Dear George Lucas: What gives with this Eragon jazz? I mean, gee whiz, did you seriously think that we wouldn't recognize you, the Great Man, as the guiding, um, FORCE behind this dull retelling of "Star Wars"?

Though pretty to look at (with camerawork by Phedon Papamichael) and inspiring to contemplate, this story of human triumph needs a lot more of the human for an audience to actually experience the triumph.

Apocalypto is a dazzling achievement. Not only does it showcase a civilization little seen on the silver screen, the film (which opens with a quote from Will Duant) also advances larger questions about the natural and unnatural life cycles of civilizations.

While the film never quite reaches the emotional peaks it so obviously seeks to scale, Zwick's film is still potent enough to save you three months salary.

His (Law's) is the standout performance, probably because it's quiet and reflective and nuanced amidst the flurries of relationship talk.

Unaccompanied Minors isn't likely to become a frequent flyer but it could strike a chord among children of divorce for many holiday seasons to come.

Like all great screen performances, Mühe's magic comes out most in its tiniest moments: a raised eyebrow here, a slight upturn of the lips there. It's a triumph of muted grandeur; it's like watching someone being born.

The story is good, but the execution favors the safe over the challenging. Personally, I'd rather just read the Bible.

Granted, the state of the indie hipster and/or Big-Man-on-the-Quad aesthetic has probably skewed a bit since I was a frosh, but good lord, man, it can't be this pale an imitation of campus life. I implore you: Go rent "National Lampoon's Animal House" and leave this flaccid wanker alone.

A movie designed without a proper foundation -- it feels as though it might crumble at any minute.

With Turistas, Stockwell dives head-first into a veritable riptide of churning, vicious exploitation cinema, and the result is surprisingly effective.

It's got a good creative pedigree and confident execution – as well as nifty design, down to its Hammond-organ Photek soundtrack and desert chic – but this ensemble piece set in a rural mobile-home park steps off the trail into melodrama from time to time.

Aronofsky's reach far exceeds his grasp with this film, and the muddle he concocts makes one wonder if there was ever a solid foundation for The Fountain. Hope may spring eternal, but this fountain is a dry hole.

What's interesting about typical Hollywood Christmas movies is that regardless of how crass, vulgar, or mean-spirited they may be, by the last scene they will inevitably try to wrap viewers in a blanket of warm seasonal cheer.

Déjà Vu has enough style and forward (or is it backward) momentum to viewers aroused. It's only after you leave the theatre that your head starts to throb.

It's stoner comedy of the most absurd kind, part fryboy mental drizzle, part wink-wink audience baiting, and wholly, utterly funny.

Clearly, the filmmakers did manage to capture some measure of lightning in a bottle.

The good news is Craig, who was riveting as a London pharmaceutical salesman in the recent Brit import "Layer Cake," is equally mesmerizing here.

The constant singing and dancing throughout is charmingly presented, and the CGI recreations of Antarctica are stunning.

The real crime here is that Let's Go to Prison made a daring escape from direct-to-video stir into the relative freedom of your neighborhood multiplex. Consider this one disarmed and extremely pointless.

It's neither utterly real nor utterly romantic (heroin, like alcohol, manages to be awfully and unremittingly both).

As a character-driven narrative, it's a hollow beast, too often pedantic, that smacks of good-guy agitprop, shrill when it should be subtle and shrieking when a whisper would be far more unnerving.

The real problem with For Your Consideration is that it's just not funny.

Like a dream, this film is wispy and ethereal; like a nightmare, it lodges in your hindbrain and gnaws away with gleeful abandon.

The movie isn't about Kennedy; rather, Kennedy is the sun around which all the other planets of the film revolve. And like some epic Louis B. Mayer picture from the Thirties, Bobby has a thousand stars in its galaxy, some of them great (Fishburne, Rodríguez), some of them not (Wood, Hunt), and one of them brilliant (Hopkins).

The film is a sure winner for arthouse audiences enamored of the new Argentine cinema, but it has crossover appeal for venturesome viewers in search of a good mystery, as well.

Delving beneath skin level and examining the mind of an 18-next-week boy, Dance Party is challenging, gritty, and true.

If nothing else, this adaptation of Peter Mayle's umpteenth ode to livin' la vie en Provence will make you wonder about Ridley Scott and the directorial aging process.