The film's action doesn't disappoint; if anything, it ups the adrenaline ante considerably.

A colossal dud.

A Mighty Heart has the surface tension of a first-rate docudrama but neither the passion nor the vision to encompass its powerhouse subject.

The movie needs more incident and complication; it's modest to a fault.

Few films even try to render the full range of emotions and sensations in female sexuality as the aptly titled Lady Chatterley, directed and co-written by a Frenchwoman, Pascale Ferran.

You Kill Me kills you softly with its smiles.

What keeps the Fantastic Four franchise alive is the Human Torch's emotional fire and the Silver Surfer's melancholy ice.

Bright semi-adult entertainment.

The pleasures of Ocean's Thirteen are so slight as to be eminently forgettable. Most of the "twists" in the plot are of the ho-hum variety; it's not that one sees them coming, but that they don't amount to much when they show up.

Best of all is Jeff Bridges as the voice of Geek, a laid-back philosopher-penguin who becomes Cody's low-key guru, mentoring him in the ways of the wave.

Cotillard brings honesty to histrionics. She makes Piaf - "the little sparrow" - soar.

Gracie is painfully earnest, which might be OK were it not also painfully trite, painfully cliched and painfully formulaic.

The story line meanders and too many scenes drone on; Knocked Up is in serious need of a good editor. But the laughs are plentiful, and it's the rare movie these days where one doesn't feel guilty about finding the whole thing funny.

Costner succumbs to terminal self-seriousness when he makes a movie of his own either as the director or, in this case, a producer.

The enthralling documentary Crazy Love is about how a high-flying lawyer's obsession with a young beauty blinded her, metaphorically and literally.

A movie made at wits' end. There are four or five authentic laughs in the whole 170-minute extravaganza.

Journey is weary, yet imaginative.

So far in this year's cartoon feature sweepstakes, Shrek the Third rules.

There's not a false moment within the film's 88-minute running time, nor many that could be done any better.

By the end, it doesn't even have the courage of its political incorrectness.

Doesn't match the impact of its predecessor, which both revived and reimagined the zombie-film genre.

Jane Fonda does an about-face on her persona and her talent, playing a teetotaler and, what's worse, a pious bore.

As a documentary, the film is woefully underdeveloped.

The movie includes a few good one-liners, but that's really all it is -- a forum for putdowns and sassy dialogues.

Even the title is off. I haven't heard an honest "Lucky You" since I was in sixth grade. For most people it registers as a sneer.

A quiet, heartfelt story of love and loss.

The sprawling canvas ultimately dwarfs the plucky title figure and makes him seem too small in every way.

The movie is an inspired comedy-drama about artistic temperament.

A catastrophically messy action-movie mash-up.

Next may be the silliest movie of 2007.

It's not hard to imagine these characters in a straight-faced Hollywood blockbuster. And that's the source of Hot Fuzz's genius, pointing out the thin line that separates convention from farce when Hollywood starts throwing its special effects around.

A mangy-looking mongrel with a lot of familiar markings and a little more on the ball than you'd expect at first glance.

There's more than a trace of James Dean in Gosling, except that he's a rebel with a cause.

Uneven and affecting movie.

The original French title is "La Doublure," but The Valet fits Veber. He has become a one-man service industry when it comes to spreading Gallic barbed humor and good cheer.

Surprisingly moving and intellectually satisfying.

In a cinematic landscape where truly original ideas are rarer than floating food, recklessness like this deserves to be appreciated. Not understood, but appreciated.

Here's my nomination for future grindhouse double-bill from hell: Pathfinder and "Apocalypto."

Instead of heightening the intrigue in this psychological thriller, the labored twists and out-of-leftfield turns will leave audiences more weary than wary.

White throws in a dog-in-peril shot to ensure the audience's sympathies. The ploy works, perhaps too well, turning Year of the Dog less into the askew character study it wants to be than a showcase of lovable-dog shots.

The Breakfast Club meets Rear Window. The result should satisfy dating crowds from high school to night school.

What's not to love?

Thanks to Hallstrom's slaphappy artistry and a sparkling ensemble, Hoax is a hoot.

There's a funny premise at the core of Are We Done Yet? Too bad the movie doesn't do much with it.

The mystery is, how the filmmakers still managed to come up with a movie that will satisfy almost no one.

In less accomplished hands, Black Book could have been a hopeless mishmash. But Verhoeven proves a sure-handed storyteller, which might come as a surprise, as well as a terrific visual stylist, which shouldn't.

This is Ferrell's movie, and one's tolerance for it will most likely be in direct proportion to one's tolerance for its star's vanity-free fearlessness.

The way Frank structures and directs this film, it's too predictably "unpredictable."

There's enough wit to keep audiences of whatever age happy.

Those willing to overlook its emotional grandstanding will find much to admire and even more to think about in this Oscar-nominated Danish drama.

Killer of Sheep is a miracle movie because it's receiving its first theatrical release 30 years after it was made and because, as a movie, it's miraculous.

The timing couldn't be better for a thriller that focuses on assassination, international war scandals and U.S. agencies of enormous influence and wildly varying competence.

The Last Mimzy displays a gentle touch and the best of intentions. But the film's message never quite becomes clear; what, exactly, are young minds supposed to take away from this film?

