It is to director Tykwer's credit that, although you never come close to understanding Jean-Baptiste, you don't turn your nose up at him, either.

This inventive family movie sets up the most delightful premise, then squanders it on the kind of yawn-inducing CG adventure you might expect from one of those long, plot-heavy cut scenes that slow down video games.

Dench and Blanchett will likely pick up Oscar nominations; no one could improve on either performance.

Children of Men is thrilling, both for its groundbreaking style (there are action sequences here unlike any filmed before) and its complex, vividly realized ideas.

The Good Shepherd, for all its noble intentions, manages to make even espionage boring.

Wonderfully energetic.

Equally thrilling and wrenching, the film is an absolute must for anyone who loves sports and an eloquent explanation for those who don't understand what the fuss is about.

But as Western analogies go, Curse achieves an emotional fervor more in keeping with ancient Greek mythology than Elizabethan theater.

Letters From Iwo Jima, much like any war movie, honors the courage of men who took part in a war not necessarily of their making. But by placing us on the opposite side of the battlefield, the movie forces us to approach it from a fresh perspective.

Norton isn't the first guy who comes to mind when you think ''period piece,'' but he's starred in two such films this year (in addition to The Painted Veil, he stars in "The Illusionist"), and he is terrific in both.

Rocky Balboa is far from essential, and there are moments in it bad enough to make you wince. But I dare you not to feel at least a tiny little rush when that opening bell rings, and Rocky starts swinging one final time.

This glitzy, infectious and unusually heartfelt musical doesn't always hang together as a satisfying narrative -- too many characters compete for too little screen time -- but its pleasures are numerous enough to override its flaws.

Fascinating in concept but a disaster in execution.

Whereas E.B. White's beloved novel introduced kids to the cycle of life, tenderly broaching the tricky subject of mortality, this latest movie version plays like just another piece of vegetarian agitprop.

It's not only the mythical, mind-reading creature at the story's center that prevents the film from taking flight. A worn-out plot and a novice actor also contribute to the disappointment.

The movie is essentially a vehicle for Smith, but the actor more than rises to the challenge. Rarely has attaining the American Dream seemed so impossible or daunting or so intensely, profoundly satisfying.

This melding of comedic minds is one of the better holiday gifts we've received, cinematically speaking.

It's like watching "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" as remade by "Nightline."

Awe-inspiring and harrowing, vile and beautiful, as wild and mesmerizing as the Mexican jungle in which it is filmed and one of the most relentlessly thrilling films of the year.

A film that's funny and entertaining for kids and adults.

The filmmaker may not appeal to large numbers of filmgoers. But if you get his humor and delicate style, you'll enjoy his latest work.

A star rises in the east. A savior is born. Two thousand years later, a surprisingly dull film is made.

Beautifully textured and layered movie.

The movie is less painful than having your kidneys removed, but Turistas doesn't offer a trip entertaining enough to take.

The Fountain is probably too muddled and half-baked to even attain cult status -- but you can still see what writer-director Darren Aronofsky was striving for, and even if his reach exceeded his grasp, his intentions were both admirable and worthy of respect.

Unfortunately, this dimwit concept barely has enough spark to power a single strand of Christmas lights, much less rival the classic-by-comparison "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" in side-splitting Yuletide snafus.

Deja Vu becomes increasingly sillier.

The Pick of Destiny is fast and funny, and you can't beat the songs (especially the not exactly heartwrenching Dude I Totally Miss You).

A funny thing happened to The History Boys on the way to the screen. The players are the same, the dialogue is pretty much identical, but the vibrancy of the play -- its exhilarating immediacy -- has been muted.

The movie is simply too long for its own good.

In a year rich with animation options, Happy Feet stands head and shoulders above its competition.

Fast Food Nation would have benefited from a longer running time -- the movie often feels like it's missing big chunks of plot -- but Linklater's cautionary message gets through.

But as rich a comic turf as the huge egos and even bigger neuroses of Hollywood types would seem, For Your Consideration always seems a bit too tame for its own good: It never busts out the way you hope it would.

Scott embraces the lightness of the material instead of trying to give it unnecessary weight, and even if he's far from the ideal filmmaker to choreograph bits of slapstick, A Good Year is never less than visually ravishing.

Not since "To Live and Die in L.A" has there been such a raw, cynical vision of living and dying in L.A.

Stranger Than Fiction may not be the typical crowd-pleaser, but it's a sweet, funny, intelligent film that showcases just how much Ferrell can do, even when he's doing less.

