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.