The premise is promising, but Herzfeld cares more about sensationalism than substance, and portions of the picture are far nastier than they had to be.

Matt Damon and Robin Williams give touching performances, but Gus Van Sant's filmmaking is surprisingly ordinary.

True-blue golf buffs should find it a treat. For others it's no deeper than a tin cup on a putting green.

Bernardo Bertolucci's romantic drama has great visual beauty but little new to say about life or love.

The whole enterprise comes across like a first draft.

This throwback to the outmoded blaxploitation genre is skillfully filmed by Dickerson, but has little else to offer besides cheap, violent thrills.

The story is a retread of the old "Exorcist" and "Omen" formats, but it delivers as much action and spectacle as fans of the genre could want.

Could we please declare a moratorium on funny-sad movies about dysfunctional families, especially families that come together for the holidays?

Take the Lead mixes classical dance with hip-hop gyrations and features perhaps the most scrubbed set of delinquents since "West Side Story."

Provides a compassionate look at problems of old age that Hollywood rarely bothers to treat seriously.

Too bad the action scenes rarely rise above standard kung-fu comedy, diluting the film's otherwise considerable entertainment value.

The action is as grisly as it is surrealistic.

The mood is often more coarse, crude, and nasty than needed to make his cautionary points and also by that "distancing effect," which diminishes whatever feelings of empathy or sympathy the story might otherwise inspire in its audience.

The plot is familiar from decades of earlier bank-robbing sagas - the classic "Bonnie and Clyde" seems to have been a particular inspiration for its overall tone - and neither the action nor the dialogue rings meaningful changes on the genre.

Just sweet enough to avoid being negligible.

It's a pity that such vital, thought-provoking material has been rendered so lifeless and inauthentic on the screen.

The material is familiar and the ending is corny, but Huston's acting and directing keep the comedy-drama likable if not very imaginative.

The movie tries to outdo "Thelma and Louise" by upping the number of heroines, but it lacks the moral seriousness to tackle its sensitive material.

George Clooney looks great in a cape, but this fourth installment in the series has invested so much capital in razzle-dazzle special effects that it hardly matters whose head is under the pointy-eared helmet.

Its screenplay veers in highly questionable directions before reaching a mean-spirited climax that outweighs Ron Howard's workmanlike filmmaking and the contributions of a star-powered cast.

All of the actresses are fun to watch, and as much attention appears to have been lavished on their outfits and hairdos as on their high-flying fight scenes.

Uneven but always energetic and sometimes very funny.

Director Marc Forster and screenwriter Jason Keller take the easy way out by turning Childers into a Bible-thumping Rambo. Just because the Childers of this movie is not, to put it mildly, introspective, is no reason why the filmmakers had to be equally dense.

Wong Kar-Wai, whose energetic and inventive style isn't enough to give the shallow story the substance and resonance it needs.

If the picture is often less spellbinding than it wants to be, it's partly Hoffman's fault for creating fantasy moods through traditional stage devices -- lavish props, cute makeup, peek-a-boo costumes -- that seem rather tame for this age of morphed-up visual surprises.

Well acted and ably directed, if not very probing about its subject of underclass youth.

The plot is sordid and predictable -- indiscriminate nightclubbing leads to escalating drugs, promiscuity, and violence. Things perk up cinematically in the last few scenes, but by then it's almost too late.

Home of the Brave is a milestone of sorts. But it's a formulaic, overacted piece of work that rarely delves deep.