Shawn Levy

This much is guaranteed: You won't leave thinking you've seen the like before.

Somewhat marred by Bruno Coulais' treacly New Age score -- as well as by Perrin's somewhat daft and repetitive narration. But the key word is "somewhat." In the main, Winged Migration is an unforgettable piece of moviemaking.

Hogan whips up a high-energy family entertainment that fairly erases memory of the other filmed versions of Barrie's tale.

A feel-good movie that doesn't think it needs to rub people's noses in the happy stuff to get its points across or eliminate all the disturbing shades to make a uniformly glowing whole.

Beautiful, thoughtful and engrossing.

Gosling, who was amazing in "The Believer" but hasn't yet connected substantially with a big audience, continues to impress.

No other sporting figure has ever been afforded so much screen time for self-revelation: just another instance of Iron Mike's one-of-a-kind status.

Cage is superb as a hollowed-out, ferocious man of action chasing his demons recklessly with machine gun firing away.

Never loses sight of the human beings at the heart of the conflict -- no matter what side of the conflict they're on.

In the main, this is powerful and comely filmmaking, and the decision to shoot it with virtually unknown actors and a variety of unfamiliar tongues is commendable.

A gentle movie with heart, spirit and wit.

An assured and gripping political drama filled with remarkable performances and razor-sharp writing and editing.

It's a film that triumphs in small ways and satisfyingly demonstrates how our human nature is based on both the eccentricity of our hearts and the quirky workings of our heads.

The film is big and sprawling and moves with fiery energy -- there's little or no exposition or explanation between scenes or episodes, yielding a breakneck pace.

This is the first full-length movie about his painting and his being that gets anywhere near close to comprehending both.

Allen's filmmaking technique isn't what it once was, true. But at age 75 he still manages to keep a spry pace going even if something less than impeccable craft hobbles the photography and editing.

A big-hearted French movie that shines with wit, beauty, humor, sunshine and the love of love.

It's long, like life, but like life it continually fascinates.

A clever and affecting thriller/comedy about a subject that absolutely cannot be written about in a daily newspaper or website that's for a general audience. The film is a giddy pastiche of styles -- slasher picture, faith film, social satire, teen romp, '50s atom bomb monster movie -- and it makes you laugh and squirm and grin in appreciation.

Inventive, droll and sharp, the film is rich in comic darkness but quite humane and genuine as well.

It's a film full of clever moments that may at first seem cheeky but come to feel inspired, with a third act (which only a churl would describe) that rises to a dizzyingly heightened level of metaphysics and mayhem.

Pure, light entertainment.

The second action melodrama released in the United States this year by director Zhang Yimou, and if I prefer the previous one, "Hero," it's partly a matter of degrees.

Some movies uses make-believe to make you squirm or cry or rise to righteous anger. Bully does all of that with reality.

Feels like a lost film from the '60s in the very best way: unstructured and intrepid and free. As a result, it's sometimes a little indulgent and overlong. But, like its hero, it's never less than sincere in its search for truth and beauty, even as it stares death in the eye.

Pieces of War Horse that may charm some eyes might well bore others to tears.

An absorbing, entertaining, amusing and wrenching film.

A smart and engaging entertainment.

The film is like a lot like Effie: It occasionally vexes or disappoints, but -- I am telling you -- it dazzles.

The result is an experience of painful awakenings, gorgeous textures, committed acting and silences filled with moment -- a lovely balancing act

For all the ostensible immaturity of its form, Fantastic Mr. Fox is the most grown-up thing the director has done in years.

There's quality, wit and emotion throughout.

Long and slow, granted, but it's so peppered with moments of realism and nuanced craft that it continually rewards careful viewing.

When Bekmambetov is in full stride and the gore, oaths and silver bullets are flying, it's a kick. The title may sound like a joke, but Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is serious fun.

For its sheer visual gusto alone, Coraline is a wonder.

More than just a good crime story about the guilt or innocence of Arnold and Jesse Friedman. It's also a fascinating portrait of a seemingly normal middle-class family crumbling before our eyes.

A dense, sharp, hilarious and unflinching film about a group of British Muslims who seek to shock the world with an apocalyptic act of jihad but are too dumb, contentious and accident-prone to succeed at anything much more audacious than ringing a doorbell and running.

How pleasant to report, then, that a new romantic comedy -- small, smart, funny, tender and dear -- should emerge from a pair of filmmaking brothers still in their 30s and with a distinct indie film pedigree that informs, while not dominating, their work.

It may not be a great movie, but the acting in it is amazing.

