You will regret paying money to see something that unfolds rather like something you'd watch on TV when you're ill and bedridden and confronted with nothing else but daytime soaps.

This is phony, absolutely, but the good feeling it leaves behind is plenty real.

The heroes are villains, the villains are heroes, and in between are the innocents who become casualties in their wars waged in the names of morality and righteousness.

A stunning piece of work--stunningly inept, stunningly incoherent, stunningly awful in every single way imaginable.

Sails by on cute dialogue, some funny visual gags, and two enormously likable leads.

The inspiration appears to be equal parts "Looney Tunes" and Capcom video games like "Street Fighter II." All the energy that was missing from the recent "Mask" sequel is here, and then some.

Oddly, the film's strengths -- its quiet, understated manner; its non-plot; the awkward speech patterns and uncomfortable pauses that suggest emotional isolation -- are also its weaknesses.

Rodriguez clearly assumes Sin City to be his "Pulp Fiction," his rambling portmanteau--a blending of disparate tales to form a complete, overwhelming epic.

You'd better be in the mood for a blitz of bumper-sticker philosophy, a major machismo transfusion and 94 minutes' worth of mind-numbing repetition, complete with a musical score seemingly lifted from reality TV.

A spin-off of a sequel... It doesn't even try to be different, because it assumes the moviegoer wants only the same-ol' and then offers even less.

To say it's better than it has any right to be gives the original too much credit and the remake not enough.

A fascinating, highly literate film.

It's a work of art for sure, but a sadistic one. Oldboy is one of the year's best; it just isn't for everyone. If you're still interested, go for it.

If the first movie played like a midseason TV pilot, its successor comes off like an extended episode of a generic sitcom.

Silly, yes, but sweet and fun too.

The movie works while you watch it, with plenty of scares both sudden and psychological.

It's merely all right--very high-concept and on its way to interesting, but never there.

Much of Steamboy is actually reminiscent of "Wild Wild West," with a giant moving tower substituting for the giant spider, and the personalities of Will Smith and Kevin Kline being replaced by . . . no personality at all, really.

Certainly delivers violence and heroics, but not in a way everyone is going to enjoy -- it's brutal and harrowing.

Robots doesn't rely on being current, which will ultimately render it as timeless as any great fable. At its center is a big, beating heart.

If Allen owns The Upside of Anger, she is generous enough to loan it to Costner, who, despite the dim, glazed eyes, is more alive here than he's been in years.

It's vibrant and verdant and heartbreakingly inviting, begging you to escape into a lovely tale in which children, through a simple act of faith, find their own heaven on earth.

A clunky, obvious film, it makes the mistake of asking drama to do what documentary should.

Along with his tedious array of tricks and twists, Parkhill stuffs the film with enough dizzying flashbacks, camera jitters and rock-and-roll editing techniques to drive a 14-year-old MTV addict nuts.

Simmons plays it understated, conveying a sad-sack quality that's more relatable than Charley's irrational catatonia. The movie should have been about him instead.

Redundant to the point of being absolutely pointless, a sequel that's almost a note-for-note, beat-for-beat redo of its predecessor, only with all the entertaining stuff left out.

The first great film of 2005.

Here's a bizarre hodgepodge of influences: "Kindergarten Cop" meets "Sound of Music," filtered through the Hulk Hogan movie "Mr. Nanny." The formula, by now so overused it's actually formless, is pure Disney

Happily, the director and writer Andrea Gibb treat little Frankie with as much dramatic respect as the grown-up characters, and he saves the movie from killing sweetness.

Why don't we see this kind of thing on the news every night? Undoubtedly military censorship comes into play, but probably more so it's the prevailing notion that talking-head shoutfests stacked with pundits bring in the ratings, while actual field reporting costs more money.

Explores a wealth of issues and conflicting ideologies.

Eminently watchable, The Best of Youth nonetheless lacks the devastating emotional gut punch of its obvious inspiration, Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers."

It's a mess, but it isn't as bad as you think.

Part female revenge flick, part Saturday Night Live skit, part courtroom drama, and part religious tent revival, this movie never congeals into anything worth watching.

It's not a terrible premise -- It is, however, terribly executed.

Ought to gain some viewers here with its dark sense of humor and stylish cinematography by Jan Malir. Director Jan Hrebejk names Mike Leigh as an influence, but frankly he's way cooler.

Both screenwriter Joan Singleton and director Wang take the time to draw real people and feeling relationships.

What Constantine offers is a deceptively thoughtful tale tricked up like an action movie; it's beautiful to look at but even more lovely to ruminate over.

One presumes the only thing worse than making this disaster is actually watching it; wouldn't wish either on anyone.

This is a grim and sometimes guilt-ridden examination of the Third Reich in collapse. But it's also weirdly sympathetic, and not just to the peripheral figures in Hitler's twisted world.

Schultze has a spare style, deliberately slow pace, and so little dialogue that to say it's in German with English subtitles seems to be stretching the truth.

Ong-Bak's script, if you can call it that, is nothing but a series of setups for star Tony Jaa to show his stuff.

Unfortunately, it's also pretty banal -- translating the songs into English reveals just how dull their lyrics and sentiments really are. The colors are pretty though.

Buried somewhere in here, about 6 feet deep, is an intriguing premise.

The film falls short only in its refusal to take a stand on whether star Linda Lovelace was a victim, as she claimed.

Mostly, Wild Parrots is a great, important, and unforgettable movie.

This latest adventure proves to be a suitably sweet addition to Pooh's cinematic canon.

Director Stephen T. Kay (The Last Time I Committed Suicide) busts off some cool shots, and Eric Kripke's story is pretty sound until the finale. Worth a look for horror fans, but nothing classic.

