The film's elegiac tone and honest heart come through.

A suspenseful breath of fresh air following on the heels of one of the dumbest Hollywood summers in recent memory.

When the film changes gears from light coming-of-age comedy to ex-post-facto war parable midway through, it loses its focus and suddenly becomes a much darker beast.

It's huge and bewildering and it hurts to watch, but it hurts so good it's gorgeous.

Viewers unfamiliar with Wharton's novel may have a hard time, especially at first, deciphering all the characters since Davies presents them at a steady clip while providing little background or explanatory material.

A middling film through and through, despite the occasional shocks it tries to earnestly to achieve.

A remarkably solid, streamlined, action-comedy in the ugly-duckling-to-gorgeous-swan genre that elicits more laughs and genuinely affecting moments than you might expect from its tepid ad campaign.

Mamet does a shrewdly skillful job with these Tinseltown terrors.

A remarkable film. From its performances on down to director of photography Roger Deakins' sun-baked, dirty-ochre cinematography, the film is all of a piece.

A handsomely constructed and executed movie, the kind of effort that deserves appreciation, on its own terms, for what it both dares and accomplishes.

A holiday film Joe Lieberman could love, unembarrassed by its wholesome, sugary pro-family message.

A nice-looking, nice-feeling exercise in conventionalism that sure could use a couple of transvestites and maybe a house falling from the sky.

So many logical questions go unasked in The Gift, which, ultimately, is the movie's downfall. Mark this package as Return to Sender.

Pollock is that rare breed, a biopic that makes you want to learn more about its subject, as much as you can, as fast as you can.

Suffers from a persistent case of narrative backsliding that only serves to make older members of the audience long for the days of the dwarves, beauties, and poisoned apples of Disney-yore, and younger ones squirm in their seats.

It's like 90 minutes of teasing foreplay, and then, just when it's about to get really good, your partner rolls over and goes to sleep.

Dude, your movie sucks.

Like its title implies, Chocolat tastes good in the moment but leaves behind little nutritional substance.

It's a huge, bloated, hulking movie.

This dragon, sadly, is DOA.

Morse and Caruso provide better reasons to see this film than do Ryan and Crowe.

A masterful synthesis of generic conventions and creative imagination, a sublime amalgam of some of the best tendencies and talent our times have to offer.

An indie grab bag.

Spotlessly dull.

Shyamalan's premise is a lulu, to be sure, but if you can manage that precious, tentative suspension of disbelief, you'll find Unbreakable a rewarding meditation on the nature of heroes, both comic book and otherwise.

A stunningly impassioned and articulate study of a writer's life and the censorial demons that can strangle that voice.

It's a film so filled with sex and violence that many critics have derided it as nothing short of hardcore porn.

It's the opposite of "The Opposite of Sex," a meditation on multiple truths, and the lies that sometimes lie in between.

Not likely to win any hearts or minds this holiday season, La Bûche finally scores points by virtue of its inoffensiveness: Relax, pour a cuppa nog, and watch somebody else muck up the holidays for once.

Scores its ultimate coup de grace though its interviews. Macdonald has lined up an amazing collection of interviewees.

If you're a parent, you could do a heck of a lot worse than taking the spawn off to catch Rugrats in Paris and if you're a kid, well, you probably already knew that anyway.

It's mediocrity at its most unremarkable.

Not likely to become any landmark achievement, yet it's sure to earn a berth among the perennial Christmas film classics.

The barrage of information in Rebels is at times wearying; indeed many of the speakers look somewhat battle-weary, but there's clearly still a holy fire burning deep within their now-hooded eyes.

The lengthiest foot chase in film history.

I loved this movie. Or perhaps I should say the 15-year-old boy in me -- the dreamy, disaffected misfit with his head in the stars and a stack of Bantam sci-fi paperbacks as his sole defense against small-town boredom -- loved it.

Strives to be an inspirational depth charge, but its power is consistently waylaid by some genuinely hokey dialogue and situations.

The film's rhythm is jerky, bouncing all around the place and making some of the setups feel unnecessary.

Writer/director Lonergan succeeds at capturing eloquently the disappointments of growing up and growing old. But he isn't always successful at reining in the schmaltz.

Stunning camera shots by ace Michael Ballhaus are lovely to look at, and the performances are all excellent.

A simply flat-out fun film.

Adults may have a hard time swallowing this toothless tale of PG-rated bloodsuckers, but kids may relate better to its lessons.

