Sean Axmaker

At its best, Company Man hums from one piece to the next, a harmless, good-natured, often silly spoof with a few cutting barbs and a comic showman's love of the well-executed gag.

The real gift of Elf is the simple pleasure of a sweet and funny comedy that genuinely embraces its message of holiday cheer and still has fun goofing with it.

A family-friendly remake funnier, fresher and more affecting than the flavorless original.

The battery of startling shock cuts can get repetitive and the plot has a few potholes, but the palpable atmosphere of vulnerability keeps the drama knotted in tension and the audience rooted to the teens in peril.

The echoes of Douglas Sirk melodramas and Lassie movies just add to the fun.

There is an element of murder mystery and an edge of conspiracy thriller to Chris Paine's documentary about the rise and fall of General Motors' EV1 (Electric Vehicle 1).

At times a bit stilted, a common quality of first-time directors who try too hard to sculpt every scene, but it's refreshingly bereft of slick cynicism and smart-ass snideness.

Bekmambetov's tone is so gravely serious that the drama tends to become arch and theatrical, despite sardonic punches of dark humor. But his imagery is striking (his imagination overcomes his limited budget), his style is assured and he's given the subtitle adaptation a dramatically dynamic dimension by giving the words the presence of an incantation taking physical form.

It's a simple film with a direct message, but the glimpses of the surrounding social culture that has adapted to the horrors give this Third World "How Green Was My Valley" its identity.

It moves so fast you almost forget it leaves the characters in its wake.

An old-fashioned Western with all the classic elements -- buddy loyalty, stalwart heroes, despicable villains, plenty of gunfights and marvelous wind-scoured desert landscapes -- marked by some modern ideas about relationships.

The simple, unpretentious storytelling of Unleashed is a rarity in the glut of underwritten and overproduced action films that dominate American screens today.

It's a rare film that gets smarter as it goes along, injecting a satisfying dash of pragmatism every time it seems ready to slip into either unearned idealism or cynical fatalism.

One of the Coens' more playful projects, much lighter and significantly slighter than "No Country for Old Men" or "Fargo," but it's put together with such perfection that you can't help but be won over.

It's all quite deftly played with a maturity and introspection that may take you by surprise, though Sachs is perhaps too restrained in parts.

The result is like a "Waiting for Godot" for the video-game generation.

It's more theatrical pageant than action movie, with the showy but rudimentary martial-arts action coming off like just another ritual with the players going through the motions.

Steel and Morris are simply a couple of ordinary citizens who stand up for their ideals and their rights in the face of intimidation. Which is what makes this underdog story matter.

There's no particular tragedy or triumph, merely another step in the lives of two fallible people finding a little comfort while stumbling toward happiness.

Iliadis is more visually sophisticated than Craven was in 1972 and works hard to sustain the mood and tension while still hitting the audience with blunt scenes of wincing violence. (It gets grisly and grotesque enough for gore hounds.)

Eight Legged Freaks is a B-movie-and-proud-of-it thrill ride, probably the best of its kind since "Tremors." It does just what a good creature feature is supposed to do: It entertains with laughs, gasps, gooey spectacle and a bemused sense of fun.

It's a tricky tonal dance that Watt, minor missteps aside, glides through with feeling.

Behind the narrative twists and contrived dramatic complications is a searing and scary look at dysfunction.

The story is pure speculation, Van Sant's fantasy on what may have happened during those final days of self-isolation, but he loads the film with distinctive imagery.

This is an unmistakably Asian variant on the action movie, a sleek, slick, entertaining espionage thriller in the John Woo mold.