Stephen Cole

The film is never as powerful or convincing as it should be.

By hiring James Earl Jones to narrate, Disney has prepared youngsters to understand that man is equally capable of heroism and villainy.

What's so distressing about Michelle Pfeiffer taking a mooning calf for a lover, though, is that it robs her of the quality that has always made her such an interesting actress.

Like "Rebel", directed by Nicholas Ray, this film excels at capturing the nervous posturing of adolescent boys marking their territory by pissing on each other's shoes.

There is also a capable, wisecracking stewardess (Julianna Margulies) and, what a surprise, a steward who appears to be doing a Paul Lynde impersonation.

There is no getting these boys down. They are just like Lloyd and Harry in the Farrelly brothers' breakthrough 1994 hit, "Dumb & Dumber." Except that they are never, ever funny.

Scott means for his entertainment package to be hip, hysterical fun. But his stylistic embellishments and indiscriminate appetite for sensation crowds his title character right out of the film.

More than anything, the film lacks a rapport with its audience.

As expected, it has gaping holes where back stories used to be. Still, it's a historical war movie with impressive sweep, strong characterizations and the kind of idiosyncratic flourishes that made Woo such an irresistible storyteller.

We leave this movie hoping to see Miller and Lewis together again soon.

Once Bullock's character clears her head at the top of the thrill ride, Premonition becomes inescapably dull because it is her mental health, not her purposefully dull husband's fate, that interested us.

Your Mommy Kills Animals works best as a fast-moving carnival of faces and feature stories. Like most amusement-park rides, it lets you off dizzy and confused, whereas the best documentaries leave you feeling that you've come to a settled perspective on a subject.

It's Duvall and Murray who make Get Low a small, wonderful thing.

A splendid adventure sure to thrill children and fantasy buffs, while leaving everyone else passably entertained.

A little bit of "Crime and Punishment" and a whole lot of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," Revanche, the Austrian candidate for last year's Best Foreign Language Film, is a surprisingly unruffled tale of love, thievery, murder and revenge.

Tetro is Coppola's best film since Apocalypse Now because the filmmaker has abandoned conventional drama – what for him had become a straightjacket – indulging in a collage style that allows him to honour favourite filmmakers.

Barrymore's charm helps make Beverly Hills Chihuahua a congenial family outing.

Fails to ever come alive as a human comedy in the manner of the best mockumentaries.

The best Brit noir since "Croupier" is a complex, marvellously twisty thriller.

Still, what makes Sly's new film fascinating is that, 35 years after he created and starred in the ultimate little-boy fantasy, "Rocky," Stallone remains such a guileless, big-dreaming innocent.

Best when Fraser is on screen. Ian McKellen, who starred with Fraser in "Gods and Monsters," called him the most natural actor he'd worked with, marvelling at Fraser's ability to disappear into roles.

Succeeds because the subject knows she's a showbiz monster and plays her role to the hilt. She's Norma Desmond in "Sunset Blvd." or "Mommie Dearest's" Joan Crawford up from the grave.

Though elegantly staged, Silk is badly written and indifferently cast.

It is hard to say what is more despicable about The Condemned: the overtly racist portrayal of Brekel-Goldman as Jewish-media bloodsuckers, or the film's sleazeball attempt to pass off lovingly attentive sequences of ritual torture - often scenes of incredible hulks bashing cowering women - as a critique of media violence.

It is filmmaker Assayas who is the star here. France's most important contemporary director has created a work of almost magisterial calm.

A convincing, reasonably co-ordinated action movie. Nothing special, but lovers of the genre will enjoy the workouts, especially if they bring night-vision glasses.

Today, the 1985 novel is the No. 1-selling paperback in North America. Sadly, the movie is a bonfire where the novel was a blaze of fireworks.

An enjoyable time-waster, distinguished by an unexpectedly sharp comic turn by McConaughey, lots of boisterous horseplay and some stirring emotional clinches. All in all, an entirely serviceable night out for buddies looking to locate hidden feelings.

The film has enough laughs to stock a 90-minute entertainment. Unfortunately it throws out enough material to fill five comedies. And most of the jokes die in silence, throwing off a flop-sweat tsunami that carries away Short's best work.

Why bother suffering through 90 minutes of bad company for a few moments of holiday cheer? Especially when you can still stay home alone and watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" somewhere on TV.