It seems like a slam-dunk pitch -- "Pretty Woman" with the genders reversed -- but there's one major problem: The whole hooker-fantasy bit is much more of a guy thing.

A beautiful but depressing film.

Assisted Living's overall mix doesn't quite jell, though there are worthwhile moments.

Here is the horror-action genre at its silliest and most uninspired.

May steal from the best, but it does it so badly and obviously that it has to depend upon gratuitous shock-cuts and soundtrack stings to elicit any kind of reflex-action fright from the viewer.

Fans of Arthur C. Clarke may be pleased, but fans of serious biology may bust out laughing at the goofily rendered aliens who show up.

It's all a big, boring failure of slapstick and degradation. Of course, that's not to say your kids won't like it.

A solid, well-crafted drama, with a tight script, sharp editing, and strong performances by the leads. Beware, however: This is no comedy.

Aims to be loud, dumb fun, only it takes itself too seriously to offer anything approaching a good time.

Director Thomas Carter (no relation to Ken) relies on processed emotion and stock characters, and not even the inevitable Big Game excites us very much.

The fights are mostly cool, save the final one with too many quick cuts, and the morphing graffiti and tattoos are nifty. If only the rest of it weren't so stupid.

The digital computer work is smooth and convincing; the animals look as if they are talking. But their voices are either devoid of personality or grating and annoying.

Did nobody involved in this project notice that it was retreading a very deep groove?

There's nothing at all scary about White Noise, which goes bump in the night so often it's easy to mistake it for clumsy.

The film is ultimately so extraordinary because it deals with something so ordinary: the desire to be better than we are, without knowing how to do it.

Radford has made a gripping, highly cinematic adaptation of a gorgeous work of theater.

It never jells. Primarily, it can't rise above two major weaknesses: a plangent, plaintive script and the inadequacies of John Travolta.

Penn's lead performance is the main attraction here, and it's a fine piece of work--far superior to his overly showy Oscar-winning role last year.

The film is sweet and often genuinely funny, with lively musical numbers and a cast of entertaining personalities.

The performances of the Anglo cast are closer to catatonia than Catalonia.

So thoughtful and provocative that we cannot help but become engrossed.

It's left to Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman as Greg's parents to warm up the picture, and they light it on fire. Indeed, they're having such a swell time as Roz and Bernie Focker that they seem to be in an entirely different movie--a funnier one, a sexier one and a smarter one.

Runs two hours and 20 minutes and plays like 10 days in the county jail.

Cheadle, always a fine actor, is outstanding here--an almost willfully naive yet uncommonly decent man who sees civilization crashing and burning around him yet who, almost against his own better judgment, refuses to give in to it.

Yu's approach to the material is brilliant.

A fun and loving biopic

Just might be Jim Carrey's finest screen role...The rest of the movie, however, isn't quite up to Carrey's level.

Never quite works, despite the wonderful performances or the decency in the screenplay's margins.

This half-hearted, half-witted remake of Robert Aldrich's compelling 1965 tale of survival, ingenuity, and teamwork generates no heat.

By offering up the feel-good, MGM-styled musical version, a movie you can hum along to, his biopic serves only as a giant question mark; why bother if you're going to excise the interesting and naughty bits.

A flawed film worth seeing.

For now, it might be best to acknowledge this as an impressive debut and wait for the grown-up stuff to come.

Baby may not be quite as compelling as Mystic River or Unforgiven, but there's something so stirring, and disquieting, too, in his quest that we cannot help but pay close attention to him. In the middle of his long career's third act, he's still searching for the secrets in things with striking resolve. You certainly can't ask more than that of any 75-year-old ex-gunslinger.

Soderbergh seems to have found his vision again. It'll be a great day when he returns to writing his own material, but until then, this is none too shabby.

The more technically proficient Anderson gets as a filmmaker, the more emotionally barren his movies become, till at last The Life Aquatic drowns in a sea of self-indulgent touches that delight the filmmaker but distance the filmgoer who wants to love the director and his characters but just can't, not anymore.

This Trinity may be the least of the three--sound familiar, Matrix faithful?--but it's the closest in style and attitude to a pulpy comic book, an art form that doesn't need to be lofty, perfect or even sensible to tickle a dork's fancy.

A superb and piercing documentary.

Full of intellectual stimulation as well as low, dark pleasures--"Carnal Knowledge" redux!

Its exquisiteness can overwhelm in a single sitting.

I Am David is by far the best after-school special to hit the big screen this season.

The result is nothing but allusive and memorial. And boring. This film is boring, at least partly because it is trying desperately to be big.

The creators of Alexander set out to make an epic, and they can't be faulted for the many elements that succeed on this scale; what's unfortunate is that they don't quite deliver a camp classic.

As the year stumbles toward its conclusion and critics begin penning their best-and-worst compendiums, here's a holiday contender fit for the all-time Naughty List.

Emotionally powerful.

Isn't any fun at all, which is ultimately the most damning thing you can say about a Bruckheimer movie.

The central theme of the movie is the pure joy the cartoon takes in childishness.

Begins as comedy, morphs into drama and only belatedly introduces the noir requisites of subterfuge, cunning and death--none of which, by that time, is necessary or even welcome. There is a great deal of life in this movie, and also promise, but its creepy ending betrays its sincere and painful core.

The whole thing has a dour resolve that undermines its attempts at humor.

The witless inanity of After the Sunset is so numbing that the sole reason for any living creature to sit through it--man, woman or household pet--is to marvel at the speed and variety of actress Salma Hayek's costume changes.

It's all fairly brilliantly twisted, but it seems that series creator Don Mancini has utterly given up on scares -- there's only one decent shock toward the very end.