The touch of sharp and edgy storytelling has returned to French master Claude Chabrol.

Using a semi-documentary approach, Glatzer and Westmoreland circumvent the considerable potential for sentimentality inherent in their story, instead taking a frank and direct approach to kids who, while far from hardened, are nowhere near innocent, either.

This is more of a thinking man's action flick -- a small, intense film made on a giant canvas that finds Mann experimenting with and pushing at the boundaries of mainstream filmmaking.

Decidedly minor Woody.

A briskly-paced, refreshing kick in this season of draggy, two-hour-plus movies. The film is smarter and funnier than its trailers indicate, and, as a bonus, there are no superheroes, pirates or Wilson brothers to be found.

Writer/director John A. Davis (Jimmy Neutron) is a wizard at transforming the most mundane setting -- the front yard, for crying out loud -- into another world.

A devastating disappointment. Badly acted, amateurishly directed and woefully unfunny.

Despite the film's sloppy structure, it feels weirdly good to hang out with these losers again.

It lacks the simplicity and resonance of classic fairy tales: It's so muddled and belabored, it's hard to imagine the tykes ever staying awake long enough to hear how it all turned out.

Ultimately, what happens with the house is not only entertaining, but a marvel of what animation can accomplish in this day and age.

Overall, the film's sheer mediocrity prevents Thurman from flying to its rescue.

Admirers of the author will find in Edmond all the elements that turned Mamet into a favorite.

The worst kind of sequel -- the kind that exists only to give you more-more-more of what you liked the first time around, without ever justifying its own existence. This lavish, superbly designed film goes on for an exhausting 2½ hours.

More than once during A Scanner Darkly, you find yourself wishing these characters would just shut up.

A lightweight, formulaic piece of fluff, but you wouldn't know that by Meryl Streep's performance.

By giving the hero's inner plight so many dimensions, Superman Returns brings a richer, grander perspective to a seminal character without changing his essence. It's a profoundly personal take on a universal icon, made by a filmmaker who continues to improve with each movie.

The aggressively over-the-top plot is sloppy and totally irrelevant. What counts are the jokes that fly so fast they're easy to miss.

Shaped just like the murder-mystery its title promises, the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? introduces us to the victim, then rounds up the suspects most likely responsible for its demise.

A sporadically funny, always predictable, weirdly downbeat fantasy.

With an exciting way out, the audience would have gladly overlooked all the loose ends from earlier in the movie. But the way Hall plays it, he undermines the early style and intelligence of his all-black action movie, taking audiences for the wrong kind of ride in the end.

Like its predecessors, Tokyo Drift suffers from a terminal lack of levity.

Something about the sequel, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, doesn't seem nearly as obnoxious as the original.

The Lake House overflows with heart-stopping thrills, if by ''thrills'' you mean ''watching attractive people wait around for letters to be delivered by mystical forces.'' Which, come to think of it, makes this romantic melodrama sound a lot more interesting than it is.

The movie is a bauble, but it's an enjoyably weird and original one, and it is anchored by Black's constantly amusing performance.

Even though Lower City ultimately leads nowhere (the movie doesn't end so much as simply stop), you won't mind having taken the trip.

Tiresome romantic comedy that reinforces every imaginable gay stereotype.

Unfortunately, the film is also at times dull, though the scale definitely tilts toward enjoyment. Quality balance aside, who doesn't want to enjoy a few hearty laughs? Only Human provides a few of those.

Manages to turn an internal, solitary activity into fodder for an engaging, even exciting movie.

Cars is certainly watchable, and there's always some amusing bit of business happening at the edges of the frame.

It's a breezy, homespun, relaxing thing...watching this laid-back picture feels, oddly enough, like a vacation from movies.

A rousing and mesmerizing documentary.

In a move reminiscent of Gus Van Sant's "Psycho," some shots are lifted directly from the original and much of the screenplay is identical.

Listening to people bicker for almost two hours wears thin, especially when the comedy is never quite so funny as you had hoped it would be.

