An essentially toothless affair, poking fun at American imperialism and its attendant cluelessness while never illuminating much beyond the obvious.

Canny and somewhat overwhelming documentary.

The naiveté with which the missionaries approach their initial meeting with the Waodani, whose propensity to violence was well-documented, appears at once incredibly stupid and divinely loving.

It's not quite quick enough to be anywhere near as gloomily engaging as the cast's original outing.

A bright, amiable chronicle of the vivid lives of the women of Juchitán.

Glory Road really isn't a bad show – it's just an obvious one – and one wishes material of this historical import had received a more refined rendering.

I can tell you in two words why to see this movie, which is otherwise an unspecial Cinderella farce...and those two words are: Queen Latifah.

Screenwriter Dean Georgaris gets a hell of a pass here – the story is canon, and, in terms of emotional wallop, does all the heavy lifting for him – but he still manages to gunk up the works with dialogue that is dull-witted at best and outright howling at its worst.

Instead of offering any insight or (dare I dream?) entertainment, Film Geek presents a socially retarded main character stumbling through a dimwitted plot with a series of painfully unfunny nonjokes.

Hostel certainly delivers in the gore department, and Roth, who knows and loves his favorite genre at least as well as the gang over at the Alamo Drafthouse, peppers the proceedings with various witty in-jokes.

Stupid, yes, but fun nonetheless.

Maybe everyone involved was hoping that no one would see this movie, but Madsen is the only one who should fear anyone seeing his work.

Like its images, The Promise billows through the imagination as it unfolds but it leaves little lasting impression once its last feather has fluttered.

Rather than providing a foil for Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation" or embodying the mostly silent model for the painter Vermeer in "The Girl With One Pearl Earring," Johansson actually has to emote prodigiously here, and she is just not up to the task.

Wolf Creek (much like the new Saw horror franchise) exists for no reason other than to inflict an acute sense of inescapable and inscrutable torture upon the story's victims – and, by extension, the audience. If that's what you're into, Wolf Creek should be a satisfying assault.

Hallström's latest is fine but unambitious, content with what it is – an arthouse trifle for the masses.

Fans of "The Graduate" should skip this strange comedy.

As the camera moves through the tall grass of this new world, there comes the realization that we could be within any one of Terrence Malick's movies, any one of the previous three stunners he has made in his 35-year-long career.

The Matador is anything but predictable, and therein lies its sublime and fascinating charm.

For those who only recall Bana from his bland showing as Ang Lee's super-thyroidial meltdown monster, his performance here is a revelation.

What's compelling about Caché is not the answer to the whodunit but Haneke's exacting invocation of palpable tension.

Whether Ringer, with its mild comedy and milder messages about inclusiveness and tolerance, will be embraced by Knoxville's hardcore "Jackass" fans remains to be seen. But we can at least trust that the Farrellys will stay the course.

It's the snobs versus the slobs! And this holiday's no picnic!

It's all well and good to run a scroll of corporate evil-doers at the end of the film as in Dick and Jane, but if these robber barons were skewered properly along the way, such heavy-handed, last-minute tactics wouldn't be necessary.

Moves with the stately speed of most Merchant/Ivory productions, which is to say too damn slow, but the film is snatched from the jaws of tedium by Doyle's resplendently lush camerawork and Fiennes and Richardson's spot-on performances.

There are just too many damn characters, with the best ones taking a backseat to the dullish love quadrangle.

Don't let the near-impossible-to-remember title keep you away from this singular and slightly surreal Tommy Lee Jones scorcher.

In the world of Mel Brooks, everything is fair game and anything is good for a laugh. God bless Mel Brooks.

The film's voice talent is good, as are the characterizations. However, the film's computer animation leaves much to be desired.

A sweet-natured romantic fable, albeit one that packs in carnivorous cockroaches, rampaging brontosaurs, and the ever-Freudian Empire State Building among its requisite emotional baggage. And, too, it's a corker of an action/monster movie.

It's possible to point to some weak spots in Brokeback – its seeming multiple endings, the lack of clarity about certain images, some digressions – but there is no movie this year that has moved my heart more than Brokeback Mountain.

