What makes Crash so gripping--so terrifying in spots, so moving in others, and even a little funny at times--is how nothing happens as we think it will.

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.

Bright, lively and liberating movie.

The overall effect is scintillating and very engaging -- literally history in the making.

An hour of dour stagnation is a lot to take, even with good acting. So when the action finally does shift, toward the end of the film, it is a welcome relief.

The film successfully walks the thin line between slick commercialism and "serious" realism. It is sentimental, but it comes by its sentiment honestly, through well-observed performances by the leads and a keen insight into the quirks of the Japanese middle-class culture.

Craven's other accomplishment here, besides resuscitating the genre, is the way he keeps things scary even when they're at their funniest. The grand finale, while thoroughly bloody and tense, has some genuinely hilarious shtick.

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

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

You might feel constrained when it comes to a standing ovation, but there's certainly enough substance and yuk here to go along for the ride.

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.

The result is a constant feeling of summary, saddled with four times the usual number of after-school issues. Tamblyn is a treat, playing intelligence and anger, and there are some real moments of connection between characters, but the film is hysterical with self-promotion.

Scott and Olds' is an essential movie, and one of the year's very best.

Aside from a single jazzy image of Hunt taking a nosedive off a Shanghai skyscraper, Abrams' movie is too oppressive, too enamored of its brutality to deliver anything like real thrills; its deeply unpleasant tone nearly makes you long even for Woo's cartoon absurdities.

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

It's a movie about discomfort and distance, like an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "The Larry Sanders Show" shot in deadpan black-and-white.

What about the activists (gay and straight) who want to secure legal benefits for all citizens, not just married ones?

The film is beautifully shot and well-acted, but, like the book, it never achieves anything like the import of the stories that inspired it. Balzac is even a little dull, especially toward the end.

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

Maugham's signature wit and tragic colorations are well served by director Istvan Szabo (Mephisto) and screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Dresser).

Satisfying in its setup and execution, and the Catholic guilt streaked through its dank, rainy atmosphere serves it well. Nonetheless, the story's subtleties in this version are often outweighed by melodrama, sometimes verging on sap.

Pecker is a satire, but an incredibly good-natured one, which is not quite the contradiction in terms it might seem.

An engaging preapocalyptic fantasy.

No matter how hard the filmmakers work their narrator (Geoffrey Rush, as Oscar's great-grandson), he can't make the damn thing explicable, much less bring it to life.

It's nothing more than a very long movie about someone, literally and metaphorically, having to get back up on a horse.

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.

Linklater, whose intimate "Before Sunset" was an art-house wonder last year, proved he could make mainstream money with "School of Rock." With Bad News Bears, he proves he can waste it, too.

We become so absorbed in the ramifications of the techniques involved that a more challenging plot might have resulted in sensory overload.