One of those blessedly rare films based on a self-help book, is remarkable in one sense: It prevents "The Lake House" and its magical mailbox from being the most ridiculous concept on screen this summer.

Much like the good westerns, Coastlines keeps you entertained throughout its two hours, which says a lot about Nunez's storytelling.

It's a disappointing chapter in what until now has been a highly entertaining, even thought-provoking series.

Despite its scary warnings, the film ends on an upbeat note, unless of course you happen to be Hillary Clinton's campaign manager.

This laborious, talky, fleetingly engaging, ultimately silly picture is about as good a movie as anyone was ever going to wring from Dan Brown's inescapable bestseller.

Kids will eat it up, while solid voice work from William Shatner and Wanda Sykes should keep this borderline-feral toon from pushing adults over the edge.

Holds enough interest throughout to keep you entertained -- unless you're afraid of mice.

Aside from a disturbingly graphic depiction of a drowning, there is also death by fire, electrocution and giant falling objects.

Just My Luck is way too long for such a slight premise, and Lohan, so appealing in Mean Girls, is years too young for the part.

An unknown commodity to anyone who doesn't follow telenovelas, Becker is sure to be a big star and has already signed on for two sequels. Apart from being scorching hot, he's enormously sympathetic in dramatic scenes.

Director Scott Marshall and screenwriter Mark Zakarin pander to Jewish viewers the way Andy Garcia's "The Lost City" panders to Cuban Americans.

Wah-Wah's characters are wonderfully human and flawed and still capable of stirring empathy, which is appealing. But in the end, the film isn't saying much at all.

The cast of renegades is as appealing as ever, and you'd only wish that the fictional folks of "Friends" or the cast of "Real World" were so free and nonjudgmental.

Big and fast and silly, but it's never dumb, and it's certainly never boring, either. The summer movie onslaught has begun on a high note.

Art School Confidential, the first disappointment from director Terry Zwigoff, is all glum, dour cynicism.

A filmmaker like John Sayles ("Sunshine State") who shares Hiaasen's issue-conscious outlook might have framed the lesson a bit more eloquently. But Shriner blows it.

Down in the Valley becomes increasingly harder to believe as it goes along, with people behaving in ways that strain credibility.

The Proposition leaves you shell-shocked.

There's nothing about United 93 that qualifies as entertainment in the traditional sense: It is an unpleasant, wrenching experience, which is just as it should be.

Falls far short of the sweep, complexity and passion it seeks.

Lurking just beneath Water's serene, storybook surface is an unmissable, defiant passion.

Politics in Three Times is as subtle as the stories being told. The film is probably too slow, too silent and too long for most audiences. But look beyond the quietness, and you'll discover a three-gem jewel.

It's a redundant comedy, like hearing the same tired joke for the 100th time.

The Sentinel isn't nearly as slick as it must have looked on the page. Those zingers are perfect fodder for a movie preview, but they just don't lead anywhere interesting on-screen.

A captivating documentary.

Janeane Garofalo is all wrong as the giraffe, whom the animators contort into all manner of weird positions so she can share the frame with pint-size love interest Benny the squirrel (Jim Belushi).

The trouble with Kinky Boots is that director Julian Jarrold doesn't seem to know whether his movie would play better to young hipsters or the blue-haired old lady crowd.

The most extreme English-language studio release I've seen in years.

The script, which Harron co-wrote with Guinevere Turner, presents a disappointingly superficial portrait of Page as a person.

It never comes close to touching the audience's heart.

Comes packed with so many plot twists and reversals, there's barely any room left over for a story: The movie is all clever gotchas and hoodwinks, without any substance to go along with them.

Turns out to be amusing and astute, a smart observation on the ups and downs of female friendships.

It's possible to achieve hilarity and pathos, but it's not easy, and Litvak isn't quite skilled enough to make the sex jokes rest easily beside the final grandiose and pat confessions. As a result, When Do We Eat? merely whets your appetite for a fresh take on family matters.

Few expected Basic Instinct 2 to be very good, but no one expected it to be this boring.

