Mainly it's messy, and I don't just mean the gouged-out eyeball in a puddle.

The fishy smell that permeates Perfect Stranger comes from all of the red herrings flopping around this absurdly plotted Hollywood thriller.

The movie feels mechanical all the way through, leaving Sadek's debut an inauspicious and ill-lubed affair.

On the plus side, Costanzo is an appealing and likable young actor who carries the film easily; he gives the impression that he is thinking deeply and mildly amused.

Dern is hilarious as the obsessive sister-in-law, Sarsgaard plays oddball dog-man to perfection, Pais is perfectly awkward as Peggy's nervous boss, Reilly rocks the subtle humor of Peggy's hunting-obsessed neighbor, and Shannon gives a breakout performance.

The cast, particularly Liotta, walk around with befuddled expressions on their faces, perhaps wondering what on earth they’re doing in this movie and how they can find a new agent ASAP.

Up-and-comer LaBeouf (Holes) is a young actor to watch, but he's had better opportunities than this teen thriller to show what he's capable of.

Grindhouse raises the bar for a certain kind of movie lollapalooza (and also for the kind of filmmaker who is also a showman, along the lines of a William Castle or Cecil B. De Mille). It's this injection of playfulness and fun and attention to the entire movie-going gestalt that will probably become Grindhouse's lasting contribution to movie history rather than any on-the-screen content of the movie itself.

The Hoax isn't Gere’s best movie (that honor will always and forever belong to "Days of Heaven"), but it might feature his best performance.

Full of sharp comedy, the writing and directing is skillful and reminiscent of Kasdan's first two feature-directing efforts, "The Zero Effect" and "Orange County."

You have to hand it to Texas writer/director Stephens: He wrings out a barely watchable hundred minutes here using only washed-up actors and a washed-up genre.

Pardon the pun, but audiences will reap little from this satanic backwoods juju thriller.

Nothing is very funny in this movie, and everything is predictable.

Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that just because we CAN use computer technology to give dogs goofy faces, that doesn’t mean we SHOULD.

The action set-pieces, double crosses, and narrow escapes are handsomely mounted and suspenseful as a Saturday matinee.

Blades of Glory, although mildly amusing, has the dank odor of having gone to the well once too often: Ooh, let's dress up Ferrell like an elf – or an anchorman or a NASCAR driver – and see what happens.

The Lookout marks Frank's directorial debut after years of working as a screenwriter on movies like "Get Shorty" and "Out of Sight," and though his new movie may lack the sexual tension and bubbly wit that elevated those films to rarefied heights, there's a newfound, and not unwelcome, sobriety to his writing.

Though the characters are unique and occasionally fun, they're paper-thin.

Unfortunately, in Bier’s world, where even the most innocuous acts can result in emotional ruin, redemption is purgatorial in its own peculiar way.

Less subversive and infinitely less intelligent than 1999’s Wahlberg-starrer "Three Kings," this movie does blow lots of s--- up real good and punish contemptible public figures otherwise left unaccountable for massacring African villagers.

As witless and simpleminded as the irradiated humanoids that serve as the franchise’s bad guys.

This children's sci-fi movie should be palatable to the young and old alike, yet it's ultimately more a mild diversion than a magical adventure.

Pride's story was etched in stone ages ago by mysterious movie powers beyond our understanding, and all the Staples Singers' songs in the world won't keep it from its appointed rounds.

Cheadle takes what could have been a role as a mere foil and creates a rich portrait of a vaguely discontented married man. Yet the drama sputters once it reaches a contrived and melodramatic climax that feels undernourished and artificial – both less than and more than one had hoped for.

It's all probably too slippery for the youngest viewers to grasp and too sketchy for the nostalgia crowd (for whom this revival seems most geared).

Flat out, Air Guitar Nation (winner of the Audience Award at South by Southwest 06) is a damn good time.

A playground for Malkovich – enjoyable enough but not terribly deep.

First Snow tries hard but lacks originality.

A popular Vietnamese fable that bookends this first-time filmmaker's movie may have the effect of distancing more Americans than it draws in, but once the film gets going there is no turning your back on it.

This is Iranian cinema at its most accessible: a bit slow even in its 92 minutes, with more environment than story, but deeply immersive and thought-provoking, and quite often funny.

A revenge fantasy fit for a Seventies arthouse theatre: There are no knives or armies of kung-fu acrobats, no torture scenes involving rusty pliers; there's only a creeping malevolence quietly wreaking havoc on an otherwise normal bourgeois family.

The very concept of such an assassination isn't so absurd as to be wacky – at least not since somebody fired a rocket at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last Thursday.

In its own peculiar way, What Love Is is a testament to the redemptive power of words. Thankfully, Callahan knows to keep it short and sweet, lest his audience go mad from the noise.