Well, we're not in "Chicago" anymore, or even its soundstage approximation, but that hasn't stopped Oscar-nominated director Rob Marshall from fashioning another epic spectacle out of two squabbling women in (a sort-of) show business.

Dench deserves better, and unfortunately it will probably be a long time before she gets another starring role in a movie custom-made for an actress her age.

Narnia is nearly saved by those immensely likable and altogether stiff-upper-lippy Pevensie kids.

Shot in just over a week with a minuscule budget, this artsy thriller feels like a one-off from Shimizu's Ju-on films but is probably worth a look for fans.

All one needs to know about Burt Munro, the real-life New Zealand codger and Indian motorcycle enthusiast who in 1967 set a land speed record that still stands today, comes midway through this unabashedly sentimental wall of schmaltz.

While its heart is in the right place, Aeon Flux's head is just a little too high to make much sense.

Writer-director Duncan Tucker does little to develop his narrative setup beyond the basic and obvious, and his film begins to feel more like an exercise than a fully realized story.

Awesome.

Rejecting normality for nomadism, Van Zandt's life was difficult, but, man, what a legacy of music he left.

While the compelling Plowright competently flexes her well-trained muscle, the film's melodrama too readily evokes a Lifetime Original Movie rather than subtle sentiment.

An additional change in the film's adaptation from Scott Phillips' novel substitutes the author's original ending for a redemptive conclusion that seems indicative of The Ice Harvest's unwillingness to really plumb the real depths of the darkness it has set in motion.

This vehicle for hip-hop star Usher is no blinged-out Beamer rough-riding it over to Jay-Z's joint to wallop some cheeba up off'n the Zeezer's haid; it's more of a Yugo, as in "You go to this wannabe straight-to-video tripe, you deserve what you get."

The script, by Adam "Tex" Vegas, ricochets between over-earnest romantic comedy staples and a noticeable lack of any consistent tone for Reynolds’ character.

Despite the grating, workmanlike direction of Chris Columbus (he's no Robert Wise, and Rent is nobody's idea of "West Side Story"), this boisterous adaptation is both a vivacious, wiseacre musical and an inarguable morality lesson: Love is all you need. Oh, and rent, of course.

The kind of film that will be suitable for all-ages entertainment once the family runs out of conversation after devouring all the turkey, but it's unlikely to expand its audience beyond these captives.

Do we like John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester? As played by Depp, this 17th-century nobleman-cum-travesty is a carriage crash of epic proportions, and so it's difficult not to crane your neck around to get a better view of the proceedings.

Syriana is the most challenging and uncompromising movie to come out of Hollywood in a long time.

Qualitatively different from its cinematic forbears: It doesn't linger on the gothic curlicues of its source material, it moves straightforwardly from place to place, and it emphasizes the emotional development of its characters with dramatic interplay rather than expressionistic, atmospheric gloom.

Mangold, Phoenix, and Witherspoon, all excellent in their roles.

A charming, winsome slice of Seventies pop kitsch reconceived as a kind of Knight-errant quest for that holiest of all grails, dear old mom.

While the film's depiction of bureaucratic frustrations and familial woe are universal, the characters themselves can be difficult to warm up to and often seem as arid as their surroundings.

This fresh adaptation shakes the dust off Jane Austen's early 19th-century novel of manners and gives it a good airing out. The result is a witty and lovesick skirmish of the sexes that exceeds all expectations.

For some reason Derailed never fully engages our sympathies. I think that's because it's difficult to swallow Owen as anything other than eminently resourceful.

Favreau keeps the picture throttling forward with a carefree charm.

Myla Goldberg's novel about spelling-bee fever, a family in chaos, and religious/mystic exploration arrives on the screen with all its faults intact, but few of its charms.

Watts is in nearly every frame of the movie, so if you're a fan (and you should be) that's the reason to see this.

The transitions from performance to song and to reality are strained and awkward.

Cape of Good Hope is a hopeful piece of humanism that is difficult to begrudge too much.

Broad across and rippling with muscle, 50 Cent mumbles his way through his hits.

