Steven Rea

Illuminated by dim candles and the rare glimmer of sun, the movie is grainy, closed-in, and likely to cause spasms of claustrophobia.

Blitz captures the melancholy, the rage, the wackiness and drama of adolescence, and he gets winning performances out of his young stars.

The movie would pour nicely onto a thick stack of pancakes.

The movie is, start to finish, candy-colored angst.

Bloody, bone-chilling fun.

What a stupefying thing it is.

It's aimed at adults as much as children, with jokes that work on multiple levels, and contraptions.

Succeeds royally at building a sense of apocalyptic dread. It isn't quite so successful at sustaining that mood, and Fessenden resorts to blurry images of totemic spirit forces and stampeding moose specters to get where he's going. And where exactly is that? To a place designed to scare the bejesus out of us planet-pillaging consumers.

If the '60s sitcom McHale's Navy was a poor man's Sergeant Bilko, the new big-screen McHale is a poverty-stricken, starving-to-death, brain-dead person's answer to last year's not-so-hot Steve Martin movie, Sgt. Bilko. [19 Apr 1997, p.D08]

An astoundingly humorless, sentimental meditation on the magic wheel of life, this oddball endeavor - clearly invested with a lot of passion - is too dark for children and too dopey for adults. [02 Jun 1995, p.05]

Slackers is, well, consummately cheesy. Ugh.

"The Godfather" without Brando, "GoodFellas" without Scorsese, "The Sopranos" without Gandolfini - 10th & Wolf is all that, and less.

8 1/2 Women is a collage-y, self-reflexive sort of film that is designed to shock but more often just annoys.

Williams, going full throttle as the desperate deposed kiddie icon Rainbow Ralph, is, well, simply exhausting.

The Hip Hop Project, a documentary about Kazi and the young men and women he mentors, isn't quite as successful as Kazi himself - a Bahamian orphan and teenage street hustler who turned his life around, and got folks like Queen Latifah, Russell Simmons and Bruce Willis to help out him and his project.

An elaborately worked-over opus that's as tarted-up and artificial as Scorsese's '70s classic Mean Streets was gritty and real, Gangs of New York feels like a movie musical without the songs.

Fails on a couple of levels. It never really gives you a sense of the psychology, the root causes behind Glass' elaborate frauds... And since we don't know the why, the how becomes considerably less interesting.

At best diverting, at worst an almost self-parodic compendium of French film cliches.

Rife with dark humor, Little Otik presents a cautionary variation of the creation myth, and a warning that tampering with the natural order of things may not be such a wise idea.

I Am Legend is essentially "28 Days Later" . . ., or "28 Weeks Later" . . ., only with millions more for special effects, and with nothing approaching the heart-pounding, bloodcurdling power and smarts of the two British-made yarns.

Filmmaker Dabis based Amreeka on her own family's experiences in the rural Midwest during the first Gulf War. Although the drama heads on a predictable course, Faour brings intelligence and humor to her performance and Muallem, as the smart adolescent turned surly and scared, is likewise sharp.

Dark Blue World is "Pearl Harbor" without the product placements, without the Hollywood bombast, and certainly without the $100-million-plus budget.

Sgt. Bilko, from the late, great Phil Silvers sitcom about an incorrigible con artist scamming the daylights out of the U.S. Army, has been turned into a not-very-funny film vehicle, just as The Flintstones was transformed into a not-very-funny film vehicle, and The Beverly Hillbillies, and Dragnet before them. [29 Mar 1996, p.05]

With its polished mix of traditional and computer-generated cartooning, Treasure Planet doesn't exude the same suspense as the Disney original. You could say it's lighter on its feet -- but then there's less gravity in outer space, anyway.

It's riveting stuff, but unlike Tarantino's work - layered with casual irony, deadpan dialogue and encyclopedic pop-cult references - Killing Zoe is what it is and nothing more: a nihilistic crime film, steeped in carnage and chaos. [14 Sep 1994, p.E02]

Catfish, made on the cheap with digital video, cell-phone cams, and hidden mikes, raises all sorts of questions - about the imaginary realms that open when you click on your computer screen, about cyber-stalking, but also about journalistic ethics.

