The usual mawkishness is made slightly more palatable by the two leads and by Perry himself.

While the film includes several exciting, creatively shot action scenes, the drama is otherwise so shopworn that the violent climax is a relief.

Bittersweet drama.

The emotions are as gritty as the Edinburgh locales, and the sex is dark, urgent, and deeply selfish.

This thin premise can't sustain a feature, and the racial and gay jokes are jarring, but the child actors are cute, especially Andrew.

Insipid, TV-bland drama.

The deft physical comedy is a pleasure, though the leering chauvinism becomes more embarrassing as the movie progresses. Mel Brooks never had it this good.

Uses the seven days of shivah to launch a series of hilariously escalating confrontations, including one in which elderly men nearly come to blows over who's the more genuine Jew.

Based on a story by Steve Martin of all people, the script seldom rises above formula (Guy Pearce and Neal McDonough are especially ill served as a pair of starchy FBI agents), but its respectful treatment of Islam is both unusual and welcome.

Paul Bartel's "Death Race 2000" is a beloved camp item, but this slick, loud, violent remake is pitched at the video game crowd.

Coogan's screen persona is vain, dim, angry, and deeply miserable, and his handful of scenes here with a smilingly harsh Catherine Keener are little masterpieces of comic sadomasochism.

It's a damning indictment of a national disgrace, but it also reveals the incredible faith and resilience of people who have nothing to rely on but themselves.

They deliver a clear and compelling primer on the federal budget deficit, the trade deficit, and the personal debt crisis, all of which are driving our country toward a catastrophic financial meltdown.

There are plenty of funny moments, as well as a sweet subplot involving the unkempt drummer and the guitarist's no-nonsense mom (Christina Applegate).

Without the grandiose narrative structure of the six live-action releases, this feels even more pointless, a mechanical attempt to milk the kids for every last dime.

Watching Allen fart out a story when he has no characters is always painful, as people are defined through clumsy expository dialogue and ranked according to their cultural accomplishments. But the script here is lazy even by his standards.

Claude Chabrol's capacity to make shopworn material seem almost new is especially evident in this 2007 drama, which he cowrote with his stepdaughter, Cecile Maistre.

One of the few white vocalists to play the Apollo, O'Day does fabulous things with her hands as well as her voice when she sings. Her talent and will to survive (in the late 60s she kicked a 16-year heroin addiction) are reasons enough to see this film.

This contrived situation leads to a debate over the power of faith.

The little heroes and their families are surprisingly ugly, with faces resembling skulls, and the colors are so faded and muddy the movie feels tired and bungled.

Director Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension, The Hills Have Eyes) keeps the suspense tight for most of the movie, only to fritter it away in an overblown ending.

Never lives up to the hilarity of the opening, partly because the large-scale production smothers the gags but mostly because those gags are so easy to smother.

Extraordinary.

The narrative is murky and ludicrous, the action violent and nihilistic, the contemporary western ethos painfully pretentious.

Entertaining if superficial.

This engaging, mostly improvised no-budget feature is based in part on Mandt's experiences, its loose narrative structure developing by chance as the duo encounter an assortment of characters on the road.

Watching this is like watching kids play with Hot Wheels--not a bad time at all, but I wouldn't pay ten bucks for it.

Light-bodied comedy.

Steven Sebring spent a decade making this documentary about the punk poet, and it shows.

This sequel improves on the 2005 original about four friends.

For a movie about the undead, this lacks any supernatural chills, and by the time its obligatory final showdown arrives, it seems as hollow as the terra cotta soldiers brought to life by CGI.

This is a killer idea for a political satire, and screenwriters Jason Richman and Joshua Michael Stern come close to realizing its farcical potential.

Smart dialogue, an impeccably crafted story, and eye-catching LA locations make this low-budget feature by Alex Holdridge the most worthwhile date movie I've seen in some time.

Unexpectedly witty and affecting exposé of the American beauty industry.

A first-rate thriller, maintaining a high level of suspense.

The problem is that only a fan would be inclined to tolerate this dunderheaded mystery.

Ferrell and Reilly get more mileage out of juvenile pouting and bickering than any other performers I can imagine, but that's about as far as this goes.

This being senior year, Burstein can't help but capture some genuine drama, but there's a stage-managed quality to the movie that reminded me of MTV reality shows.

