It's all something of a stunt - "Speed" on a shoestring - but very well done.

It seems to me that too often in this country, and especially now, science has become politicized to the detriment of those who could be helped by it. Just because truths are inconvenient is no reason to suppose they are not real.

The Da Vinci Code is so transparently pitched as pulp entertainment that, in the end, it's about as subversive as "Starsky and Hutch."

This enjoyable Dreamworks animated comedy is well timed.

The first-time director, James Marsh, and his co-writer Milo Addica (who wrote "Monster's Ball"), sustain a black-comic tone, and the performances, as far they go, are quietly chilling.

Most of the time, however, we are watching pathology without benefit of insight.

Beyond being a showplace for crash-and-burn effects, Poseidon seems to be stumping for togetherness.

Grant is a fine actor ("Withnail and I," "Gosford Park") and, although he doesn't appear in Wah-Wah, his spiritedness as a performer carries through to some of the others in his cast.

The footage of Gehry's work, notably the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, is often startlingly beautiful, and Gehry is forthcoming about how he achieved his effects. But too much of the film is taken up with gushy self-serving talking-head testimonials.

It's an expertly engineered popcorn movie - hold the butter substitute - but it also tries (and fails) to be a love story for the ages.

Art School Confidential mostly just makes you feel bad - period. It puts you in a foul mood and leaves you there.

Shriner's direction has an Afterschool Special blandness, but those mechanical owls are quite realistic. While the film was in production Hiaasen said that he had "nightmare visions of the gopher in 'Caddyshack.' " He needn't have worried.

Writer-director David Jacobson has a good eye for widescreen compositions and sustains a low-key note of dread but is less successful in his attempt to graft a neo-Western to a neo-noir.

The veteran rock musician Nick Cave wrote the screenplay and John Hillcoat directed, both somewhat in thrall to Sam Peckinpah. The bonds of family are the centerpiece of this highly uneven, hyperviolent film.

Peregrym is a fresh-faced beauty and Bridges is enjoyably cranky, but the film is as bland as an Afterschool Special.

What United 93 demonstrates, as if we needed proof, is that it is too soon - it may always be too soon - to sort out the feelings from that day.

A slight but winning heart-tugger.

What keeps the film watchable, aside from the vibrant musical numbers in the nightclub, is Garcia's obvious love for the Cuba of his ancestors, of his dreams. A lot goes wrong in this overlong movie, but it has a human touch.

A heartbreakingly powerful masterpiece.

Weitz doesn't have the chops for satire, let alone black comedy.

Michael Douglas plays US Secret Service agent Pete Garrison, and his jaw has never seemed tighter.

The best reason to check the film out is Ejiofor's performance, which is packed with grace and wit and pathos.

Gretchen Mol is unrelentingly charming in the role and she almost - almost - makes you believe that someone as unclouded as this could actually exist. This film would go well on a double bill with "The Stepford Wives."

The best parts of the movie are its occasional animated sequences.

Hartnett has been stuck in the young-adult heartthrob mode for some time now, but this comic thriller may launch him into meatier fare.

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

The cast is terrific, the movie isn't... It all plays like the pilot for a series that wasn't picked up.

Blethyn, as Frank's wife, is less high-strung than usual, which is a boon.