The cast is excellent, particularly Riley and Morton and, as Joy Division’s brash manager, Toby Kebbell. He’s a great character, bitter and hostile and a scoundrel: a born manager of talent destined to tear itself apart.

Doesn’t shy from heart-tugging opportunities, and there’s a five-minute cartoon embedded in the movie that should have been excised, but beyond those problems and some stylistic dead air, this is a compelling, thought-provoking portrait of a quiet challenge rising within America’s churches.

Monaghan’s comic timing saves this go-nowhere affair from 100 percent lousiness.

Michael Clayton is a here’s-how-it-happened drama, cleverly but not over-elaborately structured.

It is a wonder, marked by a sense of wondrous skepticism that has nothing to do with cynicism.

At its best, The Seeker is a pretty vivid fantasy book come-to-life; it does a decent, passable job of adding to the canon of kid-lit flicks.

By the end of Lake of Fire, you know full well you’re in the presence of a deeply conflicted filmmaker, bound to make all sides uneasy, even enraged.

Near the end, we hear Cobain reveal his disdain for adults who “can’t even pretend, or at least have enough courtesy for their children, to talk to one another civilly.” A painful and unexpected moment.

Spiritual journeys, even if they’re comedies, don’t really lend themselves to the extreme, anal-retentive formalism found in every frame of The Darjeeling Limited.

Explores an unheralded but emotionally affecting issue in a straight-forward and engaging manner.

Robert Benton’s recent films have been vexing combinations of gentility and stiffness, and despite a fair bit of nudity "Feast of Love" behaves itself all too well. It’s as neat as a pin; it ties up every loose end in careful "Playhouse 90" style. Despite some awfully smart actors, Benton’s movie made me long for a few interrupted sentences and the occasionally conflicted character.

If Steve Martin (“Cheaper by the Dozen”) and Eddie Murphy (“Daddy Day Care”) can’t make these PG-rated assembly-line comedies any fun, what chance does The Rock have?

The Kingdom has a heart and a viewpoint. It’s a thrill ride with a lingering thought or two in its wake. But the explosions, breakneck chases, daredevil escapes and predictability about which side will be victorious remain its foremost mission.

Outside the bedroom, the wartime swirl of intrigue never develops beyond postcard imagery, however. This is one of the major disappointments of the film-going year.

Good Luck Chuck is this year’s low-ender to beat.

It’s half-crock and half-sublime, which seems about right for its subject.

Director Joe Nussbaum (“Sleepover”) doesn’t do much with his cast; there’s a lot of standing around as he indulges Bynes’ tendency to mug.

It is a film, often breathtaking without settling for being pretty, filled with nervous silence.

Overall, The Jane Austen Book Club is an admirable mix of heady and fluffy, the kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy that needn’t make filmgoers ashamed of what they wished for.

If you're a Beatles fan who's not offended by people taking serious liberties with the arrangements of your favorite songs, the unrepentantly exuberant and seriously tuneful Across the Universe is pretty much a sure thing.

Juvenile viewers may well benefit from the movie. But, for the adult, it’s ultimately a film that arrives too early for the season in its title and too late in terms of style and impact.

An unusually strong crime thriller, Eastern Promises comes from director David Cronenberg, a meticulous old-school craftsman of a type that is becoming increasingly rare.

Tommy Lee Jones is marvelous in the film. He has one scene in particular, a simple two-person encounter, that's as good as it gets in the realm of American screen acting.

The film may be slight, but it is not stupid, and director Robert Cary keeps both stickiness and shtickiness at bay.

Let's say you find yourself at the multiplex, and the first 20 minutes of Mr. Woodcock happen to correspond with the 20 minutes you need to waste before your movie of choice begins. Those are the ideal 20 minutes to spend with this marginally promising--but ultimately unfunny--comedy.

The Brave One is "Death Wish" with a guilty conscience, and while it may be a bit of a hypocrite as vigilante thrillers go, the internal contradictions of the thing make for a very interesting picture.

It’s absorbing. The world came perilously close to losing so many Rembrandts, so many Klimts. The cultural casualties, near and actual, may be dwarfed by the millions slaughtered in the same churn of history. But we are what we create, and when emblems of a civilization are reduced to pawns of wartime, there is no victor.

The acting is its chief strength. Russell Crowe brings a cocky charisma to Ben Wade.

