The graphic battles may grow repetitious toward the end, the final scenes are almost sadistically drawn out, and the script often lacks humor. But this movie moves.

There isn't a scene or a character in the film that plays just one way. Bloody bits turn hysterically funny, relief gets riddled with tension, and the lurking question marks are as intriguing as the story resolutions -- rec.arts.movies has been filled for months with theories about what was in the briefcase.

What we remember are the visions of genius and the total turkeys. Rarely do you get both in the same movie, but director Tim Burton pulls it off in this oddly affectionate bio-pic of Ed Wood.

This is an ambitious movie that attempts too much rather than too little.

The other key part is Schindler's Jewish accountant, played with self-effacing brilliance by Ben Kingsley, who gives the movie just the touch of warmth and sanity it needs.

Altman lucked out when he cast a singer, Ronee Blakley, in a major role in "Nashville," but he has not been as fortunate here with Annie Ross and Lyle Lovett, who lack Blakley's soulful dramatic presence.

All of it is vital and involving, and some of it is hilarious...I've rarely seen a group of people in a darkened theater react as viscerally as they do to Reservoir Dogs.

If Unforgiven occasionally overstates its case, this is the best work Eastwood has done as a director since The Outlaw Josey Wales 16 years ago.

An appalling masterpiece.

A sweet, funny exercise in nostalgia, though it's also self-congratulatory and awfully calculating.

An exhilarating piece of popular entertainment.