A raw, wickedly clever comedy that also includes moments of genuine terror.

Julian Jarrold's adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel isn't entirely faithful, but it conveys the book's universal themes.

In archival photos Petit seems to float between the towers, a tiny black figure against a vivid blue sky; the images are all the more poignant for the unstated fact that Petit is still around when the buildings aren't.

The movie is taut with suspense but culminates in wise resignation as the hero comes to understand he's running from a part of himself.

The moral dilemmas are perfectly fused with the amped-up action and outsize characters, but they're impossible to miss: like all of us, the people of Gotham have to protect themselves from evil without falling prey to it.

All singing! All dancing! All squealing! The money-minting Broadway musical has been adapted into the year's most aggressive chick flick, with a score of irresistibly catchy ABBA tunes sweetening the dumb story like peaches in cottage cheese.

A funny, offbeat superhero flick.

Eric Brevig, making his feature directing debut after a long career as a visual effects supervisor, lurches from one CG set piece to the next, though he's helped along by Fraser's easy comic touch.

The insipid gags fail to exploit Murphy's gift for physical humor, Elizabeth Banks and Gabrielle Union are merely decorative, and Ed Helms (The Office), playing a character called #2, looks appropriately constipated.

The mesmerizing narrative recounts a media circus of unrivaled malignance.

German supermodel Uschi Obermaier slept with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and all we get is this lousy biopic.

Feels a little soft and boomer-indulgent with its 10,000th rehash of the Nixon years and its soundtrack of trite 60s anthems.

When a respected actor moves into the director's chair, he can usually draw a pretty good cast, which is certainly the case here... But Sherwood Kiraly's slight script only makes this embarrassment of riches seem more embarrassing.

Gorski's script is full of catty gay banter, especially hilarious when delivered by Jay Brannan (Shortbus) as the hero's promiscuous best friend.

As popcorn movies go, this is fleet, funny, and even thoughtful: its central question, nicely underplayed by director Peter Berg, is why power and altruism never seem to intersect.

Cluzet's brooding performance propels the movie, and writer-director Guillaume Canet, best known here for his own acting work in "Joyeux Noel" and "Love Me If You Dare," skillfully orchestrates the cascading revelations.

Offers a steady supply of clever lines but suffers from the patina of self-loathing common to industry lifers and the unfortunate miscasting of straight-arrow Broderick as a depressed, cynical hack.

The movie's first half is largely free of dialogue, playing like silent comedy, while the second act offers a breathtaking tour of the cosmos.

Big, cruel, stupid actioner.

This begins to get interesting in the home stretch, as the woman's chronic deception begins to catch up with her, but for the most part it's an extended Geritol commercial.

With no personalities established and nothing at stake, it's no more interesting than a pickup game on your local court.

Breillat may be serious about creating period ambience, but she also can't resist patterning her heroine after Marlene Dietrich's Concha in "The Devil Is a Woman" (even though Argento sometimes suggests Maria Montez in the pleasure she takes in her own company).

Remaking Get Smart without Don Adams and Barbara Feldon is like remaking "My Little Chickadee" without Mae West and W.C. Fields--the best possible outcome is disappointment.

This Mike Myers vehicle exemplifies American comedy's continuing slide into infantilism.

A crime wave gives the heroine a mystery to solve and provides most of the comedy, but the film is stronger in its dramatic stretches.

The movie is notable for its perceptive take on issues facing immigrants, and atmospherically photographed by Robbie Ryan (Red Road), but its flat, static quality belies the novel's richness.

Wyatt Cenac, the latest addition to "The Daily Show" With Jon Stewart, is the best reason to see this easygoing romantic comedy.

Wahlberg turns in one of his worst performances ever, but then he's saddled with preposterous scenes.

There's enough adrenaline pulsating throughout this bang-up Marvel Comics adaptation to erase 2003's Hulk from memory (Ang who?).

Writer Petr Jarchovsky and director Jan Hrebejk collaborated on the formidable "Up and Down" (2004), and this 2006 feature, which takes its title from a Robert Graves poem, is equally impressive for its mastery, intelligence, and ambition in juggling intricate plot strands and memorable characters.

