Scott Foundas

It casts an increasingly hypnotic spell, thanks in no small measure to Wright -- a fearless actress (and the real-life wife of writer-director Ruscio) who brings this sometimes despicable, often heartbreaking character to life with every atom of her being.

Spottiswoode's lackluster film fails to offer any fresh perspective on these now well-known events.

Campbell is flat-out great, muting his beloved Sam Raimi shtick in favor of a genuine character turn, an act of transformation that makes you wonder why he's never been called on to interpret Elvis before.

A noteworthy piece on a difficult subject.

More often than not, Two Men Went to War resembles a feature-length episode of "Hogan's Heroes," with the brave but clumsy Brits continually managing to outfox the even more bungling Nazis.

This buoyant, optimistic fable seems to share in the late Ronald Reagan's optimism for America. It does so with the help of a gifted comic ensemble led by Tom Hanks.

The movie cries out for the bawdy, rompy air that filled Richard Lester's "Three Musketeers" movies, and what it gets instead is the same dispassionate "professionalism" that has made Hallström a steady fixture in a Hollywood that could do with an infusion of Casanova's own virile lifeblood.

Ponderously overlong and not even half as much fun as it should have been, The Equalizer still gets a lot of mileage out of Washington’s unassailable star presence.

All might have been forgiven were it not for a needlessly Shyamalanized ending that deserves to earn Wyatt at least 25 years for grand-theft cinema.

"Escobar” offers an odd mix of action movie, romantic melodrama and cautionary traveler’s tale, which works better than it should thanks to Del Toro’s fascinating performance and Di Stefano’s assured, muscular helming.

Unfunny, charmless and hopelessly ordinary.

This ridiculously entertaining sequel is that rare part deux that leaves you hankering for part trois. The action is, in a word, spectacular, but also playful, inventive and witty.

Sometimes a hard-hitting expose, sometimes a big-hearted crowdpleaser, Million Dollar Arm wants it both ways to be sure, but its instincts are mostly right on the money, as are its actors.

The result is something neither scary nor funny.

The Chorus is sham art and questionable entertainment, but at the very least it sends you whistling out of the theater.

Unfortunately, whenever Ledger isn't onscreen, Lords of Dogtown takes a spill.

Worms is one of those rare kiddie flicks that successfully adopt a child’s-eye view of the world, where nothing is more important than saving face on the playground and where parents are as distant and clueless as storybook giants.

The movie catches us up so profoundly in Frankie's self-destructive spiral (and gradual rehab), it's as though we’re seeing it all for the first time. I'd like to say that's because the story is true, only it isn't.

Even in the movie’s most ridiculous moments, Collet-Serra keeps the pacing brisk and knows how to divert our attention with a well-timed bit of comic relief.

Features a standout central performance by newcomer Boyd Holbrook (“The Host”), but suffers from predictable plotting and shallow characterizations that keep the movie from ever transcending the obvious.

The most affable and endearing of the recent wave of films about Indian immigrants assimilating in the West.

The thunderous clashes between armies of computer-generated Trojans and Mycenaeans, when they do arrive, feel decidedly un-epic, as though we were watching a child's toy-box war between plastic figurines. Which makes them perfectly in line with the rest of Petersen's artless approach.

Just around the halfway point, something unexpected happens -- the movie actually gets good. You can chalk that up to the delightful Alan Rickman.

The whole movie is curiously distant and flat, like a museum object encased in extra-thick glass.

An enjoyable if never electrifying record of his Unity Through Laughter stand-up tour.

If "Crash" grew a pair of cojones, it might look something like Larry Clark’s cheerfully defiant Wassup Rockers.

As in many of his films, Jaglom establishes a striking intimate rapport with his female subjects, and as the funny and bitter revelations pour forth, an activity that many men may view as something done strictly out of necessity takes on unforeseen narcotic, romantic and therapeutic dimensions.

The movie is monotonous, and by the time it gets to its climactic re-enactment of the Tate-LaBianca killings, it seems little more than the heir to "Survive!, The Zodiac Killer" and other unsavory 1970s horror cheapies that tried to turn a quick buck on real-life tragedy.