Feels like something entirely brand-new; such are the gifts of Kaufman and Gondry, inventors and magicians.

The film's finale is truly egregious, a laugh-out-loud combination of ludicrousness and sadism that someone somewhere probably found scary, assuming they never saw a thriller before.

Sensational yet sadly unsatisfying.

Stupid camera shenanigans aside, theater veteran Crowley deftly directs his large, stellar cast, and playwright-cum-screenwriter Mark O'Rowe serves up a wild knot of character arcs pitched somewhere among the neighborhoods of Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Danny Boyle.

The stately pacing and meandering plot often reduce this potential classic to generous eye candy.

Nói makes a stab at tragic romance.

Given the great premise and characters inherited from the first film, it's surprising that this sequel fails to match its predecessor's appeal. The humor is silly, broad, and surprisingly generic.

This is fun for a while, but the ending is so ridiculous, and obvious, as to sully all the small joys that come before it.

The problem with Spartan isn't so much that it's mediocre, but that it could be a whole lot better.

Broken Wings' great strength is that it doesn't overreach. These characters undergo no enormous sea changes, no crazy upheavals. Instead, they find themselves trying to roll with the punches--trying to maintain and survive.

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

Rent a porno instead; it'll be less exploitative. God help us, two more of these things are planned.

Starsky & Hutch is less homage to an old cop show than a tribute to the people who made the movie--a circle pat on the back. And no obvious joke goes untouched.

Yet another version of the conscience-stricken white soldier Kevin Costner played in "Dances With Wolves" and the Indian killer-turned-noble warrior Tom Cruise gave us in "The Last Samurai."

This is a brilliant and unpretentious movie to raise the bar for contemporary popular entertainment, designed for the upper-tier thinkers at the multiplex.

The Broken Lizard types bring the best out of Paxton, only to abandon him in the second half and focus on themselves. A bit more humility might have served them in better stead.

Silly, misguided, formulaic and largely a piece of trash, but it's not quite a disaster. There's the dancing and the music and the sunlight.

With light-hearted wit, compassion for its characters and artful attention to detail, the film is winningly funny and humane.

"Homespun" is the first word that leaps in while contemplating Young's charming and moving treatise on provincial America and its deceptively simple denizens.

It's too turgid to awe the nonbelievers, too zealous to inspire and often too silly to take seriously, with its demonic hallucinations that look like escapees from a David Lynch film; I swear I couldn't find the devil carrying around a hairy-backed midget anywhere in the text I read.

If you're in the mood for a quiet, beautifully acted little drama, liberally spiked with comedy, about the universal desires of the human heart, this may be the obscure gem you're looking for.

Ryan never quite convinces us she's seen the inside of a fight gym, much less that she's worthy to be Rocky in a miniskirt. On the other hand, her director here was not Campion but actor Charles S. Dutton, whose behind-the-camera skills, developed via cable TV, tend toward the cartoonish.

Tethered to screenwriter Gail Parent's adaptation of Dyan Sheldon's novel, plus the demands of bigwig producers, it's a testament to Sugarman's artistry that she sustains her funky playfulness--a hallmark of her earlier work--throughout most of this film.

The opening credits -- animated sequences that spoof airline safety cards -- are a high point, but if you're not a prude, the rest of the flick ain't bad either.

Welcome to Mooseport... is intended to be a comedy; that hypothesis is a generous leap of faith, given the fact that "House of Sand and Fog" contains more moments of mirth than this rather joyless exercise in waste and torpor.

This is a beautiful, important film, and you should see it.

If you've never seen a Sandler movie, however, this isn't the one to start with. Proceed only if you're sure you like the guy.

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

For the most part the film is a miracle of accomplishment, elegant and bold and artful in a world devoid of resources.

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) and editor Paul Seydor serve it up beautifully.

Lackadaisical feel of the film; Freundlich is unable to generate much suspense.

An unabashed flag-waver and one of the best feel-good sports movies ever, this authentic charmer does for its young hockey players what John Wayne used to do for the U.S. Marines, and it lifts us, too, onto the boys' cloud of belief.

