Fonda brings all of his childhood frustration and angst to the screen in one of the year's most unexpectedly brilliant acting performances.

There's nary a hint of suspense in West's film, though, mainly because he loudly trumpets the upcoming disasters so early in the film.

Greenaway and his picture-perfect cast weave so many interlacing threads into the story, and so many curious subtexts - stylistic and otherwise - that it sometimes leaves us scratching our heads in wonderment.

One of the most inventive romantic comedies to come around in some while.

The Lost World (unlike Spielberg's original film) leaps head first into the action, rushing, it seems, to get the film's real stars -- the dinosaurs -- to the screen as quickly as possible, and it does so with considerable verve.

In the end, though, the undeniable power and emotional richness of this film swing the balance toward the good.

Yet, the problem goes beyond the film's staginess (although there's plenty of that to go around). It could even have something to do with the delicate difficulties involved in the successful transfer of stage camp to the more intimate level of film.

Perhaps the most vexing flaws in this movie are its irresolute plot structure and tone.

La Promesse is a penetrating coming-of-age story, one that argues that adulthood begins with the emergence of moral convictions.

Although the film tends to suffer from a severe case of overt preachiness in the third reel (shades of James Cameron's "The Abyss"), it's still a wonderfully visual, exciting ride.

Fathers' Day offers little in the way of comic relief.

The third and final chapter in Araki's teen-angst-run-riot-in-L.A. triptych is as gorgeously messy as the first two opening salvos (Totally F***ed Up and The Doom Generation), but this time Araki employs a far broader and more complex character canvas than previously.

Austin Powers is the kind of movie Mel Brooks used to make -- extravagantly funny, with plenty of juvenile humor, but as much or more of it smart, delivered with a dead aim at a cultural milestone, affection for its victim, and style.

Breakdown further illustrates the axiom that every truly original movie must be remade again and again until it achieves a state of sublime, all-encompassing idiocy.

This debut feature from Australian director Duncan is still a wonderful sociopolitical experiment, dripping with sarcasm and bizarre, oddball humor, which make it all the more potent.

Bizarre and beautiful, this French take on the madness inherent in independent filmmaking rivals Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion as the most realistic depiction of the myriad trials and tribulations that accompany the creation of a new film.

Sorvino and Kudrow, for whatever inscrutable reasons, seem to be having a blast with their ridiculous characters, and both shine in the loopy set-pieces and dream sequences that pepper the story.

Crucial to the nature of the disaster film -- and something that Irwin Allen knew so very well -- is that films of this sort depend on an emotional hook, a peg of normalcy to hang the chaos from. Volcano offers no such hook, and as a result it plays like some La Brea dinosaur risen from the tar, all effects and no heart.

Packs all the spine-tingling punch of a soggy bag of mulch.

The story, serviceable though it is, still shatters like eggshells under even the lightest scrutiny, and the dialogue is often stale beyond belief.

Green wisely gives his actors lots of room to work, all the while putting the emphasis on the characters and their relationships instead of the blurry hokum of the narrative threads.

No originality, no memorable characters, no comic timing, and no good jokes equal no fun for the audience.

A wacky joyride.

Charmless, unfrightening, and even devoid of the requisite gratuitous nudity, Anaconda just plain bites.

Ultimately, Paradise Road is one of those well-intended films that doesn't completely succeed because it shortsightedly believes that its eloquent subject matter is enough, in and of itself, to create a memorable moviegoing experience.

It's just that audiences are going to have a hard time tidily summarizing what it is they just experienced (and I suspect the same holds true for Soderbergh himself).

Told from younger brother Doug's point of view, Phoenix's voiceover spans the length of the film and winds up making the images that unfold practically redundant.

More emotionally complex than even I had thought possible, Chasing Amy is the sound of burgeoning genius on the fast track to maturity.