It is funny at times – the teams for dodgeball break down into "popular" and "unpopular" – but Chicken Little is painful to watch for all ages.

This is a war film with precious little war, which was also the crux of Swofford's book.

Does not go gentle into that good night.

A documentary with a decidedly prurient slant, Gay Sex in the 70s isn't for everyone – it's definitely aimed toward the older gay crowd who somehow lived through the experience and the younger one who might wistfully wish that it had.

This Native American romantic comedy, which won the Audience Award at the 2001 Austin Film Festival, arrives in theatres four years late but seasonally right on time.

There are precious few things for a Zorro fan – or a film fan, for that matter – not to loathe about The Legend of Zorro.

You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy this light romantic comedy, but it helps.

To its credit, the film rockets toward its conclusion with scant downtime. It's come and gone before you even know it, and, like death, that's a good thing.

Screenwriter Steve Conrad has less success with the female characters: The always dependable Davis is forced into shrewish territory, and David's mother (Judith McConnell) is so barely present that it's a wonder she's written in at all.

The details are intriguing, but ultimately we learn little more about what's in their heads.

Might also be the best date movie ever, depending on your idea of a good time.

Nothing short of majestic.

Go for the gore (there's lots of it), but stay for the immortal line: "Now let's go find the body this arm belongs to."

It manages to be a watchable, even enjoyable movie about and for girls, and in our world of candy-coated sparkly pink c---, that's a rare and commendable thing.

Without the luminous Danes in the title role, Shopgirl would have the flair of an ordinary sales clerk.

Forster should be commended for attempting something as daunting as the overreaching Stay, which despite all of its muddled logic and porous reality – or perhaps because of it – forces you to think, a genuine rarity these days.

It's also a doozy of a comedy, matching the dark wit of Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer novels to the stylized theatrics of Matt Helm-era Dean Martin.

There's also a little something smarmy about the interactions between the lawyers and their clients, all of whom are poor.

In the end, however, Protocols of Zion illuminates manifestations of anti-Semitism without ever really elucidating or posing solutions to the problem.

Plenty thought-provoking, but it's not much of a movie and ultimately inspires curiosity rather than passion.

Far grislier than one ordinarily expects from black-and-white, Habitaciones Para Turistas is a real homemade fright.

The Israeli comedy Ushpizin begins something like Guy Ritchie's "Snatch" and ends like the Coen brothers' "Raising Arizona" – in between it's a wholly original movie.

The reality-show producer played by Walken is described by his assistant (Suvari) as having the attention span of a "ferret on speed." I'm sure he would love Domino.

When she's (Dunst) off the screen, Elizabethtown goes dark and broody, stranding us with the morose Bloom during a third-act road trip that goes everywhere and nowhere at once.

Such a monumentally bad remake of such an exceptionally chilling genre favorite.

As cold and unseemly as that stiff found in the shower.

A welcome and appropriate treat is the flurry of Bob Dylan tunes that can be heard playing in the background of this northern Minnesota story.

There's so much ache in this plaintive little film that it almost makes you believe that the entire world is composed of estranged parents and children searching in vain for one another.

One wishes perhaps for a more thumping conclusion, but what we have instead is something perfectly in the spirit of the piece, reaffirming that life, big and little, happens in 10 minutes chunks.

Isn't teen heartache confusing enough without adding into the libidinal mix a bunch of buff scullers nicknamed the Queerstrokes?

Langella is terrific in a small but critical role as CBS president William Paley, although the one essential problem with the film is that it never clearly delineates the jobs fulfilled by the cluster of other newsroom employees that are always huddled about.

Tamyra, Tamyra, Tamyra. I didn't recognize you at first!

Maintains a breezy charm throughout and contains many extremely funny sequences.

The direction by Caruso adds little to the dynamics, although the script by Dan Gilroy offers the occasional gem. Nevertheless, Two for the Money is hardly a cineplex bargain.

Never aims higher than the urinal.

Every movie about the Holocaust should be this good, but few are.

The hit-or-miss nature of the gags makes NBT too uneven to recommend, but it's a great calling-card movie for guys who want to become professional comedy writers.

It packs a hefty emotional wallop.