Watching 9 , we know how 8 feels. Sci-fi fans will find heaven in Shane Acker's feature-film debut.

The Hunting Party does a good job of illustrating Winston Churchill's observation, "There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result."

Yes, it’s really complicated, life with the Rizzos. City Island probably has too many moving parts. Still, writer-director Raymond de Felitta (Two Family House) understands that a proper farce, like a good campfire, needs plenty of friction to get started.

Frozen would get props for a novel plot, except that its storyline appears to be ski-lifted from the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode where Larry is stuck on a chairlift with an Orthodox Jewish woman who is terrified of being seen with a man after sunset.

The movie's big kick – what makes Enchanted live up to its title – is that the further Giselle progresses in New York, the more we feel like we've tumbled into a timeless Disney Neverland.

The movie feels like something parents want their kids to see. Harold and Kumar wouldn't want anything to do with Beth Cooper or Denis Cooverman. You're probably not going to like them much either.

Though The Stoning of Soraya M.'s heart is in the right place, its head is lost in storm clouds of anger.

David Bowie, flaunting a Marianne Faithfull hairdo, stars in Jim Henson's latest puppety film, the flagrantly unoriginal Labyrinth. [1 Jul 1986, p.A1]

The film's broad attempts at humour are all mouldy bits from Hollywood films.

Broken Arrow conforms faithfully to the tongue-in-cheek, post-Die Hard action genre, with the usual spectacularly choreographed action sequences and rudiments of a story line. Even considering the meagre demands of the genre, though, character and plot seem woefully underbaked and the reliance on improbable solutions soon makes the groans of incredulity outnumber the gasps. [9 Feb 1996, p.C1]

Rallies in the last reel.

If Under the Same Moon is formula melodrama, the film is well acted and its lead character perceptively drawn.

Although In My Country is charged with moments of grace and feeling, the film is ultimately betrayed by the clunky Jackson-Binoche romance.

Still, even Romero's staunchest fans might conclude their hero is going through the motions here. Yes, almost like a zombie.

The Israeli film works best in isolated spots early on as a series of intriguing character studies. Upon reaching to become a lesson to the world, however, Walk on Water goes off the deep end.

Hugh Grant's Martin Tweed is nowhere as menacing (or interesting) as the callous bruiser who makes every episode of American Idol a chilling psychotic adventure.

As provocative as it is timely.

As for children's entertainment needs, well, having seen both "The Golden Compass" and Alvin and the Chipmunks with a full theatre of four- to 12-year-olds, this reviewer is honour-bound to report that Alvin wins the kids' vote, paws down.

A lamentably slack and dishonest genre exercise.

A superior entertainment to both "RE 1" and "Alien vs. Predator."

Too much diary, not enough movie.

All of this is interesting, but not all that entertaining.

There's the roller-disco music and skating, which isn't so much hot as a hoot.

Unfortunately, both Bridges and Anderson are only intermittently in the movie. And when they're not around, How to Lose Friends loses its satirical edge, becoming an alarmingly safe, almost corny romantic comedy.

A third of the way into Soul Plane, maybe earlier if you're in the right mood or with the wrong company, you might actually start to enjoy disliking the movie. Like, say, Prince's "Purple Rain," certain Joan Crawford movies, and Leslie Nielsen at his best worst, the film inspires cathartic ridicule.

The film's best and most carefully shaded performance belongs to Bacon.

Despite an evident appetite for mayhem, however, Bay is not the right guy to produce slasher movies. Horror requires intimacy.

A typically hypnotic, slow-coiling drama from 80-year-old French filmmaker, Jacques Rivette.

An amused and affectionate look at the writer who formed a crucial link between the New Journalism of the 1960s and today's blogosphere.

One of this enlightened B-movie's many pleasures is French director Jean-François Richet's handling of atmosphere and setting. Shot almost entirely at night in a blinding snowstorm, the crime drama is an intriguing remodelling of a classic film noir.

Another angry, searching document about pedophile priests, Deliver Us from Evil makes for unexpectedly gripping drama.

Sorry to disappoint anyone who saw the cast list of this film and presumed Julie Andrews was going to play the horrific serial killer Tooth Fairy from the Hannibal Lecter movies.

A botched adult romantic comedy that strands its leading player, and its audience, in a wearying, sitcom-slight battle of the sexes.

