They often seem more bent on titillating or harrowing us than on helping us understand the characters.

This long-awaited monster mash should satisfy fans of the "Friday the 13th/A Nightmare on Elm Street" franchises.

Cutesy and unconvincing parable.

I can't say that this feature by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, about the life and art of Harvey Pekar, made me want to run out and buy his comic books, but it does offer a highly interesting and original introduction to them.

I have no objection to soap opera when it's delivered with conviction and a sense of urgency, but this sappy tale ... held my interest only moderately.

Storper is pretty good at playing with and against certain western cliches in his treatment of the good guys (including Annette Bening's character), but resorts to pure cliche when it comes to the villians (e.g., Gambon and James Russo).

Suitable entertainment for boys too young to shave.

A spirited crowd-pleaser.

In his narration Brown says that he wants to dispel the image of surfers as airheaded slackers, an ambition undercut by his own breathless and clumsy writing. But to his credit he collects some fascinating stories.

As in other Ivory-Jhabvala adaptations, ritzy consumerism is very much on display, but what makes this better than most is Johnson's amused admiration for nearly all her characters, regardless of nationality.

As summer shoot-'em-ups go, this is pretty well executed, with plenty of macho posing and gunfire.

The premise provides a fine showcase for the two appealing actresses, who appropriate each other's vocal and physical mannerisms with dead-on accuracy.

Its brutal take on living under totalitarian rule periodically suggests Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Mullan makes the authority figures (such as the nun played by Geraldine McEwan) grimly believable, but as in "Orphans," there are times when he doesn't know when to quit.

According to common usage, the French word stupide comes closer to silly than to dumb, which is how I might rationalize my affection for this harebrained, obvious, but euphoric tale.

The film is equally good in handling the discrepancy between skilled and unskilled parents.

Screenwriter Adam Herz is calling this third installment the last, and not a moment too soon: his characters have grown up, but his gags are still trying to graduate from high school.

For the most part I was able to accept this thesis and enjoy Lopez in her usual superwoman role, but the script does get awfully preachy in spots.

The absence of any moral center makes this a bitter pill.

Like Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" this has a banquet scene posed like The Last Supper, but the basic idea--toothless satire trimming a dull star party--reminded me more of "Ready to Wear."

Like Fellini's "I vitelloni," this Spanish-French-Italian coproduction is a bittersweet epic about frustration and relative inertia, though with a somewhat older and wiser group of layabouts.

Rodriguez has a sure sense of scale and pacing as well as an artisan's relaxed control of the material.

This Indiana Jones knockoff goes down smoothly enough, and Jolie isn't bad at all, though every time she opened her mouth I expected Mick Jagger to come dancing down her tongue.

Maybe the magic will work for those who loved the book, but I found this film stultifyingly self-important and, despite the regularity with which it cuts to the chase, weirdly static.

Unfortunately the complicated thriller plot--with the regulation suitcase full of illicit cash--hinders the characters' emotional interactions without ever becoming credible on its own terms.

If you can get into the spirit of the proceedings, you're likely to find some fun.

For all its pretensions and avant-garde narrative dislocations, the star-studded cast...keeps this buzzing.

An impressive mix of entertainment and social comment, spinning a great mystery even as it confronts an ugly world.

This wacky Australian comedy about a struggling rock band is tolerable fun, neither as inventive as Bob Rafelson's 60s sitcom "The Monkees" nor as hilariously bad as Ron Howard's made-for-TV cult movie "Cotton Candy" (1978).

By the film's underwater finale, director Matteo Garrone has bestowed a tragic stature on the pint-size Othello who loves "not wisely but too well."

Disposable teen romance.

This putrid action flick crawls along for two and a half hours before expiring in a septic field of bad one-liners, halfhearted catchphrases, obliterated cars, vicious slow-motion bullet penetration, graphic corpse mutilations played for laughs, and shamefully hollow bonding scenes between its two dyspeptic megastars.

The banal score seems more appropriate for a western, and there's a certain self-conscious theatricality in the mise en scene, yet this is both handsome and affecting.

