Though the new film has some good things, it does not have enough of them to make the third time the charm.

Instead of depicting a boy's first steps toward manhood -- ceremony aside -- it turns into an uninvolving portrait of self-absorption.

If it were a parody of relationship-youth pictures, In Search of a Midnight Kiss would maybe be tolerable, but writer-director Alex Holdridge seems to be playing it with a straight face.

With so many pointless detours ripping you away, the film feels as lamely digressive as the proverbial one-track guy whose head won't stop turning as each new temptation walks by.

This is a police procedural, if you will, about what's been called the artistic crime of the century.

Even at its stride, "The X-Files" was a load of malarkey. But it was thoughtful malarkey and compulsively watchable. One could say the same about the first two-thirds of The X-Files: I Want to Believe before it spins out of control and into a delirious plane of awfulness.

Step Brothers is not a retread so much as a reduction, stripping away the magical pretext of "Elf" and the period trappings of "Anchorman" to get to the heart of the thriving man-boy genre.

The filmmakers maintain a delicate balance that generates tension on multiple levels, including sexual. They giddily mix genres, but Baghead, part meta-cinematic comedy, part relationship drama and part horror movie, remains rooted in reality.

That the film is neither a true triumph nor a total disaster makes it somewhat difficult to justify revisiting "Brideshead," apart from the hope it will inspire someone somewhere to pick up the book.

A mostly enjoyable wave of nostalgia.

As a love story, it could scarcely be more tempestuous and as an exposé of class differences and sexual hypocrisy it could hardly be more scathing -- or, more important, entertaining.

An invaluable portrait of us-and-them America, a smart, generous, poignant, quietly disturbing movie about secrecy and hospitality, and how easy it is for a tradition of separateness to flourish when the stakes are as deceptively frivolous as an eye-popping yearly party.

Here are casual cruelty, crushing heartbreak and pressure from parents and peers, all of which can involve the viewer but are nothing revelatory.

Though it may be another in a long line of choir-preaching, anti-Iraq war documentaries, CSNY/Déjà Vu, Neil Young's effective hybrid of concert film and political snapshot, is one of the shrewdest and most entertaining of the bunch.

While the cast is uniformly superb, Garfield ("Lions for Lambs") deserves special mention for his deep, extraordinarily expressive performance.

May be the most hopeless, despairing comic-book movie in memory. It creates a world where being a superhero is at best a double-edged sword and no triumph is likely to be anything but short-lived.

Though the filmmakers may have been imagining they were re-creating the old days of MGM musicals, it's the Village People's misguided "Can't Stop the Music" that comes to mind instead.

The film is suitable for all ages, but there's probably not enough fuel beyond cute chimps in Candyland to achieve orbit for the kids.

If Tony Soprano had a cheekier, less haunted, openly gay British counterpart, it would be Dominic Noonan, the Manchester crime boss profiled in the stylish and compelling A Very British Gangster.

Felon is not a total bust. What does work is because of the strength of the actors. Dorff brings a visceral sense of desperation to his performance, though he does tend to go too big too quickly. Kilmer gives the film its center as an alien, still presence amid the chaos around him.

Reed stands at the center, taut and impassive, punching out words that are more often spoken than sung.

In the end, Take is too enamored of its time-shifting gimmick and cheap suspense to ultimately have much impact.

Mortimer gives a terrifically keyed-up performance that is nicely complemented by the wholesomely chipper Harrelson, who seems to be drawing inspiration from Fred MacMurray's gallery of Disney dads.

Price keeps the humor believably shallow and the movie from getting too far from the aim of chronicling an exclusivity junkie's fall.

Del Toro is almost alone in his ability to re-create on screen the wide-eyed exhilaration and disturbing grotesqueness that is the legacy of reading comics on the page.

Ultimately, Journey to the Center of the Earth's minor-league visual pleasures will be most enjoyed by those with the smallest number of celluloid reference points, preferably those who have started going to the movies after "Jurassic Park" or, better yet, the Harry Potter films.

Pays lip service to the joys of exploring new worlds, but it never steps off the tour bus.

Though the film could've used more technical insight into Pearl's artistic process, it's hard not to be stirred by this hopeful portrait.

Any film that uses the Stooges' drone-y song "We Will Fall" to underscore a drug-love scene can't be all bad, but they, as apparently does Uschi, deserve better than this.

Although competently acted and directed, lacks a fresh point of view and its people lack individuality.

Far more diverting and well crafted than its promotion-free release campaign might suggest. Then again, for a film largely based on the notion that "nothing is what it seems," such lowered expectations may actually work in its favor.

An intelligent adult drama that's especially relevant in these harsh economic times.

Burstyn gets to use her full bag of tricks to bring this crabby, hard-knocks survivor to life. Though she's aged 15 unflattering years, forced into awful old lady clothes and her character teeters on unsympathetic, the actress manages a rich, vanity-free performance, perhaps her best since "Requiem for a Dream."

Where "Superbad" found something raucously winning in hanging with adolescence's loser elite, Harold is a disingenuous, one-note underdog portrait.