The Dreamers is a real humdinger, at once an intimate romance, a glimpse into a rather unconventional friendship and a beautifully focused celebration of cinema itself.

The skeleton's a hoot, and the score, credited to the solo-monikered Valentino, is pitch-perfect. Some judicious editing would make a huge improvement, however, because even at 90 minutes, it feels like Blamire's stretching the joke a bit thin.

The heist itself is quite nicely filmed herein, but unfortunately, getting to it requires sitting through a bunch of noisy, fussy crap, from the overly busy soundtrack to the irritating narration of stoned guy Leonardo Nam.

Director Christopher B. Stokes (House Party 4) shapes up the fabulous dance sequences with undeniable energy, and real-life brothers Houston and Grandberry are two of the most enjoyable musicians to appear onscreen since Sting played a bellboy.

The low-wattage thrills, lukewarm jokes and unconvincing caricatures we encounter in The Big Bounce simply don't generate that kind of excitement.

Before things have even begun we know how they will end; this is pure Hollywood product, slicker than the insides of an oilcan.

One of Void's great strengths is that it doesn't say much about "voids." It simply shows us, in incredibly vivid detail, heart-stopping danger and the raw will to survive.

As a thriller, The Butterfly Effect is iffy and uneven, but as a portrait of a people, it's effective and intriguing.

Hamburg's smartypants banter is a bit spotty, but the bathroom humor, of all things, hits the mark, and Stiller's trademark wide-eyed bafflement wins the day again.

The musical numbers are energetic and fun.

Although the press notes liken the movie to "Easy Rider" (why not "Lawrence of Arabia" while you're at it?), the obvious comparison is to the "Fast and Furious" franchise, which shares the same producer. Actually, the closest spiritual cousin may be "Pee-wee's Big Adventure."

Tokyo Godfathers just might be the equivalent of "It's a Wonderful Life" or, to be hip and new-millennium about it, "Elf."

Moore's likable and Goode's good. But . . . so what?

Every bit as pathetic and unfunny as it looks.

This astonishingly gritty film maintains its strong niche between Roberto Rossellini's "Open City" and Paul Greengrass' "Bloody Sunday" as a pinnacle of war-torn neo-realist drama.

Pretentious yet devoid of poetry, left-of-center yet artless, this well-intentioned trudge does not exist to be enjoyed or appreciated so much as to be coddled and patronized as one would a retarded child.

Nothing happens. At all. Ever. Remember when Steve Martin was funny? Apparently, neither does he.

In the end, what Minghella has wrought is a nearly perfect drama of love and war (still the great subjects, after all), an epic that's fluent, frightening and beautiful all at once, that lifts the heart and dashes our dreams in about equal measure.

Paycheck is a terribly muddled mess, a Hitchcock homage (with generous, obvious nods to The Birds, Strangers on a Train and North by Northwest) by a great filmmaker trying to say a great deal with so very little.

The film provides solid entertainment for kids but lacks any real sense of wonder and magic.

No character other than Antonelli is developed enough to register. Worse, the minor characters, most of whom are played by Joffrey dancers, are simply not actors.

Does not measure up to its predecessor, but it's child-friendly and lasts only 45 minutes.

This is a powerhouse of a film, but not for the obvious reasons that it's about a female serial killer, scampering lesbians and whatever. The project's strength instead emerges from a sense of nobility and purpose in honoring its characters.

You will leave Mona Lisa Smile with only the slightest hint of the grin every slick studio movie gives you--the grin of reassurance and superiority. But you will not be changed, only out about eight bucks.

Brilliant.

This is not pleasant stuff, but it's important, and thoroughly heart-wrenching.

There are many winning moments here, but director Nigel Cole (Saving Grace) sometimes imparts to the thing a terrible case of the cutes and an overeagerness to please.

This circumcised "Shaft" plays half-awesome, half-aw-shit; it exists almost as if to prove you can cram every Jewish joke in the Old Testament into a single movie.

This film is a miracle, an extravaganza equal to its predecessors and in some ways more stunning. It is a profound testament to the extraordinary power of moving images and sound.

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.

