Shamelessly derivative and politically expedient.

Full of odd notions and interludes, the movie never really comes together, but fitfully suggests a cross between Boys Town and Greaser's Palace.

There is little of the gratuitous hysteria that usually mars Lumet's work, and David Himmelstein's busy script (no less than four campaigns are covered, when one or two would do) keeps things moving, though at the price of losing track of a couple of significant subplots.

Perry benefits from the fire, heft, velocity, and lyricism of the language, but he also updates the material and makes it work onscreen, eliciting powerhouse performances from an ensemble of actresses.

If the Disney animated original (1961) -- adapted from Dodie Smith's novel -- tried to approximate live action, this 1996 Disney live-action remake often tries to evoke cartoon.

This unambitious caper flick takes a while to get moving but gradually develops a modest meat-and-potatoes appeal, compromised in the third act by a whopping and perfectly avoidable plot hole.

How can a romantic drama tailor-made for Julia Roberts from Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir about self-actualization--shot against alluring locales in Italy, India, and Bali, and directed by the acclaimed Ryan Murphy (TV's Nip/Tuck and Glee)--go so ass-numbingly wrong?

In this cute 2001 children's feature from the Netherlands, the title cat magically transforms into a woman (Carice von Houten, later of Paul Verhoeven's Black Book) and assists a beat reporter with his field research.

As satire it's toothless and at times close to incoherent; its predictable swipes are aimed equally at conservative racists and bleeding-heart liberals.

As an action thriller with music by Isaac Hayes it's not bad.

Actually I quite enjoyed the film -- but how do I get rid of this awful discharge?

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.

Philippe Rousselot's elegant cinematography lends some gravitas to music-video veteran Francis Lawrence's directorial debut.

Handsomely mounted and stylishly directed but otherwise rather unpleasant.

I don't believe in fixing things that aren't broken. Sandra Nettelbeck's wholly accessible "Mostly Martha" (2001) is one of the most delightful comedies of recent years, so the idea of a remake with English instead of German dialogue is already pretty dubious, an insult to the capacities of both audiences and the original filmmakers.

Nothing much is original in this soggy tale of two German women whose friendship persists despite adversity and their own bad choices.

George Lucas produced and Jim Henson (of Muppets fame) directed this heftily budgeted 1986 fantasy, which seems to be a conscious attempt to play on the female coming-of-age themes of classic fairy tales.

Craven seems to have set out to make a bad movie, and he's succeeded.

Directed by Richard Benjamin from a screenplay by John Hill and Bo Goldman, Little Nikita is quite a surprise-a film that moves through several layers of irony and absurdism to arrive at a strong and solid emotional core. [18 Mar 1988, p.A]

Director Cherie Nowlan steers the comedy to a feel-good ending.

Not even 3D can save this third entry in the Fox animation franchise about a motley crew of prehistoric creatures.

Actor Justin Theroux makes an impressive directorial debut, aided by David Bromberg's mordantly funny dialogue.

Boiling Point essentially plays with and parodies the principle of symmetrically matching sound bites in order to create rhymes and continuities in its parallel plots.

The psychological and psychoanalytical probes into sexual and emotional problems keep this reasonably lively.

Two interesting asides: the director and most of the cast aren't gay, and the film is based on a true story from 1996 -- the real Iron Ladies are shown, too briefly, during the closing credits.

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

Robin Shou frequently cuts to scenes from one of his recent movies, adding to the impression that this is a vanity reel.

Ultimately Barker's style drains the life from the film, making it feel like an academic exercise as it becomes increasingly inert, emotionally and dramatically.

This 'heartwarming' thriller refuses to distinguish realism from stylization, and much of the plot is a twisted mess of repetition and unpersuasive motivation.

It may drive you nuts, but it’s probably the most inventive and original Godard film since Passion.

This has plenty of designer gore to go with its periodic spurts of bloodletting, and a lot of care and attention were obviously devoted to selecting locations, designing sets, and grooming handlebar mustaches. Much less attention went to making one believe that any of the events took place circa 1879, but at least the bursts of action keep coming, and most survive Cosmatos's addiction to smoldering close-ups.

Joffe may remain as variable a filmmaker as ever, but this time, at least, he gives one something really solid to think about.

Another audacious MGM aquacade, this 1952 Mervyn LeRoy extravaganza stars Esther Williams as the famed Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman and Victor Mature as the man who discovers first her and then Rin Tin Tin. But the real star is, as always, Busby Berkeley, who contributes more of his Ken Russell-ish wet dreams.

