Handsome and competently acted and prettily shot and all the other things critics say when what they really want to scream is "Aaaaaaaargh! No more Jane Austen adaptations, ESPECIALLY not Pride and Prejudice.

The hot comic du jour wants to startle us but is merely startlingly dull.

I expected Get Rich or Die Tryin' to be gritty, scary, maybe disturbing or thought-provoking. What I didn't realize was that it would be so dull that any other effect it could have made was wiped away.

It's a unique vision of war from the point of view of a Marine who never pulled a trigger against a foe.

You must cast aside all rules of our space-time continuum to appreciate a fantasy like this one, though even then you might consider 130 minutes to be too much of a good thing.

The movie gives actors many chances to shine, and they do. But I went away most impressed with Verbinski.

We don't need a discussion of plot in a review of a movie made from a video game, do we? Nor do we care whether the characters are complicated (no), the acting is sophisticated (no), the direction is competent (no) or the camerawork is clever (no).

I was not disappointed by Dreamer, the most dishonest movie I've seen in a while. Nobody gets a fatal disease before the end credits, but every other clich? is exploited in this fabric of impossibilities, nonsense, stereotypes and shameless tear-jerking.

Gosling's been better elsewhere but delivers an adequate performance. McGregor and Watts seem baffled most of the time, as well they might be. Forster keeps us from drifting off with inventive camerawork; in this case, that's like saying a hideous suit has well-stitched lapels.

The plot is thin: You'll guess the villain early, then pick holes in story construction. But Black's ear for mock-noir speeches doesn't fail him, and he gleefully parodies the chase scenes that dominated his action movies.

The truly appalling thing, though, is the stupidity of the screenplay by Richard Kelly.

Crowe likes to work with large ensembles...But he doesn't know when we've had enough, however interesting they all may be; he's like a guy who decorates a Christmas tree with so many ornaments that you can't see the foliage.

North Country resorts to theatrics a judge would squelch after one outburst, as director Niki Caro and writer Michael Seitzman aim for a "Spartacus" feel.

It's a gentle look at people who cut themselves off from others and realize consequences too late. If Southern Baptists believed in karma, this would be their touchstone.

It'll preach mainly to the choir - lazy thinkers won't attend, despite George Clooney's attachment as director and actor - but maybe it'll wake a few sleepers.

Emotions too often get ladled unconvincingly.

Squid keeps you on your toes, but payoffs will have you smiling - maybe in rueful recognition of the truth - in scene after scene.

The giddiest and funniest animated film of the year.

Not even the repeated sight of Jessica Alba in a bikini, the camera caressing her like the eyes of a strip-club patron, can lift this leaden refuse off the ocean floor.

Whedon wants to make a Serenity trilogy, and I suspect the actors will grow on me if he does. In this case, familiarity would breed not contempt but comfort.

Whatever you feel about Truman Capote, you won't be able to turn away from him here.

Sean Bean makes a positive impression as the caring but puzzled captain of the flight, though Peter Sarsgaard flies at half-mast as a clumsy air marshal.

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."

Corpse Bride had me at the maggot.

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

I just saw The Transporter 2 on the way home from the lobotomy clinic, and boy, is it enjoyable. What a difference a simple operation makes!

Even if we leave aside the obvious time travel paradoxes, we can have a good horse laugh at the rest of the plot's inanities.

Utterly generic.

Cinematographer Cesar Charlone, whose burnt-orange view of the favela made "City of God" striking, conveys Africa's slums with equal force in somber browns and simmering yellows. At times, the inhabitants seem to be on fire in their surroundings, a fitting image for a land consigned to a hell of unhappiness.

The film seems almost intentionally bad in most ways, as if Gilliam were expressing a suicide wish for his directing career.

The writers supply character traits that seem to point toward a pay-off but never reach one. People all end up as tight-lipped, indistinguishable automatons who plummet 50 feet down jagged rocks with scarcely a scratch.

A terrific thriller...until it turns into yet another Wes Craven movie.

I didn't believe most of what I saw until the last 20 minutes, and whaddaya know? This thriller finally cast the spell it had been trying to achieve and lifted itself above the pack of late-summer, clean-out-the-studio-attic releases.

Four Brothers immediately joins the Good Idea, Bad Execution club. Hardly anyone seems to care about its believability - not director John Singleton, writers David Elliott and Paul Lovett or some lackadaisical actors.

Characterizations are rudimentary, performances dull.

There's nothing wrong with Simpson's performance that a head transplant wouldn't cure, and the grinning Reynolds looks Botoxed into immobility.

Tthe kind of movie the clergy can recommend to anxious parishioners.

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.

A clever blend of the high school comedy and the superhero genre.

This giddy summer extravaganza does deliver aerial thrills with eye-dazzling visuals and ear-smacking (though beautifully designed) sound.

It's a satisfying experience, whatever kind of picture you label it.

Bay's movie couldn't be more timely; whatever you think about this subject, you might admire his attempt to come to grips with it in a summer blockbuster.

The year's least necessary and most unimaginative remake slogs half-heartedly to its pre-destined conclusion without making a ripple.

Bizarrely entertaining and brilliantly designed.

Watching Wedding Crashers is like stuffing yourself with raw cookie dough. It's a guilty pleasure that goes down easily, but you can't help wondering what it would've tasted like if someone had finished the job.