Instead of pushing for tough answers to difficult questions, this film is content to mythologize Thompson's bad-boy behavior, celebrating things like his willingness to drink a bottle of bourbon a day and go hunting with a submachine gun.

Director Rosser Goodman makes the crucial decisions facing Trevor suspenseful and involving -- and tinged with humor as well as pathos.

A dark piece of whimsy that enchants and befuddles in equal measure.

All of the actors convey the ebullience of old friends convening for an on-the-cheap reunion. The shared good spirits result in a diminutive comedy with a bounty of charm and shrewd humor.

Emulating its hero's recklessly independent spirit, The Wackness aspires to be something more than your average psychiatrist-bashing, dysfunctional-parents coming-of-age dramedy à la "Running With Scissors." It snows us with more visual flash than it knows what to do with.

Author Coben, who says he is a fan of "stories that move you, that grab hold of your heart and do not let it go," has gotten a film that does exactly that.

It's a strange feeling to see the summer's most promising premise self-destruct into something bizarre and unsatisfying, but that is the Hancock experience.

The problem comes largely in the conception of the hooker-niece character, Amanda, played by Brittany Snow. Tolan never quite figures out whether she is supposed to be a variation on the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold or a genuinely troubled teen.

Daring and traditional, groundbreaking and familiar, apocalyptic and sentimental, Wall-E gains strength from embracing contradictions that would destroy other films.

Wanted's hyperkinetic antics are sometimes weighed down by a surfeit of adolescent misanthropy. But the adrenaline-overdose strategy works for viewers as well as hit men. As long as Bekmambetov keeps the pedal to the metal, you don't notice the rotten scenery outside.

It's sure to satisfy the film's target youth audience's appetite for zippy visuals and swift pacing.

An unconventional film about an unconventional man. Part documentary, part expertly staged readings, it focuses on the unquiet life and unforgettable words of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, someone who, as his son puts it, never had to go looking for trouble because it always came to him.

The film may be fearlessly sentimental, but it is sturdy enough to provide rewarding major roles for two veterans, who are of an age when such starring parts are rare.

The Catherine Breillat-directed period piece is an extreme cinematic pleasure, a well-told yarn of merciless desire.

This is the kind of movie in which characters revere poetry, yet hardly anything about the writing (it's based on a stage play by Joseph O'Connor) or directing (by Tamar Simon Hoffs) qualifies as poetic.

Get Smart neglects the laughs and amps up the action, resulting in a not very funny comedy joined at the hip to a not very exciting spy movie. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

The film's sunniest moments occur whenever song preempts all the fighting and smirking. Myers leads the cast in sitar-accompanied covers of such Bollywood favorites as "9 to 5" and Steve Miller's "The Joker," revealing a glimmer of the cross-cultural romp that could have been.

Brick Lane has been whittled down from Monica Ali's expansive 2003 novel into a glossy but overly efficient drama that, like Nazneen's husband, is ultimately too ineffectual to make much of a dent.

This can be strong stuff for kids, but the film's humanistic approach preaches tolerance and hope.

The narrative, at times, veers into overstatement, but for the most part we're allowed to eavesdrop on their self-examination guilt-free.

The ways in which very ordinary, uncharismatic people try to cope with their needs and longings is ultimately most affecting.

It doesn't help that Wahlberg, whose work usually ranges from solid to inspired, is bewildering off-key here, though it may have something to do with playing off Deschanel, who reduces the whole marriage story line to a parody.

The result is solid and efficient, if unadventurous, illustrating both the lure and the limitations of comic book extravaganzas.

Though drawn together by the thrill of infatuation, fostered by Isherwood's penchant for emergent male youth and Bachardy's awe of fame and glitz, the pair developed a durable love strengthened by nurturing and patience. In recounting this journey, directors Guido Santi and Tina Mascara make rich use of the couple's glamorous home movies.

This haunting phantasmagoria of a film -- comic, singular, surreal -- is not only something no one but the Canadian director could have made, it's also a film no one else would have even wanted to make. Which is the heart of its appeal.

Stahl and Farmiga give layered, restrained performances that keep what might have been a schlock fest with an improbable twist ending from devolving into trashiness. Instead, Brooks and his actors manage to render an involving and thoughtful story from some pretty dubious material.

Consistently inventive and surprising, Beauty in Trouble evokes human nature in all its strengths and weaknesses, contradictions and ambiguities. It is itself a beauty -- rich in imagery, deftly paced and structured.

The images captured by Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger are dazzling all on their own, finding the disorienting psychedelia that is nature at its weirdest.

The action, heavily influenced by Hong Kong martial arts films, is beautifully choreographed.

As another run-of-the-mill Sandler movie, it is better than most. At this point it seems a little foolish to want, let alone expect, "more" from the guy. If he can't be bothered to put more effort into his films, why should anybody else?

There are moments of beauty here, but not enough to make up for the mannered dialogue and hamstrung performances. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative won't be prosecuted, but they'll probably be disappointed.

Isn't so much a movie as an extended sitcom -- it looks like one, it acts like one, it reduces everything to the lowest common denominator like one.

