This modest French-language film follows the time-honored cinematic tradition of plot as spearheaded by a simple twist of fate.

You don't just root for Harold and Kumar to get the girl, get the weed, and, above all, get the burger – you want to hang out with them while they' doing it, and see if they'e free next Friday night, too.

We've come to expect each new Demme film to percolate to an urgently musical beat. (The Manchurian Candidate also features a few cameos by musicians as diverse as Robyn Hitchcock and Fab Five Freddy.)

The politest way to assess Spike Lee's latest polemic is to call it too ambitious. "An unholy mess" might come closer to the truth.

There's even a Simon and Garfunkel tune on the soundtrack, which makes Braff's character seem like the only living boy in New Jersey, which, of course, he may well be. L'chaim!

Utterly devoid of merit, fantastic or otherwise, a more exasperating descent into the feline world is difficult to imagine.

Three actors play Bobby at different ages, and none of them quite jibe with the other – 16-year-old Bobby seems far savvier than the twenty-something version (who is played by a defanged Colin Farrell).

Beneath its layers of epic detail, this Zatôichi is cinematic cotton candy.

Shimuzu sees darkened staircases and hears the rustle of dead autumn leaves and reacts as if from the devil’s own haiku. And his dread is catching.

All herky-jerky camera movements and no pussyfooting around with the interior lives of these characters.

It just may be a movie that has difficulty transcending national borders.

It isn't all the actors' faults, of course. You can't, ahem, turn straw into gold, and straw – dull, brittle, lousy to taste – is entirely what director Mark Rosman and first-time screenwriter Leigh Dunlap deliver.

This may be the first film to examine the intricacies of the Colombia-to-U.S. drug route in any detail.

To MacLachlan's credit, his impersonation of the indomitable is serviceable, although it must be said that the role is weirder than anything David Lynch ever dreamed up for him.

The film’s accumulation of unnecessary complications, bad visual choices, one completely superfluous character (LaBeouf), and tonally inappropriate quips makes us distractedly ponder the limits of human rather than artificial intelligence.

To do no disservice to the impressive work of Bridges' co-stars, anytime his ragged writer, in flowing caftans and floppy hats, is on screen, it's impossible to take in anything else, so commanding is his presence.

Monster is, at its best, simply a chronicle of people trying to get along, which makes it compelling viewing indeed.

In terms of a pre-teen instructional, Sleepover offers throughout a laudable emphasis on the importance of friendship, but parents may rightfully flinch at a protagonist who is ultimately rewarded for breaking all the rules.

What we get is more of the same from Ferrell – funny faces, goofy accents, pratfalls aplenty – and that ain't bad. It just could have been a lot better.

There is plenty here to enjoy for beach bums and fans of bikinis and six-pack abs, but others are likely to find themselves hopeless wet blankets.

King Arthur is a snooze, overcast and drizzly both on location and on the pages of the script. Owen is too classy, too James Bond-handsome to realistically portray the not-yet-King Arthur.

The real shame in the storytelling is that the people in this film are interesting and inspiring enough to warrant a real film about them.

I'm certainly not asking for car chases and explosions here, but this is a suspense film that's too "adult" for its own good, despite the fact that Redford, Dafoe, and Mirren (in particular) have rarely been more mature in their performances.

Although the characters and their backstories are carefully thought out, Delpy and Hawke deliver their dialogue as if spontaneous and unmeditated.

Affectionate but uninsightful biopic.

Love, death, hope, and hatred: Spider-Man 2 has ’em all, in spades.

What a glorious weepie The Notebook might have been if they’d just found a way to get rid of the damned notebook.

The film’s simplest pleasure is its naturalism – the illusion it creates of observing the animals undetected.