With a similar brand of self-aware playfulness, retains its predecessor's sturdy narrative foundation.

The dismal reality is that this romantic drama is a disaster, a dour "When Harry Meets Sally" that tries to jerk tears out of the story of a man and a woman who go from friends to lovers.

The bigger problem is that the action literally bleeds together and there's no sense of pacing.

Writer/director René Féret tells the absorbing and ultimately tragic story of this gifted young woman now forgotten by history.

This is Rudd's movie and he once more displays an unerring eye for comedy. He comes at it from an actor's perspective rather than a comedian's and it shows as his character as hilarious as he is credible.

A complex political statement, Amigo is epic in scale but trades the schmaltz of the traditional war film for a more resolute treatment of subject.

The strong central hour - full of beautifully assembled linking montages and a refreshingly offbeat sense of dramatic timing that could pass for comedy - makes up for a lot, marking Najbrt as a filmmaker to watch.

The film is really a valentine to the fans.

It's the best 3D horror movie ever made, as much for its superlative technical merits as for its satisfying thrills.

Fiennes' technique is extraordinary in its simplicity, balancing a literal prowl throughout his immense sculptural environs with a respectful observational distance.

At barely 80 minutes, the film seems like a slight little adventure, but Fleischer fleshes out his twists and turns to make it feel like a fully-rendered story.

A chick flick for do-gooders, The Help suffers from a malady common to the discrimination drama: its treatment of inequality is more condescending than the prejudice it aims to remedy.

The message is nearly as slight as the presentation and just as hard to pin down, but even when tackling something as sharp edged and soft bellied as exclusion Littlerock is not without its pleasures.

Sadly, the documentary just doesn't have enough coherent passages to make anything about this now seemingly ancient journey compelling for contemporary audiences.

Compared to this summer's grab bag of superheros vying for a franchise, the apes rise (pardon the pun) to the challenge of making us care.

The melodrama is tiresome, overwrought and clichéd.

Despite all the boobs, The Change-Up is very fair to its female characters-well, at least to Mann and Wilde, who both ring true, even if Wilde is almost too good to be true...It sounds like a trifling detail, but those details are sorely missing from most "date movies," in which even the women laughing in the audience exit feeling like they're the butt of the joke.

A feast for the eyes, Mysteries of Lisbon deals with 19th century passions, love affairs and escapades on a broad canvas. It might have made a lovely TV series, parsed out over several weeks, but at one sitting it's a challenge.

Severe and unflinching, The Whistleblower relies on journalistic realism to pack its punch.

It doesn't surpass the performance he gave in "JCVD," but if you're a fan of "the muscles from Brussels," it's worth watching if only because it suggests that whether he's drop-kicking enemies or delivering emotional dialogue, the best is yet to come.

There's nothing wrong with social message melodramas that tackle the AIDS crisis and certainly not every gay release has to please crowds like "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," but Schlim has a good-time movie with a likable cast.

Good Neighbors' greatest strength is that even when the plot becomes too obvious and the thriller aspects fall apart, it can always wrestle a laugh out of you.

Looking at the obnoxious TV ads for The Smurfs, it's easy to dismiss the film as a shrill, joyless exercise in special effects without substance. It's even easier after actually seeing it.

Beautifully shot but more than a little sterile.

James keeps viewer attention the whole time, despite forcing unnecessarily sentimental music on his footage and chopping his scenes down to dramatic highlights rather than letting them play at length.

For all the innovative dishes we watch being concocted, the movie needs another ingredient or two for flavor enhancement and full satisfaction.

A traditional southern gothic, Septien delivers oddities from the perverse to the parochial with a straight face, and in the process restores the oddball genre to what might be called authenticity.

The movie is a bit of a departure for the mumblecore pioneer, one that does not play to his strengths.