It's energetic and occasionally inspired. Its gritty, sweaty, shiny feel deepens the case that there's a vital new essence to Brazilian cinema.

Price of Glory won't make anyone forget "Raging Bull" or "Rocky."

Is it dreary, stingy and strained? Well, yes: it's Jane Eyre, after all. But it's also robust and full-blooded and forceful: it's Jane Eyre, after all.

It may not add up to a narrative, but it's a fascinating compilation -- a mixtape you may want to hear more than once.

The result is minor Gilliam: still more engaging than most moviemaking, but nonetheless a letdown after such a long wait.

Fact is, Starting Out is pretty dry stuff as a movie, even as it's enlivened by vivid acting.

It's a film that's at once too much and not enough, laughable and groovy, dead serious and a total joke. And I mean no disrespect by any of that.

It's a breezy and charming film in all, well-acted, playful and filled with real joie de vivre.

Stunning in its violence and fascinating in its ironbound focus.

With all this raw material, it's a puzzlement and an annoyance that Parker feels so obligated to interpose fantastic elements and comic action sequences and other tacky touches. As a result, while this "Earnest" is lively fun, it never quite feels sufficiently important.

You can imagine a better adaptation of The Hunger Games, but you can much more easily imagine a far worse one, and all in all that's not a bad outcome.

A work of incompleteness, might-have-beens and moral subtleties befitting a filmmaker named Gray.

There simply isn't enough footage of their protagonist just being Bill Hicks the guy and not Bill Hicks the comic. Surely he had some interviews or other artifacts they could have used along with all the comedy routines.

Alas, Robbins is far more interesting than Cruise, and you wonder what the film would have been like if their roles were reversed -- if Robbins were the loser in search of redemption and Cruise the agitated freak in the basement.

The actors are all perfect and yet not. Christie, most obviously, is simply too gorgeous, even when she's meant to be rattled and lost; Pinsent is too credibly stolid; Dukakis never vanquishes an impression of sourness. These may be quibbles, but they add up.

Frequently gory, often talky, almost always watchable, never quite thrilling, Gladiator is a cold and big film that mixes solid acting with cheesy digital effects and sweaty action with stultifying chatter.

It's amusing enough and breezy enough not to disappoint. But it never dazzles or challenges or truly delights. And that leaves me fairly certain that whatever Bart Simpson would say about it probably couldn't be printed in a family newspaper.

Gives us a fresh way to think not only about movies but about the town in which so many of them are made, and in that regard it's kind of amazing.

Lebanon isn't as resonant as the haunting mix of autobiography and animation in "Waltz with Bashir," which dealt with the same war. Still, the film's fresh craft promises more from a director who turns the tiniest possible of settings into a sobering metaphor for the madness of a larger world.

It has a dickens of a time telling a story.

It's a handsome film with a palpable core of piety, but it isn't as successful in depicting secular events as spiritual ones.

A lot of what happens is gross, puerile and gratuitous, granted, but Helms and Galifianakis are truly funny in offbeat fashion, and the script allows Phillips room for some brilliant slapstick. You will not be ennobled. But you will be entertained.

It's a melodrama, but played with rigorous and surehanded spareness, and it never panders, even as it gets a mite hysterical near the end.

Clever and charming.

It's not great moviemaking -- it isn't as accomplished or funny as the best of the Farrelly brothers' films, say -- but it's got real appeal.

It starts as clever, but it ends in real feeling.

It's hard to overestimate what a job of work was accomplished here to keep this from being a catastrophe. But The Lake House, despite its dubious foundation, proves surprisingly sturdy.

It's best seen as a breezy entertainment and a reminder of how potent some of these performers -- many of whom are dead -- were in their primes.

Marnie is merely a marginal work by director Alfred Hitchcock, meaning, naturally, that it's superior to all but the best works of almost every other director ever. [02 Jun 2000]

At one and the same time it feels like a decent-but-not-great film of his '70s period and a perky and tart entry in his modestly successful revival in the last half-decade. Neat trick.

It’s not a great film, but parts of it are outstanding.

The highlights are the writing and the performances. There are real laughs to be had -- several scenes end on sharp, witty shards of dialogue. And whenever Eckhart, Northam or Ehle is the focus, the thing soars.

The film is filled with cool little scenes of fighting and shape-shifting, and gloomy atmosphere. Subtitles themselves have morphed into gimmicks -- sometimes they float, sometimes they dissolve, sometimes they appear in unexpected places in the frame. It's all darned nifty.