Full of stunning views of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan and showing an unexpected side of Genghis Kahn, Mongol feels like an old-fashioned epic.

Although The Mother of Tears teeters on the preposterous and awkward, it is diverting and reveals that the filmmaker's signature bravura flourishes and use of sinister settings are still intact.

His endless string of demeaning apartment-doorway interactions with a convincing cross-section of hungry customers is darkly funny, even if it never snowballs into the “After Hours”-type obstacle course one might hope.

Raucously funny and surprisingly insightful.

It's all saved by actor Danny McBride, who has created such a distinctive character in Simmons, at once engaging and repulsive, that it's hard not to keep watching even while cringing.

It's tough to think of another film in which sex between a mother and her son is not necessarily the worst thing that happens.

Can't rightly be called a romantic comedy in the dismal, contemporary sense, though it is at times romantic and is consistently very funny. It's also emotionally realistic, even brutal.

Sweet, however, are the uses of melodrama in the skilled hands of Tornatore, for he transcends the lurid and the coincidental with range, depth and insight, and a bold, confident, suspenseful style, to create a fable of love and redemption.

Suvari's increasingly loopy and cruel selfishness is its own nifty moral suspense, while Rea's sad sack vibe -- he already looks like a collision victim in the pre-accident scenes -- is a bleakly amusing counterpoint to his gritty refusal to go quietly.

If you can get past the Eurocentric focus, there are worse ways to pass the time than to see The Children of Huang Shi, if only because the glimpse into the time and place are captivating and the images are gorgeous.

Somehow, what starts as a series of cheap shots in a barrel develops into something more, thanks largely to warm, engaging performances by Cusack and Tomei. War, Inc. is both right-on and somehow off, but it gets points for trying.

Boll's rampant narcissistic showmanship creates such a bizarre, garish spectacle that it is almost tempting to give him credit for being something of a misunderstood artist after all. Almost, but not quite.

Though the film stars a relaxed and capable Harrison Ford as everyone's favorite intrepid archaeologist and boasts supporting players ranging from Cate Blanchett as a superb villainess to Shia LaBeouf as the inevitable youngster, the real heroes of this film are director Steven Spielberg and the veritable army of superb technicians who turn the film's numerous stunts and special effects into trains that insist on running on time.

A story about generational expectations and cultural shifts, The Edge of Heaven raises questions it can't answer, which makes it only more powerful.

A courageous documentary on the plight of gays in the Muslim world.

The film's pronounced split between violence and softness notwithstanding, Prince Caspian is finally a more polished effort than "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and squarely in the tradition of the kind of teenage movies the Disney organization used to make before teens discovered horror and gore.

Norwegian director Joachim Trier's inspiring first feature Reprise joyfully tackles the process of self-creation, as well as the friendships that feed and sustain it. He captures, in a way that's cool and romantic and heady, the moment in life when nothing matters more than ideas, influences and the possibility of shaping one's life into a work of art.

Intricately and imaginatively structured, building to a powerful climax of complex irony.

The fakeness of it all overwhelms, dampening any real excitement. It's hard to care about characters so stiff and one-dimensional they out-cartoon the cartoon originals, and it's hard to watch them bop around like avatars in a flat, airless, digital world.

The film remains engaging in no small part because of the beguiling and enigmatic performance of Waterston, daughter of "Law & Order" star Sam Waterston. It is a shame she isn't given a better context in which to thrive.

There is never a sense that The Fall exists for any reason besides simply being something nice to look at. Yet no matter how good-looking a film may be, if it's as sleep-inducing as this, there's simply no point.

Robbins plays David with the self-assurance that there's no combination sexier than smart, funny and self-righteously angry.

Light and fun, if also a little slight, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is like a pleasant sorbet to wash away the aftertaste of the pre-summer clunkers.

What Surfwise reveals is that the dark side of the surfing doctor was that he could be a terrible tyrant, someone whose controlling, self-centered rigidity limited his children in ways large and small as much as it gave them richer lives.

The main problem with Turn the River is that it's a well-acted, if not terribly well-crafted, character-driven drama without much in the way of a purpose.

Hokey and forced as it is, What Happens in Vegas eventually settles into a rhythm, maybe because Diaz and Kutcher actually look like they have fun together.

A dreary experience.

The gift of Unsettled is that it enables us to feel that we were right there, experiencing the sound and fury for ourselves.

You've see this movie before, but you haven't seen it filtered through Madsen.

Though Iron Man is diverting enough in the comic-book-movie mode, there is one thing it doesn't have, and that is dramatic unity. Unlike the irreducible element that is its namesake, Iron Man the movie is an alloy, a combination of several different and disconnected components that don't manage to unite to make a coherent whole.

Hopscotching time on film is never easy, but Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa handles it with skill and care in Fugitive Pieces, his lovely, absorbing adaptation of Anne Michaels' lauded novel about a circumspect writer haunted by his traumatic past.

If you're in the mood for seeing a Lothario humbled by true love, you're in luck. You may wish, however, that Made of Honor had given its stars something more of interest to occupy their time. And ours.