The idea that rich people are an alien tribe is just one of many that get lost in Wittenborn’s distracted script. Instead of exploring the concept, he throws out random incidents until he hits one that sends the film into a dark, grotesque spiral.

This is not a film intended for a wide audience. But B-movie fans who find their way to Adam Green's gory schlock extravaganza are going to like it.

It has the air of an officially sanctioned tribute rather than a probing study, but it's stirring all the same.

But by the end, when Gandolfini and Sarandon sing their sweet, hesitant little duet, it’s clear Turturro knew where he was going all along.

It sets a tone, all right. A lot of gamers (sorry, "filmgoers") may well enjoy writer-director Michael Davis' ultraviolent lark. It's not meant to be taken seriously. But films like this are worth taking seriously because they're genuinely cruddy and hollow and, yes, vile.

Not-funniest comedy of the year so far.

Director and co-writer Eytan Fox is going for a sexually democratic, politically aware variation on story themes familiar to "Sex and the City" viewers. (At one point Lulu is referred to as "Miss Israeli Carrie Bradshaw.") Surprisingly, it works, and the entire cast is excellent.

The title of The Hunting Party doesn’t evoke much in particular. “War Correspondents Gone WILD!” would be more like it if the film itself--messy, but fairly stimulating--had more of the scamp in its soul.

If you’re a Chicagoan, if you have just a smidgen of interest in the city’s arts scene and if you’ve been around a while, there’s no way to be objective about I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With.

The more you like Leone's work the more you'll likely respond to To's latest. Which is odd, considering Exiled is a gangster picture by strict definition.

Freshman Orientation is not incompetently made. Nor is it badly acted. But there’s not a fresh idea in it, and everyone on screen seems to be in a different comedy.

Ladron plays like a telenovela without the melodrama. The characters are brightly drawn archetypes, and the humor's very broad. But the tone is nice and brash.

Lapica isn't yet enough of a writer or director (or an actor) to make the dramatic arc unpredictable in any way. It may be effective for some as therapy. It is far less so as cinematic storytelling.

Frame by frame, Crudup is fascinating.

It's like watching a slow multi-car pileup on an icy road: Everyone can see what's about to happen, but nobody can stop it.

This self-important movie can't save itself from being disheartening.

Illegal Tender echoes "A History of Violence," another gritty film that explores escaping a criminal past. But the vast vapidity behind Illegal Tender's ill-conceived story line is far harder to overcome.

Ruthlessly skilled as Atkinson is, the Bean persona of generic, maniacally grinning ineptitude owes most of its appeal to seeing just how far an actor can pull a face without pulling a muscle.

They should've thrown everything away except the title and the outline. That's what the "Devil Wears Prada" creative team did, and that film turned out a lot richer than this one.

The film is easy to take, though it must be said: It's almost 100 percent blather.

Young audiences will enjoy her journey from surly to empowered, and as countless visitors to Brookfield Zoo can attest, there's nothing like watching dolphins. So a star for Schroeder and a star for the title players.

Intimacy is graphically portrayed, down to recurring moments in a bathtub, including a memorable duet trumpet rendition of “The 1812 Overture.” Chop off a star if you’re not up for highly experimental cinema.

One of the most intelligent and unnerving horror films in recent memory.

Death at a Funeral is lethal farce, combining hints of "The Lavender Hill Mob," doses of Joe Orton and a smidgen of the Farrelly brothers' scatology in its mix.

By the end, despite the film’s beautiful cinematography, persuasive subjects and ironically upbeat soundtrack, we just feel bludgeoned.

In this teen-boy universe, sex is everywhere and nowhere, it's oozing out of every pop culture pore and every other insane boast, yet the idea of figuring out how to talk to girls without turning into a yutz remains elusive.

If it gets people thinking about which light bulbs they buy and their current gas mileage and such, then it's good to have it in the world. It is, however, a panicky blur as documentaries go.

Enough with the snatching, already.

Gordon's documentary proves better than 90 percent of the manufactured stories out this summer. One can breathe a sigh of relief that it was done right and not cobbled into another bad fictional comedy.

Engaging, intelligent and enjoyable.

Despite original touches, Cut Sleeve Boys is mostly a mediocre gay-themed movie plagued by tired humor and slapdash filmmaking.

By accident or design the film is seriously unbalanced.

Doesn't quite work but is worth seeing anyway.

Rush Hour 3 is DOA.

It's the big stuff that doesn't really work, at least well enough to be called special.

