Intelligent thriller.

I love Franken and wish there were more funny liberals in the chattering class, but his crushing sarcasm wouldn't exactly elevate the national debate.

Too dull even to function as camp.

The travelogue sequences indicate how widely Middle Eastern cultures vary, but there are few revealing personal encounters in this well-intentioned but minor film.

Shakur’s performance get increasingly intriguing as his character becomes disenchanted with his partner’s tactics, but Belushi is in way over his head.

This Spanish comedy showcases a gallery of popular actresses, but writer-director Manuel Gomez Pereira gives them nothing to work with aside from tiresome romantic complications.

The special effects are incredible, blah blah blah, but oddly, the most effective element here is the original movie's striking visual design-everything pitch black except for the luminescent piping on the costumes and foreground objects-which was inspired by the primitive arcade games of the early 80s.

Improves as it unfolds.

This movie is a clone itself, a far cry from "Total Recall" but vastly superior to "End of Days."

The thin story covering her acquisition of one wave after another while narrowly escaping death time and again is strictly for player one.

Commendable as pop history but fairly opaque as drama.

The master principle of film noir -- that everyone is corruptible -- turns a pinwheel of plot complications in this fleet, stylish little crime drama from Mexico.

Fails to replicate Carpenter's blue-collar humor or carefully modulated suspense.

An appalling piece of junk that tries to redo The Odd Couple and Grumpy Old Men in presidential terms.

The opening and closing passages of this 1954 adaptation of Lerner and Loewe rank with Vincente Minnelli’s finest, most purely cinematic work—magnificent orchestrations of textures, colors, and movements. What comes between is soggy: a stiff and literal interpretation of the book, filmed on obvious sound stages with a “natural splendor” you could put your fist through.

Writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are content to trot out the familiar gags and characters, and the murmurs of recognition I heard in the preview audience indicate that the series has become some kind of sad generational touchstone.

Director Clark Johnson (S.W.A.T.) has a flair for action, which compensates for the flattening effect of Gabriel Beristain's cinematography.

The project is lush and seductive as a whole, though some segments are especially vibrant.

The movie develops into a painful story of one generation inflicting its selfish compromises on the next. The three leads are uniformly excellent, and the strong supporting cast includes Mark Duplass and Philip Baker Hall.

Michael Mann was one of the producers, and his daughter Ami Canaan Mann directed; a couple more Manns fill out the credits, which makes you wonder why they couldn't just have a nice picnic and softball game at a state park somewhere.

One can certainly be amused and entertained by writer-director Michael Davis's hyperbolic action frolics--I was--but not without feeling pretty low and stupid.

Howard lacks the sense of film rhythm --required to make such an exercise work. Just about the only clear triumph here is an underplayed performance by Angie Dickinson, though Winger and Rosanna Arquette also provide welcome relief from Howard and Le Mat's self-indulgent carousing.

A lot of uninteresting and unpleasant people torture, abuse, and fire guns at a lot of other uninteresting and unpleasant people, in a repulsive, interminable would-be crime thriller.

The special effects aren't too polished but the script is larded with cutesy life lessons to warm the hearts of dog lovers

Most of the chills have been faithfully re-created, though first-time screenwriter Stephen Susco hasn't done much to straighten out the muddled narrative.

The movie's only unmitigated pleasure is a too-brief fight scene between Connor and a naked combatant made up to look precisely like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A pretty good job of zipping things along and occasionally scaring us, and the digital effects are fun.

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.

Ardant embodies the diva's dazzling blend of glamour, hauteur, and vulnerability, and despite a faintly campy script by Martin Sherman, Zeffirelli captures the artistic imperative that drives both characters-and deepens their loneliness.

I can’t deny this is filled with powerfully primal images, but at least one of them--an eviscerated fox that bellows at Dafoe, “Chaos reigns!”­--made me burst out laughing.

A career low for Mark Wahlberg and director John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood), this ridiculous mean-streets adventure starts out like a Hell's Kitchen melodrama from the 30s and eventually spins off into a series of gunfights, beat downs, and trite Motown numbers.