If Pride had concentrated on a gifted coach's teaching and training techniques, it might have been a contender. Instead, all the overheated melodrama evaporates our rooting interest.

It's a courageous, moving, organically funny picture.

Fans should be satisfied, but it's hard to imagine anyone else will be much interested in TMNT.

A twisted little comic gem.

Despite the nice touches at the corners, the center does not hold. In I Think I Love My Wife, there's too much emphasis on the Think.

Bullock is so good, working hard to pull off the transition from grief-stricken wife and mother to reluctant time traveler, you want to pull for her. So it's possible - not easy, but possible - to overlook the script's inconsistencies.

Takes a chaotic moment in the long history of "the Troubles" and turns it into a keening, air-clearing epic.

Cinema has once again proven its ability to incorporate every other mass-media art form. Director Zack Snyder and his computer wizards have made the best example yet of the movie-as-comic-book.

In "Jaws," you didn't know whether to laugh or to scream. In The Host, the yocks rarely mesh with the yucks.

Making you feel the presence of absences - of the distant and the departed, of dreams that never quite come true - is the key thing that this uneven film gets exactly right.

Things may work out predictably, but The Ultimate Gift does not yank on the heartstrings so much as pluck them gently.

Wild Hogs puts the "ick" into City Slickers.

Like Brian De Palma's 1981 masterpiece "Blow-Out," this movie contains cutting perceptions of obsession, institutional and professional myopia, misplaced loyalty in experts, misreadings of evidence and the kind of confusion that leads to conspiracy theories. But Fincher's movie falls short of masterpiece status.

As a filmmaker, Brewer doesn't just yank your chain: He forges a bond with his characters and his audience that produces ecstasy and healing.

Try as I might, I could not love it, because as a piece of cinema, Into Great Silence would try the patience of a saint.

Painfully earnest, The Astronaut Farmer is, sad to say, a bunch of hooey. It's Frank Capra without the genuine heart, certainly without any sense of perspective.

Although the structure is clunky, the ensuing parliamentary machinations prove witty and fascinating.

In every important way, Breach isn't just a solid thriller; it's also an ambitious and engrossing piece of narrative journalism.

There's a persistent innocence to this movie that will work wonders on all but the most churlish.

Director Daniele Thompson gets the point across so airily and pleasantly, in a film cast to perfection, that it's no problem accepting the message with a shrug, while profoundly enjoying the messenger.

This movie doesn't pretend to be anything more than a cheerful night out, and on that count it scores.

Most of the movie makes too much sense and is no fun at

Now we get a lazy Eddie in Norbit, a lackluster attempt to make a gross-out romantic comedy. When I say lazy Eddie, I mean imaginatively lazy.

The transgression that dogs much faith-based art - and leaves its stain on The Last Sin Eater - is the inability to divorce art from agenda; that is, you can feel the filmmaker forcing the round peg of evangelism into the square hole of creative excellence.

Watching this movie, with Diane Keaton cast as the ne plus ultra of irritating, overbearing mothers, is roughly the equivalent of listening to fingernails on a chalkboard for nearly two hours.

It's not a comedy-drama, really. It's let's-all-share therapy in beautiful Boulder, Colo.

It's hard to figure where it's going, and when the movie's over, it's even harder figuring where it's been. But the careening roller-coaster ride calling itself Smokin' Aces is such a hoot to be on, who really cares?

Vanya's journey to find his mom is not easy or picturesque or heartwarming. But it's also never without hope.

Alpha Dog may well go down as the most dispiriting film of 2007.

The movie lives and dies on the energy of stepping.

Touching and insightful.

Freedom Writers is the rare inspirational-teacher film that is filled with genuine, jaw-dropping coups of real-life poetry.

The movie finally comes to life when Liu turns up.

Most of the fun to be had with Thr3e is to spot the movies from which it cribs. Beyond that, what one has is a conventional psychological thriller that cheats too often and depends on actors determined to play only one note.

It's first-class entertainment for bookish lads and lasses of all ages - and for those who never have or never will crack a paperback's spine. And it might inspire today's nascent artists to open up their sketch-pads as well as their hearts and minds.

With a surgical saw instead of a hatchet, del Toro takes apart patriarchy and opportunistic religion as well as fascism.

Perfume offers eau de crud.

Arthur and the Invisibles tries way too hard.

Pearce makes you see why Edie found Warhol as irresistible as he found her. His otherworldly eyes focus on both who she is and what she represents. He sees her as a star.

Graeme Obree was a champion bicycler who, by all accounts, rarely took the easy way out. Too bad this movie version of his life doesn't follow suit.

Notes on a Scandal isn't humorous or witty enough to sustain black comedy, and it isn't insightful or deep enough to suggest a contemporary tragedy. All it does is put an eloquent veneer on petty meanness.

As great as the film looks, the story, adapted from a novel by P.D. James, never quite comes into focus.

If only De Niro or screenwriter Eric Roth had the instinct to play some of this for laughs or even outrageous burlesque. Despite their conviction and intelligence and their game, amazing cast, all they do is eke out a series of straight-faced dramatic reversals and personal betrayals that leave the dramatis personae, and the audience, numb.

The sad truth is that the film squanders almost all of its inspiration in the first 20 minutes or so.

The result is a movie that inspires without pontificating and plays on the heartstrings without pounding on them incessantly.