Dans Paris is a cohesive, albeit sometimes creepy, fabric of disparate modes and colors.

The Ten changes tone every few minutes, ranging from lowbrow gross-out gags to elevated language to a big, sloppy musical number.

The solid cast and honest Austen scholarship make Becoming Jane fitfully entertaining. But it's hard for the film to escape the shadow of Austen's superior talent when it filches so much from her books.

Gavras’ ending makes it clear where her sympathies lie. In the process of building to that conclusion, she overplays her metaphor a bit, but still, political tracts rarely come this sweet and sympathetic.

This is the most satisfying thriller of the year, capping the Bourne trilogy.

The most horrifying film of 2007, Bratz is based on the popular line of collagen-lipped, doe-eyed slut-ette dolls and their male companions, "the boys with a passion for fashion ... and the Bratz!" (In other words, they're bi-curious.)

Turns out to be nothing special. Well, the music is. The storytelling is not.

Sure, it's funny, mainly because it's utterly absurd and meandering.

The film suggests Lohan probably (allegedly) should've gone after her agent the other night, not the mother of an ex-personal assistant.

Moliere transforms into a fuller piece whenever Morante takes center stage.

May be the best and saddest film of the year so far.

After seeing No Reservations you'll be hungry for a really top-flight meal. And, to go with it, a better film.

It's hard not to like it. And in both senses of the phrase, America keeps asking for it.

A small film that packs a big wallop.

Watching bear cubs and walrus pups struggling to survive against increasingly tough odds, and on ever-slushier ice shelves, has both its shamelessly manipulative side and its dramatically necessary side, as handled here. This proves one thing: Unlike global warming, some stories really do have two sides.

It is not an easy film to watch, nor should it be. It is, however, beautifully made. Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, the co-directors, wrangle their information and lay it out clearly, vividly and with a sharp sense of focus.

A modest but engaging film that mixes hormonal surges with art-house ingenuity.

Less polished but more fun than "Dreamgirls." Both are drag revues at heart, one funny, the other serious. I prefer the funny one.

The film is half rutting goat, half preacher.

Sunshine is near-classic modern science fiction, hobbled only by a chaotic final reel and some casting missteps in the white-male department.

The film's emotional claustrophobia may not be for everyone.

For all its silliness and negligibility--a finale involving the Parisian "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" is one of its sillier, more negligible elements--My Best Friend is an amusing reinvention of "The Odd Couple."

Talk to Me has a great subject and a great actor working in tandem, reminding audiences that once upon a time media personalities used to fight The Man, not be The Man.

Kim evokes everything from "Seconds" to "Nip/Tuck" here, but his sureness of touch and lack of melodrama make the themes pertinent and vivid. A heartening step up from Kim's previous film, "The Bow."

Destined to be remembered as the one that handed the screen Harry his first kiss. Like much of the film, the smooch comes and goes briskly, without a lot of fuss.

The movie successfully balances the sentimental and bittersweet only about half the time. The performances are intelligent and well-crafted, and Blethyn is unmistakably a star performer, attracting attention like a vortex. But she's somewhat miscast here.

Rescue Dawn is Herzog's first English-language screenplay, and this is part of its problem: The hushed conversations between prisoners sound only fitfully idiomatic. Also--crucially--Herzog can't find a way to make his own big finish feel authentic, even if things did happen roughly this way.

The climax of Transformers contains all that is proficient and slick and all that is drecky and soulless in Bay's work.

Williams' grimace is starting to look desperate. Then again, no one comes off well in director Ken Kwapis' handling of this greasy screenplay.

Sicko doesn't formulate a way out of this heartless craps game we're playing. It is, however, a very entertaining position paper, and a reminder that we should do better by more of our citizenry.

Its sense of humor is more sly, more sophisticated and more interesting than most PG-13 or R-rated comedies at the moment. The film may be animated, and largely taken up with rats, but its pulse is gratifyingly human.

The film, like the book, is clear-eyed without being clinical, reflective but never maudlin.

A Swiss movie that flirts back and forth between the French and German sensibilities at play in that nation.

Early in LFODH, a villain taunts our hero, calling him "a Timex in a digital world"; McClane, characteristically, takes the dig as a compliment. Two hours, countless butt-kickings and hairbreadth escapes later, we know why.

Swift, sharp adaptation of Stephen King's short story (from the "Everything's Eventual" collection).