A tepid sort of romantic comedy, with lengthy stretches during which nothing much happens punctuated by bouts of paralyzing boredom or, on rare occasions, random but fleeting hilarity.

Go for Zucker is far from a perfect film but it brings easy laughter and joy.

Doesn't conclude so much as just stop, because Brooks, having come up with a great hook for a movie, didn't bother to come up with a satisfying story to go along with it.

There's no denying the particular political slant of Why We Fight, but Jarecki's thoughtful, nonconfrontational approach makes it absorbing viewing, regardless of whether or not you buy his arguments.

In the end, a sports movie is only as good as the adrenalin rush it provides in the climactic match, and there, finally, Glory Road hits on all cylinders with nonstop action and a powerful emotional impact.

Predictable but enjoyable comedy, which succeeds largely on the charm of its star.

Deadly serious, straightforward and surprisingly entertaining tragedy.

The film never lacks dignity. Fateless doesn't look at life at the camp like Roberto Benigni did in "Life is Beautiful."

Match Point begins to recall Hitchcock as it unfolds, although it wouldn't be right to call it a thriller. This is still very much a Woody Allen movie, populated by upper-class characters who chatter about literature and fine art, frequent museums and designer boutiques and accidentally run into each other on the street with uncanny regularity.

What makes Wolf Creek so effective is not its originality (which, let's face it, is practically non-existent), or even its amount of gore (the violence is implied more often than it's shown), but the ways in which McLean tweaks the usual formulas, so what you think is going to happen next almost never does.

Casanova doesn't seduce so much as lull the audience into a stupor with tedious blather about the battle of the sexes, intermittent but pointless swordplay and clumsy slapstick.

If only someone had recognized the inherent vileness of the premise, we might not have been subjected to this hideous Rumor at all.

For all its splendor, The New World is really a love affair between Malick and his camera.

As long as the movie's set in Mexico City, The Matador is a slick and entertaining black comedy, but the instant Danny heads back to Denver, it comes flying apart at the seams.

It's a brutal, merciless, somber picture, utterly devoid of the heart-tugging sentimentality that always creeps into even his best films.

What really makes Hidden so involving is Haneke's sometimes maddening insistence on keeping things vague.

Instead of watching a professional actor pretending to be intellectually disabled, we're watching a jackass pretending to be a dimwit pretending to be intellectually disabled.

It has virtually nothing in common with the charming book written by the Gilbreths about their turn-of-the-century family and everything to do with making money on DVD rentals.

Has all the depth of an episode of "Joey."

Its sumptuous, stately pace will wither the patience of countless moviegoers, but the impressively acted and gorgeously exotic The White Countess improves the longer you mull its complexities.

The Family Stone should have been a glittering holiday bauble along the lines of the irresistible Love Actually. Instead, Bezucha stuffs into our stockings what he thinks is good for us. It's not coal, but it's not entirely what we were hoping for, either.

Its social consciousness aside, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is really a simple love story between men set in the American West, although unlike "Brokeback Mountain," this love is purely platonic -- nothing more than the bond of brotherhood between two dear friends, a classic Western theme.

The chemistry is intact, but performances that were reaching-for-the-balcony big on Broadway haven't been scaled back a bit for a more intimate, up-close medium.

Like an early Woody Allen film or a classic Marx brothers feature, more of Hoodwinked's gags flop than hit, but they come at such a steady rate, you hardly notice.

King Kong makes clear that Jackson has no contemporary peer when it comes to outsized, transporting fantasies that enchant in an era when special effects have become white noise.

It is a grand-looking, grandly empty pageant.

This poignant, wise and subtle picture -- which, yes, happens to be the best movie of the year -- should be approached with humble expectations. Lee's approach to this delicate material is suffused with melancholy, metaphors and small, telling touches that favor subtlety over exclamation points and rough-hewn simplicity over grandiloquence.

Never has the sight of naked women been so innocent.

There's little warmth or depth to the characters who, for the most part, trudge through the film with little wonder at the magical journey they're making.

Despite its subject matter, Transamerica is a surprisingly funny movie, because Tucker never lets the pathos overwhelm his sense of humor.

Openly embraces its noir roots, right down to the femme fatale (Connie Nielsen) who strikes a Lauren Bacall-ish pose in an open doorway and whose eyes are lit by a horizontal slant of light.

This is superficial entertainment to say the least. But if you're looking for laughs, then Just Friends is just fine.