Ghobadi works squarely in the neorealist tradition of countrymen like former mentor Abbas Kiarostami, using nonprofessional actors and documentary technique to tell small, spare stories of the human condition through the eyes of children.

Warmed my heart about as much as the cold cream Angèle slathers all over her wrinkling clients.

Guaranteed to inspire many more belly laughs than it does actual shivers. Boo, scary? I think not.

Painfully lame and hamstrung by a viciously unfunny sense of humor.

Director David Gordon Green has made a work of uncommon beauty and intelligence, one that is smart enough to trust its characters and the technical contributions of its crew.

An absorbing human drama.

Gray's direction is a languid thing, moving at roughly the speed of a maimed snail, and the cast never really gels.

The film delivers some of the most spectacular and intricately choreographed martial arts fighting ever seen on film.

The result is total immersion in the moment of the music, sure to send jazz fans over the moon.

At its core, a very manipulative piece of work.

Hardly lives up to its name -- bedeviled is more like it.

Fails to create a seamless and believable web of measured performances and period color.

Worth a look.

Shamelessly dull.

The comedy is often harsh and cruel.

A potpourri of issue-oriented drama enlivened by superlative performances and smart dialogue.

One of the most deadly dull "SNL" spinoffs.

An inner-city tragedy that plays its story simply, sorrowfully, and beautifully.

All in all, this is perhaps one of those films you applaud more for design than execution while hoping at the same time that its boundary-testing restlessness becomes more widely influential.

Bizarre, even darkly comic at times. But it's also elegant and mannered.

Like "Reservoir Dogs" by way of Ned Flanders, Mercy Streets is as earnest as Vacation Bible School and somewhat more cinematic.

It's all about the little things, and the way in which the little things can steal into your heart in big ways.

Too much is tossed into the ring and the last hour becomes a frantic swell of emotions and ideas, not all of which are exactly on point.

The film itself is a muddle, all rapid-fire step-edits and grainy, blue-filtered hokum. What is good is Stallone.

It delivers commendable entertainment value.

Shoddy, brainless, pre-sold kids' entertainment.

Capturing the nuances of quotidian life may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Ultimately passable movie entertainment, but like most future in-laws leaves a feeling of something still desired.

Haunts the memory long after you've left the theatre.

A tone-deaf dramedy whose need to please is a pain in the neck.

Funny and friendly and all-inclusive and unremarkable.

A rousing, girl-positive, indie success story whose dynamic rhythms deliver a connecting punch.

Falls short of both the social history lesson it so pointedly strives to impart and the sport it so roughly embraces.

Makes for a playfully enthralling hour and a half.

Sublimely ridiculous film.

It has that bygone style, in which impossibly innocent ingenues suddenly break into blissfully tuneful song.

Simply a lousy film from start to finish.

Thanks to this relentlessly likable film's playful sexuality and utter lack of pretension it's surprisingly easy to let all of one's objections float away on a fragrant cloud of kitchen sweat, pheromones, and sweet lime zest.

Not for everyone's taste, I'd think, but a notably thoughtful effort nonetheless.

Two-and-a-half hour slice of unmitigated depression.

It's an exploration by the audience, the filmmakers, and the subjects themselves of a kind you've never quite seen in a documentary before.

Unfamiliar to most these days and it goes without saying that Harris performs a great service in the eyes of history with his film.

Only the most indulgent would fail to notice that this movie can't hold a tune.

Leaves you scratching your head a bit, wondering what just happened, and worrying if maybe it could happen to you too.

Human Resources, which gets my vote for most sarcastic title of the year, isn't a stand up and cheer kind of film.

Sumptuous to behold, although one will not leave the theatre with a much deeper knowledge and understanding of this great Spanish painter's career.

Bait equals bad.

Crowe has created a genuine love song for all those who've ever felt their lives to have been saved by rock & roll.

Searingly potent and suggestively supple, Carax's images are rich with emotion and ideas.

Leaves me wanting to watch Tomei and company in something more worthy of their abilities.

Fernandez is excellent as the maladjusted daughter, but the film's heart and soul is embodied in Galina's noble, understated performance.

Its uneven comedy may leave moviegoers yearning for the confidently choreographed banter and moral sludge that marked LaBute's previous outings.

All the players deliver performances that kill.

Definitive modern cinematic eye-candy with all the connotations of empty calories that term implies.

And next time around... show the courage of your lowbrow convictions and get back to the gonzo, unapologetically senseless mayhem that made this saga so much fun in the beginning.

I was consistently aghast at how unabashedly alpha-male, heartless, and chauvinistic this film is.