Like the story, Kline builds in intensity: He has no flowery speeches that would be untrue to his character, but he leaves a clear impression of a man who values knowledge and the imparting of it above all else.

“Blood” may carry us into the past, but the unhappy effects linger today, like pollution darkening a sky that never turned completely blue.

Worthwhile IMAX look at the ways nations cooperated to build Space Station Destiny, and what they hope to achieve.

The casting of Daniels, Tyson and Saint, all of whom underplay effortlessly, was shrewd.

Defies logic, the laws of physics and almost anyone's willingness to believe in it. But darned if it doesn't also keep us riveted to our seats.

Like virtually all fish stories, it's discursive, funny, full of boasting, a suspect mix of truth and lies with an emphasis on the latter.

Lawrence plus latex equals laughs.

It takes place on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border, and it offers an undeniable argument that life without love is unpalatable on either side.

For all the silliness, Kaufman is posing a serious question: Are we better off forgetting things that brought us pain, especially if we didn't change or grow as a result? You may not agree with his conclusion, but who else in Hollywood would pose this query at all, or explore it in such a daffy, gratifyingly inventive way?

I can’t think of a single situation where Kelly Fremon Craig, who makes her feature debut as a writer-director, takes us to a place we haven’t often been. Yet she lays out her heroine’s dilemmas with good humor and understanding.

Eisele and Washington lacked faith in their material. So they've made the big debate opponent not USC but Harvard, a more clear-cut epitome of the white world of privilege that has to face the hard truths of racial equality.

Despite juggled storytelling, the movie's compelling.

Slight, enjoyable comedy.

The most radical thing about the movie, the thing that may make it most appealing to modern audiences, is that the filmmakers say both sides are right.

You'll respect him more as an actor if you see this film – and you should, even if you haven't enjoyed the action movies he's made over two decades.

To enjoy it, you have to make a leap of faith wide enough to sail over a Grand Canyon of disbelief.

Grant handles the slapstick humor gracefully and speaks his lines with sincerity and warmth.

The actors do well, with Brosnan playing a kind of James Bond who has fallen into seediness and shady dealings. Bell carries her weight in the emotional scenes and the battles, and Wilson proves (as he occasionally has) that he can do more than be a laid-back comic foil.

Formulaic, yes. Settled with as many reconciliations and promises of happiness as “A Christmas Carol,” absolutely. But a familiar pleasure, nonetheless.

Edward Norton's a more evocative actor than Eric Bana, and he supplies all the emotions required by Leterrier and writer Zak Penn.

The film’s fast, amusing, good-looking and not overlong, which is all sensible non-geeks ask of such movies.

Has its own peculiar, loose-knit kind of charm.

Overlong, entertaining, sense-assaulting drama.

Vaughn delivers every line with his usual deadpan glibness, which suits the part. But I smiled as I watched the big-bellied, multi-chinned actor connecting with the porcelain, model-thin Witherspoon.

Heartfelt, if rather repetitive, documentary.

Remains gripping until the final 15 minutes, when a series of sudden, unjustified plot twists leave us shaking our heads.

State-of-the-art.

Lee pulled me into this coming-of-age story as if it were mine; there's a universal quality to his nostalgia that might satisfy anybody, whether you grew up hearing Beethoven or "Boogie Oogie Oogie."

An unrepentantly rude, anti-seasonal dish of malice and mischief. Director Terry Zwigoff works from a story that originated with the Coen brothers and passed through at least four writers, including him...The results may leave you aghast or breathless with laughter, but you won't be neutral.

A middlebrow hybrid that should satisfy most fans of spy movies without blowing them away.

The Coen brothers have never really accepted the idea that a movie has to have a plot. Offbeat characters, sure. Oblique dialogue that sounds meaningful and occasionally is so, absolutely. Eye-catching cinematography and a subtle, mood-reinforcing soundtrack, no question. Irony layered on thickly as cheese in good lasagna, yes. But a narrative that makes sense from end to end? Well, one doesn't have room for everything.

It's funny, in a can't-look-away-from-the-train-wreck way, and it's brutally honest. But it's not pretty.

The movie has entertaining cameos, too, especially one by Holly Robinson Peete. At 23, she played Officer Judy Hoffs on the TV show. At 48, she plays … Officer Judy Hoffs, the oldest undercover cop on Jump Street. Absurd? Of course. But pretty funny, too.