A poke in the eye of genre convention with a flensing blade and a disarmingly charming razor-blade grin.

Wan does manage to infuse his film with some of the subtle unsubtleties of classic Euro-horror outings, chief among them the palpable, dreamlike sense of dislocation and the abiding severance from reality that tends to make nongenre fans wonder if someone spiked their popcorn with LSD.

The movie becomes a weak rethinking of a quality film.

If only Bullock could have foreseen how bad Premonition would turn out to be, she would have spared herself (and us) a lot of agony.

Paul Laverty's script is a masterpiece of ambivalent populism.

This Danish comedy, like most of that country's dramas, is dark, dark, dark.

Not since Mario Bava's "Hercules in the Haunted World" has Greco-Roman movie-house mythmaking been so thoroughly well-conceived and executed.

The Host is a freewheeling mix of high style and goofy, good-natured fear-mongering.

Despite all its clichéd moralizing and blatant borrowings, the movie does offer a few clever twists on an old formula. "Hoosiers" may have been a better film, but Hackman never had to coach a team to victory after his star player quit to go have a baby.

Beyond the Gates bears witness to the worst of the worst, but these days, and far more importantly, so does YouTube.

Like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) before him, Scurlock sets his sights on vast money-motivated conspiracies and doesn't rest until he finds them.

Reminiscent of Jim Sheridan’s masterly "In America," The Namesake delivers such a tactile presence that it's difficult not to leave feeling as if you've just struggled through a New York winter, attended an Indian wedding, and returned from a Calcutta holiday.

The story, based on the novel by motivational speaker Jim Stovall, throws every emotional stimulus into the pot, and the result is a deep desire for those Hollywood execs to remember that Christian doesn't have to equal brain-dead.

At 2 1/2 hours, the film is too long in the telling and too short on suspense.

With his doughy face and oversized features, Travolta seems like a giant puppet these days. The lanky stud from "Urban Cowboy" or even the cool killer from "Pulp Fiction" are hazy memories amidst his over-the-top performance from the school of freak-out acting.

The story is as humorous and raunchy as a good blues refrain, and the way Lazarus and Rae react to each other almost resembles the classic call-and-response structure of the blues.

At once eerie, picaresque, evocative, and utterly alien to the reality most viewers inhabit, Into Great Silence is a daring and breathtakingly constructed documentary dream. So much so that the more restless among us may find themselves nodding off.

Fans of the Polish brothers and fans of inspirational movies may all depart the theatre scratching their heads: The Astronaut Farmer is not exactly the movie any of these viewers expected to see. This is almost always a good thing – even if the movie is a deserved head-scratcher.

The filmmakers assume familiarity with the show's documentary premise and in-jokes (e.g., deputy Garant giving all his commands in French), which will make the movie even less accessible to novices.

It's no "Dellamorte Dellamore," but neither is it "Uwe Boll," a smallish favor we should all be thankful for.

Unfortunately for Barbara and for us, what makes William Wilberforce a great man is also what makes him a bore.

For the most part, it's all fairly predictable material, although McAvoy and his costars invest the movie with dynamic performances that manage to keep the story's characters just this side of stereotype and mediocrity.

The hippies, the ravers, the bumbling bobbies and nonplussed locals, the mud, the rush of being in the crush, up against the barricades, torn between the need for a restroom and the need for more room, to dance, to sing, to carry on like a stark loony regardless of your faraway day job – all of this is captured by Temple's unblinking, seemingly everywhere-at-once eye.

These days it's going to take a pretty exceptional political thriller to top our political reality for sheer suspense and treachery, and though director Ray (Shattered Glass) provides a few choice moments of psychological tension, nothing in his film can hope to outpace the anxiety caused by the appearance of former Attorney General John Ashcroft in its opening scene.

When the special effects aren’t getting in the way, the kids’ imaginary scenes have a hazy, shimmering quality, as if the potential of a long afternoon with no homework could be measured in waves.

Has all the sugar-injected horsepower of a 6-year-old on a Big Wheel.

With her lithe frame and insouciantly boyish mop of blond hair, De France is a particularly French sort of film heroine.

The war might be over, but fear and hope remain locked in a rapturous stranglehold amidst the rubble.

Unflinchingly addressing issues of class and race, Perry juggles multiple plot lines and the result emerges as (dare I say?) a surprising mix of Frank Capra and Douglas Sirk.

The result is either a brilliant bit of idol worship satire or a sign of the apocalypse. Despite the sad fact that audiences will surely settle for this watered down, kind of funny attempt at the genre, I couldn't help but enjoy the ride a little.

Bamako, with Sissako's poetic blend of the humdrum and the theoretical, is altogether fascinating. Dramatic features born and bred on the African continent are rare commodities on these shores, and the opportunities they offer can stretch far beyond film appreciation and into the realm of world understanding.