Although the story has more than a little Lion King deja vu-doo going for it, Kenai (voiced by Joaquin Phoenix) is likable as both a man, and then a bear.

For the most part, the film stays steady-on, celebrating one man's crusade - and one family's heartbreak.

A knuckleheaded period piece.

They're all dressed up to kill, with no place to go.

Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil open Scary Movie 4 with an achingly unfunny couple of minutes of severed limbs and errant hoop shots.

It's a cinematic feat, an art lover's dream, but as a moviegoing experience, Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark is something of a letdown.

Femme Fatale is glossy, glamorous cinema as collage. Maybe all the pieces of a truly good film noir are here, but the filmmaker has opted simply to toss them into the air and let them fall where they may.

This film is a philosophical musing -- a humanitarian speculation, not a drama about real people, historical figures or not, who seem fully formed.

Is Final Fantasy decent sci-fi? Yes, more than decent.

Features entertainingly brainy musings from New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman, and comments from child psychologists, friends and Marla collectors.

There are chases that feel way too long, and dialogue that feels flat. Affleck and Thurman make a handsome duo, but there's no spark between the actors.

Dark and murky, grainy and grim.

Wondrously strange and just plain wonderful.

Cross Dog Day Afternoon with This is Spinal Tap and you have the concept behind Airheads: heavy metal trio seeking record contract holds radio station employees hostage, much mayhem and moshing ensues.... Airheads isn't nearly as good as its antecedents, but it does manage to produce a stream of lowbrow laughs. Or smiles, anyway. [5 Aug 1994, p.3]

Catwoman, which talks about the "duality" inside all women (wild vs. docile, rapacious vs. cuddly), does have its guilty pleasures. Most of these come courtesy of ice queen Stone.

As for the scary business - it is, indeed, scary, delivered with an intensity that will make you think twice the next time you find yourself driving alone, or opening a closet door when no one else happens to be around.

Damon, starring in his first full-fledged action pic, brings a determined bearing and believability to the proceedings.

This movie will shake your windows and rattle your walls.

In the end, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban offers what neither of its predecessors, for all their wand-waving and witch-brooms, had: real magic.

Bobby has its heart in the right place (on its sleeve). But it doesn't have its screenplay anywhere - or at least, anywhere near the heft that its subject demands.

An overblown hodgepodge of volcano-baked desertscapes, Egyptoid-gone-baroque architecture, and gladiator-geared storm troopers with goofy headpieces, The Chronicles of Riddick bears no resemblance to the movie that spawned its namesake.

A pumped-up, plotless montage of extraordinary landscapes, colorful wildlife, and interesting people performing feats of derring-do.

An intriguing study of identity, marriage and, perhaps, madness.

The closest FF:ROTSS gets to wit is when Johnny convinces a reluctant Reed to attend a bachelor party, after promising the uptight groom-to-be that there won't be any "exotic dancers."

Michael Elliot, the Philadelphia native who wrote Just Wright as a vehicle for Latifah - and who was on set for most of the shoot - says that Common's earnestness, and eagerness, and his sense of responsibility in carrying the movie, were palpable.

In a way, The TV Set suffers from the same syndrome as the industry it's parodying: bland and compromised, it feels as if it's been fine-tuned and focus-grouped within an inch of its life.

May not plumb the depths of the female psyche, but it's stylish and frivolous in the most profound ways.

The real drama -- and poetry -- in 8 Mile are in those fiery face-offs, the hip-hop battles, as Jimmy rat-tat-tats his rap in deft flashes of spontaneous combustion.

This is a picture of quiet observation, contained emotion, the hush before the cathartic scream.

At turns funny, sweet, sad, trenchant and telling. It's a gem.

A compelling existential tableau: sweating bodies, creaking mills turned by numbed oxen, people facing the daily and seasonal cycles of life with little hope of breaking free. Behind the Sun is forceful stuff.

As stories go, The Astronaut Farmer is engaging, even if it serves up a kind of Plains State brand of Rocky-esque hooey.

Its dabs of dark comedy and stabs of gore, still rings with a sense of the real. It's electric-charged.