Historians at Ellis Island estimate nearly half of all Americans had at least one ancestor pass through there between 1892 and 1954.

However much Underworld recycles elements from other films, it carries us into a well-constructed, convincingly scary world worth visiting.

Writer-director Patty Jenkins makes an impressive debut, showing savvy that often eludes old pros.

Director Ken Kwapis uses those monster infants perfectly, down to a funny final outtake.

For once, I didn't feel cheated by an unresolved ending, but let's hope this is the end. Robert Ludlum wrote three Bourne novels, and this is one series that ought not to be dishonored by inferior sequels.

[A] warmhearted, conventional and irresistible dramedy.

The comedy, which verges on farce from time to time, also has the smilingly cynical approach to romance that we identify with the French.

Fiennes isn’t naturally an outgoing performer, and he’s playing the most extroverted author in English history. So he does his best work in intimate moments, when Dickens finds himself at a loss for words.

On first acquaintance, Seabiscuit seems to be about anything but horse racing: the disappearance of the American frontier after 1910, our love affair with automotive speed, the passing of a rural way of life, homelessness during the Depression.

De Palma makes us sweat; slow, quiet scenes are as nerve-bending as occasional explosions and the final, frantic battle. He calls himself a director for hire on projects such as this and "The Untouchables," where he has little input before shooting. But his skill at maintaining tension is his main asset, and he uses it to the max here. [24 May 1996, p.1E]

The movie has four significant virtues, principally its cast.

One of the best things about real Americans is that we can stand criticism. Informed or idiotic, scholarly or superficial, it's all welcome.

If you want a glimpse of a damaged mind and a thorough look at an artist’s healthier psyche, you’ll be satisfied.

The Witch is a horrifying film, one unique in my experience.

By the end, Wilbur becomes an unusually complicated character: We empathize with his suffering, find his selfishness appalling, enjoy his gloomy wit and frank self-appraisal.

The first two-thirds are classic science fiction, technologically plausible and emotionally resonant. It's only when God enters the picture that things slide downhill.

Kasdan ends up with an intellectually dishonest movie about intellectual dishonesty.

The first movie I'd have enjoyed more asleep. That's not because it put me to sleep, but because it may be the most dreamlike film I've ever seen.

That's why Forgetting Sarah Marshall, shorter than "Knocked Up" and more focused than "Superbad," tops all other Apatow productions so far.

The Soloist does have the courage to be true to the real Ayers' fate at last, after the exaggerations end. And the smart, hard-working Foxx and Downey ensure that their scenes all stay grittily honest.

A fairly ordinary (for Wilder) adaptation of a play with a great performance by Lemmon as a French cop who falls for hooker Shirley MacLaine. [18 Jul 2003, p.11E]

If movies were still silent, Girl With a Pearl Earring would be a near-masterpiece.

His (Branagh) Thor has more complex characters than the usual "Transformers"-style melee; though that may not be what the readers of Marvel comics now want, it satisfied me most of the time.

(Ford and Thomas) give Random Hearts muscle when the story turns flabby, spine where it sags, wings where it threatens to stay earthbound.

I felt depressed when I realized all 87 minutes had passed without one word about forgiving sin or reaching out to the image of God in neighbors who don't think as you do.

Another whirling crime caper that leaves you shocked and chuckling at the same time.

Three-fourths of a terrific thriller, which in this dreary run of winter movies seemed like clear spring water to this parched traveler. The setup is so riveting, the suspense so carefully prolonged, that I didn't mind when it unraveled into lunacy near the end.

Nair and screenwriters Matthew Faulk, Mark Skeet and Julian Fellowes have faithfully carried most of the main characters over from the novel but have changed its point of view.

Pattison grows on us as he grows on Bella: His weird mannerisms and nervous delivery stop seeming like quirks and acquire an intensity that's hard to resist by the end.

Reminds me of the golden retriever that lived next door long ago: endearing, consistently sweet-natured, ready for a brisk turn around familiar territory as long as no strenuous intellectual demands are ever made.

The film works best among the beasts. Their training is impeccable, their emotions are palpable, and almost all of their behavior is credible. One "Jaws"-like encounter sends a carnivorous leopard seal after a fleeing canine, and it's as tense as anything I hope to see this spring.

