Morlang has surprises up its sleeve that even the seasoned genre fan may not see coming.

If you cut through Lucas' thickets of self-reflexivity, metaphysical mumbo jumbo and banal potshots at media violence, there are three ace performances here by actors who can elevate and enliven even as mediocre a piece of material as this.

Sandler crony Allen Covert, the star, producer and co-writer of this stunted-adolescence classic, hilariously explores a previously untapped nexus of stoner humor, joystick geekdom, elderly women and a martial arts-taught chimp.

The purest of horror films.

For the most part, the action, shot entirely on Hawaii's famed North Shore without blue screens or tanks, is awesome, all swirling turquoise tubes, thundering foam hammers and sleek, graceful riders.

Falters precisely because there's not enough stumbling, and far too much striding gallantly forward.

A screenplay that not only has a way with genre cliché, but manages to score some deviously witty political points

Manna from gearhead heaven, the third and most guiltily pleasurable Furious emits the crude thrills of a 1950s drag-racing cheapie, only with souped-up Toyotas and Nissans in place of gas-guzzling hot rods, and slinky Asian temptresses substituted for poodle-skirted teenyboppers.

In movies, the young are forever being taken back in time by the old, but what sets apart this low-energy yet ambitious debut feature by writer-director Rodney Evans is the complexity of the questions that journey raises.

What Lurie has made is "The West Wing" without the constraining niceties of prime time.

As in many of his films, Jaglom establishes a striking intimate rapport with his female subjects, and as the funny and bitter revelations pour forth, an activity that many men may view as something done strictly out of necessity takes on unforeseen narcotic, romantic and therapeutic dimensions.

In a film that quickly reveals itself to be a love letter to Wu, some of the best moments have nothing to do with that legendary hip-hop collective: Sage Francis taunting the unruly, increasingly tense crowd with his cerebral, political performance-art hip-hop; Redman playfully admonishing his young son to be good and then giving the boy a kiss when the paternal command wounds.

Selected as Italy's entry for best foreign film at this year's Academy Awards, Private was disqualified for not being predominantly in Italian. A pity, since this meticulously nonpartisan film, even as it makes the case for passive resistance, shows what devastating lack of appeal the strategy has for young Palestinians.

By not romanticizing its despairing yet humanistic outlook, The Motel presents a moment-by-moment emotional recap of almost anyone's formative years while simultaneously issuing a stinging reminder on the impossibility of fully outgrowing adolescence's uncertain searching.

This paranoid thriller has all the failings we expect...but Enemy of the State also has enough wit, talent and narrative thrust to mostly transcend those flaws, at least until that ludicrous finish.

When a movie opens with the diner scene from "When Harry Met Sally" as performed by cadavers, and later proceeds to sex scenes involving scalpels and needles, the actual plot is inconsequential. Fans of hard-R exploitation will love this; everyone else will likely be appalled. Screw 'em.

This winning confection, from a director (Heavy, Cop Land) not known for the lightness of his material or his touch, shows a fine understanding of what the screenwriters of the '40s instinctively grasped, that good screwball is about dialogue and chemistry.

The depraved, desperation-trumps-morality, circle-of-life denouement is foreshadowed a little too heavily from the beginning, but with its hypnotic, singular aesthetic, Redland still casts a spell that's hard to shake.

There’s a lot to like in writer-director Ray Yeung’s low-key romantic comedy, once you get past its overly enunciated identity issues, which were, according to Yeung, the film’s raison d’être.

It's a shame that this English-language cover of an excellent Spanish shocker will eclipse the original, at least in U.S. theaters -- but even those who despise remakes will have to admit that director John Erick Dowdle's furious retread is scary as hell.

Vahina Giocante oozes a killer blend of purring, lascivious innocence and little-girl-lost vulnerability as Lila.

The air of self-imposed misery can dampen the film's humor, but Muccino never stays still long enough for the emotions to become leaden, and the strong cast carries the film to its striking, bittersweet conclusion.

Small Time Crooks is definitely minor Allen that, nevertheless, offers a welcome riposte to the current national obsession with getting rich.

The rewrite went well, and the crew did a fine job; but you insult us, Mein Disney, serving up leftovers on such expensive china.

The hardware explodes just fine, all the right people die, and Pierce Brosnan, suave and likable as ever but no Sean Connery, not in a million years, gets the job done.

This genial comedy is as unambitious and, at times, as funny as its high concept.

Genuinely scary, especially when it strays from its lame plot to orchestrate some beautifully chilling set pieces, including one in the world's slowest elevator that'll raise the hairs on the back of even the most weary genre fan's neck.

The characters are well-observed and mercifully unrepresentative of their home countries. (Kevin Bishop is laugh-out-loud funny as a clueless British visitor who shows up to offend more than one national sensibility.)