Kids used to watching him on TV might find it all perfectly normal, but for adults it's almost an acid trip.

Larry Doyle and John Hamburg's script is full of holes, but this is still pretty damn funny--thanks mostly to Barrymore, who seems to be retracing Lucille Ball's trajectory from sex kitten to comedienne.

Director Tobe Hooper seriously overplays his hand, losing the shape of this 1985 film in a barrage of overblown special effects and screaming Dolby stereo.

This 1979 movie adaptation of the cult TV series is blandness raised to an epic scale. Robert Wise's bloodless direction drains all the air from the Enterprise.

Despite a monotonously fashionable mise-en-scene, Lyne generates some genuine erotic tension between his two stars; you believe in their obsessive relationship, even as most of the action and staging registers as ridiculous.

Silly but enjoyable drama.

This quirky indie romance is beguiling at first but later succumbs to artifice.

My pleasure in seeing Chicago's underexposed Humboldt Park neighborhood on-screen was gradually overcome by this indie drama's cliched treatment of a dysfunctional family reunion.

Neither the crime nor its detection is especially interesting, and screenwriter Tony Gayton doesn't appear to be aiming for psychological insights.

This is simply efficient, routine storytelling with a high gloss but an undernourished sense of character.

Depp plays multiple versions of Sparrow, who now suffers from a split personality; his shtick is funny, but the players are all upstaged by the astonishing special effects, superior to those of earlier installments in creating a wondrous and menacing world.

Quicker on the uptake than any of Eddie Murphy's fat ladies, quicker even than Flip Wilson's Geraldine Jones.

Based on a French true-crime best seller, this gory, ham-fisted hybrid of social-issue picture and horror film exerts a crude but undeniable power.

This arty and moody account of her formation as an artist, as its subtitle declares, is basically invented. Its nerviness only pays off in a few details and in Nicole Kidman's resourcefulness.

The story--written by Brian Helgeland and directed by Richard Donner--was just dumb.

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).

Vanessa Redgrave bails out this mushy Italian-postcard romance.

Ernest Schoedsack's sequel to his monster hit of 1933, rushed out the same year. The slapdash production shows in a wavering tone and a paucity of special effects. With Robert Armstrong and Helen Mack; the animation, what there is of it, is by the legendary Willis O'Brien.

Steve Buscemi supplies the only spark of intelligent life in this numbingly flat universe, despite the fancy gadgets, the high-speed chases, and a skyscraper collision reminiscent of the World Trade Center attacks.

No doubt the characters are stereotypes, but the performances are handled with a knowing wink and a great deal of fun-particularly Mike Epps, who shines as a hammy Little Richard-style preacher.

Wain and Marino try to tie all this together with a framing narrative about an unfaithful husband (Paul Rudd), which turns into a clever parody of Woody Allen movies.

Demands that we see as coincidental if not ironic the ease with which Fraser cuts a rug at a swing club when he's hopelessly naive about everything else that's being revived in the 90s when he emerges.

A lot of superwimp gags executed by Luke Wilson grow out of this premise, as do some tacky 50s-style special effects. The movie's too slapdash to keep its characters consistent, but this has its moments.

The hero's psychological transference is so blatant that even the characters begin commenting on it after a while, yet this modest three-hander is capably acted and genuinely touching.

Jeff Lipsky invests this indie drama with admirable intelligence and insight, though these fine qualities are undermined by a sense of writerly artifice.

Foreigners who argue that Americans are Neanderthal savages can point to this movie as persuasive evidence.

Assorted movie in-jokes should keep parents tolerably entertained, and Alan Menken's songs mercifully favor western swing over the expected twang pop.

The players deftly balance flip caricature with a surprisingly moving depiction of those trapped in the celluloid closet.

After 9/11 and Katrina, this megabudget remake by Wolfgang Petersen benefits from a similar cultural oomph, though it's just as enjoyably silly as the original.

All this is supposed to be as cute as bugs and chock-full of worldly wisdom, but even with lead actors as likable and as resourceful as these, the material made me alternately want to gag and nod off.

It's neither sexy enough to qualify as good trash nor serious enough to pass for history.

Another disposable family entertainment.

Every moment is hyped for maximum visual and visceral impact, but Scott doesn't display the slightest bit of interest (or belief) in the actual characters and situations.

An attempt to blend the war epic and the caper film that doesn't quite come off.

Almost an hour of self-indulgent psychedelics, it's nearly impossible to watch.

