Todd McCarthy

Dazzlingly well made and perhaps deliberately less fanciful than the previous entries, this one is played in a mode closer to palpable life-or-death drama than any of the others and is quite effective as such.

First-time helmer Jan De Bont, the ace lenser of most of Paul Verhoeven's films as well as "Die Hard" and numerous other large-scale pix, handles the action with great nimbleness and dexterity; film can hardly be faulted for its visual presentation of very complex action.

A great title in search of a movie to live up to it, this startlingly uneventful compendium of thick-headed boy-talk and female tolerance squanders a fine cast on incredibly ordinary characters and situations.

An intermittently compelling and occasionally hilarious road movie.

Nearly every scene offers a general backdrop of tragic sadness leavened by the quotidian necessity of fulfilling basic requirements, doing a job, tending to the moment-to-moment needs of others and finding hope wherever one can.

Sedentary at these encounters may be, they are also frequently riveting and invariably fascinating, as they provide first-hand accounts and insider insights of the sort infrequently heard. These almost invariably underline the significance of the film's title in the scheme of diplomacy and rewardingly reveal the hopes and regrets that come with the territory.

Even if the film is mostly hitting familiar notes in terms of story and theme, it expresses a concise, focused and expertly managed vision with which there’s little to quibble, and the extraordinary style represents the fruition of a long-imagined dream on the part of many directors and cinematographers. From now on, when the discussion turns to great works of cinematography and camera operating, 1917 will always have to be high on the list.

A nice looking but heavily formulaic DreamWorks animation entry.

Working with a script by first-time writer Rebecca Blunt, Soderbergh has made the sort of breezy, unpretentious, just-for-fun film that scarcely exists anymore, one almost anyone could enjoy.

It's exceedingly linear structure, while unavoidable, renders it rather methodical and shallow in characterization.

A disappointingly routine thriller that prefers to lean on tired Hollywood conventions rather than to explore fresh dramatic and stylistic territory.

An enormously entertaining slice of biographical drama, The Aviator flies like one of Howard Hughes' record-setting speed airplanes.

It's as if Neville, inspired by the scattershot commentary of the party guests in Wind, felt he'd been given permission to be a bit wild, even chaotic, with his documentary film style, an approach that proves both apt and a bit frustrating.

While rambunctious and passably humorous, this offspring isn't nearly as imaginative and nimble-minded as the forerunner that spawned it.

One of the very best directed animated films on record. Not surprisingly from the force behind the "Babe" movies, the attention to detail is phenomenal, the humor ample.

The psychological dimensions of the story remain underrealized, but the loaded central premise and intimate focus the film sustains combine for a very involving and dramatic piece of crime lore.

This overwrought and egregiously self-serious thriller about the poisonous fruit borne of child abuse grows more ridiculous by the quarter-hour and is poised for a theatrical life span scarcely longer than that of its eponymous insect.

A pictorially unusual but dramatically listless tale.

An animal, kid and family picture of the first order, "Fly Away Home" marks an impressive return to form for Carroll Ballard, his best work since "The Black Stallion" 17 years ago.

For American viewers of an intellectual/historical persuasion, there could scarcely be any documentary more enticing, scintillating and downright fascinating than Best of Enemies.

This aggravatingly empty would-be suspense piece puts all its trust in its star to save the day, but even this compulsively watchable performer can’t elevate such a vapid, undeveloped screenplay.

The rough power, as well as the humor and sensitivity, of pop phenom Eminem is delivered intact in 8 Mile.

A self-indulgent drama about a Harlem drug kingpin trying to go straight, Sugar Hill plays like a dreary variation on New Jack City.

Even as the drama and its treatment become increasingly conventional and familiar as the film moves toward its patly (and arguably overly) audience-pleasing wrap-up, the exceptional visual quality and lifelike animal renditions remain stunning throughout.

It’s an eyebrow-raising true tale, one aided and abetted onscreen by the solid cast and strong sense of commitment. But Heckler is caught somewhere between being a journalistic historian and a dramatist without seeming expert at either. His screenplay connects all the dots of the story with no sense of shaping or modulation.

[A] mostly engaging but only fitfully inspired serio-comedy.

Fukunaga refrains from artificially amping up excitement for its own sake, maintaining an intimate, observational style that offers up a host of things to look at and think about.

Nunez achieves a rare, and rarely earned, emotional depth that rewards the moderate demands he makes on contemporary viewers' short attention spans.