Now a vastly larger audience has the chance to experience the masterwork of a prodigiously talented man who died far too young.

The remake seems to have been written and directed by people whose only experience with children is the long-distant memory of having been kids themselves so many years ago.

What is most beguiling about The Libertine is that it allows Wilmot to self-destruct without ever giving us cause to care or relate.

Gaghan is attempting to cover so much ground in Syriana that the movie at times feels a little suffocating.

It's a testament to the power of the story -- and this engaging adaptation -- that leaving Hogwarts is tough anyway.

The best moments in Walk the Line are the plentiful musical sequences, from Cash's initial foray into the Sun Records studio in Memphis, to his nights performing in high school auditoriums alongside the likes of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, to his landmark concert at Folsom Prison in 1968, where his dangerous, edgy persona was cemented.

Despite the movie's bouncy ebullience (courtesy of a terrific period soundtrack) and dashes of fantasy, the film quickly becomes an endurance test.

There's a timelessness to her character that makes her real even today. And in Devos' intense portrayal, she's a woman you admire.

This Israeli film gives us an honest look at situations we never see in the news. It may have too many flaws to be a good film, but for its content, it is a winner.

Rapidly devolves into a pedestrian thriller in which almost nobody behaves in a recognizably human way.

A wild buckle-up-and-blast-off adventure that plunges every corner of kids' favorite subject.

This Pride & Prejudice isn't minutely faithful to the book -- and for good reason -- but it is authentic where it counts: to the confused, wounded, eager hearts of its lovers.

A drama about dysfunction, spelling bees, mental illness, Hare Krishnas and kaballah. The movie is just as unwieldy as it sounds, except that it also stars Richard Gere.

Unlike this summer's compulsively watchable "Hustle & Flow," Get Rich or Die Tryin' captures none of the thrill of finding your voice, recording a demo or landing a concert.

Kids will love it. It feels fresh and original and mildly subversive, but it's all a cover for the filmmakers not having the patience or confidence to put together a real story with a beginning, middle and end.

After an hour of being stranded among these restless soldiers and their increasingly aggressive locker-room antics, you, too, will be longing for combat -- for anything -- to happen.

If the Giorgios were more interesting, perhaps Brooklyn Lobster would feel less sluggish. But as it is, the crustaceans' unhappy destinies are more compelling than the colorless lives of their captors.

Antonio Banderas looks a little older, Catherine Zeta-Jones snares a bigger role, and the powerful charms of both are weighed down by an absurdly plot-heavy script.

Prime may have its unlikely moments, but overall its heart is winningly untraditional and in exactly the right place.

The explanation for all this mayhem eludes me, and even a lame last-minute twist isn't enough to cover the fact that Jigsaw ain't as clever as the movie thinks he is.

This is the sort of small, intimate movie that, if it had been made on a low budget by independent actors, would be celebrated to the skies.

Riveting.

Mom (Elisabeth Shue) suffers from the fatal movie ailment of being so underwritten she's practically see-through.

Where the book was preciously and carefully crafted, the movie just feels precious.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a movie obsessed more with the act of telling a story than the story itself, which explains why, when the movie's finally over, less than half the audience will have understood the finer points of the mystery.

It's frustrating to watch Levin try to reason with far-gone street-corner evangelicals (whose arguments are preposterous at best) when he might be building a stronger case by other means.

Ushpizin may not turn out to be as popular as Miracle on 34th Street, but if you believe that miracles can happen, it is a perfect outing during the holidays.

It doesn't spoil any of the story's surprising twists to say that Three of Hearts ends up uncovering some poignant truths about the nature of love, the pressures of commitment and the limits to the compromises we are willing to make for the people we care about.

Features one of the more pointless cameos ever when Tom Waits shows up abruptly in the desert to spout mystical nonsense about Domino trading her life for somebody else's. The scene has absolutely no place in this jarring, violent movie; Waits is just another of Scott's distractions.

It's an uncommonly optimistic meditation on death and lament, befitting a filmmaker whose movies (Jerry Maguire, Singles, Say Anything), no matter their subject matter, always double as a celebration of life.

Never before has Egoyan made a picture this egregiously, relentlessly bad.

Despite its serious subject matter, North Country is a crowd-pleaser at heart.

War is hell, and so are bad movies about war.

It's all in the telling, and Loggerheads practically aches with its own heal-the-world earnestness.

None-too-subtly implies Murrow could easily be talking about the present day.

