Almost every note in this insipid comedy is strident or false, from the child's prodigious talent for deception to the jock's chaperoning her and her classmates at a Corolle doll boutique.

At its core this is just another piece of big-studio nothingness. The characters are so underwritten they barely qualify as types, and the movie is badly paced, bookended by high-ordnance action sequences but painfully static in the middle.

The bursts of sex and violence that earned this picture an NC-17 rating offer only temporary respite from the encroaching dullness.

It was like a Farrelly brothers gross-out without the laughs.

A murky screenplay leaves most of the humans ciphers, save for Hal Holbrook in an exquisitely calibrated performance as the avuncular desert retiree whose advice McCandless should have heeded.

While the film's premise is shamelessly hokey and Joe Nussbaum's direction is at best pedestrian, props are due the young cast, especially Bynes, whose can-do optimism seems genuine if ultimately overdone.

This revisionist western by writer-director Andrew Dominik makes a wan attempt to present the Jesse James legend as the dawn of celebrity culture in America.

Being male, I can't relate to this at all; on the other hand, I don't need Midol either, but I'm glad it's on the market.

If a bullet hadn't killed John Lennon, this Beatles-scored musical might have.

Though familiar as an old shoe, this is straightforward and well told.

Cronenberg's follow-up to "A History of Violence" -- starring the same lead, Viggo Mortensen, in a very different part -- lacks the theoretical dimension of its predecessor, but it's no less masterful in its fluid storytelling and shocking choreography of violence.

Searing drama that uses the police procedural to explore the moral and psychological devastation of the Iraq war for U.S. soldiers (and, incidentally, for Iraqi citizens).

Not only delightfully funny but unaffectedly romantic.

After a 40-year career playing jut-jawed a__holes, Michael Douglas must relish the occasional oddball role: he gave a winning performance as the pot-addled professor in "Wonder Boys," and he seems to be having a ball in this funny debut feature by Mike Cahill.

There aren't that many laugh-out-loud jokes in this comedy, yet Billy Bob Thornton's portrayal of ass-kicking gym coach Mr. Woodcock is almost worth the price of admission.

A visually arresting period piece.

What might have been a serious drama about coming to terms with violence and loss turns into a crowd-pleasing and increasingly far-fetched remake of "Death Wish."

Filmmakers Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen, and Nicole Newhman do a superb job of telling this neglected story in vivid detail.

This engaging documentary traces the life of folk icon Pete Seeger, emphasizing his lifelong belief in the power of music as both a social and a political force.

Period westerns are so unfashionable and costly that they usually require a top-drawer script to get off the ground -- and this one, adapted from an Elmore Leonard story and its 1957 movie version, travels with an arrow's clean arc.

Never recovers from a jarring and improbable act of ritualized violence that occurs halfway through the film.

The astronaut interviews are fun and occasionally moving, but the real reason to see this is the remastered archival footage, some of it previously unseen and all of it spectacular.

This singing-along-to-the-radio effect has a dingy charm that honors the blue-collar Italian setting, yet Turturro spoils it by turning the movie into a hip star party, with a cast of indie-acting royalty.

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.

The stoy makes no sense, and the two lead characters are repulsive, but I must confess I laughed immoderately at this clever piece of junk.

Sweet tempered but occasionally simplistic youth picture about three young, progressive Israelis who share a flat in a chic section of Tel Aviv.

The action plot is lousy with cliched suspense scenes of back-road executions halted at the last possible instant.

The story ultimately lands in incoherence; but the cameos and local details, and even some of the gags, keep it perky.