In addition to the interesting camera work, the documentary's undeniable appeal comes in how close Longley gets to the characters, who are all male.

It takes some exceptionally intelligent and witty people to make a dumb comedy this funny and perceptive: Borat may be offensive (to some), infantile, low-brow or even just a stunt, but you won't hate yourself in the morning for loving it.

While you watch, be sure to scour the background for in-jokes, including cameos by Gromit and other DreamWorks characters, and rest assured that Flushed Away gets even funnier on second viewing.

One of the amazing things about Volver is that Almodóvar once again manages to make a preposterous, overloaded plot seem sublime and organic: It's his profound empathy for his characters and their very human dilemmas and flaws that allows him to fling them into all sorts of odd places without ever losing sight of them as people.

Screenwriter Shawn Slovo -- whose white parents were anti-apartheid activists in South Africa -- ends his finely tuned screenplay on a note not of violence and anger but of forgiveness. It's a breathtaking coda that reminds us of that undeniable human beauty: the ability to survive, to fight for right -- and then move peacefully on.

The movie doesn't quite achieve the transcendent effect it reaches for, saddled with an ending that fails to live up to our expectations. But the experience of watching Babel is undeniably riveting: Even if the film doesn't really lead anywhere, you still can't take your eyes off it.

Ceylan examines human relationships with an eye for details and a soul for the big picture.

The movie itself frustrates by guarding the secret of Walsch's newfound spirituality.

The fact that you might emerge from the theater eager to give their albums a listen is a testament to how effective this lively and stirring movie about freedom of speech really is.

Aside from satisfying some kind of ghoulish curiosity about how such an incident could possibly happen, there's precious little in Death of a President to justify the extremity of its central conceit.

Although the movie doesn't exactly romanticize the period, the film still generates a twinge of pride in viewers who lived in South Florida during that time -- and lived to tell about it.

The dance numbers grow tiresome after a while, and director/screenwriter Ramon Salazar throws in so many calculated oddities that it's impossible for anyone to become too attached to his characters.

Coppola and her crew were allowed to shoot at Versailles -- family pedigree does pay dividends, apparently -- which gives the film a needed whiff of reality.

While the attentive art direction of Running With Scissors pays scrupulous and imaginative attention to period detail, the film overlooks its greatest asset: Burroughs.

An ambitious, powerful, somber picture, but it never quite moves you the way it should.

The film paints a fairly realistic portrait of four people bound by blood but -- like all of us -- all too capable of underestimating each other.

Nolan, who has become an assured, stylish filmmaker in the span of only a few films, keeps the complicated plot spinning.

It's the damndest thing, watching this light but genial movie self-destruct. It's as if writer-director Barry Levinson set out to sabotage his own film by gradually turning what should have been a minor subplot into the story's main subject.

Despite its slight and vaguely silly premise, Driving Lessons turns out to be sweet, never cloying, and amusing in an understated British way.

McGrath makes literal what the other movie only hinted at -- that Perry falls in love with Capote -- turning the relationship between author and subject into something far less complicated and more mundane.

Slowly loses its grip, becoming just another story about infidelity, albeit an exceptionally polished, well-acted one.

This is the most vibrant, exciting and invigorating movie-movie of the year.

Coolidge knows he's not making "Death of a Salesman" here (he names the store managers Glen Gary and Glen Ross in tribute to David Mamet's elegy to the American Dream), but he's got the same eye for detail that made "Office Space" great. What he lacks is Arthur Miller's (or even Mike Judge's) sense for character.

If watching people having their faces cut off, getting their legs amputated and having their throats tenderly slit is your idea of a horrific good time, you'll certainly get your money's worth here.

For Americans, the film may be best taken as fodder for debate, especially for individuals interested in sociology. You wonder why those people stuck to the commitment. You may also wonder how different a parallel American film would've been.

Shortbus is, first and foremost, an experiment -- an accessible, audience-friendly movie about love and sex in which the screen doesn't fade to black once the actors start taking off their clothes.

The Queen taps into the universal curiosity the world shares toward royal families -- an element of the movie that Frears wisely mines for gentle humor.

I'm not suggesting Costner and Kutcher should run out and remake "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" just yet, but in The Guardian, the two actors turn out to complement each other well enough to make a lot of this supremely derivative and formulaic picture go down better than it should.

For an inaugural effort, Open Season ain't bad, but the studio shows far more promise with its gee-whiz visuals than it does in the story department.

