A plot that seems stretched for the big screen.

In this day of overstuffed action flicks and dumbed-down "comedies," (Snow Day) is kinda refreshing.

For all Quek's insistence that she was seeking to ennoble women by helping them gain control over their sexuality, Lewis' film shows that all Quek really wanted was be famous.

Terrific looking in the extreme, The Beach is the movie equivalent of vacation reading: no more demanding -- and no less satisfying -- than a sandy paperback left on a damp towel.

Even if Scream 3 lacks the punch and verve of the first two installments, it manages to wring some ironically metaphysical comedy from the movie-within-a-movie motif.

It's a clear-eyed, unsentimental portrait and indelible for that very reason.

A hackneyed psycho-sexual thriller with enough awkwardly executed Hitchcock references to qualify as a bad DePalma knock-off.

Romantically nostalgic, a love letter to growing up in simpler times.

If John Witherspoon is among the funniest men in America, as many of his fellow comics say, why is he so painful to watch here?

Jewison's focus on the Canadians' dogged do-gooderism might have actually prevented a good movie from being a great one.

Benefits from an amiable chemistry between Harrelson and Banderas, and Davidovich always makes a good tough-as-nails dame with more smarts than any man will give her credit for.

Taymor conjures images that are as indelible as they are wordlessly articulate.

The only thing missing from this rich production is an emotional charge, which Highsmith could create on the page but which Minghella doesn't quite capture on screen.

A kinetically charged gridiron drama that is enormous fun to watch.

As with so many recent literary adaptations, it was the writing that was the art, not its infrastructure of plot and character.

Actually moves, whisking the audience on a funny, sad and extraordinary journey through a singularly compelling moment in American pop culture.

Ultimately groans under the weight of its own quiet gorgeousness.

It's as if the book itself has been locked up and institutionalized, forced to conform to a system that all but obliterates its own unique personality.

Will remind filmgoers that one of the chief pleasures of going to the movies is a good old-fashioned swoon

This isn't your father's Stuart Little, but youngsters will be delighted. Mostly.

Must be among the most blatantly manipulative movies ever made. It's cold, calculated and treats its audience like its robotic central character.

A bit hard on the posterior, it is definitely easy on the eyes.

There is undeniable power in Magnolia, in which small moments of truth are given epic gravitas, not just by Anderson's adroit cinematic style (no one's camera is more restless or inquisitive), but by the wisdom and compassion of the characters he creates.

The Cider House Rules is about many things -- chance, passivity, free will and self-invention -- but ultimately it comes back to Larch, who emerges as a toweringly noble figure even in his weakest moments.

The movie's best moments belong to Bill Murray,

With a grating combination of naivete and arrogance, The Green Mile consistently overplays its melodramatic material, including a portrait of a black man that is as breathtakingly offensive as it is earnest.

Surprisingly funny, a deep-down-good-hearted take on that oldest of comedy conventions, the ill-prepared rube caught up in a situation that somehow never gets the best of him.

His [Director Mike Figgis's] techniques do make the film at least watchable.