Baadasssss! is best taken as an examination of filmmaking itself.

You feel terribly sad and angry at May's foolishness. Yet with so many emotions at hand, The Mother never fails to engage.

The problem with Saved!, which is often bright and likable, is that its central point -- extremism, religious or otherwise, is bad -- is too obvious for a satire.

There's an old-school innocence to Marshall's style, and it's satisfying to be whisked away from reality to this parallel universe where we find it possible to laugh amid such a fundamentally tragic scenario.

Unlike “Amélie,” Love Me If You Dare will not become a sleeper. But neither will it make you go to sleep.

Control Room may not seem all that compelling 10 years down the road. But right now, at this very moment, it is essential, imperative viewing.

Wins you over with this bright sense of humor and its gentle, welcome message of tolerance and acceptance.

Move over donkey, it's Banderas' time to shine.

The film's failure to adhere to one of the most important rules of humor -- never give extensive screen time to someone who is not the slightest bit funny -- prevents it from being a completely enjoyable, if silly, romp.

For a movie whose characters are so preoccupied with immortality, Troy is curiously forgettable.

Director Hector Babenco's sentimental, unconvincing adaptation of Varella's book, is a soft, simplistic look at a tough, complicated subject.

The intended satire doesn't deliver the kind of punch you may expect, but it nevertheless poses many what-ifs.

Mostly, by story's end, we're just glad they and their unfortunate clothing are out of our sight for good.

War may set the stage for Strayed, but the film's real focus is something much quieter and internal: People caught in the throes of a transformation that is not of their making and struggling to adapt.

Never becomes cloying, because although Agresti does not lose sight of the great sadness at the center of his tale, he resists the temptation to overplay its bigger moments.

As human Kewpie dolls, the Olsens' basic function is to try on as many new outfits as humanly possible within the span of 86 minutes (guaranteed to be the longest 86 minutes, New York or otherwise, you've ever spent in the dark).

For all its tangle of characters and plot twists, Van Helsing isn't the slightest bit involving, and more than once (especially whenever Beckinsale is onscreen), it is unintentionally hilarious. But it's the rare kind of movie where the badness just adds to the fun.

Clearly an important film, if only for such disheartening reminders that a McDonald's salad with ranch dressing has more calories than a Big Mac or that Miami is the 15th fattest city in the country (Houston is No. 1).

An unsatisfying, overly restrained bore, capped off by an ending so strange and inconclusive, it feels like something you'd find on the ''deleted scenes'' portion of a DVD.

Brosnan and Moore may not be substitutes for Tracy and Hepburn, but they're more than capable of making you smile for now.

Isn't exactly original: This is basically "Heathers" for a new generation, its satirical edges dulled, if still sharp enough to sting.

Sluggish, uninspired drama.

Bertucelli nails it.

For all its tumult, The Clay Bird mostly concentrates on its likable characters, all acted with the kind of understatement that makes a good film better.

The weirdest movie of the summer. OK, the year.

Garner may be a study in butt-kicking intensity on TV's Alias, but here, she's an engaging comic performer who more than carries her share of what is essentially an unoriginal, mostly average film.

The dead-serious Man on Fire awakens a genuine sense of bloodlust in the viewer. This is a slick, big-budget, A-list production designed to stoke our basest impulses -- to make us long for, and cheer at, bloody, merciless vengeance.

An engrossing psychological thriller.

Not for those with limited attention spans, though there's never a dull moment.

Enlightening documentary.

Vol. 2 isn't exactly disappointing, and like all of Tarantino's movies, I suspect it will improve with repeated viewings. But for now, Vol. 2 leaves you pondering what could have been.

Vardalos may not have been the best possible Connie. But as Billy Wilder could have told you, nobody's perfect.

Considering the horrible buzz that had dogged the movie since its trailers first premiered, The Punisher turns out to be a likable underdog.

Not so much a thriller as an exploration of one man's crumbling moral compass.