The late 300-pound transvestite Divine, John Waters’s most enduring muse, makes his/her first star entrance in this 1969 feature—the first Waters movie to play outside Baltimore—driving a 1959 Eldorado to the strains of “The Girl Can’t Help It.”

Playing a variation on John Wayne's character from "Red River," Harrison Ford gives an understandably bewildered performance, often appearing uncertain if he should take his lines seriously.

The end justifies the means as long as everything turns out OK for the not-too-obedient American soldier and everyone else who enjoys Coca-Cola.

The film's opening and closing moments are weirdly reminiscent of "Black Hawk Down," another tale of Western soldiers in over their heads on the dark continent -- clearly no one these days understands manifest destiny.

Many of the gags rely on the incongruity of Grant's nervous, cultured character posing as an Italian-American stereotype, but they're subverted by his earnest relationship with his fiancee, whose affection hardly seems worth the trouble.

More concerned with attitude than character and too moralistic to be much fun.

This caper movie starts off as enjoyable guff before turning strictly formulaic and winding up as unenjoyable guff.

Despite the sophistication of the source material, this 1984 film isn't particularly successful: Petersen insists on forcing the superficial moral lessons, and the half hour removed from the film by its American distributors leaves it with a harsh, choppy rhythm.

After making his best and smoothest drama (Match Point) in England, Woody Allen returns there for one of his most clueless and awkward, outfitted with a standard-issue Philip Glass score.

As the aching spouse, Moore delivers what is for her an unusually sympathetic performance.

The audience is subjected to a series of emotional contortions, encouraged to experience them voyeuristically, and then scolded for doing so. The bathetic music Kim favors is profoundly at odds with his chilly attitude toward the characters.

The funniest thing about this 1971 Ken Russell camp epic is probably the juxtaposition of its first-class production values (a good cast, great set design, marvelous photography) with Russell's no-class sexual fantasies—it's like a David Lean remake of Pink Flamingos.

A pleasant but tepid comedy.

The gags are as idiotic as you'd expect, but they consistently hit the bull's-eye.

Subtlety is not his strong suit--all the characters here are either adorable or loathsome--yet Perry has toned down the pandering materialism, evangelism, and black empowerment of "Madea's Family Reunion" and "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," letting his heart-tugging story tell itself.

It provides a more detailed and perhaps more reliable picture of the early movement's motives and practices than anything I've seen in the mainstream media.

The film never quite achieves the sharp edge satire demands, largely because director Andrew Niccol, who was so good at managing tone in "Gattaca," can't decide whether to go with nasty or hilariously farcical.

Ryan's abrasive and rather creepy character is something of a departure for her.

Though the parallels drawn between therapy and prostitution grow tiresome, the duo's interaction is peppered with inspired comedic moments.

Death of a President wants to function as a mindless thriller that eventually makes us think -- and only after the film is over question the form that encouraged us to be mindless. These are incompatible agendas, and in the end neither is fully successful.

Like "The Hustler," this absorbing Las Vegas story about a professional poker player (Eric Bana) uses gambling to tell a tale of moral regeneration. But Bana can't carry a picture like Paul Newman, and poker proves less photogenic than pool.

Sometimes it's hard to tell what's mere overreaching and what's nostalgia for Hollywood's former grandiloquence.

While Spencer Tracy provides a solid performance in the title role and Dimitri Tiomkin won an Oscar for his score, the overall effect of trying to film this rather unfilmable novel is a bit like an illustrated slide lecture.

But it's also Howard's and his audience's misfortune that a good time can be had by all only if nothing of substance gets said.

Set in postwar Berlin, the story involves prostitution, black marketeering, and the death camps, and the tension between the visual style and the adult story makes the movie pretty engrossing -- it's an R-rated "Casablanca."

It's not clear why Steven Spielberg's Amblin decided to make a live-action entertainment starring the least interesting and most saccharine of all 50s cartoon characters, the friendly ghost who can't help scaring people, but here's your chance to search for an answer.

Reeves often displays moderate to little affect onscreen; here his reserve suits the story, as the experience of acting helps the reticent loser find himself. Vera Farmiga crackles as the feisty star of the play, while James Caan, as the hero's accomplice, proves a most charming rogue.

Spectacular CGI disasters.

More fanciful than factual, less likable than either The Big Easy or Breathless, McBride's previous two features, the movie tries hard to re-create the euphoria of 50s rock films, but the poor-white milieu is treated with such crude derision that all the characters wind up seeming like two-dimensional geeks.

Nothing's wrong with this movie--the hockey footage is exciting, the characters quirky, the subplots idiosyncratic--but nothing's special about it either.