Without being too glib about it, World Trade Center is a most improbable thing: an upbeat film about September 11, one of the few stories to emerge from that day to come with a happy ending.

This horror-comedy about an aging Elvis in a haunted rest home proves not only is "Evil Dead's" Bruce Campbell a good actor, but possibly a great one.

Neither pandering nor dull, Zathura plays exactly like a no-limits replica of the kind of space adventure that imaginative kids left to their own devices might enact.

The story itself is absolutely amazing, and the sense of outrage it evokes is universal, but director Noyce faces a difficult task in that once the story is set in motion there is very little action, other than walking shots of the girls, and almost no dialogue.

Heavy-handed, saccharine message somehow goes down good.

The first half of Intolerable Cruelty is more than tolerable; it's a dopey kick full of goofy jokes tossed off so quickly you're reminded less of bickering-bantering Grant and Rosalind Russell than Groucho and Chico Marx.

Such a funny mess that it keeps you laughing even when you realize it's not much better directed than a cable-access talk show.

The fanboy in me loves it, being wrapped in the warm projected glow of nostalgia for a movie I've memorized since age 9.

The gaga uplift in Shine knocks the malaise right out of your head--along with just about everything else.

Bellyflops into the increasingly complicated American high school experience with a healthy reservoir of wit.

To the fan of ’80s slashers, this return to glorious excess is a beautiful thing.

No matter how well you think you know this tale, you do not know it at all. It offers the oldest clichés polished up like some brand-new thing by director Greg Whiteley.

Slither is what it is, unapologetically, and unlike Gunn's work on "Dawn of the Dead," it's probably too weird to be a crossover hit. Either you've got worms in your heart or you don't.

Overall it's reasonably thrilling anyway. If you're hoping for a brilliant revisionist take on the franchise, forget it.

This special-effects-crammed action blockbuster is not rocket science. It's more like rocket fun.

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

A nifty little war movie that defies convenient categorization.

I love it, but much in the way I managed to love "The Phantom Menace" -- in spite of its bloat, swaggering self-importance and largely neutered characters.

There is still plenty to like about p.s. , including its smart humor and its surprising ability to absorb.

One of the season's biggest delights.

If you don't view it too analytically, Men of Honor provides almost more uplift than a body can handle.

Adding to the film's underlying sense of urgency and unease is composer Robert Miller's haunting score, so reminiscent of Philip Glass' music for "The Fog of War."

Makes good use of its actors.

Has plenty of dark horror style, but it lacks the weird charm of the 1971 original starring Bruce Davison...It's a nice homage.

What Malick has fashioned here is less a conventional narrative than an impressionistic mosaic of our common, yet varied experience of life and death, as focused and clarified through the relentless lens of war.

This intelligent, affecting work is squishy at the core.

Funny and sort of creepy--a not bad little thriller with some peculiarly dated plot development.

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

Bjork holds the movie together, her natural charisma and the overwhelming intensity of her emotions should blind a lot of viewers to the ludicrousness of the story and the intentionally rotten videography.

Director Pieter Jan Brugge makes us feel their impatience and frustration even as they do. He's aided greatly in this by the casting of the wonderful Helen Mirren as Mrs. Hayes.

Since the narrative's destination is awkwardly obvious, and the tone occasionally melts into a sticky-sweet mess like cotton candy in the sun, the movie is most often saved by its generous helpings of clever dialogue.

School of Rock, populated by bright-shiny faces given a "Revenge of the Nerds" happy ending, is light and meaningless but never worthless. It merely aspires to be a good time and is just that and nothing more, a grin-worthy buzz that wears off in the parking lot.

Adding R. Lee Ermey to the Leatherface clan was a masterful move.

By the end, you may be exhausted by the effort of trying to unravel the thing, but you may also be taken by the power of its spell. This is a movie that compels you to watch.

Not bad at all.

Keaton's so good you almost forget how wonderful Downey is as Steven Schwimmer.

From a fan's perspective, though, one might wish for a smaller budget and a truly uncompromising vision.

Aimed at the brain, when it should have been one for the heart.

The horrors therein are vivid, even if the movie is a bit plodding.

While too many things about the story don't ring true for the film as a whole to work, there is enough in Next Stop Wonderland to keep the viewer wide awake and entertained.

Lars von Trier's latest thingamabob is a large, pretentious blob of coulda-been. As in, it coulda been deep and insightful. It coulda been sociologically challenging. It coulda been formalistically thrilling. But it isn't.

Bigger, Longer & Uncut delivers: It's never less than funny, and at its best, it's truly hysterical.

Do not read too much into Burger's mockumentary, then; it's just having a lark, poking fun at conspiracy theorists, taking the piss out of the dozens of docs out there that present themselves as The Real Story About the Killing of John Kennedy.

Johnson, who was computer-generated in "Mummy" and only looked it in "Scorpion King," keeps it engaging, displaying a comedic knack first revealed during his Saturday Night Live appearance in 2000; he has the timing of a Rolex, even when playing straight man to American Pie's Stifler.

Explores a wealth of issues and conflicting ideologies.

It's a fast, entertaining ride.

That the film is good rather than great proves a disappointment, but just finding a good film these days is rare, especially a big studio picture.

Writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber (the short "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker") keeps the jokes coming fast and furious, and while none of them are deep, many find their mark.

Even in Las Vegas, which is possibly the most irrational place on earth, drama demands a bit of dramatic logic. Romantic fairy tales just don't play well on The Strip, despite its fake Eiffel Towers, bogus Italian palazzos and strike-it-rich fantasies.