Director Kenneth Branagh has mercifully pared the action down to 88 minutes (the first movie dragged on for 138), but the final act, with its obscure homosexual flirtation, still seems to go on forever.

Apart from the script, it's the actors who make this a film worth seeing; all of them look and sometimes even act like real people rather than types or icons, and behind their interactions can be felt the depths of lived experience.

The script is overwritten and has too many themes--suicide, abuse, anti-Semitism--to support, but Nicholson does remarkable work in an unsympathetic role, helped by Lipsky's fine control of his characters.

It's uneven, but still pretty charming, and director Jorge Furtado's whimsical visual touches keep things lively.

Well crafted and mindless in the best Hollywood tradition.

The film suffers from clunky smart-aleck dialogue and an overabundance of jump cuts and crane shots, and despite its libertine air, Toback repeatedly cautions that acid is a fast track to insanity, especially in combination with Heidegger and Wittgenstein.

It's ultimately a losing battle when the audience's lack of interest in eastern Europeans is assumed at the outset.

Altogether, an unusually honorable achievement in a form (the remake) where originality is a dirty word.

Adapted from a novel by Gabriel Loidolt, this is most interesting for its textured family history and pained religiosity.

Director Kevin Reynolds strikes a good balance between action and romance in this version of the medieval legend, but his leading man is upstaged by the supporting cast.

Although the film is built around the town's big centennial celebration, there are no big dramatic events in the usual sense; the film's focus is the complications, readjustments, and discoveries of middle age, and it's entirely to the credit of old movie buff Bogdanovich, who wrote the script, that there isn't a single film reference in sight.

This may not be as ill considered as it sounds--some of the sharpest material in Rock's last concert special, "Never Scared," dealt with the eternal conflict between men and women--but his crowd-pleasing gags tend to clash with Rohmer's sly moral comedy.

A talking bulldog named Frank steals the show.

It's marvelous or unwatchable.

Jules Verne's novel has been flattened into a standardized Jackie Chan vehicle.

Brian Cox does sturdy work as the minister who helps Obree combat depression, and first-time director Douglas Mackinnon gets a big assist from Obree himself, who doubled for Miller in some shots and filmed others with a camera strapped to his handlebars.

Miriam Hopkins, of the original cast, is around to lend a sense of continuity to the remake, but Wyler still seems unable to confront the material. This is Mature, Adult drama, and hence something of a bore.

Director Brian De Palma will probably take the rap for this tepid noir, but the real culprits are Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson, red-hot lovers in life but (as ever) gorgeous stiffs on-screen.

If the plot seems overly familiar, Lasse Hallstrom at least directs the action with conviction and style, and his drama is greatly abetted by the scenic big sky locales.

Strains so hard to be upbeat you can almost hear gears shifting.

Jeb Stuart directed, his well-rounded portrait of the community partly undermined by the slack editing; with Rick Schroder as the minister and Michael Rooker as the defense attorney.

So-so ecological SF thriller from 1974 about superintelligent ants.

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.

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

The tone is bleak and the comic-book violence relentless, but the wirework and Yuta Morokaji's stunt choreography are impressive, culminating in a breathless showdown between the title character (Aya Ueto) and 200 foes.

Time and space are condensed by means both elegant and crafty, and rarely are any of the characters made to be more--or less--than allegorical.

A kind of idealist fantasy that seems almost hamstrung by its plot.

Like some of Joan Crawford's and Bette Davis's studio vehicles, this soapy romance exists only for what Gong Li can bring to it: a certain amount of soul and nuance.

There is something disturbing in the way the film elevates cynicism and detachment into heroic attitudes.

With its stagy dance numbers, this reminded me more of Bob Fosse's confessional musical "All That Jazz" than "8 1/2," though it suffers from comparison to either, given that Marshall is several steps removed from Fellini's feverish self-investigation.

The only other adaptations I've seen of the Alexandre Dumas novel (which I haven't read) are the Classics Illustrated comic book and the 1939 James Whale potboiler, both of which I prefer to this vulgar and overwrought 1998 free-for-all, which makes you wait interminably for the story's central narrative premise.

