Shawn Levy

To follow up his superb "The Host," director Joon-ho Bong has crafted a remarkable film about love, faith, determination, guilt, and honor, a full-blooded, constantly inventive movie that enthralls, entertains, horrifies and never lets go its grip.

The film does leave you with the lingering regret that you missed a hell of a good party. It is, as the kids used to say, a trip.

A handsome work of impressive sweep dotted with fine performances. It offers a few fine moments of wit, fear and emotional intimacy. But it rarely pulses with vital life.

If it touches up against the syrupy at a very few moments, it's nevertheless consistently clear-eyed and convincing.

Among the things made vividly clear here is that Jeremy cannot act.

Whatever you make of the film's politics, Luke makes a vivid impression in his most substantial role since "Antwone Fisher," and Robbins resists the temptation to make the thinly written Vos a villainous caricature.

Capitalism lacks the surprising wit of “Roger & Me” and the sobering comparative journalism of “Sicko,” and it isn’t nearly as heartfelt as “Columbine,” which poignantly and repeatedly circled back to Moore’s beloved home state of Michigan.

There's no reason to actively dislike the film, but that's not enough, not at today's ticket prices. Just because you're not despicable, after all, doesn't mean you're the pick of the litter.

The picture's strength is comedy -- but the love and crime stories too often drag, falter or just plain frustrate.

In many respects, it's Kurosawa's most sumptuous film, a feast of color, motion and sound: Considering that its brethren include "Kagemusha," "The Seven Samurai" and "Dersu Uzala," the achievement is extraordinary. [01 Dec 2000, p.26]

The animation is even more mind-blowing, if that's possible. The characters and objects seem even more palpable and real than last time. There's a thickness to bodies of the human characters and an amazing attention to detail throughout.

Made with disarming craft and cunning. Intermixed in the memories it leaves of horror and disgust are glimpses of impressive technique and savvy psychological insight.

If you loved his (Gilliam) older work -- and if you can stand the twinge of pain that beholding the lamented Ledger will surely evoke -- it’s worth a visit.

Gets under your skin without you quite being able to say when or how. It has the tact to let you draw yourself in to it.

Mostly it's inspiring: to think that a man of Antonioni's years and talents is still capable of producing such vital work.

The problem is that so little in this version of All the King's Men speaks to the here and now or even speaks clearly. It feels like a repertory exercise -- and not a very successful one at that.

The notions of sacrifice, patriotism, race and self-identity are compellingly questioned, and the battle sequences are realized with stirring intensity.

Fuqua has made three films before his newest, Tears of the Sun, and they've all begun well enough but then collapsed under the weight of his heavy-handed visual technique and his indifference to plot, character and logic.

The best thing about the film is the acting of the guys.

Lacks the poetic and romantic resonance of "Crouching Tiger," but it's got kicks aplenty -- of both the physical and the sensational kind -- and it lands them again and again.

Sometimes the best way to relate history is to tinker with it and make it feel like a living thing.

The result is a genuinely pleasing kung fu movie that kids and grown-ups can enjoy.

Films don't get more essential than this.

Handsome, professional and dutiful, but it never feels inspired.

It adds up to a truly taxing couple of hours: ham acting, visual noise, aural torture, elementary plotting and unconvincing emotions.

In the end, it's a perfectly decent, perfectly vaporous film, pretty but slight, predictable but never incompetent.

Some truly memorable moments, but they come early and, as the film wears its way along, become increasingly hard to call to mind.

With the grounded performances, a pleasant look and feel and the brains to refrain from anything more than a quiet portrait of life, The Housekeeper makes for the sort of well-seasoned meal that's so refreshing in the summertime.