An insufferably artsy, pretentious work, the sort of picture that gives art films a bad name.

A rollicking, jumbo-sized swashbuckler, awash in sword fights, cursed treasures, plank walkings and hurtling cannonballs. This stylish, rousing movie has been directed with refreshing levity and wit.

The result leaves the movie feeling like a one-note take on a complex subject.

Isn't much more than the tale of a ''bad'' guy getting in touch with his good side, as well as a love story that makes monster-loving little boys go ''yuck!'' And that's what's too bad about Sinbad.

Seductive, ultimately frustrating.

Call it a victory for sincerity and style: Despite its familiarity, Blonde 2 doesn't make you want to pull out your hair by its (touched-up) roots.

This is easily the funniest of the Terminator movies (although not, it should be stressed, the lightest). It is also the shortest and most compact.

But this smart, genuinely creepy movie also feels <I>real</I>, which is why its horrors hit so hard. Fans of the scary stuff, run, don't walk.

Isn't only the silliest, most ridiculous movie of the summer; it may also be the most flat-out fun.

A feather-light musical rushed into production to capitalize on American Idol-frenzy, is nothing more than an excuse to give the two leads several musical numbers, a la those Frankie Avalon-Annette Funicello "Beach Blanket Bingo" movies, and with just about the same amount of substance, too.

Watching Wilson and Hudson toil thanklessly through this mess is more laborious than writing the Great American Novel. And a lot less lucrative.

The main problem with The Hulk, really, is that there isn't enough Hulk in it.

Lands with a thud right from its painfully unfunny prologue and maintains its plodding, exasperating course straight through to its car-chase-and-shootout finale.

There are frothy romantic comedies and then there is Jet Lag, a movie so thin it borders on nonexistence.

Plays like a colorful but inert timekiller that you might tolerate while dozing off in front of the TV, but only because you are too sleepy to reach for the remote control.

There is magic here, enough to make Whale Rider worthy of the audience-choice awards it has earned at film festivals worldwide.

This remarkable, continually surprising documentary turns out to be something far richer and more complex, closer in spirit to "Crumb," another devastating film about a family's gradual self-destruction.

A high tolerance for syrupy melodrama is required in order to enjoy Together.

Essentially an old-fashioned movie, nothing fancy, nothing new, just some jokes and some action and a crowd-pleasing finale.

It's the filmmakers' refusal to sugarcoat their tale's darker subtexts that makes Finding Nemo such a resounding piece of storytelling.

Misses out on just about everything that made the original work, most notably Falk and Arkin, whose odd-couple pairing was the foundation on which the entire movie rested.

It's all rote, sleep-inducing formula, but it might have still worked if the movie weren't so timid and unimaginative.

Watching this essentially good but misguided kid slide into a hopeless future is both transfixing and heartbreaking.

The stories touch our sensibilities, but the documentary never sugarcoats the childrens' experiences.

Best of all, L'Auberge Espagnol uses Barcelona as a veritable character, a picturesque, vivacious place where, as one character puts it, ''No one eats before 10 p.m."

This cold, generally soulless movie does feel like it was made by people who are taking themselves way too seriously. Remember the delicious anticipation you felt when The Empire Strikes Back was over? You won't feel that way when The Matrix Reloaded reaches its cliffhanger finale. You'll just feel relief.

Mediocre.

In The Shape of Things, love doesn't just hurt: It bites, and bites deep.

Buoyed by strong performances from Perez and Miami-resident Milian, Washington Heights overcomes the familiarity of its premise through its passion and conviction.

Explicitly invites us to mock its artificiality and giggly cluelessness, but beyond its attractive shell the film rings hollow. These days, even a comedy has got to have a heart.

The story's third-act detour into tragedy is predictable and unwelcome, providing a resolution that is too pat and familiar to be moving.

It's a pleasure to see acceptance portrayed so matter-of-factly. May never happen in our lifetimes, but Lesnick's vision of tolerance is a soothing thought, anyway.

By film's end, Leconte has made you believe these disparate men inhabit the same soul: The chasm between them is a matter of paths not taken.

Sometimes engaging, sometimes amusing and ultimately surprising.

This is a thriller that embraces stillness and silence where others prefer noise and bombast. It thrives on the hush before the explosion instead of its aftermath, and it's that eerie sense of expectation that gives the film its thick aura of suspense.

A sleek, rousing contraption, a comic-book movie with a sense of playfulness, a welcome streak of humor and just the right touch of gravity.

The success of The Lizzie McGuire Movie, in which Duff acts and sings while playing both her beloved character and an Italian look-alike, is probably a slam dunk. That doesn't mean it's a great movie.

A well-intentioned coming-of-age film anchored by two indelible performances but weakened by an overabundance of drama.

One of the many pleasures in Spellbound is watching the reactions of these young brainiacs, all under the age of 14, as they first hear the word they are being asked to spell (''Is that even a word?'' seems to be a common thought passing through their heads.)

The movie is polished, well-acted and atmospheric, but still pure formula, and not very scary, either.

A stale pastiche of crime-caper dramas that goes through all the usual reversals, betrayals and triple-crosses with a sense of weary obligation.

Manages to sidestep the potential overload of cheap sentimentality -- an intimate dance between an elderly couple registers with heartbreaking sweetness -- and evokes a lingering sense of loss.

House of Fools is not in the category of the director's acclaimed "Runaway Train." It may be based on a true story, but another filmmaker told it before -- and better.

It's not much, but it isn't awful, either, provided you're interested in this sort of thing to begin with.

Great, multilayered family film.

Leaves you in a state of stunned, exhilarated awe, both for what it shows and how it shows it.