It's hard not to get caught up in this improbable but true follow-your-dream tale.

Scary Movie 2 has something for potheads and the potty-mouthed alike. Anyone looking for a true sequel, however, will be disappointed.

Where does Ed, which is about a baseball-playing chimp and his human sidekick, fit in the pantheon of simian cinema? Way, way down there - on a level with toe lint. [15 Mar 1996, p.5]

For all the film's gritty verisimilitude, The Messenger is not the great Iraq War movie that Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" is.

The Wolfman feels like a film reedited and reworked so many times it has lost all narrative rhythm and suspense.

Tries too hard to be playful and sensual, wacky and romantic, and comes away feeling fake and prefabricated instead.

Funny stuff.

Jaw-droppingly corny. [22 Jan 1999, p.03]

Whether he's smacking into an iceberg or flopping topless onto a sandy beach, DiCaprio is still maddeningly lightweight.

Where "Run Lola Run" was like a perpetual-motion machine, The International seems to forever be stopping in its own tracks. Tykwer takes coffee breaks to explain the convoluted and dicey plot.

Compared to "Ray," which takes Ray Charles' unique life story and manages to make it feel like a cliche, Kinsey is total sophistication and nuance.

Like the old and creaky Belafonte, the film itself seems forever on the brink of drifting away. But it's the kind of drifting that's nothing but enjoyable. In fact, it's beyond enjoyable - heading into waters full of whimsy, mystery and odd, psychedelic fish.

Little kidniks with an appetite for zap-pow silliness might find this to their liking. Everyone else, beware.

If that sounds a lot like Rushmore, it is, except that the heart has been sucked out of the thing -- replaced by glib chatter, gratuitous Baudelaire references, and distracting product placement.

This unabashedly stupid comedy is, well, unabashedly stupid.

The great thing about Venus - apart from its sharp eye for the daily routines and drab details of senior citizenry in a buzzing metropolis - is that it isn't soppy, or sentimental.

What it lacks, though, is any sense that these people - are real.

300 is "Gladiator" for the gamer set.

Labaki, who studied filmmaking in Lebanon and France, has a deft touch and nice instincts.

With no-nonsense narration by Peter Coyote and a soundtrack that's at once apt, ironic and really, really good, The Smartest Guys in the Room is anything but a dry dissection of a major Wall Street debacle.

Bier knows what she's doing, and the performances are expert and affecting. But this meditation on love -- and love's bad timing -- is also improbably accommodating to its characters' respective longings.

For Piaf fans, La Vie en Rose is a must-see. For fans yet-to-be, Dahan and Cotillard's film is an opportunity rich with discovery.

It's a lush, lovely dreamscape of a movie, steeped in familiar vernacular (film noir), yet capable of shooting off in totally unfamiliar, surreal directions.

I could make a joke here about the new Pokemon movie.

A disaster of a disaster movie that veers from the parodic to the preposterous. [6 Dec 1996, p.03]

Diaz works that trademark mix of ditziness, sexiness, and brassiness.

The MST3K folks have gone all-out and found a movie in actual color to lampoon: This Island Earth, a 1954 Universal sci-fier with a no-star cast, low-tech special effects and a logic-defying plot. It's a perfect vehicle for Mike, Servo and Crow to go after - and following a brief prologue that brings MST3K novices up to date, that's exactly what they do. [19 Apr 1996, p.03]

Skarsgard's performance is bold and raw (and reminiscent of vintage Jack Lemmon in its earnestness).

Despite some jaunty performances and its pretty Cotswolds locale, the film, in the end, is hardly a pleasure at all.

Pulls off a neat trick: It's a poignant, sweet-natured love story in which what most of us would call kinky sex - domination, submission, some enthusiastic spanking - is featured prominently, but not pruriently.

It has enough buzzing wit and eye-popping animation to win over the kids - and probably more than a few parents, too.

2 Days in the Valley has a real sense of place, and a pace that allows time to discover its characters' twisted troubles and fears. They may be a mess, but the movie, happily, isn't. [27 Sept 1996, p.03]

Kick-Ass has punk energy, ace action moves, and a winning sense of absurdist fun.

lLght and likable - a low-budget "Steel Magnolias" without pretense.

