It's got a smattering of hearty laughs and a career-high performance from Sandler.

The climax and epilogue are the juiciest, most tough-minded bits in the movie. Too bad Mayer didn't work his way backward from the end.

But The Ugly Truth can't escape its own ugly truth, that the central characters are written to extremes both ludicrous and tiring.

The whole movie aspires to set an Annie Hall vibe, especially when Tom keeps trying to re-create, first with her and then with someone else.

It flows like fast-moving lava to a climax filled with pyrotechnics. And for once in a summer blockbuster, the fireworks are both emotional and physical. The movie leaves you sated, yet wanting more -- just what you want from a series with two entries left to go.

Since that gifted, attractive performer is Hayden Panettiere, who has already won a wide following for "Heroes," it's a wonder that the studio hasn't been more heavily promoting her appearance in this decent, genial youth comedy. After all, she does play, ah, Beth Cooper.

The low points in this movie aren't just catastrophic: they're bewildering.

Humpday mixes hilarity with upset as the irresistible force of male pride meets the immovable object of sexual identity.

For a documentary about a music festival, Soul Power doesn't include nearly enough music.

You should have been able to treat this film as a grab-bag and pull out some plums. Instead it goes grabbing after you.

Without ever telling viewers what to think or how to feel, it raises more questions about the corruption of crime and crime fighting than any expose or thesis.

A bit like a real-world horror film with "heart," right down to the trick ending.

The Hurt Locker redefines war-film electricity.

The whirl, bang and general bother of crashing gears and gnashing metal ends up suffocating the senses.

At best it's a bit like Mel Brooks' "The History of the World Part I" (except Ramis stops somewhere in Genesis); at worst it's like a Scary Movie-type parody of John Huston's "The Bible."

The film saddles Craig T. Nelson with the generally thankless role of Paxton's cold, distant dad. But when he feels like the only person who doesn't understand what's going on with Tate and his son, you feel like saying, "No, me too."

"Hello, I Must Be Going," sings Groucho Marx in a clip from "Animal Crackers" at the start of the film. If I'd known what followed, I would have followed his advice.

This compelling account of the explosive growth of Lyme disease grows to encompass all the peculiar politics, corruption and inertia of American medicine.

Any chance to generate atmosphere or sustained comedy and melodrama goes down the tubes, often literally.

A scary movie that's also funny, touching and good for you.

Superior family fare.

Kevin Spacey delivers his least-mannered, most effective big-screen performance in years as the voice of the nearly omniscient computer-robot, GERTY, whose silky ambiguity resembles HAL's in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."

A delirious surprise .

The Hangover is like an infernal comedy machine. Surrender your soul to its foul mesh of cheap cleverness and vulgarity. and you howl like a delighted demon. Resist, and you feel all sense and sensibility being crushed in its cogs.

Sheila Bernette, as an aged pickpocket, is less a stereotype than an escapee from some provincial British comedy of the early 1950s. But she steals necklaces and knickknacks with such finesse and gusto that she also steals the movie.

Maya Rudolph's subtle, lyrical portrait of a patient wife and expectant mother enlivens and elevates Away We Go, an erratic couple-on-a-quest film.

Scrambled space-time comedy that's as light and silly as it is erratic.

Everything about Up is an up, in the most visceral and poetic ways.