They're all instructive and interesting in one way or another, and they're indispensable viewing for residents of isolationist, or at least isolated, countries such as this one.

On its own modest terms, this romp delivers.

This inept 2003 melodrama has become a Rocky Horror-style cult favorite...As someone who's watched more bad movies than you can imagine, I'm mostly immune to the so-bad-it's-good aesthetic, though I can see how, viewed in a theater at midnight after a few drinks, this might conjure up its own hilariously demented reality.

The film flits from one relationship to another, dispensing some well-acted bedroom scenes and a fair amount of angst and philosophical dialogue in a neighborhood bar.

The movie overextends a patch of folk mysticism toward the end and then adds a silly whimsical coda, but as a comedy of errors it's often hilarious.

The story's resolution isn't very satisfying, but I considered most of this movie time well spent.

An overloaded script by Heidi Thomas... defeats a fine cast

A stiff. I don't know the comic book series, but it could hardly be as lifeless as this leaden adaptation, in which the weapons have more personality than the characters and the nonstop action often feels like no action at all.

Fairly predictable, but the two leads' impressively nuanced performances make it less so, and Berri makes skillful use of both actors.

Stark, mysterious, and often weirdly funny.

This typically bloated production from Jerry Bruckheimer is good swashbuckling fun for the first few reels but eventually slows to a halt under the weight of too many doubloons.

The heaving computer-generated sea swells doesn't match the conventionally animated characters. The action scenes are too antic, but directors Tim Johnson and Patrick Gilmore serve up a sweet romantic subplot.

Unfortunately, after the well-honed psychological melodrama of its first half, this wanders off into the metaphysical territory of Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" (a much better film).

Like the first movie, this has some cute gags but collapses like a soggy paper plate because it can't decide whether to mock or celebrate the heroine's shallow materialism.

Less about the characters than about the first two movies, whose best scenes it congeals into ritual or parody.

Its numerous ancillary characters are so closely observed that even those without speaking parts register as people, in a manner than blurs the line between strangeness and intimacy.

Most of the action in this 2001 indie drama takes place on computer screens, with grainy faces framed by sharp little boxes; the 21st-century conceit is topical enough but the characters and their problems couldn't be more stale.

Fresh and edgy; the images of a wasted London and the details of a paramilitary organization in the countryside are both creepy and persuasive.

The main reason I enjoyed this high-powered action flick and its 2001 predecessor is their willingness to poke fun at the premise of crime-fighting dolls, even though it now has more currency than ever.

The actors make this fun if you can overlook the ludicrous view of Jeremy Leven's screenplay.

Comes closer to deification than dramatization--a shame, since the film offers some powerful set pieces and jaw-dropping spectacle.

The real star is the splendid computer-generated Hulk, though his King Kong-like story is compromised by the need to keep him around for the inevitable sequel.

The best thing I can say about this limp prequel to the Farrelly brothers' Dumb & Dumber is that it obliged me to check out the original, which I'd been studiously avoiding for years. If you haven't seen it, it's pretty funny, and mercifully light on the scatology and cheap sentiment of later Farrelly efforts.

At times the plot developments in this post-Tarantino story seem so random they suggest automatic writing, but the characters and some of the settings kept me interested.

Estrada references Welles throughout with his low-angle deep-focus shots, grotesque close-ups, and brassy sound track. The actors are uniformly excellent, embracing their arch roles without succumbing to caricature.

This frantic sequel finds the diaper-obsessed heroes and their foolish parents marooned on a desert island, where they encounter the family from a more charming Nickelodeon cartoon.

Though its ending feels protracted--especially the climactic chase--it kept me reasonably distracted.

Commendable as pop history but fairly opaque as drama.

Its intelligent characterizations make it one of the best movies I've seen this year.

Franky G.'s performance as the protective yet combustible older brother is as real as it gets.

Binoche is especially effective playing a character that seems to have as many layers as her makeup.

Their relationship is so subtly inflected with fear, envy, and self-loathing on both sides of the class divide that I was drawn in nonetheless. Brody is a compelling presence throughout.