Plays around with some interesting notions, such as the nature of reality, the nature of humanity, and the nature of spiffy apartments with sleek bathroom fixtures.

Never as much fun as (Woo's) old Chow Yun Fat-starring Chinese pics.

May strain credulity, but it still leaves a memorable mark.

An exotic throwback to the kind of movies that John Huston used to make, where on-the-lam expatriates, tubby guys with tinny accents, and sinister locals convene in a ramshackle but seductive foreign burg -- and corruption, conflict and come-ons from a sultry female or two ensue.

Bedtime Stories does have a comic buoyancy, even as its plot trots on a predictable course. Perhaps the different accents and sensibilities have something to do with that.

Terribly slight and a little off.

Tully is at turns heartbreaking and heart-stirring. And it's from the heartland, so I guess that makes perfect sense.

Ann Savage, the femme fatale from a slew of old Hollywood noirs, is savagely funny as Maddin's beauty-parlor proprietress mom.

Lakeview Terrace's pretense at exploring racial intolerance has been exposed for what it really is: a B-movie copout.

Bittersweet and funny.

Full of forced jocularity and drawing-room hissy fits, with its cast parading around in vintage threads and antique cars, Easy Virtue is a close-to-insufferable souffle based on the 1925 Noel Coward play.

Offers a fascinating chronicle of the birth, glory days and waning years of a motorcycle-jacketed, bowl-haircutted quartet of middle-class geeks who unwittingly spawned the punk movement.

Has to be among the worst movies ever made.

With a moody overlay of songs supplied by Okkervil River and Shearwater, In Search of a Midnight Kiss also serves as a millennial's answer to Woody Allen's "Manhattan."

Polley's performance is pitch-perfect.

If Taking Lives starts off with a modicum of wit and creepy-crawly scares, it winds up somewhere else altogether: in the cliche-strewn land of preposterous red herrings.

Catastrophically overdone.

Caouette's fractured history is imbued with heart-crushing sincerity.

If Running Scared had come out in 1994, before "Pulp Fiction," it - and Kramer - would be hailed as blazingly original. But questions of originality notwithstanding, there's plenty of blazing going on here.

It's not that Fay Grim isn't amusing. It is, in that deadpan, skewed way that indie auteur Hartley's pics always are. But there's not much else going on here.

Feels downright ancient.

Impossibly arty and, at times, narratively incoherent, Filth and Wisdom still has its goofy charms.

Forceful, heart-wrenching stuff.

This pleasant but predictable affair does one thing very well: showcasing the versatility of Chiwetel Ejiofor. The London actor can be seen as Denzel Washington's detective sidekick in "Inside Man." Watch him chomp down on a New York accent with Washington, and then watch him as Lola (a.k.a. Simon), a cabaret performer in makeup, wig and wild gowns. That's acting.

It is possible to bring substance, as well as poetry, to the vignette form, but more often Paris, Je T'Aime is merely mundane.

It's quite a celebration.

While Choke, adapted for the screen and directed by Clark Gregg, is by no means a disaster, it is disappointing - and oddly dull.

The Hornitor and Scorpitron vs. Ninja Falcon Megazord matchup, produced with a snazzy mix of models and computer animation, deftly evokes the spirit of good ol' Godzilla movies and Japanese cartoons. It'll have you standing in your seat yelling, Go! Go! Power Rangers! Or, at the very least, keep you from dozing off. [30 June 1995, p.05]

Wily, sad, funny, and full of life.

For a movie about community and forgiveness, family and grace, Pieces of April is refreshingly unsappy.

It's a masterpiece.

A heartbreaking film that speaks to the lifelong aftershocks of war, and to the powerful bonds of family and of love.

How to count the ways that Be Cool isn't? For one thing, it looks terrible: grainy, ill-lit, edited with blunt, rusty shears.

Teeming with socially awkward misfits, Gentlemen Broncos is not without its absurdist charms, although Hess (who co-scripted with his wife, Jerusha) pushes the envelope in ways it doesn't need pushing.

At the heart of the film, Polley - with her wary, unsure stares, her open smile and beguiling intelligence - is terrific.

