masterfully told without an ounce of filmmaking flash and with an unflinching commitment to realism.

Likely to exceed expectations.

The film doesn't have anything but bad news for Spacey fans anxious for the actor to break a stinky streak.

Ultimately, The Strangers does succeed in the sense that it offers a riveting, vastly credible enactment of everyone's worst nightmare.

Post-personality switch, the picture does come to life somewhat but proves a one trick pony.

Details like period fashion and album covers are handled flawlessly. It's the big stuff that falls short of the standard set by this troupe. A Mighty Wind is good for an occasional laugh but you're not likely to be blown away.

This is shtick that’s minimally a generation past its expiration date.

Burgundy and Carell's Brick Tamland, by himself, would be worth the price of admission.

It may not feature the funniest performances Stiller, Walken and Black have ever given but, these three guys giving performances just this funny is enough to make Envy a movie you'll end up kicking yourself for missing.

While it fails to shed significant new light on its subject, Gibson's film and the all-Jesus-all-the-time attention from the media it's attracted do tell us something somewhat disconcerting about the state of American culture: That the way to make a religion based on love and forgiveness relevant today is to turn it into violent entertainment.

The final act is all but guaranteed to astonish and satisfy. See this movie.

Serves up heaping helpings of everything fans loved about the first.

While the picture doesn't rise to the level of instant holiday classic, younger members of the audience are guaranteed to get a Christmas kick out of it. If disappointment awaits, it awaits Ferrell's older fans.

Fascinating and heartbreaking film.

Watching the American nightmare of Must Read After My Death play out, it's impossible not to be both horrified and powerfully moved. Impossible as well not to feel profound admiration for the artfulness with which Dews has pieced these archival cries for help into a singular creation anyone who appreciates first rate filmmaking absolutely must see.

A good laugh is almost never a bad thing and almost every frame of Old School is grade A goofball fun.

It doesn't disappoint. It gets the job done thanks in large part to the breakout performance given by Galifianakis. It's no "Old School," but it will do nicely until that film's anticipated sequel rolls around in 2011.

The heart of Ray, of course, is the music and, whatever other shortcomings the film may have, it does not fall short as a showcase for the artist's greatest hits.

If characters with more than one dimension, a plausible story and some sort of viewpoint are moviegoing musts, you may leave 2012 feeling a tad shortchanged.

Goes south early and its director never comes close to turning things around.

The situation is suspenseful and unique enough to hold our attention for a time.

Bleak, weirdly witty at times and unrelentingly suspenseful, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is the cinematic equivalent of a perfect storm.

Despite the cast's capable portrayals, it's difficult to connect with or care about any of these characters as, one by one, each stabs another in the back.

Tykwer makes of all this murder and madness a concoction of improbable beauty and rare artistry. "Perfume" is not just the finest film of his career but easily one of the past year's most accomplished.

I find Soderbergh's Solaris an eminently more satisfying experience than Lem's. This is a film as elegantly directed as any by Kubrick, one which is superbly acted and brilliantly scored, as spellbinding a work of cinema as we're likely to see for some time.

If you're looking for Rock's trademark smart-ass wit, you'll want to look somewhere else. Likewise when it comes to a movie with something fresh to say about the balancing act that is wedded bliss.

Yolande Moreau's most impressive costars are the extraordinary compositions of Seraphine Louis.

Campion and company may like to think they've made something provocative, moody and new but it's really just "Looking For Mr. Goodbar" with extra nuts.

Aside from a few routine battle scenes, the movie's action consists mostly of people slogging slowly through non-stop rain. This is not interesting, much less exciting. The dialogue is hokey hero blather.

Figgis has spent too many years crafting thoughtful, innovative films to have much of a knack for storytelling this mechanical and many are the moments when he does indeed seem to have been asleep behind the wheel.

At the end of the day, though, this is Charlie Kaufman's movie and I'm not sure he proves quite the visionary puppetmaster many in the media are making him out to be.

The only downside to this delectable third course? The regrettable likelihood that Lecter fans will have to make do without dessert.

There is no shortage of remarkable moments.