Chasing Papi leaves you wishing Hollywood would just forget about Latinos altogether. If this is how they really see us, I'd rather not know.

More of a warm breeze than a great gust, but its simple, smart pleasures carry the force of a hurricane.

What we're left with is an unfocused, rambling concept that lumbers off the ground but never really soars to the level of lunacy it could, especially at the afterthought of an ending, which is nonsensical at best.

The same premise could have been turned into a satirical comedy, but Better Luck Tomorrow opts for a more corrosive, challenging route, one whose troubling, morally ambiguous ending offers no easy resolution.

The more you know about the 1912 tragedy, the more you will appreciate the sights of Ghosts of the Abyss.

The actors are their usual reliable selves; you can't really blame them for the unlikely mess Levity becomes.

It's a cheery, impossible fantasy.

Loud and frantic and filled with all sorts of business, but it's also empty and inert, a creative exercise that would have played better as a 30-minute short.

Raises a few questions -- like just what were they thinking?

A sparkling exercise in movie cool.

There's nothing in the utterly enchanting Raising Victor Vargas you haven't seen before; you'd just be hard-pressed to name another movie that did it as well.

Assassination Tango offers little heat. In dancing with death, Duvall stumbles a few too many times.

An overly convoluted, tiresome mystery that exists primarily to antagonize the audience, Basic consists almost entirely of dense exposition, then concludes by laughing at anyone who tried to pay attention.

Right now, this goofy film is the best candidate for mindless, enjoyable laughs.

Never achieves takeoff.

If Dreamcatcher ultimately feels like an unwieldy pastiche, at least it's never boring.

Not that the film is so horrendously offensive -- it's almost, and I hesitate to say this, too stupid to provoke insult -- but it's juvenile enough to suck a few IQ points out of any audience member with a brain cell.

As filler for the long, dry winter movie season, the movie is more than passable, and its sense of humor has a wicked, unforgiving spin that is decidedly pro-rodent.

This is a gleefully repulsive movie. Spun is bound to be described as bold and cutting-edge by those who confuse shock value with achievement. Most people, however, will just long for a shower after it's over.

The Hunted is so openly, defiantly derivative of 1982's "First Blood," you figure there has to be a copyright lawsuit brewing right this very minute.

As the movie breathlessly cuts back and forth from a boisterous wedding celebration to a high-stakes soccer match, even the grumpy cynics will have been won over.

The Safety of Objects doesn't carry the power of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm," a similarly themed work about WASPS in crisis. Objects is too artificial, clunky with too many preposterous situations.

It has everything Oscar voters fall in love with: sweep, romance, accessibility and social conscience.

Worst of all is the movie's finale, a noble attempt to avoid an overly-pat conclusion that strays too far in the opposite direction.

Taking a lightweight comedy such as this seriously is probably a fatal error, but there's no way around it: This House is built on a shaky foundation.

The moral of Irreversible -- time destroys everything -- isn't nearly as profound as writer-director Gaspar No&#233; seems to think it is, which is why some critics have already dismissed the movie as the facile, misogynistic posturings of a provocateur.

Cradle boasts a couple of bravura fight and chase scenes but they're stranded amid the predictable and the pedestrian.

Sharp, witty and decidedly different.

It is as emotionally raw and wrenching as life itself.

In the wake of TV's powerhouse "The Shield," Dark Blue comes off as something of a retread, with little of "The Shield's" electric fury, edgy camera work or deft characterizations.

The movie's hokey mysticism and heaving melancholy is closer in spirit to a solemn Hallmark greeting card.

If you're going to be offensive, by all means be offensive. Be tasteless! Be "There's Something About Mary." But at least stick to your guns, and don't wuss out when it counts.

There's no real artistry to this: It's as though Parker has just seen "Seven" and suffered some sort of David Fincher flashback.

Precious without ever being cloying, All the Real Girls is a wise, delicate and immensely touching romance.

For those with the patience to latch onto Van Sant's slow, methodical groove. It's worth trying.

The film is art in all its visual splendor, and no matter how confusing the historic story line may be to Westerners -- and it is -- the images on screen more than compensate for the faults.

What makes this sequel work is the charm of its story.

For all its ambition, Daredevil can't overcome the fact that at its colorful center lies a perfect blank in a bad suit.

While the story starts tying up its loose ends nicely, as the end approaches, the film turns flat. It's a disappointment.

A hoot.

May be dumb, but it must be noted that the screenwriters of this slight, silly comedy have borrowed from the best.

Eventually loses its cheerful goofiness and its momentum, climaxing with a lengthy and embarrassing showdown scene at a big party. But it gets worse.

Swami says, &#147;Steer clear of The Guru, a dismally dumb sex comedy, lest you waste $9 and 90 minutes of your life you will never get back.''

A fascinating record of how the movie fell apart, piece by piece, with everything short of a natural disaster conspiring against the filmmaker.

The sort of movie you enjoy much more while you're watching it in the theater than when you're deconstructing it on the way home.

Never stops having its dark fun.

Junge had come to terms with her past. And even if you don't come to terms with her life, it's worthwhile knowing about it.

Although the unrelenting pursuit of making the Vatican listen becomes a bit tiresome, the portrayals of the two men by Tukur and Kassovitz are engaging.

A cheesy horror film can offer a vicarious cheap thrill or two. Darkness Falls offers only a test of the patience, not even providing much chance to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of its villain.

There is humor in the familiar just waiting to be rehashed for new generations, and A Guy Thing surely isn't the last stupid leave-'em-at-the-altar film we're likely to see.

Highbrow entertainment this isn't.

As film noirs go, this one is a classic.