A spare and moving study of regret and redemption, marked with chilling truths about a life behind bars.

Boy, can Harvey Keitel be bad -- and not bad like "Bad Lieutenant," bad like bad acting.

Intriguing, provocative stuff.

Never less than engaging.

Both a concert film and a more intimate thing: a fascinating, fly-on-the-wall (or fly-in-the-dining-car) glimpse of some clearly blotto rock legends talking, singing, hanging out. The fact that a good number of them are now dead makes it doubly memorable.

Fiennes does this sort of inner pain thing exceedingly well, Tyler is beguiling and believable, and there is an edge of wit and grace to the proceedings.

A powerful film.

Lacks an essential sense of purpose.

Zooms along with confidence, smarts, and some of the coolest car chases this side of the Indy 500.

It's quite a lot of fun.

Brothers is about how people change, how they can rise to an occasion, or sink to one. It's a tale of love and allegiance, of truth and the cruelties that men can bring to bear on one another.

It says in the beginning of the film that Two for the Money is "inspired by a true story." Problem is, it's just not that inspired.

To say this bone-chilling, gut-turning feature is "The Crying Game"-meets-"In Cold Blood." But this is a film - writer/director Peirce's first - that matches those pictures in power, in surprise, and in unnerving drama.

Affleck is more interested in the people in the midst of the action than he is in the action itself, and that gives this accomplished genre piece considerable and compelling depth.

As scripted by Cathy Rabin and directed by Santosh Sivan, Before the Rains is never less than compelling, but never more than adequately realized.

Visually dazzling but ultimately dizzying ride, a trippy suspenser that gets tripped up on its own deja vu voodoo.

An exquisite exploration into the realms of seduction, obsession, deception and disillusionment.

A mischievously inventive, surreal entertainment, one that celebrates not only Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight and Nutty Crunch Surprise but Busby Berkeley, Stanley Kubrick, the Beatles, and the outer-space acting choices of one Johnny Depp - not to mention those bushy-tailed rodents in all their bustling splendor.

A black comedy, a character study, and a thriller, Lord of War lacks the gritty, hell-bent hilarity of David O. Russell's contemporary war pic, "Three Kings."

That's what Blue Crush is getting at: girls going for the gold in a sport that's traditionally been the domain of men.

Emily Watson, looking at home in her '40s frocks, plays Angus' mother - coping not only with her son's obsession with what she believes to be an imaginary friend, but also with her own worry and grief about her husband at war.

A dour-faced but sublime comedy about the kindness of strangers -- and about the strangeness of people who find themselves in oddball moments of grace.

The contrast to Ramis' last picture, the inspired Groundhog Day, is marked. [12 Apr 1995, p.F03]

If that sounds highbrow and pretentious, it's not. The neat trick of Tristram Shandy is that the whole thing comes off as a lark.

The heart of the matter - and the viscera - is the action, and one man's determination to survive. Apocalypto is primal.

Washington offers another of his rock-steady performances, playing a career civil servant with a couple of secrets of his own, but confident, diligent, ready to go the distance for the city he loves.

Fails to provide one essential ingredient: suspense.

Undertow has the plain, stark, disturbing quality that marked the original "Cape Fear" and "In Cold Blood."

Yes, there's a hastily added new ending - an ending that doesn't make sense when you think about it. Not that it's worth the effort

It's a big stuffed turkey of a movie, just in time for the holidays.

Williamson's screenplay doesn't match the cleverness of his conceit; it lacks the requisite archness and wit.

Isn't as strong a film as it could have been: Only teasing slices of these people's lives are offered.

Deftly filmed and directed by Jean-François Richet.

Easy to like, and easy to forget.

Doesn't run very deep, or resonate with profound meaning. But as a thoughtful fable, laced with humor, the picture has its charms.

A mordantly funny, clear-eyed view of an extended family's mounting dysfunction in a changing society.

An examination of loneliness and the need to connect in an increasingly disconnected world, What Happened Was . . . is disturbing, funny and unpredictable in the way people themselves are disturbing, funny and unpredictable. [07 Oct 1994, p.05]

Offers a view of war that is anything but epic. Instead of sweeping battles and swooping fighter planes, in Lebanon we are brought into the impossibly claustrophobic world of a lone tank crew.

