Robert Wilonsky

As enormously entertaining as it is appalling.

As Frank, a widower who falls for his son's conniving would-be girlfriend (Maggie Gyllenhaal), Arnold is a revelation.

This is a Julia Roberts Movie about only one thing: being a Julia Roberts Movie.

A film built upon transitions so weak and obvious it's astonishing the entire thing doesn't collapse on itself.

Were it not for the performance of Foxx, the movie, which touches every base and slows to a crawl near home plate, would sink even when the score soars.

Virgin is astoundingly astute but also wondrously clever, written with more care and joy than any hundred comedies to come out of Hollywood in years.

The filmmaker who once aimed to enchant his audiences with cheerful stories of beatific visitors from outer space now wants only to scare the hell out of us. E.T., as it turns out, is a mass murderer after all, and we are his Reese's Pieces.

No matter how well you think you know this tale, you do not know it at all. It offers the oldest clichés polished up like some brand-new thing by director Greg Whiteley.

The actual finale, which so betrays what's come before it that it leaves one walking out of the theater holding a grudge against what was.

The result is something that feels very much like an overachieving made-for-TV movie--a history lesson dolled up like an action movie, with the action relegated to the final third, and even then, the battle is over before it really begins.

The fanboy in me loves it, being wrapped in the warm projected glow of nostalgia for a movie I've memorized since age 9.

Hellboy is as much a wreck as "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" or "The Punisher," coming and going in two weeks, and as much a bore as "The Hulk."

Steers' film will likely polarize the audience, which, if nothing else, gives it rare resonance; at least it makes you feel, where many similar indie efforts make you sleepy.

A celebration of the naughty joke and the courage it takes to tell one.

It's everything most movies this year have not been: deeply felt, genuine, gracious.

For all the affection Mangold feels for Cash and Carter, the movie feels oddly dispassionate.

Match Point may well be a return to form but only for those who love "September" and "Interiors," movies populated by Bergman evacuees too inert and dreary to even crack a smile.

It's too bad, then, that Anderson (whose only other major credit is "Mortal Kombat," but of course) and first-time screenwriter Philip Eisner felt so compelled to do away with suspense and turn Event Horizon into a big-budget slasher film.

The first half of Intolerable Cruelty is more than tolerable; it's a dopey kick full of goofy jokes tossed off so quickly you're reminded less of bickering-bantering Grant and Rosalind Russell than Groucho and Chico Marx.

It's not hard to see why actors love working with Penn, even in the smallest roles; he lets them speak monologues even when they're saying nothing at all.

Even if there were a great movie here, it would have been undermined by two lead actors who are barely even there, asked to deliver lines they can't handle: Bale, playing the Batman with clipped wings, and Katie Holmes as an assistant district attorney who doesn't have the gravitas to pass as an intern. Come back, Alicia Silverstone; all is forgiven.

Klein's the perfect actor to play Howard--a man so actory he probably signs his checks in that thin movie-poster type.

That's where the movie falters: It tries to give Garcia's book a heart and conscience it didn't need and never demanded.

It's hagiography, yes, but also powerful and poignant.

Aimed at the brain, when it should have been one for the heart.

It just feels like the real thing, which is a trick few writers can muster and even fewer directors can master.

At last, his (Howard's) first great (and filling) movie--inspirational, yes, but far from hokey; moving, absolutely, but never saccharine; and gripping, despite its being a fixed fight.

As surreal as it is obscene, as clever as it is crude. It plays like some raw offspring of underground comix and the comedies of the 1920s.