Becomes more engrossing as its focus shifts from Isherwood to Bachardy, who began as the bashful boy toy of a famous author but gradually emerged in his own right as a portrait artist of striking (and merciless) insight.

The movie is dominated by Maddin's usual black-and-white photography, silent-movie syntax, and deadpan melodrama.

Werner Herzog is a stranger in a strange land as soon as he gets out of bed in the morning: in this travelogue of Antarctica, his perverse curiosity and zest for the harshest extremes of nature transform what might have been a standard TV special into an idiosyncratic expression of wonder.

Tongue-in-cheek dialogue, inventive slapstick and fight sequences, and luminous production design make this a treat.

Though a bunch of the jokes are milked too thin, there are some absurdly goofy sight gags--like a hacky sack game enlisting a family pet--and a lineup of fun, silly cameos by guests from Chris Rock to Mariah Carey.

Argento is admired for his voluptuous use of color and his operatic bloodletting; this is lovely to look at, if you can stand to.

Chicago native Steve Conrad, who scripted "The Weather Man" and "The Pursuit of Happyness," makes his feature directing debut with this low-budget comedy, which isn't as broad as its premise might suggest.

Bell presides over this insightful, often droll survey like a sweeter, buffer version of Michael Moore, trolling gyms, universities, and Congress to grill assorted experts.

It plays exactly like a Will Ferrell comedy, but better, because Ferrell's not in it.

Julianne Moore proves game for anything in this pitch-black true-crime reconstruction.

So much has been written about the show's emotional importance to single women that I can't possibly add anything, except to say that, in both its TV and movie incarnations, the empty materialism and sincere longing for love always manage to cancel each other out, leaving behind nothing but what this started out as--a sitcom.

There's nothing remotely new here, but the movie has the taut, queasy feel of an early 70s drive-in shocker: old-fashioned suspense without any guarantee of old-fashioned mercy.

The melodrama form allows Tornatore to examine such current issues as human trafficking and black-market babies within a yarn that, for all its sentiment, is never less than gripping.

As the title of this splatter comedy by writer-director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) indicates, he's like a bug stuck to her windshield, and that's about the level of humanity and insight one can expect here.

Director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) uses the children and action sequences to good effect, but a lack of chemistry between Rhys Meyers and Mitchell makes the love story fizzle.

Like so many satires in the Strangelove mold, this never comes close to working as a story, but its lampoon of U.S. imperialism and military privatization is so bracingly obnoxious I didn't really care.

The character and plot contrivances are dumber than ever, but this is basically vaudeville, not narrative, and the thrills keep coming.

Born in Hamburg to Turkish parents, director Fatih Akin brought an unusual cultural perspective to "Head On" about a marriage of convenience between a beautiful Turk and a suicidal German. In The Edge of Heaven, his first dramatic feature since then, the characters navigate the same cultural divide, but here Akin is more preoccupied with the sense of responsibility that links parents to their children (or vice versa).

This fusty sequel lacks the narrative complexity of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and squanders both its first-rate computer graphics and its sturdy international cast.

The movie is enjoyable for its flashy surfaces--the witty editing, the narrative forecasting, the droll omniscient voice-over--but as drama it seems superficial.

Andy and Larry Wachowski barrel through this adaptation of the 60s animated series, hoping perhaps that no one will notice the story is as flat as roadkill.

Director Tarsem (The Cell) reworks the 1981 Bulgarian film "Yo Ho Ho" for this stylish fantasy.

This French comedy fondly lampoons both the popular French spy movies adapted from Jean Bruce's novels in the 1950s and '60s and the colonialist era they were set in.

The fallout decades later provides the drama in this documentary by Doug Pray (Hype!), who lets his eccentric octogenarian subject off a little too easy.

Amiable screwball comedy.

Producer Ismail Merchant died in 2005, but Merchant Ivory's stuffy tradition of quality lives on.

Broomfield, whose celebrity exposés are known for their intrusiveness and innuendo, lost me with his gentle shower scene between an Iraqi woman and her husband; even if it wasn't invented, is it really any of our business?

Tasteful, unremarkable art-house fare, rescued from complete irrelevance by Stephen Dillane's bottled-up performance as a writer scarred by the Holocaust.

The movie is so clever and smoothly paced that it's easy to overlook the odious story line.

Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan make an agreeable pair in this above-average comedy.