Rohmer pulls off a wonderful feat: celebrating the elegance, and artifice, of another era at the same time he brings this tale of social upheaval boldly into the present.

Doesn't have the dramatic heft to warrant all its angst and anguish.

A smart comedy that serves as both bittersweet coming-of-age tale and '90s nostalgia piece, The Wackness has the feel of authenticity about it, even if some of its details (the ice cream cart, and the therapist's bong, for two) seem a bit much.

A harmless and mildly amusing family comedy.

Patric and Liotta get the chance to do some heavy riffing on themes of honor, sacrifice, selling out and self-destructing, and the bleak, smeared world of drugs and violence is brought to the fore with feverish style.

A sleek little meditation on beauty, desire, love and time. Now and then, it's fairly sophisticated stuff.

Satire should be knife-sharp and whip-smart, and The Nanny Diaries never is.

Gimmicky artifice.

Zany screwball farce.

Duplicity zips from one elaborate piece of hugger-mugger to the next. But at a certain point (for me, it was Rome), boredom sets in.

A frightening portrait of corruption, cynicism, intimidation, greed and violence, Gomorrah is tough stuff.

A heart-grabbing, awe-inspiring work that needs no embellishment.

Relationships - between men and women, fathers and sons - are more complicated in real life, and The Boys Are Back deftly acknowledges that fact.

Despite its familiar formula, feels fresh.

If you're in the mood for some enjoyable depravity, Bitter Moon is quite a trip. [15 Apr 1994, p.05]

A stage-y but likable ensemble piece.

Perhaps to compensate for the absence of compelling drama and tension (and a few continuity gaffes), Scott has retreated to his TV commercial roots and crammed Hannibal full of busy, art-directed visuals.

It shows how the energy, and innocence, of children can be found - and fostered - in even the bleakest spots on earth.

This tale of a white mother's kid gone missing in a black New Jersey neighborhood - and the tensions and news media attention that ensue - is pretty much pure jive.

Serrill has shot and edited The Heart of the Game in straightforward documentary style, with a narration by the rapper and actor Ludacris. But the dramas going on here, on and off the court, more than make up for any lack of flash.

Maybe it's time for a moratorium on Ike-era coming-of-age pictures. Going All the Way, a faithful but belabored adaptation of Dan Wakefield's autobiographical 1970 novel, certainly suggests that it is. [10 Oct 1997, p.04]

Has two or three booming and intense action sequences that may leave the littlest audience members more quaking than charmed. But the notion of having a pet dragon - just like a pet whale, or a pet lion - is a scenario that should appeal to children of all ages.

The contrast in lifestyles is striking, and I suppose one of the themes that Babies is trying to get at is that despite chasm-wide economic and societal differences, infants are really all the same.

It's a character study, nicely realized.

Often ingenious, funny and unnerving. [14 Oct 1994, p.14]

With the raunch quotient cranked up several notches, the sequel is calculated, cynical and, worse, not funny.

It's not dull, exactly, but neither is it much fun.

Directed in workmanlike style by Underworld: Evolution's Len Wiseman, has its share of wild stunts and spectacular carnage, but it feels pokey and predictable, too.

Funny, fear-inducing, with periods of voyeuristic gore and an undercurrent of anxiety and dread, Let the Right One In is up there with the bloodsucking classics.

A sharp, intricate political drama.

Entertainingly goofy for about 30 minutes. And then, for the next two hours-plus, it's agony.

For a comedy about autoerotic asphyxiation, epic deception, and shameless exploitation, World's Greatest Dad is a surprisingly sweet and tender affair.

The problem with The Perfect Storm is that while its roiling collision of weather systems is pulled off with cinematic deftness, the actors who stand there getting lashed and splashed don't have anything terribly interesting to say.

Stevie is compelling, real-life drama: bleak and disturbing, but illuminating all the same.

Long, lumbering and endlessly unfunny.

The best thing about The Life Before Her Eyes, a somber meditation on fate and friendship, is the way it captures the close relationship between two teenage girls.

