Sean Axmaker

The film is weirdly fascinating in its own maverick way.

A spirited, screwball crime-thriller with a sly heart.

There is such a joy of play in the film that it's easy to overlook the overdone performances and the lazy script shortcuts.

In a summer of comic book super-operas dense with psychological torment and sprawling well over two hours, the unpretentious efficiency of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is refreshing.

It's Waters' way of saying: It's only a movie.

"Network" it's not. Weitz doesn't have the killer instinct for merciless satire but he knows how to stage a gag and deliver a punchline.

A furiously choreographed martial-arts spectacle wrapped in a fumbling narrative.

A highly entertaining film that still packs much of the punch and the quirkiness of Willeford's novel.

Plays in spots something like a stage play smartly brought to screen.

For all the misery and emotional mess of Snow Angels, Green finds resilience and hope in the kids and even in some of the grown-ups.

The hit-and-run destructiveness of the rapacious media is nothing new, but Cordero gives his cynical take a unique setting and a queasy climax.

Unusual even for Japanese animation.

He (Chan) still can turn a silly little action comedy like this into a high-spirited, butt-kicking good time.

The result is a painful and poignant film at once empathetic and critical, more soberly unnerving than exciting, but never less than compelling.

Oliviera's mastery is a joy to experience and his bittersweet comic touch adds a loving absurdity to what could have turned maudlin or morose.

The rough, exposed emotional candor of Cheung's singing voice carries into her performance.

My Brother Is an Only Child isn't a critique of the left but a film about the consequences and responsibility of "political action." Luchetti measures social justice not in ideals but in positive change and the compassion with which it is accomplished.

Linklater powers the film with the energy and attitude and beat of his soundtrack.

Wry and dry.

The skewering of spiritualism, dogma and passive-aggressive prayer groups has an exaggerated absurdity that borders on cartoonish and Dannelly's satire is more clever than cutting.

An inspired melding of action thriller, satire and biographical drama through the looking glass of a funhouse mirror.

The result is joyous and exhilarating.

It's the kind of stunt that gets Oscar nominations and accolades. Theron turns it into a raw, bristling performance that deserves them.

Where the Wayanses flogged every last chuckle from their belabored ideas, Zucker spring-loads his gags and lets them fly in rapid-fire succession. Not everything hits the target, but he tosses so many of them off with a wink and a grin that they catch you by surprise.

Much of the film is oddly ambiguous, as if Tran used it to explore conflicts of tradition and modernity and never came up with any answers.

A slick, smart-alecky rat-a-tat crime comedy.

It's more admirable than enjoyable, beautifully crafted and artfully unpleasant.

It's a romantic fantasy of the gangster brotherhood and their doomed lives, executed with Takeshi's unique mix of stoic ruthlessness and giddy energy.