The film contains a remarkable level of violence, yet never establishes a tone that would make it seem funny or truly shocking; the jokes flounder in an air of half-hearted spite.

Mac was a magnetic performer with a long history of redeeming mediocre movies; unfortunately this is another one.

Sam Raimi tries to do a Sergio Leone, and though this 1995 feature is highly enjoyable in spots, it doesn't come across as very convincing, perhaps because nothing can turn Sharon Stone into Charles Bronson.

A mildly psychological suspense thriller with military trappings.

Both actors are so good that one might easily overlook the Pollyannaish subplot.

The film wobbles between impulses to be a simple feel-good story and a trickier, ultimately sadder tale about a man facing a moral and spiritual crisis.

The story (what there is of it) doesn't make much sense, but this is a very scary horror thriller that should keep you either on the edge of your seat or halfway under it.

Too much plot and too much faith in special effects and adolescent humor doom this "Babe" wannabe.

First-time director Chen Shi-Zheng shows great sensitivity to the pressure and isolation felt by Chinese brains at American universities, and the relationship between Liu and Quinn provides a rare look at the intellectual serfdom of graduate study.

It's so played out at this point that not even the enjoyably no-nonsense Statham can pump any life into it.

Killing Zoe has little of the style, pacing, characterization, or wit of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction (though Avary worked on the scripts of both).

The movie begins to seem a little overloaded and gimmicky once characters from children's classics begin turning up (including Toto from The Wizard of Oz), but it's handsomely mounted.

Stylishly realized, but its striking cinematography, nontraditional editing, and consistently reflexive use of genre conceits add up as methodically as a math problem.

The eroticism is powerful, and the documentary candor and directness of the sex scenes make this well worth seeing.

Kitschy, clever expressionist sets, subtly marvelous 70s costumes, and an almost monolithic rock sound track enhance the meaty performances of actors who clearly appreciate the opportunity to riff on a classic--and promote vegetarianism.

A lot of effort appears to have gone into the glitzy period re-creation, but this is mainly a tearjerker.

Grossly unimaginative.

Attractive black-and-white 'Scope compositions, strong Paris locations, and effective handling of the actors makes this captivating throughout.

Dylan Moran has a few funny moments as Pegg's shiftless pal, and Mike Leigh regular Ruth Sheen puts in an all-too-brief appearance.

Allen doesn't get us to care much about any of the characters here.

Marek Kanievska (Another Country) directs with relentlessly fancy visuals in a series of opulent southern California settings; Ed Lachman's cinematography is letter perfect as always in its handling of light and color (assisted here by Barbara Ling's flashy production design), but it's a pity to see it wasted on such claptrap.

This interminable contest between two narcissists, stretched out over many miles and years, is supposed to have something to do with romance.

Slick, violent thriller that could seriously dampen tourism to Venezuela.

The modeling of human figures and the sense of depth are both impressive; the characters themselves are mainly idiotic.

The conflict between Hawn, who prizes her freedom, and Sarandon, who values her family, is pretty rich; it reminded me of the friendship between Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft in "The Turning Point."

I never thought that a thoughtful director like Gillian Armstrong would get trapped in such Euro-nonsense, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

The leads, Denzel Washington and particularly Will Patton, are so good they occasionally make you forget the material is shameless.

Satisfying in small ways.

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 failure of director-writer Peter Hyams to put any weight whatever behind the moral issues (crude as they are) makes this merely violent nonsense. 

What this autopopathism means in terms of American culture is a subject I neither understand nor wish to.

This 1945 picture is much more felicitous than Christmas Holiday, the bizarre film noir that followed, though not nearly as memorable.

I found this sequel more tolerable than Sherlock Holmes (2009), though I'm not sure whether it's actually better or I've just accepted the putrid idea of turning Arthur Conan Doyle's brainy detective into just another quipping action hero.

A light and fairly innocuous youth picture.

If DiCillo had been going anywhere with this, I'd have gladly followed. But setting up petty ironies and pathetic references to Woody Allen seems to be his only goal.

It's just about as awful as you'd expect, despite the presence of two first-class screenwriters.