Sadly, though, the movie as a whole feels blatantly dedicated to fleecin' da kidz.

As a date-night movie for women of 50 or thereabouts, chances are it'll do the trick.

That sweet streak has grown, like a cancer, and gradually killed off any of the edge their (Farrellys) humor may have once had.

Alternately fascinating and distracting.

For the first time, Burton seems comfortable walking around the real world.

Certainly it exists solely to sell a soundtrack; the movie, like most made for teens, is well beside the point.

This is a Tom Cruise vehicle, pure and simple, and that means it's destined to be the biggest chunk of guilty white-boy wish fulfillment since Kevin Costner got down with the Sioux in "Dances With Wolves." In fact, the parallels are all but plagiaristic.

By the end, Monsieur Ibrahim's determination to be lighthearted in the face of tragedy is a little wearying.

It is that rare find: a film that is as emotionally truthful as it is satisfying.

An animated extravaganza of Gallic wit and soul that delivers more wild humanity than many of the year's live-action features. In a word: go.

As surreal as it is obscene, as clever as it is crude. It plays like some raw offspring of underground comix and the comedies of the 1920s.

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

There's a modicum of charm to Timeline, since its eager, earnest tone harks back to Donner's work from the '80s, particularly "The Goonies" and "Ladyhawke."

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.

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

Such a remarkable rift between its charming source material and its heinous cinematic realization that the producers may as well have skipped the hassle of securing licensing rights and simply called this mess Mike Myers: A--hole in Fur.

Delivers genuine scares.

Arcand loyalists are bound to miss Rémy, but at least he goes out in style. Even the antagonists will have to admit that.

The only thing The Missing isn't missing is a handful of climaxes, all of them of the anti- variety that leave you believing, then praying the movie's over a good 30 minutes before its actual and inevitable finale.

The dialogue is not merely tired but exhausted, as though its head has already hit the pillow and it's just "mm-hm"ing us before it falls asleep.

One of this year's best films--a classic, even, like a C.S. Forester "Hornblower" story on steroids.

A mind-numbing, achingly post-modern advertisement for itself, which attempts to distract us from its highly merchandised nature by constantly referring to it. In other words, it's morally corrupt, but your kids will love it.

There's too much self-congratulatory showbiz overkill, and one is forced to wonder exactly who is getting paid, and how much, for leading this parade in his honor. Otherwise, this project makes it easy for anyone to understand the sanctified, semi-crazed star and the elements that created and destroyed him.

Nathaniel will sometimes take it too far. It's particularly distracting, and even a little distancing, when he waits till the end of a lengthy interview to tell one of his father's former collaborators and friends that he is Louis' son.

Elf may be no more than a pleasant, amusing trifle, a grin that fades well before Thanksgiving, but it also will endure in the way all decent Hollywood-made Christmas fairy tales last if they're rendered with good cheer and good will.

Feels less like a brand-new movie than a greatest-hits compendium. It offers nothing new and instead makes do with presenting the warmed-over like something pulled fresh from the oven.

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

The result is visually slick, almost shockingly simpleminded, kinda redundant and only adequately satisfying. Alas, for their dramatic wrap-up the Wachowskis' storytelling now feels less intriguing than merely dutiful.

Fast-paced, riveting and affecting.

Hopkins' beautifully detailed, deeply felt acting remains a joy to watch...But an even greater pleasure, at least for my money, is Kidman's dark turn as Faunia Farley.

Busch, responsible for the similarly hit-and-miss-that's-a-mister "Psycho Beach Party," has a good idea; two in one movie would make him absolutely fabulous.

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

It's not a bad film, exactly, just a confused one, too violent to be a straight romance and too focused on aid relief to be an ass-kicking action flick.

The cumulative effect of the movie's many Kodak moments and stretches of greeting-card sentiment is that they kill us with kindness.

A bucket of crap, but at well under 90 minutes it's a small bucket, and half the crap is amusing.

Fortunately the film's humor kicks in with McKenzie Brothers Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas stealing the show as a dopey pair of moose. Could've done without Phil Collins's generic, annoying tunes.