Wolfgang Petersen's popcorn epic doesn't fail exactly. It just takes on too much. Modern man is at something of a disadvantage-even aided by his trusty muse, the computer-when presuming to bring the stuff of gods, myths and timeless sacred texts to the big screen.

A touching, stirring story even if it has been given the Hollywood treatment.

Billed as a comedy but it would be every bit as accurate to categorize it as science fiction or a World War II drama. It is simply not a funny film.

Godawful mess.

The picture ranks with the brothers' best mid level output-not as sublime as "Fargo" or "Barton Fink" but infinitely more satisfying than "The Big Lebowski" or "Intolerable Cruelty".

There’s something fundamentally unconvincing and contrived about the story. Forget the fact that O’Connor hauls out every cliché in the bad cop handbook and the dialogue is more boilerplate than hard-boiled. The premise itself is just plain preposterous.

Watts is extra-watchable and, as I say, the filmmaker does achieve a style and tone the script never comes close to living up to. Otherwise, Verbinski's adaptation of the 1998 Japanese hit "Ringu" misses the mark almost completely.

The portrait of traditional Indian life Chadha provides manages to mine laughs from characters without resorting to making them laughable.

Gratuitously brutal, chronically preposterous, abysmally unoriginal, pretty much pointless and virtually 100% free of credible characters, Derailed represents career lows for its stars while marking an unpromising English language debut for its director.

Gorgeously shot, cleverly directed, smartly scripted and convincingly performed, The Dreamers is itself something of a movie puzzle.

The bottom line is the movie's a mess. Friedkin would like one to believe there's more than meets the eye to his tale of two trackers.

From the performances of its first rate cast to the infectious score and Audiard's deft direction, this is one of the most accomplished movies you'll see anytime soon-old, new or, as is the case here, combining the best of both.

On its own terms, the picture is at least as contrived as it is charming and its characters in many cases bear less resemblance to flesh and blood human beings than those in a Farrelly brothers farce.

The chief triumph here, it seems to me though, is one of style over substance. The disaffected kids who shuffle through its universe have nothing to say, nothing to tell us. I’m not sure the movie has a whole lot more.

It's such a dumb movie, it's hard to believe it wasn't an SNL sketch first.

The truth is About Schmidt offers only the sporadic laugh, the less frequent original cultural insight and, at best, a craftsmanlike performance from its aging headliner. The truth is there are long stretches in the picture that are unequivocally dull.

Full speed ahead fun, a rollicking caper romp that hearkens back to a quainter, pre-Ken Lay age when bigtime fraud could actually entail writing books as opposed to merely cooking them.

At once an astonishing feat of advocacy filmmaking and a white knuckle eco-thriller; think Michael Moore meets Michael Mann.

The two actors (Hanks/Seymour Hoffman) have terrific chemistry and riff off one another like partners in a veteran comedy team.

This is a movie that should have a medical warning in its trailer. Caution: viewing may be hazardous to your filmgoing fun; side effects can include drowsiness, irritation and difficulty swallowing.

The film also benefits from unusually solid writing and a masterfully understated turn by Billy Bob Thornton.

Breathtakingly inventive story.

Sublimely directed, scored, shot and performed, the picture misses greatness by a nose as a result of shortcomings in its script.

The odyssey that follows reminded me of the one Bill Murray’s character took in "Broken Flowers" - and I mean that in the most complimentary way.

May just be the most quintessential Steven Spielberg movie Steven Spielberg never made.

Spoof or tongue in cheek update, the movie squanders the lion's share of its time on tired, cartoon-quality sequences choreographed around ho-hum chases and explosions. None possess the satiric zip of Austin Powers-style parody.

We aren't talking Oscar here. We're talking truly fine performances and an unexpectedly hep John Williams score. We are talking a story that rollicks with the most rollicking of them. Not great cinema; just a great time at the movies and certainly a film well worth catching if you can.

The movie crosses the line between offering mindless entertainment and insulting our intelligence.

A fine cast, understated treatment and tantalizing premise make for a movie well worth seeing even if you don't come away believing.