There is so much that is wrong with The Alamo that it is easier to begin with what the movie gets right: Davy Crockett. As played by Billy Bob Thornton.

Like the best coming-of-age stories, I'm Not Scared (Io Non Ho Paura) is, in part, a work of horror.

A failure on every conceivable level -- from its trite, pedestrian dialogue to its static, torturous pacing.

There are other filmmakers who might have been drawn to a comic book as enchantingly ridiculous as Hellboy. But there are none who would have turned in a sleek $60 million picture as daringly silly, playful and imaginative as this one.

Good for some giggles. Especially if you're under the age of, oh, 8 or so.

A royal mess, a lethally stupid romantic teen comedy.

It's blunt, to the point, aggressively manipulative and, at 86 minutes, not a minute longer than it needs to be.

This delicate, transporting movie, which keeps dialogue to a minimum to tell its story primarily through images, is also a triumph of sheer cinematic craft that mirrors its characters' contemplative natures while extolling the virtues of lives simply led.

It's an unabashedly square picture, and proud of it. It is also a warm, funny, earnest movie, a stand-up exercise in a kind of Hollywood melodrama -- the feel-good weepie -- that has long been out of fashion.

Irritating when it should be amusing, dumb when it should be zany, flat when it should be snappy.

Intentionally designed to rile as much as entertain.

Energetic, nostalgic, occasionally troubling movie.

The first film was tedious in the extreme; Monsters Unleashed, though it feels way too long and padded, it shows at least brief flashes of imagination.

A thoughtful, audacious meditation on love and relationships that finds a group of wildly disparate talents clicking together in perfect unison.

Even though Taking Lives is not very good, it does contain a) a cool car chase and b) a sex scene in which Jolie goes topless. For some, this will be enough entertainment.

Faster, leaner and more compact than the original. Dumber, too, but that's almost always the case with remakes.

Despite its flaws, The Gatekeeper will keep you engaged.

A high-wire act of storytelling, tone and old-fashioned chutzpah.

In the end Secret Window asks too much, demands allegiance when only incredulity can be mustered.

Bergman's debut feature is tender yet disturbing, sad yet at times funny.

Like most movies about death, the gentle, quirky Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself ultimately turns out to be a story about embracing life.

The scattershot nature of the script, which feels as if it had been made up on the spot, leaves the actors looking like they're enjoying some private joke not shared with the audience. Self-indulgent does not even begin to describe it.

The racing itself is entertaining enough, though it's not so mesmerizing as the shorter, more focused competition in the far-superior "Seabiscuit."

That the film avoids the conflicts making the daily headlines out of Israel is one good reason why James' Journey, though not very well made, is interesting.

Far more imaginative and intriguingly moody than other recent thrillers.

In the end, they are only moments, and even at a merciful 86 minutes, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights feels formidably long.

Twisted is a movie so derivative it's hard to pinpoint exactly how many other thrillers it poaches from.

There's a strange, bittersweet melancholy in watching the protagonists of Good Bye, Lenin! being buffeted about by change, but refusing to let go of each other.

It's a strange kind of spiritual movie -- one that aims for the gut more often than the heart.

The film's concept is so absurd and Hamer goes about developing it with such a regimented structure that you have to believe that the filmmaker is poking fun at himself and the world he knows well.

A cliché-ridden, condescending and ham-handed film that clumsily fails to bring to life what should be an interesting story. You might say none of its punches even comes close to connecting.

But the blame for the stultifying Mooseport lies squarely on the shoulders of the screenwriters and anyone else who assumed the limited Romano could carry such a dated, lousy film. The results are in: He can't do it, at least not without a lot more help.

You can tell they're desperate when they unashamedly resort to showcasing cutesy sea-creature behavior. Sandler is a funny guy. Let him work for his own laughs. He doesn't need a puking walrus to prop him up.

Some scenes drag, but Seagull's Laughter is still delightful.

