In U-Turn Stone is reaching for the pulp without the politics. He's trying for noir as ritual dance. But Stone is too frenzied a filmmaker to keep the dance steps simple.

If his first two films were about emotional mutes, then Before Sunrise is the tale of two kids who won't shut the hell up.

Particularly unsuitable for cinematic adaptation, but when has that ever stopped anyone.

Coppola hasn't delivered a turkey--it's a cute little movie, if not as rich as her brother Roman's similarly themed "CQ"--but when work this potentially satisfying remains flatly obvious, it's almost worse than being flat-out bad.

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

The movie does find fresh ways to tweak the formula, making it more than the sum of its broad strokes.

To call it a conservative or Republican film would be inaccurate: For one thing, it celebrates (gasp!) multiculturalism and diversity. For another, the closest it ever comes to expressing a political viewpoint is when a metal sculptor advocates more art education in schools.

The result is his (Shyamalan's) most meditative and lovingly rendered offering thus far, if also his least fun.

A satisfyingly eerie thriller.

By the end, were it not for Murray, watching Rushmore would be like reading an article on "Why adolescents need Prozac."

Viewers still need a window into a character's soul if they are to connect on a deep emotional level. And that is missing here.

Authenticity and plausibility get gunned down from the get-go, but if explosive shaky-cam ultraviolence and frequent extreme close-ups of greasy whiskers are your bag, this hyperactive wannabe may count as something of a score.

Sayles is rarely a bore, but occasionally he frustrates more than he delights, enlightens or challenges. Such is the case with Casa de los Babys.

Trashes whatever spirited fun it initially established. Goodnight, Sweet Prince. Dream on.

If you want to drift through emotional turmoil and a harrowing loss of security both personal and national, this project may provide some soggy satisfaction.

Abandon all hopes of common sense, and enter the theater with high expectations for visceral entertainment. You won't be disappointed.

The movie lacks the adult humor of such kid flicks as "Shrek" and "Lilo & Stitch," but the target audience at an advance screening was shrieking with joy throughout.

A major weakness of A Soldier's Daughter is that it has no real plot.

Kaena resembles the Jim Henson fantasy in many ways, from its visual imagination and creature design to the hideousness of its more humanoid characters (except Kaena, who's a babe) and the general mediocrity of the voice acting.

Miyazaki's movies are as stunning as they are confounding.

A waste of a decent premise.

This unstinting look at growing up in the 1990s never pulls its punches. Bridging the angst of Generation X and the uncertainties of Generation Y, Chick reveals the romantic traumas, career screwups and self-absorbed fantasies of a group of eastern college grads.

This is a deeply disturbing (if not very satisfying) view of what happened at Columbine and in other school shootings.

Cube is essentially a glossy, beautifully designed 90-minute Twilight Zone episode.

Its smarmy resolution just doesn't work; the lessons learned are a bit too medicinal. But we're willing to forgive, since it's otherwise a good-natured and enjoyable ride.

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

A surprisingly efficient B-grade revenge pic.

The theme (social breakdown in isolation) is strong, but the plot meanders, and the motivations are decidedly hazy, so its popularity probably stems from its seamless blending of naive wonder and soul-mining horror.

Well acted by an unusually likable cast.

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.

Levin's on-camera presence is warm, wry and even-tempered, and he never feels the need to rub anything in.

It doesn't have enough power in the first place to make a strong claim on our attentions.

Many of the dilemmas that are established never pay off, and there is no clear protagonist or antagonist. To make matters even murkier, the movie is poorly shot in visually uninteresting locations with constant soft focus. That said, it's also damn funny.

Instead of slick heroism, the saving grace of The Matador (which was obviously made on something less than a blockbuster budget) lies in the comic interplay between Brosnan's ignoble Mr. Noble and the hapless square he picks to serve his purposes.

Deserves an A for ambition, but the final product is a pastiche of too many predecessors.

Two minor drawbacks: Onscreen IDs of speakers are sometimes omitted. And Kissinger's crimes seem almost paltry in comparison to current American policies.

With Joseph Fiennes as the conflicted, frequently self-hating Luther, this historical drama/biopic offers a fairly thorough overview of the period (although it's weak on the "good deeds" angle) but is somewhat dry and weighted with significance.

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

Wacky, hodgepodge and decidedly homemade, CSA nevertheless is worth seeing. Sure, it veers off into nonsense, and there are times when the film loses its center. But the premise, the passion and the scathing political commentary ultimately keep CSA afloat.

This resolutely old-fashioned movie is less a drama of the streets than a kind of recruiting film.

If the Navy is looking for splashy recruiting tools, it could do worse than Stealth, a zillion-dollar action movie stuffed with futuristic jet fighters, glamorous carrier pilots and an overload of explosive, mostly digital derring-do.

Surprisingly tender and resolutely unpostmodern.

Either a bit more humor or a bit more heart could exponentially improve things.

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

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.

This Jay-Z documentary is too much of a good thing, really.

Doesn't show us much of anything we haven't seen better already.

Because the filmmakers have skewed the story into a Donnie-Lefty lovefest, the breakage of their trust signals the breakage of Donnie's spirit even in triumph. Case closed. It's the kind of fade-out we might expect from the it's-all-hopeless era of '60s counterculture movies. It's emotionally effective, but also a cheat.

