The confusion it mistakes for true soul-searching is about as realistic a look at the politics of youthful attraction as one of those "Did somebody say McDonald's?" commercials is a look at mainstream American family values. Did somebody say McCheese?

Fails chiefly because it's senseless. How it even managed to bypass the straight-to-video route boggles the mind and is a speculative fiction far more engaging than any to be found onscreen.

A sweet, sweet movie; it's just one that celebrates the bond between a boy and his dog with heart and a heavy, handy hand.

A story disappointingly similar to the original.

Better in theory than in practice.

So ingratiatingly good-humored that it's hard to take it seriously enough to complain. Sure, it's no great triumph of moviemaking, but it is entertaining, and a more or less plausible way to kill 95 minutes on a Saturday afternoon.

Feels overlong and underscripted.

Seems more like a subtle, elegiac tone poem than an indictment of human banality and the evil that men do.

The problem with The Third Miracle is that it is thematically ambiguous and never lays out its position on whether it thinks saints are or are not real.

Does not live up to its name. It's more like White Men Can't Box, Either.

A spectacularly imaginative piece of Shakespearean cinema.

It's a one-note gag, but a superior gag performed with a minimum of cheese and a surplus of laugh-out-loud moments.

Just the thing to clear your Capra-glutted holiday movie palate.

Fails to completely engage the viewer at the basic level of story.

For those who adore McCourt's work, Angela's Ashes will most likely disappoint; for those unfamiliar with this inspiring chronicle of a survivor, it will neither impress nor dishearten to any degree.

Just watching the trailer for Oliver Stone's new football epic a few weeks back left me with a grating headache; watching the whole sweaty film practically put me in the ICU.

It would seem the purpose of this movie, if not to deify, is to define -- and in this it fails miserably.

Jolie's explosive performance surpasses all expectations and renders the film a veritable must-see.

Everything about its scale is epic.

A sumptuous yet unexceptional story.

More a meditation on the nature of life itself than anything else, and a welcome respite from Robin Williams, the emotion sponge.

Retelling of White's classic children's book is a spun-sugar treacle-bomb, though a darn good-looking one.

Wildly entertaining, "Shakespeare in Love" minus the Bard and the babe, but with substantive style to burn.

Colorful and a passable drama, one that highlights the difficulties of cross-cultural love affairs and the exoticism of the Third World.

Unlike any other film released this past year, be it from the aspect of its storylines, of which there are many, or its emotional clarity, which is, quite frankly, brutal.

Oddly, most of the elements needed for a good movie are present here, but when added together they equal less than the sum of the parts.

Commands respect as mainstream filmmaking with more of an agenda than just pimping cinematic junk food to the brain-dead masses.

Sellbinding, distressing, and possessed of a dark and terrible beauty.