In a cast of wonderful non-professional actors, unfortunately Osama is the weakest. But to be fair, Barmak focuses more on situations than on developing the characters.

There's nothing offensive about Barbershop 2, and maybe there should be. But even if the film plays it safe, it remains a cut above other mainstream comedies.

Unfortunately Miracle is long on cliché and short on originality.

The Dreamers argues that life must be lived, not dreamt. But it also remembers the confounding pleasures of dreaming with your eyes wide open.

Many questions remain purposely unanswered: Where was the father for 12 years? Why did he want to go away with the kids? What's in a box he finds hidden in the island? Yet, in a remarkable ending, the boys discover their feelings.

The performances are shaky, rendering Latter Days as a movie that you've seen before, and done better, too.

Mostly, though, The Big Bounce isn't offensive, or even terrible. It's just lazy, relying on numb moviegoers to fork over cash thinking they'll see the next "Get Shorty" or "Out of Sight."

Half-hearted satire of Hollywood and small-town life, and Bosworth is not particularly memorable in it.

Even for a sport already filled with horrific accidents and tales of unlikely survival, the mountain-climbing nightmare told in Touching the Void is astonishing.

Better than you might expect despite its awkward, slow beginning, drawing you in gradually and paying off in surprisingly effective and bittersweet ways.

Film students should be thankful that companies such as Milestone Film & Video have taken up the distribution and restoration of important silent films, and that universities and museums have decided to screen these obscure classics.

Despite its entertaining and insightful dialogue, can also be a bore.

Something we've all seen before, far too many times, not only in its premise but also in its lame parade of scatological jokes and its sad, tired pratfalls.

The Language of Music hews strictly to its title, however. There isn't anything about Dowd's life outside music except for details of his work as a nuclear physicist at Columbia University, where he was a key part of the Manhattan Project research team that developed the atomic bomb during World War II.

The film does provide some nice shots of Venice and offers one solid reason to display a little patriotic fervor: We do have the freedom to avoid such rote, shallow dullness.

Never buys into Wuornos' bizarre claims or questions her guilt in the murders. It does, however, make a powerful argument against capital punishment, no matter which side of the debate you happen to take.

An extraordinary movie that ruffled many feathers when it first came out. Almost 40 years later, it retains the poignancy it delivered back then. Its message is not lost in our present state of affairs.

For all its cross-cultural hijinks, Japanese Story winds up as a tale about the fragility of human beings and the lasting strength of the bonds we form during times of crisis.

If only director Shawn Levy and the screenwriters had gone for cute and interesting instead of dull and cloyingly sentimental.

These two fine, talented actors share a fatal lack of chemistry together, and it's a flaw this grandly ambitious movie cannot overcome.

As far as production values go, this Peter Pan is a work of art. So why, then, does the movie feel so crushingly dull?

Theron's transformation in Monster goes far beyond mere appearance. As Wuornos, the actress gets to display a blunt, graceless physicality that is rarely needed in women's roles, which are traditionally internal.

Plays out as little more than a diversion, one that does not truly break any new ground. But it's undeniably interesting and leaves plenty of room for a more thoughtful film about women and education.

The most compelling -- and horrifying -- portion of the film, which interweaves archival footage and stylish graphics with the interview segments, centers on the firebombing of Japan during World War II.

The movie's emotional impact is undeniable. It's a devastating portrait of smart, civilized people driven to behave in uncivilized ways, until it's too late.

Adults expecting intellectual stimulation better skip this one. Not that the Philippe Muyl film is devoid of charm; it oozes it. The story is as predictable as a hot summer in South Florida.

The film's appeal is universal, not just female, and, best of all, it's based on a true story.

Feels like a miracle, a movie that exceeds even the most formidable expectations without straying from its singular path. All hail this King.

The film seems more an excuse to attack a target than an exercise in solid storytelling.

It's a glossy, somewhat condescending comedy, with all the substance of a cone of soft vanilla ice cream.