Who would have thought mass murder and cannibalism could be so dull?

The fun in Norbit is watching Murphy at work – the guy has a knack for bringing the physicality of his comic characters to life.

Whether their goal is to nourish the faithful or lure the heathens is not always clear. The only thing that's clear is that The Last Sin Eater serves neither of these higher purposes.

With a lazy, cliché, rabid plot and paper-thin character development, Because I Said So might as well have been directed by a trained chimpanzee.

This spook story is a surprisingly mediocre Hollywood debut for Hong Kong's Pang brothers.

In the end, it's all la dolce vita no matter how you look at it.

Irony and unwavering idealism are bound up in this lengthy but instantly engaging and informative documentary.

Not as yummy as it sounds, true, but nowhere near as godawful as "Van Helsing," a small mercy but very much appreciated.

Now it's just another romantic comedy, neither terribly bad nor truly great, buoyed along on currents of hope and post-traumatic good cheer.

I've rarely seen a movie as hostile as this one, both to its audience and to its protagonists, and I don't think I realized before just how mean-spirited comedy can get (and I was raised on the Three Stooges).

Half the time the movie wants to be balls-out weird, and it is. But the other half – the half with the good guys – is plodding procedural fare.

With Seraphim Falls, Brosnan shows himself, finally, to be an actor of real skill – rather than just a pretty face, a great head of hair, and a buttery British accent – capable not only of playing a real human being but one with a tortured soul and a dodgy past as well.

The first film was near-mythic in its tone and treatment of its characters, while this remake barely serves as a primer in how not to generate suspense.

Other than the unsatisfactory ending, however, there's much that is commendable in the The Italian, not the least of which are its social criticisms of the buying and selling of children through the adoption businesses currently thriving in Russia and neighboring eastern European countries. In some respects, unfortunately, not much has changed since the world was introduced to little Oliver Twist nearly two centuries ago.

This is the sort of masterpiece that will obliterate memories of lesser, later efforts in the "meeting the parents" comedy lineage. Brilliant.

It's a soggy drama said to be inspired by actual events – too serious to be trashy, too trashy to be serious.

Won't ever be accused of breaking new ground; it's too busy entertaining to worry about being original.

More factual rigor wouldn't hurt, but directors Quinn and Walker delve instead into the lives of their subjects with a fly-on-the-wall candor, revealing as much about American life as they do of African life.

If Tears is indeed too weird to take America by storm – Miramax bought the film after Cannes and shelved it until it is now being released by Magnolia – it should neither be considered a cult item, approachable only to film nerds (though they will appreciate it best).

If you really want the kids to see a colorfully cryptic meta fairy tale, be subversive and go rent 'em some Alejandro Jodorowsky. No child deserves Happily N'Ever After.

The movie itself offers few real answers to the problems teachers face.

The most poignant point in the whole painful endeavor is when the credits roll. It's here that we see the outtakes and watch Cedric riffing as he improvs variations on his dialogue. These outtakes are genuinely funny, standing as reminders that the last 90 minutes were a sad waste of talent.

A frustrating exercise in diverted expectations.

These creatures of the underworld are the fervid fabrications of del Toro's imagination: More than once they will catch you by surprise and make you gasp.

Tykwer's camera can assault the audience with the rankest of imagery, but not even once does it come close to distilling the actual aroma of the abattoir that was 18th-century France. And for that, I suppose, we should all be thankful.

Miss Potter is, in the end, a confection, a trip through the imagination on gossamer wings. Enchanting, perhaps, but a long, long way from meaningful.

There is no surprise or justice or sense to the whole thing. Just sadness. And a sense of all the lonely people and where they all come from.

The real problem is that the story is just incoherent, and the faster it moves, the more frantic it seems.

On a certain level, Notes on a Scandal can be fun viewing, but, odds are, you'll find you won't respect yourself in the morning.

As all his films have shown, Cuarón is clearly one of the most original filmmakers working today, and Children of Men should solidify his place at the top of those ranks. With a great script, there should be no stopping him.

This film is an evocative, effective entry into the holiday blood-spray subgenre in its own right. And if it doesn't make your skin crawl ... you probably ate too much Christmas dinner.

Despite successfully creating the illusion of forbidden glimpses, The Good Shepherd slogs through most of its lengthy running time.

Watching Williams as Teddy Roosevelt ogle through binoculars Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck) while she stalks around a glassed-in display like some hippie chick in a buffalo-skin straitjacket after a bad trip at Woodstock ’94 makes me sad and uncomfortable.

There are football movies, and then there's this 800-pound gorilla of a gridiron weepie, which should be penalized for roughing the viewer.