Shot in simple, elegant black and white, unfolding at a measured pace, The Wild Child is fascinating not only for its Tarzan-like true-life story, but also for what it says about the process of nurturing and educating children, and the tools we use - language, discipline, affection - to do so. [20 Feb 2009, p.W05]

A wistful little thing about regret, jealousy and love.

Apocalyptically awful romantic comedy.

Filled with breathtaking shots of crazed nutballs on skis plummeting down pitched peaks at high speed, Steep is a visually exhilarating sports documentary that is also more than a little exasperating.

The best reason to see Along Came Polly is the supporting cast.

It addresses the essential human need for dignity, for freedom, for mastery over one's life.

Hoodwinked may be a poor cousin to the Shrek franchise, but this made-on-the-cheap computer-animated feature still has more style and snarky gags than Disney's recent CG hit, "Chicken Little."

Alas, something happened on the book-to-screen operating table: Yes, Running With Scissors is rich, twisted, insane, mordant and ridiculous, but it is not funny. Not at all.

Unravels a bit heading toward its finale, as buildings explode and characters are forced to explain themselves and their nefarious motives. But the payoff at the end - at once kind of radical and gratuitous - delivers a wallop.

Dinner for Schmucks goes up in flames. Amusingly, perhaps -- but creatively, too.

A syrupy and extraordinarily ridiculous adaptation.

A stale and stupid thriller.

At once noble and naive, earnest and a tad obnoxious.

Greenberg, with Stiller's sad and self-mocking portrait at its core, is well worth getting to know.

Creepy and compelling and beautifully shot, The Devil's Backbone is a tale of the supernatural that feels completely natural. Its realness is what makes it so scary.

Is Auto Focus a cautionary tale or just a morbid, voyeuristic foray into kitsch and kink? Whatever it is, it's not pretty - it's the cinematic equivalent of soiled, stained sheets. You'll want to run out of the theater straight to a Laundromat.

There's a loneliness at the heart of this world, and Ghost World, that's really touching -- and a bit scary, too.

Their apartments are chic, the architecture is impressive, the restaurants richly appointed. And yet, while the atmosphere and cinematography of director Leon Ichaso's grandly conceived movie evoke The Godfather series (as does its theme of brother vs. brother in a criminal underworld), Barry Michael Cooper's screenplay falls short of any such epic design. [25 Feb 1994, p.03]

Parents in a masochistic mood can compound the headache-inducing experience by paying extra for the 3-D version.

So disturbing, on so many levels.

Piles dumb gag upon dumb gag - it's like benign pummeling. Occasionally, you just have to laugh.

A terrific mystery, equal parts haunting love story and nimble thriller.

Steeped in quiet despair, Lantana is a psychological thriller that emphasizes the psychology over the thrills. It's a smart, heart-twisting picture.

A winner.

The Edge isn't particularly deep stuff, but Tamahori isn't a particularly deep filmmaker - he's just really, really good, with an affinity for the natural landscape that comes across brilliantly on screen. [26 Sep 1997, p.03]

With its rebellious themes and pharmaceutical props - Ritalin, Prozac, Xanax all get doled out - Charlie Bartlett isn't going to win any awards from parent-teacher groups. But the underlying message of the film, with its nods to "Catcher in the Rye" and - '70s throwback here - "Harold and Maude," is a good one.

The "black Godfather" comes off as a cold-blooded narcissist whose vision of the American Dream is as twisted as it seems to have been rewarding.

Where the first pic breezed along with gags and gunplay, this forced follow-up is artificial to the hilt - fueled on a kind of trying-too-hard hilarity that makes even good actors look bad.

Offers two hours of luxury and loveliness, music and art, and a bit of sexually charged madness, too.

There's little of the seen-it-all, wise-guy acerbity that made his character in the X-Men trilogy stand apart from his fellow mutants. Here, he just glowers.

It's getting tiresome, this stuff.

Awash in nostalgia and amped-up male camaraderie, Richard Curtis' Pirate Radio takes a great story - the hugely popular offshore radio stations that illegally broadcast pop and rock in 1960s Britain - and turns it into an aggressively irritating floating frat-party romp.

