Rudolph Mate directed, and Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, and John Hoyt all make a game try at sounding like real people—which is not always easy, given Sidney Boehm’s script.

This packaged tour through the great man's career is unenlightening and obfuscating, despite an adept lead performance by Robert Downey Jr.

The after-school-special moralizing is mitigated by the project's sincerity and textured locale.

The best (which also means the sexiest) Campion feature since "The Piano," featuring Meg Ryan's best performance to date and an impressive one by Mark Ruffalo.

Some of it looks like a TV commercial, and the characters' motivations could have been generated by a computer, but the cast--Ray Barrett, Julia Blake, Simon Bossell, Saffron Burrows, Pippa Grandison, and Aden Young--is attractive and energetic.

Nichols is so astute at directing the actors (who also include Bill Nunn, Donald Moffat, and Nancy Marchand) that it's relatively easy to overlook the yuppie complacency, shameless devices (starting with an adorable puppy), and product plugs (especially Ritz crackers) that undermine the seriousness of the whole project.

There's a lot of self-conscious talk about the importance of timing, but the tony sense of entitlement tends to dampen any laughs. The movie functions best as a middle-class Euro-postcard along the lines of "Chocolat" or "Under the Tuscan Sun."

For his third feature, Richard Kelly delivers neither a triumph (like his first, Donnie Darko) nor a travesty (like his second, Southland Tales) but a sure-handed genre piece that manages to wrap up before its plot mushrooms completely out of control.

Bruce Willis's marvelous performance as a contract killer only makes everything else about this comedy seem more pathetic.

The movie's notion of humor is exemplified by Bradshaw's extended nude scene, which might be termed "roughing the viewer."

With all these safety features built in, this 1985 film is too well padded to qualify as genuinely radical wit, but in an even-toned, TV sort of way it's mildly amusing and inventive throughout.

The romantic denouement is so predictable it must have driven the animators mad as they worked, but their modest art is eerily effective.

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."

This comedy is an ill-fated attempt to remake "Risky Business" (1983) for the 21st century, complete with a wind-chimey score, the hero posing in his underpants, and a cynical happy ending.

Leaking platitudes and cutesy ambience, this comedy folds a smarmy, social-issue subplot into a Saturday-morning-kids'-show sensibility; it's full of geeky gadgetry, and must've been a lot more fun to make than it is to watch.

This amiable romantic comedy benefits from its stellar ensemble.

Shot at the same time as "The Matrix Reloaded," this last installment is the shortest of the bunch at 129 minutes, but I still succumbed to special-effects hypnosis in the last hour.

This comedy drama is capably acted and undeniably touching in spots.

Overall, though, the flashes of competence just emphasize the extent to which the film has no idea what it's doing.

It looks like a potboiler: only a few of Peckinpah's themes are present, and they're mostly left undeveloped. But Peckinpah can still stage a fight scene better than anyone, and the film establishes its own crazy rhythm as it runs off wildly through most of the southwest.

Diaz, costars Jason Segel and Justin Timberlake, and a sharp supporting cast manage to deliver a crappy good time, mercifully devoid of any heart-tugging teacher-student subplots.

The movie is compelling now but unlikely to survive its moment.

None of these guys has much interesting to say.

Despite its nasty facade, this comedy is surprisingly good-natured.

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.

This drama about Baltimore firefighters makes a serious effort to honor the sacrifices of professional rescue workers, but blasts of hokum keep threatening to collapse the building.

The old-fashioned theme of disaster as an existential test of character still works.

Well-intentioned but obvious drama.