Down With Love has little to offer besides hip sixties references better films have already made and made infinitely more hip.

Radio is a film many people may be tempted to laugh off as button pushing feel-good fluff. Before doing so, they might want to ask themselves just what it is they find so funny about a little peace, love and understanding.

An achievement of this magnitude is a stunning and extremely pleasant surprise.

You aren't likely to see a film with more warmth and good humor anytime soon or one that does more to give feel good filmmaking a good name.

The film is a wonder and a joy to watch on any number of levels.

Each and every one of the movie's 125 minutes is a moment of searing truth.

While the massacre is a wall-shaking and effective bit of high decibel drama, some of the movie's best moments come during the Texans' long brave wait for almost certain death.

This is a decidedly hit or miss deal which, despite the current outpouring of critical praise, is destined to rank among the Coen's least memorable achievements.

Easily the most disappointing movie of the summer, Extract is more significantly the biggest letdown of its esteemed creator’s career.

By the way, good luck making sense out of the final fifteen minutes. I'd say people were asleep at the wheel on this one but the film is so pointlessly all over the place that I'm not sure there even was one.

Identity steams my broccoli big time and not just because its surprise twist is an insult to the intelligence of every audience member.

By and large, reviewers have conceded that the picture is exceptionally gripping and suspenseful while deriding its moral subtext as a crock. The only explanation possible for such fuming pettiness, in my opinion, is the fact that Michael Haneke isn’t one of us.

In other hands with another cast, You Kill Me might easily have proven just another modest production indulging in mob violence and postmodern irony. There certainly is no shortage of those. Dahl’s latest, however, is something more than a modest production. It’s a small wonder.

For my money, the movie should have given us more of Macy the magical loser and less of Macy the stud muffin.

This is one of those "Crash"-style pictures with interwoven narrative strands. The problem here is that most of the strands wind up little more than loose ends.

Who's responsible for this comedy proving such a disappointment- Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler or director Peter Segal? Nope. The correct answer: screenwriter David Dorfman.

Anyone who loves rock music will appreciate the script's insights into the form and its history.

The role is ill-suited for Kinnear's talents. Abraham's pacing is glacial, the cinematography is flat, the score by Jill Savitt is suited better to a supermarket and then there's the fact that the climax can be seen coming a mile away. Maybe the biggest, though, is its failure to play fair with the audience.

Jenkins' film ranks as one of the past year's very best. Like "In Cold Blood," "The Onion Field" and "Dead Man Walking" before it, her picture provides a mesmerizing portrait of the human side of evil.

The film has brief flashes of believability and humor. By and large, though, the script is uninspired, the picture's characters are stick figures, its dialogue is lackluster and the star's performance seldom rises above the adequate.

Over all, though, the picture fires on all pistons. The globetrotting's a good time-I can't think of another spy film that's featured as delightful an assortment of seamy international undersides.

To put it in the best light possible, I recommend thinking of Four Christmases not so much as a really short movie but as a very special holiday episode of a sitcom.

Over all though, this is a first rate caper piece elevated by Caine’s effortlessly elegant portrayal. The movie is wall to wall with pompous, sexist, greedy backstabbers and it’s a hoot to watch Hobbs mop the floor with the lot of them.

Recycles a great many motifs from "Truman" but never comes close to putting on as good a show.

The pacing is brisk-something wacky happens every couple of minutes, the editing crisp and the effects promising. Then disaster strikes: the first act gives way to the relative witlessness of the second and third.

Elegy's last act is a mournful smorgasbord of bathos in which major and supporting characters alike drop like flies. The body count is practically Shakespearean. The same, regrettably, can't be said for Coixet's touch when it comes to tragedy.

The combination of pen, ink and geopolitical strife have yet to yield anything quite like it.

There isn't another American screen actor who could have given this performance, not one who so deftly could have navigated the razor's edge separating the wiseacre and the wise.

Her beauty, independence, and stock portfolio notwithstanding, Chelsea’s tale is a timely, tragic one told with typical Soderbergh finesse, a sly, sleek merger of sex, lies and hi def video.

