The movie's cutest twist is that the monsters are more scared of kids than kids are of them, because they think human children are toxic.

A refreshingly novel ride.

Director Paul Greengrass downplays the movie's travelogue aspects by repeating the bobbly, hand-held camera style he used on "The Bourne Supremacy." It's not a style I'm fond of.

Suicides are proliferating in the city -- is the song to blame, or is it the tenor of the times?

I’ve never been able to figure out if Reggio is an artist or a con artist. Perhaps, in some ways, he’s both. He has claimed in interviews that he intended to make a movie about “the wonders of the universe.” Whatever he’s made, for better or worse, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

The drama is a gentle, witty parable of the mixed feelings some people show toward free choice when it confronts them not in theory but in everyday life.

This is more than enough material for two hours of summer-movie fun, and The X-Files delivers said fun reasonably well. The action scenes are bigger and bolder than their small-screen counterparts.

For its first two-thirds, Potiche is a frothy delight.

The movie is more a family album than a historical study, but you'll learn a lot and your toe will tap, tap, tap.

The fact-based story is so riveting and revealing that the filmmakers needn't have used melodramatic formulas to boost its impact.

It's one of the season's most original and energetic movies.

Gloria is a starting-over story that never quite picks up a head of steam. Lelio paces the action as a series of sketches, and the hit-or-miss quality of the material makes for a bumpy ride.

Politics and humanism find an engrossing balance in this ambitious drama based on the life of Reinaldo Arenas, a gay Cuban poet who was persecuted by the homophobic Castro regime.

The collision of sleek melodrama and old Woody Allen stand-up routines is at times oddly effective and at other times just odd.

Just loopy enough to be tantalizing, involving, and fun.

At a time when screen comedy has its own problems with anger management, Sandler's self-possessed style is as refreshing as it is funny.

One of Hollywood's bloodiest and goofiest adaptations.

One of the most violent films this year, it's no more so than many of the Asian kung fu flicks it pays homage to. Don't be surprised if it slaughters its action-film competition in this overcrowded movie season.

During vast sections of Broken Embraces, I wished I was watching the actual old-time noirs instead of the miasmic concoction that Almodóvar has made from them.

But there's no denying the movie's frequent hilarity, abetted by Mel Smith's superbly laid-back directing and on-target performances by an excellent supporting cast.

Why does affection sometimes grow between people who seem to have little or nothing in common? That's the tantalizing question running through this capably acted comedy-drama

It plays out all the usual tropes of the investigative-journalism genre – the hot tips, the clandestine meetings, the hand-wringing about ethics, etc. – without adding a jot of novelty.

Reissued with the addition of 50 minutes trimmed from the original 1980 cut, Fuller's only A-budget movie is still among the lesser works of this frequently brilliant filmmaker.

Lively, gentle, smart.

Kushner's proactive stance on gay rights is prominently aired and, to a lesser extent, so are his musings on the Arab-Israeli situation. His participation in the screenplay for Steven Spielberg's controversial "Munich" did not make it into the film.

Estevez directs with ease and assurance but, both internally and externally, not enough happens to these people.

Thanks to director Zucker, this is by far the best installment yet -- there's less bathroom humor and more "Airplane!"-type lunacy.

Sean Connery is still up to par as James Bond in the latest adventure of Agent 007,