A Very Long Engagement is "Cold Mountain" with French people.

For soccer aficionados, Kicking & Screaming boasts some fairly cool play, courtesy of Alessandro Ruggiero and Francesco Liotti, two kids who play "the Italians."

In the end, this earnest, inquisitive film leaves the viewer longing for some sanity, and some hope, in a world that appears to be seriously lacking in both.

Smoking, shouting, practically shooting off sparks, Cruz spreads a wildfire sexuality across Allen's sunny tableau of Catalan country picnics and scenic Barcelona ramblings.

There are, to be sure, some impressive special effects here, and whoever Warner Bros. hires to make the new Superman movie should take notes.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is at once inspiring and horrific.

Sappy, sentimental and redeemed only by the quiet radiance and fidgety intelligence of its leads, Last Chance Harvey is a fantasy about mopey middle-agers getting a second chance at love.

Full disclosure: I saw Monsters vs. Aliens in 2-D. No dorky plastic glasses, no alien ooze flying at my head. More full disclosure: I liked it.

Ultimately, 44 Inch Chest has very little on its mind.

A mild and merry romp about family, friends and sexual identity.

A merrily macabre things-we-do-for-love yarn.

The movie is hipper than its L.A. establishment credentials would suggest.

An entertainingly hairy paranormal affair.

A pitch-perfect portrait of a man full of inspiration and ambition - and full of himself.

Never going to be remembered as a tying-the-knot screwball classic (it probably won't be remembered past March), but one could do worse.

There's a fine line between stupid comedy that's actually pretty smart and stupid comedy that's just dumb, and The Other Guys crosses the line - into realms of unredeeming dunderheadedness - more often than it should.

Definitely, Maybe gets too coy in spots, and Brooks is a sharper writer at this point in his career than he is a director. But for a film with a half-dozen fully-formed characters that spans 15 years and works in a swell detail about a 1943 edition of "Jane Eyre" - well, it definitely works. No maybes about it.

No amount of accomplished acting and directorial skill can conceal the fundamental silliness of Outbreak's storyline, its inconsistencies, and the miraculous coincidences necessitated by its plot. [10 Mar 1995, p.3]

Abounds with zero-gravity action ballet, frisky interludes of sapphic foreplay, and weepy drama about doomed love. The film also has an irresistibly kitschy theme song: "Close to You," the treacly Burt Bacharach-Hal David smash by the Carpenters.

Wendy and Lucy is modest, minimalist. But it nonetheless reverberates like a sonic boom.

With its themes of family tradition, heated passion and parent-daughter conflict - not to mention lots of splendid preparing-the-meals sequences in the Aragon kitchen, and not to mention the contents of Keanu's case - A Walk in the Clouds could just as easily been called Like Wine for Chocolate. But anyone hoping for a second helping of the sensual romance of Like Water for Chocolate will come away disappointed. The movie's glinting incandescence is oppressive. [11 Aug 1995, p.14]

The movie devolves into a kind of high-tech Flash Gordon, with Ra as a cross- dressed Ming and Russell and Spader as the heroes required to chase big lugs with ray-guns around the inside of a pyramid. Things get pretty brainless before it's over, although Russell does get to deliver a great send-off line. [28 Oct 1994, p.5]

Invincible works, simply but provocatively, as a parable about the oppressed and the oppressors, victimhood and fanaticism.

Takes startling - and startlingly unpleasant - turns. This is not a film with anything approximating a conventional ending.

Aimed at teens and tweens, the almost-squeaky-clean Step Up 3-D shamelessly piles on the corn, stacking it so high that it's bound to tilt over and collapse.

A collection of double entendres that would make a stevedore blush.

It's a performance that will make you cringe - with despair, with empathy - as Gosling's Dan takes one self-destructive step after another.

I'm not sure what kids are going to make of Matilda and its perception of an adult world crawling with menacing, malevolent despots. They'll probably love it - and the film's resourceful, resilient star. Parents, on the other hand, might be squirming in their seats from DeVito's unrelenting send-up of the crass and the cruel. [02 Aug 1996, p.05]