Puts a fun, frothy spin on the 1960s TV show before sinking back into the mundane.

The best action movie of the month contains chase scenes, fights, a love story, exotic locations - well, one exotic locale, snow-blasted Antarctica - and a battle for survival against long odds amid brutal conditions.

The acting is adequate, though Lohan looks more like someone who has just gotten out of high school than college.

There's one thing to be said for The Perfect Man: It confirms my belief that I'll never need to see another Hilary Duff movie until (1) she turns 30 or (2) she plays a crackhead in "Requiem for a Dream II."

For the first time since "X-Men," I was on the edge of my seat anticipating a sequel, wondering who'd play the Joker and how quickly Nolan - it must be Nolan! - can bring the next chapter of this story to the screen.

Pitt coasts through the movie in second gear. I have no idea what he's trying to accomplish with his tight-lipped, low-key performance; maybe he's angling to replace Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible IV."

It honors the tone of that wonderful comedy while setting it in present-day New York City.

The story's so sloppy that it contradicts itself constantly.

A picture from an old man working at the top of his game.

One of those movies that sticks to your mind like a briar to wool slacks. It has no revelations, no high drama, no heartbreaking tragedy. What it does have is bone-deep honesty, and that's enough for once.

The performances do shine out through this dramatic miasma.

The new film, superficial and chaotic, delivers a rough sense of place, a reasonable number of skateboard thrills and very little character development or story.

This is strictly a picture for the target audience, though it seems to hit that target regularly.

Its crass good humor makes it an enjoyable, reasonably faithful but over-the-top successor to the original.

The animals' personalities have been carefully calibrated: They have sufficient edge to amuse us as characters, yet they're cuddly enough to market as plush toys or action figures.

Though it starts slowly, it lumbers toward greatness in the last third and restores him [Lucas] briefly to the top of his class.

In its design, at least, Mindhunters"surpasses all other Christie knockoffs.

Ferrell's ideally suited to man-boy characters, and that's what Phil Weston is in "Kicking."

The movie briefly suggests Viola is an incestuous psychotic.

These kids may be too small for sports and may not be headed to college on academic scholarships. But for once, they've proven to the world and to themselves that they matter.

Doesn't reveal all its layers until you've taken the last bite.

Weak, obligatory stabs at humor make it more generic than it might've been.

Bloom finally comes into his own as a man here, somberly thoughtful and melancholic. The elfin archer of "The Lord of the Rings" and the trivial boy-toy of "Troy" have been forgotten.

The two male leads, bulwarks of the Danish film industry for more than a decade, play off each other like the veterans they are.

A well-intentioned but obvious, often clumsy picture.

Except for the irritating Rockwell, the cast suits the characters.

The special effects excite at first but wear out their welcome.

The unspoken heroes of the project are cinematographer Peter Biziou, who finds all the beauty in Cornwall's landscapes, and U.S. violinist Joshua Bell, who extracts beauty without schmaltz from every violin solo.

An old-fashioned suspense drama with an old-fashioned belief at its core: Justice can be done in the world, and the United Nations is the global organization to do it.

Unimaginative.

The movie, first preposterously entertaining and then just preposterous, makes James Bond films look as logical as Euclidean geometry.

The picture's consistently entertaining and, though it has few brilliant comic peaks, it never plunges into boring valleys.

Raymond Wong, who has become Chow's favorite composer, iced this cake with music that sounds like Beethoven, Henry Mancini's jazz and all the James Bond themes run together in a blender.

A high-wire act, treading a thin line of truth between hokum and homilies. You hold your breath, waiting to see if the filmmakers misstep, but they never do.

Everything here has been done better in other books, other movies. The lone remarkable thing is the level of violence, which exposes the cowardice and hypocrisy of the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system.

It's fascinating to watch others sweat, suffer and triumph in the documentary Dust to Glory, which chronicles the longest nonstop, point-to-point race on our planet.

This is his (Kutcher) most relaxed and sensitive work on film.

"Velocity" told multiple stories, each lasting half an hour, but "Ballad" wears out one tale before its end.

Bullock good, but King reigns in movie sequel.

Goes wrong in less than two minutes, which may be a world record for sequels to decent movies.

Whatever you think of Melinda and Melinda, you have to admire Woody Allen for this: After years of criticism that he didn't use people of color in films, he's written two interracial romances.

Willis, who'll turn 50 a week from Saturday, has this kind of hero down pat. He may never again get or demand the complicated dramatic roles I think he could handle, but he's well-cast.

Jim Broadbent is the wild card in the cast; he screeches and growls his way through Madame Gasket's lines in the best traditions of British drag.

Starts as sweetly impossible and ends as impossibly sweet.

It's a disconnected, implausible story that aims for a tone of magic realism and falls short on both counts.

Recycling is a good idea in principle, but certain products should be sent directly to a landfill without re-use. Be Cool, the feeble film follow-up to "Get Shorty," is one of them.

It draws you into its grim and mysterious world through the first half of the movie, then falls apart like a house of cards in a hurricane.

The movie has been shot with love and wisdom, and its implausible premise doesn't get in the way of a sweetness and honesty too rarely seen.

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

Diary rather sloppily blends melodrama and spiritual uplift with crass comedy, sometimes in the same scene.

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

There's a potentially good story rattling around somewhere inside this broken, self-contradictory and finally meaningless film.

One of the most heartbreaking, unforgettable dramas in years.