It's an earnest, contemporary drama about adults -- OK, women -- that has no use for irony or cynicism, no room for cutting-edge, clever hipness.

Two for the Money, which was written by Dan Gilroy (Freejack, Chasers), is so badly constructed and illogical that its inanities manage to drown the actor (Pacino) out.

The movie is a clumsy and uninspired mess, which is not to say that it's not funny.

The magic of the movies is never more evident than with stop-motion animation, and nobody does it better than Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park.

Considering its superlative title (second only to George Stevens's New Testament epic, "The Greatest Story Ever Told"), I'm sorry to report that The Greatest Game Ever Played ranks somewhere in the murky middleground of sports movies.

In the thriller Into the Blue, the Bahamian waters dazzle the eye. They are breathtaking and welcoming, possessing mysterious depths. The same cannot be said for the film's stars, Paul Walker and Jessica Alba, who are every bit as gorgeous as the scenery but not quite so profound.

Serenity shows what might have happened if Han Solo had been the focus of the original "Star Wars" instead of whiny Jedi wannabe Luke Skywalker.

The movie implies that despite its thunderous success, the book also destroyed Capote, who crossed a line in his quest for personal glory for which he could never forgive himself -- no matter how many accolades it brought him.

Going Shopping can make a wonderful outing for girlfriends. It's fun.

With its predictable confrontations and tacky fantasy sequences, you feel writer/director Jane Anderson steering the material toward schmaltzy movie-of-the-week territory at every turn.

The War Within is dark and somber, adjectives that describe both the film's look and its message.

This movie demands that the viewer -- and even its own characters -- turn into thumb-sucking 3-year-olds with no need for plausibility or logic, as long as there are lots of flashing lights and whooshing noises emanating from the screen.

It's a punchy, straight-up genre picture, a crime drama that might have once starred Charles Bronson or Steven Seagal.

Turns out to be far more interesting for grown-ups (the movie is probably too long, and too much, for little kids anyway).

Very, very faithful to Proof the play.

There's nothing here that hasn't been done before, and better, in any given "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th" sequel.

The film, which comes way too close to preaching, lurches away from the control of director Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Freaky Friday) and ends on a stretched-out note so sappy it makes "Must Love Dogs" look like "8 Mile."

The problem -- aside from the fact that one of the best things about Foer's story is its irreverent, intricate, just-maybe-brilliant writing -- is what Schreiber has decided to cut.

Populated by all kinds of grinning skeletons and decomposing zombies, but in Burton's universe, they aren't the slightest bit threatening. It's the drab, flesh-and-blood living you have to worry about.

A perfectly cast Keanu Reeves pokes deadpan fun at himself in the role of Justin's New Age dentist, who hypnotizes the kid and encourages him to find his inner ''power animal.'' And Vince Vaughn, in a rare straight turn, is excellent as Justin's high school teacher.

Amateurishness -- the camera angles sometimes chop off the top of Reiser's head -- aside, The Thing About My Folks is also weirdly dated, especially with regard to technology.

Baier's style is almost uncomfortably voyeuristic, amplified by the casting of a young, inexperienced actor (Pierre Chatagny) in a part that calls for hardcore sex.

Could there be a more inappropriate time to release a cheesy horror movie about evildoing in Louisiana.

If you need proof that the British are different from the rest of us, look no farther than the thought-provoking Separate Lies, a chilly, intelligent and absorbing drama about infidelity, ethics and forgiveness.

It's just awful. Pointless, lazy, derivative and paralyzingly dull.

This is certainly not a movie worth going out of your way for, but don't be surprised if you happen to come across it on cable one rainy Sunday afternoon and find yourself watching it to the end. Even Lopez pulls off a few good moments.

Allegedly it's based on a true story, which is believable only because the outcome is so unsatisfying it carries the dull metallic tang of real-life ambiguity. And that's neither scary nor stimulating.

As far as titles go, Cote d'Azur doesn't quite cut it for this topsy-turvy French comedy, in which an innocent seaside vacation gets really messy once a family full of busybodies starts poking around in one another's business.

Campfire looks a bit drab, perhaps to show the dullness of Zionist life in the 1980s. But this doesn't take away from the poignancy of the film.

Like a cross between "Man on Fire" and "Bad Boys 2," this demolition derby delivers eye-popping action sequences that would make even the Roadrunner roll his eyes in disbelief.

The Constant Gardener is difficult to watch, literally. Meirelles' lens leaps and jitters too much, as if it's anxious it might be bludgeoned to death, too.