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

Thanks to Spielberg's vivid storytelling and Hanks' matchless gift for bringing the common man to life, this is a relentlessly charming movie.

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.

Shades of "House of Sand and Fog," without the compelling drama.

The world of football riots seems rife with potential for the big screen, but Green Street Hooligans only periodically rises to it.

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

"Meatballs" handled the sleep-away sex stuff better; here it feels like filler between the killer musical numbers that make even special guest Stephen Sondheim smile on his way out the door.

Seven Years in Tibet feels more like Seven Days in the Movie Theater. It refuses to come alive--not even when Brad Pitt, hirsute as a yak, wanders the frozen Himalayas with an Austrian accent that probably gave his dialogue coach hives.

It's chatty when it wants to pretend it's deep and spiritual, messy when it's striving for chaotic and thrilling, and boring when it has no other options left.

This highly sanitized, heavily costumed, dramatically inert nonsense makes last year's dreadful golf biopic "Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" look like a masterpiece.

Charlie doesn't have a point, doesn't give a damn about giving a damn. It is what it is: a beautiful goof, a drunken supermodel in search of one more party before the sun comes up.

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

While the movie is indeed touching and very politically significant, there's something peculiar about never learning exactly what made ace reporter Guerin so intensely obsessive about this topic.

Here is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" inflated to lethal proportion, or "The War of the Roses" reimagined as World War III.

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.

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.

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.

Cuaron is a special talent, and, as botched as Great Expectations often is, it's the kind of failure that deserves an audience--if only to experience Cuaron's way of seeing, which is at its best in the early parts of this film.

Russell, a former student of Buddhist monk-philosopher Robert Thurman's, is reaching too far, straining too hard, saying too much that adds up to so little after all the mumbos and jumbos tallied up by film's end.

Silly, yes, but sweet and fun too.

Unfortunately, it's also pretty banal -- translating the songs into English reveals just how dull their lyrics and sentiments really are. The colors are pretty though.

Those needing their Irish fix will be satisfied and no doubt will leave the theater in far greater spirits.

The movie combines drawings, photos, hazy filters, superimpositions and computer effects into a pastiche both beautiful and disturbing.

It all feels disorienting and truncated, as if the script, by Ted Tally, who also adapted "Silence of the Lambs," was a harried summary of the book.

James Bond wants us to believe he's an Everyman. The lovely thing is, it works.

Emits the embarrassing aura of a filmmaker desperate to be considered cool, yet utterly inept at finding original ways to reach that status.

There's way too much schmaltz in the mix. Even the musical score bombs: Throbbing, eerie techno simply does not suit a character trapped in the 1940s.

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