Sean Axmaker

It's nothing new, but Hawke captures some evocative textures and honest moments.

All the furiousness doesn't really add up to anything, but there is grungy fun to be had in gizmo-laden art direction and the increasingly bizarre battle of wits of the weirdly warped South Korean sci-fi black comedy.

Like many of Chen's movies, which are so precise and composed and lush, it's not really emotionally engaging. It is, however, a dazzling and dynamic spectacle that risks being ridiculous to create an unreal world of the romantic imagination.

Ingeniously engineered, self-consciously clever and directed with snazzy style, it's played as a violent black comedy with often-gruesome punch lines.

It's the warmth and resolve and humility of the young men that keeps us going. It may be more ennobling than introspective, but these three earn their nobility.

The film's greatest triumph, at least on a technical level, is the amazing texture of the water, which has never looked so dramatic or convincing in an animated film.

It's entertaining if not exactly enlightening.

Sommers is a pure pop Steven Spielberg who's put his deft technical skills in the service of the ultimate rollercoaster movie ride. It's sometimes more exhausting than exciting.

Tries to both spoof the fairy tale and retell it from a fresh angle. Curiously enough, its strength lies in the clever approach, and not the goofy comedy around the edges.

It's inconsistent and it fudges the script's murkier details, but Lawrence keeps the story on track and doesn't cheat the world of Constantine."

At more than two hours, Kippur is something of an ordeal.

It's so ruthlessly witty and meticulously plotted -- unexpectedly so, given its messy dramatic sprawl -- that it delivers a satisfying kick.

A film of minor pleasures.

It's just the kind of film that you'd expect a jury led by Quentin Tarantino to choose, a bloody and brutal revenge film immersed in madness and directed with operatic intensity.

You can't help but root for Akeelah as she reclaims the pride in her talents and her achievements. That's an idea worth spelling out to a young audience.

Woven from such promising threads that you wish it was better.

Highly entertaining.

This a rapid-fire romp through "War of the Worlds," "Saw," "The Grudge" and "The Village," cut up into skits and pieced back together in some mutant jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing, delivers a barrage of low-minded gags with high-spirited energy.

Don't expect a meaningful resolution, just a bouncy comedy with some hilarious moments in the stray ricochets.

It's part Jules Verne arms-race nightmare, part James Bond gadget war and part boy's own adventure.

A pointed satire of the dumbing down of network TV with a sour tone and a broad execution.

A date film with a hook for men.

Aviva emerges undamaged for all of her trauma. That may be the most compassionate, human act Solondz has offered in his career up to now.

The guys of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe (of "Super Troopers" fame) are neither subtle nor especially ingenious. But in the age of gross-out gags and high-concept gimmicks, they throw themselves into the raucous, rude style of '70s film comedy with shameless glee.

When Rock hits he's dangerously funny. If he didn't try so hard to be liked, he'd be even more dangerous.

Cute and often clever, there's nothing particularly memorable in this computer enhanced rerun, but this harmless little comedy has an unexpected warmth that melts the frozen plot.

The resulting political thriller is more intriguing than riveting, flattened by Jewison's plodding direction and distracting use of British actors to play French characters.

The gags hit more than they miss, and Stiller has moments of inspired absurdity, but he's capable of something more cutting and clever. It's junk food moviemaking: fun to snack on, but hardly a substantial meal.

For all its impressive set pieces and breathless momentum, it's neither passionate nor urgent.

The anger and betrayal hanging in the wake of shattered relationships and conflicted identities leave an admirable untidiness where most films would force resolution. There are no easy answers here, and it's not for lack of questions.

As much a call to action as a documentary, it's a compelling and sobering lesson in the devastating effect of human industry on the planet. But a lesson nonetheless.

Like a boulder bouncing down a long hill, the momentum keeps the film barreling along to the tragic inevitability promised in the opening titles.

Ghost Town reworks "Ghost" as a romantic comedy with a miserable hero who sees dead people and is really annoyed by them.