Buoyed by a superlative soundtrack, ATL plays a familiar song about growing up, but hits notes that sound brand new.

Features the lamest story of any CG-animated feature to date.

This is neither the noir world of old '40s movies, of which he's clearly fond, nor something new and original enough to fit the concept. Instead, it feels like a blueprint for someone else to figure out.

Feuerzeig presents an unyieldingly sympathetic but always fascinating portrait of an artist whose mental illness became inseparable from his art, with one often fueling the other.

Amounts to Chicken Soup for the Soul-style torture -- unless you like that kind of thing.

Unexpectedly funny, leisurely paced and oblivious to the demands of its genre, Inside Man has a loose, playful vibe that's at odds with its grave life-and-death scenario.

Doesn't feel so much like a movie as a glimpse into the extraordinarily messed-up life of a young man about to make the simple yet life-changing realization that actions have consequences, and that other people matter, too.

There's never a question which side the movie is rooting for during the trial, and the light tone trivializes what might have been a much more intriguing exploration of the American legal system.

The girls who adore the likable Everygirl Bynes will find a lot to enjoy about the film, especially the boys who look as though they just were lounging around the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.

Even if V for Vendetta isn't nearly as incendiary as it's been made out to be by some alarmist critics, there's still something enjoyably subversive about it, beginning with the way it tramples over the conventions of the contemporary action film.

Really a blistering satire about spin and the manipulation of the media.

After a funny, highly promising start, Don't Come Knocking starts to fall apart, displaying all of Wenders' weaknesses, too.

Bradshaw, who is funnier than you might suspect, also turns out to be the most fearless of performers.

This slick, sick remake of the 1977 Wes Craven cult shocker is more of a glum bummer than a horror show.

This is precisely the type of moviegoing experience engineered for those who still get a laugh when the Baha Men hit "Who Let the Dogs Out?" accompanies a doggie mayhem montage.

It would seem Towne is too much in love with the book to recognize its fundamental limitations as a film.

This noisy, formulaic film turns out to be immediately forgettable, except for the parts that are so ridiculous they leave you shaking your head in wonder hours later.

The result is this infectious documentary, which combines some inspired musical performances with Chappelle's perpetually hilarious commentary.

Aside from its South African setting and flavor, there isn't a lot in Tsotsi that differs from its legion of similar Hollywood counterparts. But the movie's heart, along with Hood's refusal to sugarcoat the grim reality, wins you over no matter how many times you've seen this story told.

Running Scared is a vicious and brutal B-movie jacked up to hysterical, hallucinatory proportions -- a pulpy, violent action picture that torments the viewer as much as its characters, and I mean that as a compliment.

Solid family entertainment, with thrilling action sequences and gorgeous scenery.

A slight, not entirely engaging mystery with slight overtones about the dangers of racial profiling that, unlike "Clockers," treats its urban-plight theme as a backdrop, instead of its main subject.

Night Watch represents the best in Russian special effects, a collaboration between 42 different CGI specialty firms all working in the service of a single goal: to create the nation's most visually transgressive film.

For most U.S. audiences, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, an Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, is going to feel more like a history lesson than a movie.

Shockingly, it's an understated but amusing Ferrell who keeps Winter Passing from growing unbearable.

A welcome antidote to the depressing, feel-bad sadism of recent horror hits like Hostel and Saw II, Final Destination 3 puts the fun back in watching stupid people die Rube Goldberg-elaborate, ridiculously gory deaths.

Although a happy ending is preordained, at least Joe Forte's script takes the less-obvious route there.

After a while, hearing Martin say ''Zee area eez zecure!'' doesn't cut it any longer, and that's pretty much all The Pink Panther has to offer.

A witty and engaging bit of fluff about sex, scandal, idleness, gossip, blackmail, guilty secrets and, most surprisingly, redemption.

What sets it slightly apart is a willingness to deal with a potentially tricky subject -- race -- in the context of light-hearted fluff.

Simply too odd and unconventional to ever appeal to a broad audience, either at the multiplex or on home video.