The mood is awfully dark for an escapist fantasy, though, and the high-tech mayhem gets repetitious.

Timely, chilling, and grimly instructive.

An enjoyable movie that marks a rattling good directorial debut for Stephen Fry, the English actor who's best known for starring in "Wilde" seven years ago.

In the popularity sweepstakes, Stage Beauty may earn top honors, outdoing the overrated "Shakespeare in Love" as a dramatic comedy about life and love in an era more naive - but hardly more innocent - than our own.

There are a few good laughs, but not nearly enough clever ideas to keep things hopping for two hours.

As strong as Blood Diamond is in its best moments, I wish it had been even harder-edged. DiCaprio is remarkable - his work is almost on par with his performance this year in "The Departed."

If you've seen "To Sir, With Love," "Dead Poet's Society," "The Corn is Green," or "Stand and Deliver" - to take a random sample - you've already seen much of this movie. Swank is good, though, and so is Patrick Dempsey as her suffering husband.

The Great Santini deserves praise for its willingness to look long, hard, and seriously at a realistic family situation -- a willingness too rarely found at a time when most films are obsessed with futile fantasies. [07 Aug 1980, p.19]

Spielberg wants us to drop the techno-gadgets and join hands, but it’s the VR world that really juices him. He’s the ultimate fanboy making a movie about the need to move beyond being a fan.

Trekkers will be pleased by new characters and stunning special effects.

But at its highest level of ambition, Proof fails to deliver. The film becomes a psychological whodunit where Catherine is shown to be either a martyr to her father or else his intellectual equal. None of it is terribly convincing.

Steven Spielberg's historical drama is more stilted and didactic than its fascinating subject deserves, gathering great emotional force only in a harrowing scene depicting the Holocaust-like suffering of slave-ship captives.

Complexly intriguing documentary about psychedelic rock icon Roky Erickson.

Hogan's version brings out the story's somber side, showing how the mischief of unworldly characters like Peter and Tinkerbell can do real damage, and how refusing to grow up is an awful idea if you actually try it.

Andrew Niccol wrote and directed this intelligent and suspenseful science-fiction drama featuring strong performances by Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, and Gore Vidal.

The visuals are spectacular at times, but the screenplay is trite, intermittently vulgar, and just not funny.

Written and directed by Deepa Mehta, this Indian production is not filmed very interestingly, but reveals much about conflicts between traditional and modern attitudes in Indian society.

This delicious fable reflects Merchant's great love of language, his delicate visual sense, and his ability to make you think and laugh out loud, often at the very same time.

The film is preoccupied with whiz-bang adventure rather than storytelling. There's also too much cartoon violence for young kids.

It's all very sweet and occasionally touching. More lasting shots of more beautiful butterflies would have added a lot, though.

As director of the movie, Eastwood takes a conservative approach, with few of the imaginative touches that have made some of his films – "Bird," "The Eiger Sanction" – so memorable.

Eddie Murphy has impressive energy, but he needs mountains of makeup and special effects to accomplish what Jerry Lewis did with sheer talent in the original 1963 version of the comedy.

It's best when the carefully chosen cast throws itself into developing characters and building their relationships. When pure storytelling takes over after an hour or so, the picture becomes less original and engaging.

Viewers expecting a blistering attack on the fast-food business, or an Altmanesque panorama, will be disappointed, but it's a sensitive and humane piece of work.

It’s easy to call this film a video action game starring real people, but that “real” part means a lot.

For western fans, watching this movie is like encountering an old friend after a long absence.

The song-and-dance numbers that make this musical tragedy a celebration of life despite its awfully grim climax.

Mos Def makes it work. It's a truly daring piece of acting because it skirts racial stereotyping and is so out of key with everything else in the movie. But that's just why it is so good.