There is indeed a murder - two of them, in fact - and the movie proceeds strictly by the numbers laid down long ago in some by-the-book Hollywood writing class.

Has more twists than the Pacific Coast Highway and more layers than a stack of silver-dollar pancakes. If you can wrap your mind around one unlikely condition, the picture provides unalloyed pleasure for connoisseurs of cinematic con artists.

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

Feeble, vapid picture.

It's watchable from start to finish, despite lapses in common sense, and it boasts a terrific cast of over-40 actors.

You'll depart with memories of a well-crafted study in quiet horror, and with ideas whirling in your head about the nature of evil and what happens to children caught in its grip.

Bogdanovich adds touches to appeal to serious film fans.

Once, for no reason, Franklin whirled the camera around 360 degrees while two people were having an ordinary conversation. I suspect he must have been as bored by then as I was.

Andie MacDowell bursts out of her good-girl cocoon in Crush to become a bright, bad butterfly: drinking, smoking, flirting with Ecstasy, having moaning sex on a tombstone just minutes after the funeral of a friend.

The Rookie is "Rudy" in a baseball uniform.

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.

What makes Blade 2 marginally better than "Blade," especially if you thought the first was a hollow spectacle? It has a plot.

Turn a potentially unforgettable movie into a broad crowd-pleaser that sustains itself on three acting performances.

By refusing to take anything seriously (including himself), Shatner lifts the movie to a truly funny level of absurdity. Soon, though, it goes back to being the type of buddy picture Hollywood stamps out like stale cookies.

MacDowell gives an uneven performance, as she often does, but Strathairn is ideally cast as the conflicted husband.

How odd that some of the most appealing elements of this new animation should be action sequences as old as cinema itself.

The last 40 minutes descend further and further into nonsense, until we're in an underground grotto where Jeremy Irons plays a furry, cannibalistic albino with psychic powers and super-strength.

Some scenes achieve dramatic greatness and emotions that reach to the heart's core. Almost as many have the tinny ring of a badly counterfeited coin.

Abbott, Petroni and director Michael Rymer do exploit the visual and aural cliches of vampire movies from the last 20 years: The creatures wear tattoos, shave their heads, listen to blistering rock and dress in black leather. For a band of societal outsiders, they're pathetically conformist.

Eventually, though, the movie turns into a "Touched By An Angel" knockoff that dares us not to reach for a hankie while we succumb to its comforting message.

The lack of attacks lets us concentrate on emotions rather than explosions.

Adults will wish the movie were less simplistic, obvious, clumsily plotted and shallowly characterized. But what are adults doing in the theater at all?

A mind-numbing carnival of violence.

What starts as a cute premise crashes faster than a skateboard with an oak branch shoved between its wheels.

The movie runs out of steam before its finish, but she (Kidman) doesn't.

The Son's Room refers to every room this family will inhabit for a long time -- he's an unseen, ubiquitous presence -- but they may learn to lead ordinary, even joyful lives again.

It pays homage to the genre's most glorious days.

By the end, an end that has a little too much melodrama to it, we can only shake our heads in wonder.