The serial-killer thriller of the week, should have gotten a life of its own instead of trying to steal it from Michael Pye's novel of the same name and several other movies.

Dawn of the Dead may depict the end of the world as we know it, but rarely has watching doom proved such a kick.

Secret Window leaves you unsatisfied and frustrated. Depp's performance both makes the film and undercuts it. He's a poet caught in a machine.

Don't go expecting a good time to be had. But by all means, go to revel in a movie that, for about two-thirds of its length, is Mamet at the top of his game -- intelligent, tightly crafted, densely layered.

At its best, the movie combines the musical and psychological meanings of a fugue. Sons and daughters and mother take up themes of dislocation and identity loss, and deepen them at every turn.

A campy riot of retro cool, a warm and fuzzy ode to the '70s buddy cops.

Twisted is an unusual forensic crime film because it's witty and sophisticated as well as taut and creepy.

Gibson mounts a convincing crucifixion, but his victim is the audience. The Passion of the Christ aims its metallic cat-o'-nine-tails at the viewers' nerves.

By the end, Hamer's crisp, prickly compositions go soft.

There's not a moment in Against the Ropes where you forget this is perky Meg Ryan up onscreen, talking trashy and acting tough.

Most of the humor is both determinedly puerile and unfunny, performed by a generic cast.

Determinedly genial and relentlessly bland.

Funny, sweet and only mildly offensive.

A harrowing depiction of a woman's plight under the Taliban.

Barbershop 2 makes you want to know what happens next. In its own way, it's the Ivory Soap of sequels: 99 and 44/100% pure.

When Catch That Kid isn't careening from plot point to plot point, events turning on unseen dimes, it's trying to ingratiate itself with stunts and chases that its young audience have seen done better on Saturday-morning TV.

Russell's conviction is so total that it tingles the spines of the audience.

As the threesome's movie games push them into an incestuous menage a trois, the movie loses its grip.

Strip away the portentous style and lush views of nature in The Return and all you've got is a slender nightmare of a family gone haywire in an outing that turns into survival camp.

The cast doesn't impress, the story doesn't compel and the characters are too bland to make people remember them.

The astonishing brio and verve of street dancing deserves better than this.

What's wrong with Latter Days is that its banter is pedestrian and its lessons forced.

The movie, brief though it is, feels as padded as a travelogue.

A flimsy, genial romp peopled with early-twentysomethings and targeted at teens and young adults.

For audiences, two things keep the tension from becoming too excruciating: the presence of the survivors in front of us and the knowledge that in the grip of Macdonald's humane, lucid filmmaking, we're in the best of hands.

So, here's the problem with The Butterfly Effect: It's silly.

In this movie, when the honeymoon is over it's really over.

Torque isn't a movie, it's an 81-minute soda commercial.