Nothing short of mesmerizing.

The best part of Jonah Hex is Josh Brolin on a horse. Especially when he's not saying anything, just moseying into or out of town. Too had he never moseys into a better movie.

After witnessing the wearying parliamentary debates among good and bad senators in recent Star Wars episodes, it's a pleasure to watch a sci-fi movie where more than just the spaceships move quickly.

Anyone interested in hearing the artist's heart-to-hearts properly translated is encouraged to seek out Leonard Cohen's flamenco serenade, "Take This Waltz."

Watching Moon is kind of like seeing a booster rocket thrust seventies' sci-fi films deeper into orbit.

The plot feels both familiar and far-fetched.

It's possible to admire the performances of stars Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger in The Burning Plain , even as you backpedal from the film, hoping the ponderous megasoap will just go away.

A comedy should provoke more than smiles. Should have characters instead of show-offs. Although often charming, Micmacs seems so pleased with itself that it hardly needs an audience.

Though not as memorable as the series on which it is based, it does the job as big-screen entertainment.

Though bathed in ecclesiastical light and a work of obvious craft and ambition, Bee Season is grimly serious and rather full of itself.

An ugly, strictly-for-meatheads comedy that can only be recommended to couples who wear matching Tie Domi Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys out on a date.

Here's something you don't see every day: a high-school comedy for old poops.

A chilling film best experienced bundled up in a sweater and scarf.

Sounds promising. What a disappointment then to report that Just Like Heaven is more like purgatory, a sweating, straining attempt to marry the wisecracking fury of the modern sitcom to the classic Rock-Doris, Cary-Kate romantic comedy.

Surely the real story of Enron is that so many accountants, lawyers, bankers and politicians were willing to call a dog a duck in order to remain happy insiders in the world's biggest pyramid scheme.

A mess of a movie – a sprawling PowerPoint argument that covers too much ground way too fast, dispensing Wikipedia-calibre essays on a variety of subjects, from a blurred bio of J. Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the atom bomb, to an unsatisfying sidebar on A.Q. Khan, the world's first door-to-door nuke salesmen.

Aniston's constituency will enjoy seeing her again in Love Happens . She's lovely and fun to be with, as always.

In a better work, the filmmaker would talk to hardcore punks about their parents, affairs, regrets, dreams and day jobs in an effort to explore the fledgling movement. Here, however, we get little more than a marathon MTV rap session, as Rachman drives about North America, yakking with aging punk heroes about the good ol' bad ol' days.

So here’s an idea: Maybe filmmakers should shoot what Ashton’s up to off-camera, because not many laughs are making it to the screen.

A stylish, sharply observed erotic mystery.

Except for one memorable interlude, the film just doesn't have near enough fun blasting spitballs at "Pirates of the Caribbean."

The rare sequel that is better than the original.

An astonishing multimedia diary.

Palindromes is a cracked American picaresque.

Few movies have captured the intoxicating effect of pop culture on kids better than Son of Rambow.

The story of Canada’s tragically unhip – Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart, charter members of a group that has sold 40 million or so albums and discs since 1973, without ever getting a whole lotta love. Never mind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Rush never even made it on American TV until funnyman Stephen Colbert invited them on The Colbert Report in 2008.

The script is terrible - a confounding mish-mash of action-thriller chases, sci-fi travelogue and phony political intrigue.

If this sounds intriguing, we should add that System of a Down is a lousy live band. And director Garapedian, for all her public-minded zeal, isn't capable of corralling her interviews and opinions into a coherent polemic.

A quirkily efficient genre exercise that knows exactly where and when to administer its cattle-prod shivers.

Like most modern action films, Shooter is too explicit, more interested in mayhem than motive.

Theodore Braun's work may well reach and convert one thousand more Adam Sterlings. Here's hoping it does. There is, however, a difference between a worthy cause and a worthy film.

A fantastic holiday toy that, amazingly enough, doesn't require batteries.

Handsomely mounted, emotionally involving sci-fi movies don't often show up in the darkened galaxies of our theatre chains. So Alvart's English-language debut is definitely a film you want to catch on the big screen. Just don't sit too close, lest you end up with a dose of pandorum.

It’s a corny, old fashioned boy-dog love story, as adorable as anything Walt Disney ever signed off on.

What’s missing in Get Him to the Greek are the supporting characters that made "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" so engaging.