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

Glen's willingness to give the action sequences a certain weight and seriousness produces some genuinely exciting moments, yet his work is everywhere undermined by the flatness of the characterizations and the uncertain architecture of the plot. Still, Maud Adams makes a nice impression and Roger Moore has shed some of his smarminess.

This thriller largely succeeds in putting quotation marks around its use of genre conventions, mixing subtlety and overkill to create a pensive mood that transcends the plot.

What's most conspicuously missing is the kind of background information needed to assess many of Eichmann's statements.

This moves back and forth between slightly clever and dopey or silly, kept vaguely watchable by the charming leads.

This romantic comedy turns stereotypes inside out as the main character, whose sense of commitment is represented by a tattoo on her finger instead of a wedding ring.

It has been called both detached and loaded, unfairly slanted as well as balanced by some of its critics--I can only testify that I found the film both troubling and absorbing over two separate viewings.

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

Aspiring fashion designer Jay McCarroll, who triumphed in season one of the Bravo reality show Project Runway, tries to "make that leap from reality-TV designer to real-life designer" in this irreverent documentary.

Scenes in which Ford meets with record-industry honchos and a manipulative producer suggest that the music business is almost as exploitative as the porn business.

Carell and Apatow collaborated on the script; it does manage a few laughs, but the characters seldom progress beyond the two-dimensional.

This screen adaptation never quite jells, veering from family drama to stale 50s consumer kitsch, but it's anchored by strong performances from Julianne Moore.

John Zorn wrote the percussive score, which is compelling throughout.

The facts of their grim treatment, often exacerbated by their estrangement from their countries of origin, sometimes recall the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The first positive portrayal of homosexuality in Russian cinema, a distinction that carries it only so far.

The consistency with which the plot turns on characterization instead of contrivance makes this movie better than many of its supposedly grown-up competitors.

In this lavish adaptation of Lisa See's novel, the complex chronologies of the parallel narratives are skillfully handled by director Wayne Wang, which makes his reliance on unbridled sentimentality all the more irritating.

The crazy color schemes and visual effects once made this a popular head picture, though you'd have to be stoned to tolerate the score, which includes The Candy Man.

The film certainly held me, and even fooled me in spots (when it wasn't simply confusing), but when the whole thing was over I felt pretty empty. It would be facile to say it substitutes style for content; actually, it substitutes stylishness for style.

The script itself—credited to Ronald Bass, and adapted from Nancy Price's novel—is a tissue of so many stupid and implausible contrivances that the only possible way of enjoying it is by taking your brain out to lunch.

The true story of Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge, an 84-year-old Kenyan who entered primary school in hope of learning to read, inspired this pleasant but routine exercise in third-world uplift.

William Golding's 1954 allegory on man's innate inhumanity is too facile by half, which makes it ideal for high school English classes but rather too gaseous and predictable for the movies.

The film is all but crushed by Tom Cruise's screen-hogging demand that everything collapse and swoon around him. If the star gave us more of a rest, we might have more of a movie.

Sluggish comedy drama.

Serreau directs for maximum freneticism, with her actors rushing around and regurgitating great torrents of imperfectly subtitled dialogue (a gratuitous subplot involving drug traffickers seems to have been inserted just to double the hysteria), and while there are more than a few laughs, most of them are laughs of recognition—seeing these gags again is like coming across long-lost (and vaguely embarrassing) relations.

Like so many secular, big-studio Christmas comedies, this isn't naughty enough to be funny or nice enough to be uplifting; it's just an ugly sweater from a distant relative, thoughtlessly sent and destined to be thrown away.

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.

Paul Giamatti plays himself in a dark indie comedy that's distinguished by a sci-fi theme and surrealistic touches but ends without a payoff.