John Travolta is nothing if not cool as Chili Palmer.

A dumb film with a great conceptual hook from a director who visualizes better than he dramatizes.

It makes for a sweet and heartwarming story even as it celebrates and justifies the entire ridiculous phenomenon that Deruddere has been spoofing all along.

So familiar you may have moments of deja vu.

A loving tribute to Hong Kong stuntmen by one of their own, the directorial debut of stuntman-turned-actor Robin Shou ("Mortal Kombat") is a wince-inducing behind-the-scenes look at the way contemporary Hong Kong action cinema is created.

A B-movie goof on an A-minus budget, Returner is a mini-epic tweaked with computer effects and one blazing gun battle after another and set to an anonymous techno-beat.

A convincing and compelling community of characters with a sure comic sense and an at times screwball sensibility.

The charisma of L'il Bow Wow's spirited screen presence turn a contemporary Cinderella gimmick and a by-the-numbers script into a better film than anyone would have expected.

Never quite shakes itself free of the tired cliche that street people are quirky, sometimes cute, and somehow privy to a spiritual purity lost to us social folk.

Gozu is prime evidence in the argument that gonzo gangster movie maverick Takashi Miike is a major director goofing on minor works.

In a summer of cardboard figures in splashy spectacles, that makes for a refreshing change, an intriguing, entertaining and altogether sweetly mystifying misfire. In other words, another quintessentially Alan Rudolph picture.

It's a passionate film powered by the righteous anger of injustice.

At best, it's an inspired piece of free-association pop art held together by sheer momentum, at worst a noisy mess of juvenile nonsense passing itself off as a movie.

Uncompromising, unpleasant and emotionally brutal, this twisted love story of emotional bondage is oddly compelling.

Empowers its 14-year-olds and comes through with a Cinderella story sure to charm every girl who isn't part of the cool clique.

This coming-of-age tale is ultimately about self, not sex.

It feels too self-satisfied, but the prickly personalities and relationships have the ring of experience.

Never quite escapes the Euro-centric blinders of its characters, but its engagement with their evolving sense of identity and story of empowerment and acceptance is nonetheless rousing.

It's a reductive moral to a story full of fascinating contradictions, but Bailey and Barbato draw a convincing line between the social and political atmosphere of the film and the culture wars of today. The issues are still very much alive.

This a film where men on both sides of the line are seasoned and efficient. Men after Mamet's own heart.

Techine has a delicate touch and these lovely moments flow with a life that Martin's heavy, stumbling psychodrama can't match.

But if her wisp of a story rushes the simple connection between the women, the actresses fill in the details with an easy, unforced intimacy.

The annoying shaky-cam style so common to such indie dramas is toned down to a dreamy sway and the image drifts in and out of focus in scenes of heightened emotions. It's like waking from a daze and getting your bearings; the effect is both unsettling and calming.

Rodriguez has the chops of a smart-aleck film school brat and the imagination of a big kid, and they come together to remake the world in the image of its young audience. It's more amusement park ride than adventure, which in this case is exactly the demographic he's reaching for.

Amanda Peet exudes her patented mix of charm, beauty, humor and smarts as the best friend who may become more than a friend.

The story is slim but the script is snappy and the film moves with a fluid rhythm that charges up to a rollercoaster pace.

The perfectly dressed surfaces couldn't be more lovely, but the long fashion show to the finale smothers the emotions under the length and the look, and Lee's insights into the messy feelings that simmer and stew in the hothouse of sex are, frankly, fairly mundane.

An acid movie flashback a la Oliver Stone.

The "guest cast" includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Allison Janney and Sarah Jessica Parker, but all are upstaged by Greg Hollimon's cheerfully corrupt Principal Blackman and Sedaris.

It never achieves the bleak poetry and tawdry tragedy of the best examples of the genre, but the understated humor is nicely played by Cusack and Thornton.

A sweet little comedy, as easygoing and warmly innocuous as the benign irony of the title.

Beautiful but empty.