The filmmakers' investment in their weird visions is wildly unorthodox, but the payoff is oddly satisfying.

Watching this film is a little bit like getting mauled and tickled at the same time. The filmmakers have given the whole shebang a hefty levity, and that's not easy to accomplish in a full-scale disaster movie.

Technically, the movie occasionally rises to become awe-inspiring, and while sometimes you can smell the acting (especially from Matthes), the performances are often soulful.

Waters offers a worldview that's uniquely his own.

As ridiculous, as mawkish and schizophrenic as The Family Stone is, it's also surprisingly endearing.

Five or six lives might have felt more concise; nine test the patience a bit, though it is impressive that each is composed of a single Steadicam shot.

The film is about how much you're willing to give up for love--a tune that has been played many times before, but never with quite this much slacker brio.

Good, goofy fun, but given the attendant hype, there may be a danger of excessively high expectations from horror fans.

This is the kind of documentary that, though not particularly accomplished by way of direction, writing, or editing, has such a compelling subject that there's no question about its worth.

Its loose-limbed sweetness and gruff irreverence are just right.

Shadow Hours must stand simply as an impressive B movie. Compared with what we've seen lately, however, that doesn't seem like a bad achievement by any means.

Deserves more than just a look.

Pits good taste against rousing intellectual provocation, and, happily, allows both to win.

If this really is the last stand, it's a stylish farewell indeed.

Though it's a blast to watch, it becomes tiresome over the long haul--25 minutes of Thurman hacking her way through the crowd to get to a woman whose fate we're informed of early on. It's the most climactic anti-climax in recent film history, a no-d'uh coda awaiting the ending it really deserves but never gets. Not this year, anyway.

Several visual nods to the game are amusing, but it's tough to recommend the movie to anyone who doesn't already own a PlayStation.

The film's demands may be too perplexing.

Eight Below splits into two movies--the compelling tale of the dogs' struggle to pull together and survive and the much less interesting one about Jerry Shepard's emotional trauma and his search for redemption.

Pak's writing has a simplicity that belies the film's emotional impact.

A mood-switching meditation on love and death that goes out of its way to yank our chains.

Arteta and White manage to bring off both the comedy and the tenderness in this tale of a jilted friend who sticks to his passions like chewing gum on a shoe.

It's beautiful to look at, and yet the story is strangely lacking; the novel's first chapter, available online at author Chevalier's Web site, tchevalier.com, seems to contain more plot points than the entire film.

Viewers looking for extremely light, romantic entertainment with a guaranteed happy ending could do worse.

If you happen to be seeking a fairly cute film concerning occultism, torture, and murder, here ya go.

A breezy romantic comedy, boasting a shameless silly streak.

It may be his (Greenaway's) breeziest and kindest-hearted effort to date.

The resulting project matters much and should be seen, but how much it'll be FELT depends on your specific level of patience for a director who presumes audience comprehension to be at about a fourth-grade level (at least he's a shoo-in for Hollywood).

It may feel familiar, but it's a bleak and profound piece of work.

An interesting film, and a good one, with a harrowing performance by Depp, whose apparent enjoyment of the role seems only to increase as his character deteriorates.

Immediately disarming for its candor, verve, and sheer nerve.

When all is said and done, Far from Heaven proves an easier film to appreciate than to emotionally embrace. It fails the test of being, in the descriptive phrase of Pauline Kael, "compulsively watchable."

As a musical feast, Groove works well. As a celebration of tribal ritual, it's even better.

Emotionally distressing yet compulsively watchable,

It's possible that Gloomy Sunday is more "significant" than it is compelling.

Happily, this irreverent, sharply observant comedy sweeps us into the maelstrom too. Amid the glut of teen movies rolling out of the studios every week, Election deserves special attention.

This lavish and captivating production by veteran Thai director Chatri Chalerm Yukol (Salween) transports us to another world where even the film stock seems imbued with a timeless, classic quality.

Connoisseurs of horror are bound to play favorites here (this amateur votes for Box), but there's one more thing that connects these three films--the brilliant cinematography of Christopher Doyle.

Scrupulously accurate, sometimes-tedious account of Stephen Glass' malfeasance.

Best of all, in this movie about high school boys, the high school boys sound and look quite authentic (Paul Dano and Chris Marquette are outstanding in this regard), not watered down as would be the norm.

It's funny and exciting on enough levels that adults are likely to enjoy it just as much as the rug rats.

Bleak, minimal, bone-dry and hilarious, it creates a rich and layered world from deft strokes of dialogue and action.

The strength of Woman is its unflinching look at people trying to grab onto a little dignity in their lives.

Jack's odyssey, despite some clunky writing and predictable first-movie missteps, gives off a flavor and a flair that stick with you.

Sometimes the laughs here seem unintentional, but most giggles are properly earned, and the movie's fun and exciting if you can accept its inherent camp factor.

It's one of those movies that gets bonus points for being "personal" -- it bops along from episode to episode, as if the filmmaker were discovering her subject as she went along.

Co-directors and writers John Musker and Ron Clements doll it up so marvelously you're sucked into the screen and forced to confront the fact that at their best, these filmmakers can make the two-dimensional astonishingly warm and full-bodied.

This Mansion should satisfy, at least until the disappointing climax.

Twohy's a good yarn-spinner, and ultimately the story compels.

The cynical should be warned that, as in "Blair Witch," most of the scares depend upon sound and editing rather than elaborate effects, but young director Ti West gets a lot of bang for his meager bucks.