Some Marvel fans and die-hard devotees of Lou Ferrigno, the bodybuilder who played The Hulk on television (and who does a brief walk-on here), may find Ang Lee's whole enterprise grandiose and, given its not-always-successful attempt to fuse brains and brawn, a little bit silly.

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.

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

Fright fans could do a lot worse than The Eye; the Pangs have talent, but when they realize that a film isn't the same thing as a feature-length commercial, perhaps they'll provide us with some more original visions.

Nobody can convey more while doing nothing than Thornton. And while his minimalist style is appropriate for the ironically named Levity, what is conveyed never quite generates the emotional charge of "Monster's Ball."

Even though The Devil's Own reportedly cost close to $100 million, it comes across as a sleek, medium-grade character study occasionally punctuated by gunfire. If this is what $100 million buys these days, can $200-million movies be very far off?

Schreiber's edits gut the story of its power and punch. His film is strong on comedy and farce, enjoyable as a quirky-friendship gag, but it fails in its attempt at tragedy.

An engaging preapocalyptic fantasy.

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

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

It's a dark lark, no more and no less, a caper comedy full of enough kinky jokes to remind the audience that, indeed, you're supposed to laugh at it every now and again.

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

If you love Kawasakis, Hondas, and Yamahas, and don't mind tin-eared writing, get down to the multiplex.

Disappointingly mediocre.

In the end, it's all just too damned much. It's more exhausting than edifying.

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.

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.

Match Point may well be a return to form but only for those who love "September" and "Interiors," movies populated by Bergman evacuees too inert and dreary to even crack a smile.

So uplifting, it's almost...gross.

Writer-director Daniel Taplitz seems to be trying to invoke classic screwball with this convoluted setup, but it plays like mediocre sitcom.

The animation looks good, especially when CG-enhanced, but the Rugrats babies' constant snot jokes, bug-eating and "cute" mispronunciations grate after a while.

An occasionally amusing but wrongheaded remake that arrives more than four decades after the original blazed across the screen.

Were it not for the performance of Foxx, the movie, which touches every base and slows to a crawl near home plate, would sink even when the score soars.

Filled with so much religious righteousness--endless Bible-readings...that the film feels more like a recruitment tool for Soldiers for Christ than a look at the bloody four-year conflict that tore this nation apart.

The best you can say of Asylum is that it plays like a topless "Twilight Zone."

If, having seen "Jackass" half a dozen times, you now yearn to watch a pair of identical twins from Texas Tech cavort in the wet T-shirt contest or hear mobs of drunken undergraduates screaming for more margaritas, here's your flick.

The cast has plenty of room to emote, but their task feels a bit empty and thankless. For the most part, they're carrying the director's water.

The soul of Gladiator is made sluggish by a maddening lack of suspense.

The best things about this numbingly predictable service-academy drama are its talented leading men.

The flashy sensationalism of The Sixth Sense -- maybe the best thing about it -- is at war with its desire for contemplation.

With the exception of Murphy . . . the rest of the cast Oz has assembled acquit themselves only adequately or worse.

An indictment--a prime example of promising material that's been Cruisified.

As Frank, a widower who falls for his son's conniving would-be girlfriend (Maggie Gyllenhaal), Arnold is a revelation.

The real fault with this movie lies less with the clunky screenplay from Himelstein than with the acting, of which there is very little of note.

There is not even the slightest trace of freshness or originality in either the script -- which was written by Ron Bass and William Broyles from a story by Michael Hertzberg and Ron Bass -- or in Amiel's stodgy direction.

Uou may choose to read My Date with Drew several different ways -- as endearing or frightening, as bleak or expectant, as the optimistic daydream of the naïve Everyman or the beginning of a problem that could only lead to a restraining order.

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

There's so much EFFORT here to convince us of the switcheroo (already one of Hollywood's oldest ploys) that we soon weary of it.

All of the plot developments seem half-hearted -- which is a shame, because the star has the charm to succeed if given a better movie.

In the end narration, Shane gripes that the new corporate owners who took over Studio 54 after Rubell and Schrager's crash made the club "safe and boring." But that's exactly what Christopher has done to 54.

The movie features several political themes for adults and is mostly delightful for kids. Just consider yourself warned about the live-action Carly Simon video at its tail end.

Although meant as a light comedy-drama in which both characters are sympathetic, The Housekeeper instead proves irritating.

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."

The World's Fastest Indian is not likely to be regarded as some kind of masterpiece--far from it--but Hopkins once more keeps our ears open and our eyes fixed on the screen.

If it weren't for Murray, there'd be nothing at all to the film, which forgets all conventional notions of story or characterization.

50 Cent sounds articulate in his raps, but as a lead actor, he talks like his mouth is filled with food.

Kusama offers moments of inspiration, but it frustrates like hell that she couldn't nail it completely.

The ludicrous casting of Hoffman is just the fatal bit of kindling on this Joan's fire.

More well-meant than well-made, the movie is ethnically accurate (sometimes, you smother in the marinara), but its forced sensitivity can get abrasive, and the drama is full of false notes.

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.