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.

If Annapolis is not the worst movie to date of this still-young year, it is certainly the most hackneyed, as well as the most depressing.

This is, after all, "Mary Poppins" turned on its head.

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.