In post-"Wedding Crashers" Hollywood, the entire exercise feels dated (just as the comedy's PG-13 rating -- this in spite of a recurring rape joke -- makes it feel neutered).

Director Kevin Macdonald, an accomplished maker of documentaries making his feature-film debut, gives The Last King of Scotland the pace and crackle of a thriller, albeit a thriller with substance.

A handsome, sincere, well-meaning bore.

Flyboys is so schematic and contrived, you can anticipate exactly what scene is going to come next, and who will be the next to die in combat, once you latch onto the structure of the script, which has all the inventiveness and ingenuity of a flow chart.

Unapologetically appalling, more disgusting than anything you've ever seen and moronic enough to make you wonder about that theory on the depletion of the gene pool. It is also so funny it will make you choke.

The truth is, Jet Li has gotten soft in his old age. While fans of the "Once Upon a Time in China" star will be pleased to learn that at least half of Fearless is action, what they may not realize is just how mushy everything else is.

It's almost impossible not to respond emotionally to this fascinating, sobering and all-too-brief exploration of the politicized religious right and its hopes, dreams and power.

Certainly pleasant, and occasionally endearing, but it's also strangely empty and unsatisfying, like hearing about someone else's wild dream: You can appreciate the details, but you don't really care how it turns out.

The camera work is impressive, his sense of humor sharp, and the characters are well defined. The story leaves something to be desired, but that doesn't mean you won't find situations or lines to enjoy in the comedy. [20 Oct 2006, p.G15]

Beautifully crafted, intricately plotted and obviously a labor of love. It is also a mess.

Gridiron Gang is not imaginative, but neither is it painful to watch.

When it comes to exploring our peculiar blindness as to what's important in our lives, the film is a disturbing but accurate road map.

Flowers' ''style'' suffers from attention deficit disorder, leaving just enough vital information for you to follow the convoluted plot. But just when one story gets rolling, he's off and chasing another.

In Keeping Mum, the writers poke gentle, broad fun at the absurdities of English country life and manners while creating a cozy malevolence that's all the more engaging because it lies so far from reality. We know we mustn't murder our loathsome neighbors. But how much fun it is to imagine that we might.

Listening to O'Reilly, Anne Coulter and others vilify Franken -- and vice versa -- is part of the dialogue that makes America great.

Ends up as colorless as Reeves' first Superman suit.

The movie is basically a love story between a man and his elephant, and if viewed as such, it's not nearly as ridiculous as the movie it first appears to be.

Don't try to figure Emilia's family out. Just sit back and let this family scrapbook move along.

Cynics may not fall for its melodrama, but Riding Alone is good for everyone else, including children.

Sober, this kind of material is an acquired taste at best and downright unbearable in stretches. And yet, the movie has the makings of an instant cult classic, sure to grow funnier among its devoted fans with each successive viewing.

A mess, but an energetic, convivial mess.

True to form, How to Eat Fried Worms forgoes flatulence jokes for positive examples.

One gigantic pile of cornball clichés, but there's no denying the movie works you over anyway.

Veteran director Manuel Gomez-Pereira (Boca a Boca, Between Your Legs) falls short of the manic screwball farce he was aiming for.

Neither as good nor as bad as you'd hoped it would be: It's just a mediocre exploitation picture with an inspired premise (succinctly spelled out by its title), loads of gratuitous gore, a dash of equally gratuitous nudity and enough inanities to make you wonder if Ed Wood rose from the grave to serve as a creative consultant on the project.

Even if you're willing to overlook the preposterous plot holes in its premise, Accepted pushes its luck in its final half-hour.

The Illusionist is dogged by an inert, stale aura that overcomes everything and everyone in the movie.

The film makes coupling look less like bliss and more like an exhausting series of skirmishes that can send one party scurrying into infidelity or out the door in search of something better.

Once in a great while, a film of insight and wisdom defines a generation. Step Up is not that film. Instead, it's the sort of mildly entertaining movie that comes along a couple of times a year.

In House of Sand, shifting sands are not a cliché; they provide the essential emotional and visual elements that make this film memorable.

A straightforward, earnest, sentimental picture: It's all the things you'd think a Sept. 11 movie directed by Oliver Stone would never be.

Eventually, though, the monsters come out -- blind, snarling cave-dwellers, looking much like Gollum's bigger kin -- and The Descent becomes a simple exercise in guessing who, if anyone, will survive.

Loud, sophomoric and stunningly crude.