As warm and reassuring as grandma's hugs.

Malcolm Lee's brilliant documentary about American race relations.

The filmmakers do everything they can to balance levity and leavening. The subject says "drama," and the three supporting women deliver well-shaded, understated performances. (Howard shows us how weakness can be just as destructive as malice.)

Watchmen is a fitting tribute to Alan Moore's fascinating graphic novel, even if he refused to let his name be used in the credits.

The film contains the usual Moore plusses and minuses, now familiar to anyone who's watched even one of his films.

Because the tale is straightforward and conventional, it needed and got terrific acting.

Part of the film's failure to arouse real horror is the languid direction; not enough seems to be at stake emotionally.

That Testament doesn't wallow in cheap sentimentality or grisly detail is a testament to the talents of first-time feature film director Lynne Littman, her superb cast and screenwriter John Young. [20 Jan 1984, p.4C]

Characters in Breillat's movies often make sex their god, lose faith in it, then find their lives hollow and grim. Bergman wouldn't have been so concerned with bodily woes, but he'd have understood.

A handsome tribute to an era as quaintly distant as tail-fin Chevrolets and A-bomb scares.

I predict Northfork will give you food for reflection or a case of the hives. I stopped scratching 20 minutes into the movie, settled into its lulling rhythm and floated away into the Polish brothers' flaky, austere dreamworld.

Pavich gives the Chilean-born Jodorowski his full say in the documentary, partly in Spanish and partly in expressive if slightly fractured English.

Mangold has been smart or fortunate in casting, and personalities sustain interest even when the narrative flags.

Sitting through Source Code is like watching a chef coax a beautiful soufflé into perfect shape for 80 minutes, then drop a bowling ball on it.

Chuck and Buck: A fungus among us.

For certain movies, the adjectives "formulaic" and "predictable" are complimentary. War Horse is one of them.

Here’s a paradox: The millions of people who have read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo are the panting target audience for the Swedish-language film adaptation. Yet they’re also likeliest to be disappointed by this carefully crafted drama, while people who haven’t read the book are likely to enjoy the movie and wonder what the literary fuss is about.

Denzel Washington doesn’t demonstrate how great he is with first-rate scripts such as “Flight.” He does it by elevating sophisticated pulp like The Equalizer to a higher level.

Wes Anderson's movies taste that way to me. They're dryly funny, well-acted, never less than quirkily entertaining. But they're never more, either.

By the end, a Zen-like calm that might be mistaken for stasis settles over the story. But these lives move forward slowly, inexorably, and they move us, too.

Most importantly, Shut Up & Sing is about what happens in the music industry to people who won't.

300 is a huge step forward in visually sophisticated storytelling.

There may not be much meat in Hodges' stew, but the sauce was so tasty I felt satisfied after the light meal.

Director Fede Alvarez (who did the “Evil Dead” remake) masterfully sustains a little more than an hour of shocks. Eventually, though, he resorts to the ideas lazy or unobservant filmmakers employ.

The documentary stays entirely within the corporate world of record sales, which may seem an airless atmosphere to someone who never haunted such joints. Yet the movie gradually expands to give us a somewhat larger picture of the music business.

The story might have worked as well without that stick-in-the-craw coincidence, which was inserted to maximize the horrors of Nawal's past.

Neuwirth vamps up a storm: She's like some silent-screen hellion sending lust rays out of bemused eyes.

It's a thoughtful, multi-layered film that falls a bit short of its goals on all fronts. Fans of intellectually challenging science fiction and/or Robin Williams will make up most of its market.

Fans expecting horror won't want a thought-provoking, well-acted courtroom drama about the intersection of religious belief and the law.

If the spate of action movies must continue, especially at Christmas, let more be like "Daylight." [6 Dec 1996, p.13E]

At the heart of the film, beyond the human/crawler conflict, is the suppressed tension between Sarah and Juno. That Marshall bothered to include such a fillip sets him apart from run-of-the-mill scaremongers; it makes me want to see what else he's done and will do.

Though the movie short-changes us emotionally, it delivers a credible, disheartening picture of greed and panic.

The best vampire movie I've seen in years.

What Levine does have is a gently gruesome way of amusing us, converting the uneasiness of a wooer from another species into the everyday anxieties of a young man around a girl he likes.