The Pang brothers rely heavily on visual razzle-dazzle (courtesy of cinematographer Decha Srimantra) and startling sound effects to work up the scares.

Without Diesel's brooding lunkhead presence it's more like "1/2 Fast 1/2 Furious."

Utterly fresh and beguiling.

Fascinating documentary.

Schmidt works the slasher formula for all it's worth, but the repulsive stereotype at the center of the movie dampens the fun.

Powerful and haunting.

Chen tries to generate some suspense, but there's never any doubt which side has to win.

Satisfying in a purely infantile way, and the familiarity of everything is oddly comforting. In terms of action, moreover, this makes "The Matrix Reloaded" look like a clodhopper's jamboree.

Aquatic joyride.

Without a decent script, Carrey can't create much of a character, and the farce loses its edge the moment it starts trying to tell a coherent story.

I found it warm, humane, pretty, and dull enough to anesthetize patients awaiting massively invasive surgery.

Fannish but intelligent chronicle of indie pop band They Might Be Giants.

The torture is strictly for kicks, which spoiled this for me, but less skittish viewers may enjoy this as a stylish and tightly wound genre piece.

While its slender plot (stripper Karina wants a baby and turns to Belmondo when her boyfriend Brialy won't oblige her) can irritate in spots, the film's high spirits may still win you over.

Stylish color schemes make this pleasing to look at, though the uneven narrative is both a minus and a plus--in one of the best scenes, beggars do an impromptu celebratory dance in the salon.

The camera goes limp during the climactic emotional blowout--unimaginative and static compositions leave the characters yelling at each other in a vacuum.

I'm not prone to like socially deterministic films of this kind, yet Loach is so masterful at squeezing nuance and truth out of the form that I was completely won over.

The filmmakers aren't exactly cruel, but they focus on compulsion rather than passion, which by implication tends to tarnish the more intellectual and scholarly members of the breed.

A sunny, gentle action yarn with numbingly repetitive chase scenes and bouncy interludes of playtime.

The consequent pain, anger, and confusion on all sides disrupts the standard martyrology of the genre and exposes the ordinary human wreckage that can follow even the most extraordinary acts of heroism.

The film is a pleasant ramble through an eventful year. Klapisch's special effects--cameras speeding down hallways, superimposed images--are both amusing and annoying.

The martial arts choreography is neither graceful nor exciting--it's worthy of a video game. Only after cars, trucks, and a motorcycle join the action--easily outclassing all the actors--does the movie take on a modicum of vitality.

Maddin takes on his first commissioned feature--an adaptation of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's production of Dracula--and succeeds brilliantly, making it his own while offering what may be the most faithful screen version to date of Bram Stoker's novel.

Most of the humor is of the kick-daddy-in-the-shins variety, though Anjelica Huston has a few choice moments as "Ms. Harridan."

Neil LaBute delivers his most interesting and powerful film to date, though it's also his most unpleasant and disturbing.

Fascinating group portrait of soul and R & B legends who are still touring 40 years after their original fame, enduring even after they've been relegated to the nostalgia circuit.

You can't set the comedy bar much lower than spoofing the old Rock Hudson-Doris Day romances.

The couple's parents have a bit more personality than the other characters, but on the whole this is strictly by the numbers.

Their calm assurance -- Hallyday as a grizzled icon, Rochefort as a melancholy mensch -- is a pleasure to behold.

The screenplay becomes annoyingly vague--Byler tries to conjure heavy weather out of Charlotte's mysterious past, but the details are confusing and the ending bewilderingly abrupt.

Studded with terrorist attacks... Yet Malkovich never exploits these for action-movie thrills: in each instance the loss of life is terrible and the morality of the act is left treacherously ambiguous.

Kwietniowski follows up his impressive debut feature, "Love and Death on Long Island," with this equally absorbing study of a compulsive personality.

Though the premise seems obvious and facile, the execution and the delineation of the various characters (all recognizable Hollywood types) are likable and funny, and the cast is great.

As in the first movie, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are trotted out periodically to add a little gravitas.