Eastwood tells the story at a pace well under the Hollywood speed limit, tosses in details so beguiling they seem about to sprout into motion pictures of their own and bathes his subjects in shadows as lovely as those in any Rembrandt.

It may not be great but you're guaranteed to feel great walking out the theater door.

Even by Hollywood sequel standards, this is lazily conceived, cynically recycled stuff.

Rare is the motion picture which grapples with issues this provocative and profound. Rarer still is one which does so this well.

The amazing thing about Venus is that it's brutally honest about all this but at the same time funny as hell.

Simultaneously offers priceless insight into the nation's past and a worrisome take on the future.

If my moviegoing experience was magical in any way, it was only in that I once or twice nodded off for a spell.

This is a film which resonates on a surprising number of levels. But the level on which it undoubtedly works best is the victim-goes-postal-and-takes-the-law-into-his-own-hands level.

As an affecting work of compassionate craftsmanship, The Letter delivers.

Not bad for a mainstream suspensefest. Gere's good, Lane, as I said, is amazing in places and Lyne does some of his most assured work in years.

Has its rollicking moments and snappy lines but even Pacino can't elevate them into more than a fleetingly juicy treat. This is a movie that desperately wishes it had been written by David Mamet.

A competently calibrated feel-good machine. It's as effective as anything on The Lifetime Channel. Which is likely where this project would have wound up were it not for the involvement of Washington.

No End In Sight is the most important film of the year thus far and, more significantly, the most comprehensive, clear-eyed account of the Iraq debacle and the arrogance behind it that we have.

Until this past Friday, the worst werewolf film ever made was, hairy hands down, Mike Nichols' "Wolf." Cursed now assumes that dubious distinction and someone is going to have to try very hard to wrestle it away.

By far the most appallingly cretinous picture in which Keaton has ever appeared.

Given their lack of training, nearly all the young performers do a commendable job. It's the director who slips up by, among other things, dividing his cast into such predictable phyla.

New territory for the Vermont director, and he shows every sign of feeling right at home in it.

On its own terms, Departures is a thing of rare and remarkable beauty.

Long before you buy your ticket to the new Jim Carrey film, you've already been doomed to disappointment. Several parties play a role in this. Interestingly, Jim Carrey isn't one of them.

Proved that cheerless, existentially unflinching literature can provide the basis for exhilarating cinema.

The score is appropriately ethereal. From the Paris skyline to the Great Wall of China, the film's locales on every continent are rarely less than breathtaking. Calling the camerawork stunning, of course, is an understatement.

Exceptional performances and unexpected twists of plot keep the story from descending into overwrought melodrama.

Bottom line: the spectacle he was preparing may well have provided Jackson with the appropriate note on which to close his long, controversial career. This, however, I think even die hard fans will concur, isn't it.

Portraying the same 1945 confrontation from the vantage point of the Japanese was an inspired idea. Unfortunately, the movie it inspired is something of a letdown.

This is a gentle, understated character-driven piece that has more in common with European romantic dramas than those made in this country as a rule.

The first half of Luis (Angel Eyes) Mandoki's new thriller is as whiteknuckle, nerve-wracking as they come. The second is such a mishmash of overblown action and gaping plotholes, it's hard to believe it's the work of the same director.

The movie gives us lovingly shot landscapes, portraits of extraordinary friendships, a great score, dialogue that only occasionally slips into history lessons, a number of memorably etched minor characters, a splendid performance by its youngest star and two mysteries.

Perkiness Alert! Much of the banter and many of the gags are amusing but Witherspoon cranks the perkiness to off-the-dial levels here and anyone with low tolerance for superpeppy movie do-gooders should consult a physician before viewing.

The plot is romantic comedy boilerplate from start to finish and, with the story's outcome a foregone conclusion, the least the director could have done is throw in a bit of cultural enlightenment to keep the audience occupied while he connects the dots.

Suffice it to say that MacDonald has made the finest mountain climbing movie you are likely ever to come across. The cinematography is awesome, the score by Alex Heffes terrific, the reenactments remarkably credible.