The dancing, while reasonably entertaining, isn't anything you haven't seen before on MTV or BET, although the soundtrack might be a worthwhile investment for hip-hop fans.

Worst of all, nothing happens that we don't see coming. Nothing. If, as Nathan seems to believe, surprise is a crucial element in any campaign, then The Last Samurai might win a battle or two for your attention but is doomed to lose the Oscar war.

It is a treat to see Sharif back on the screen and Boulanger is a pleasure to watch. They make Monsieur Ibrahim better than it is.

But there are so many beautiful, tender moments in In America -- that it's easy to forgive Sheridan's manipulative ploys.

The movie itself is a nominee for Best Animated Feature, and it's good enough to pull a surprise upset over the beloved Finding Nemo. It's a mad masterpiece.

Won't appeal to everyone, of course, particularly those who blush easily. And parents who take children to see it deserve to have their heads examined. But for those who don't mind a little bile in their eggnog, it's the perfect antidote to all that prefab Christmas cheer.

Won't surprise you, but it's more tolerable than the grating, garish, millinery-challenged Cat. Besides, a cadaverous Terence Stamp trumps a glossy Alec Baldwin as a bad guy any day.

Timeline gives Gigli serious competition for worst film of the year honors.

And although The Cooler doesn't do anything fresh with its Vegas milieu, the movie is refreshingly frank and astute when it comes to depicting sex.

The fragmented style is distracting and ultimately annoying, robbing the story of its suspense and drive while contributing nothing except self-conscious style.

Charmless and grating and immediately forgettable.

If you try hard enough, you might be able to forget that the story doesn't make a lot of sense or provide adequate thrills, although it tries to scare you a couple of times in the cheapest possible way.

It's crisp, efficient, well-made and strangely, vaguely dull.

What makes Master and Commander so bracing and transporting -- what makes the movie feel unlike any adventure film you've seen before -- is the precise detail and care with which Weir places us aboard the HMS Surprise.

Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck might want to talk to their agents about looking for better material.

Tupac Amaru Shakur is riveting in Tupac: Resurrection. The rapper is a compelling, charismatic hero: articulate, well-read, politically radical, and movie-star handsome to boot (he in fact starred in Poetic Justice and Juice). Make that, was riveting.

It is a stunning work that captures with elegance -- and touches of lyricism -- the challenge of finding the man through the artist.

There are precious few moments in Elf when Ferrell doesn't manage to at least get a smile out of you. Considering how cloying the movie might have turned out without him, that's a huge gift all its own.

The biggest surprise in the cheery, delightful Love Actually is its lively, edgy, slightly blue sense of humor.

It's a testament to the personalities of the actors, as well as the foundation laid by the original film, that we retain an emotional connection to the main players in Revolutions.

A fascinating look at events mostly unknown to outsiders.

Lives or dies by your ability to buy the sight of Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman snuggling in bed and enjoying hot, torrid sex. This may seem like a superficial approach to such a lofty, serious movie, but it is an insurmountable problem.

By retelling Glass' pathetic tale, Shattered Glass reminds you how our culture's emphasis on success and stardom in any field -- and the betrayal of ethics to attain them -- has a cumulative, corrosive effect on society, no matter how small the stage may be.

This is a disastrously clumsy, heavy-handed movie, one so desperate and exploitative that it resorts to putting a live grenade in the hands of a baby in order to get its message across.

Trailers make it seem as though Radio is all about football, but it's not, and once the film leaves the fall sport behind it wanders around in no particular direction until it reaches an abrupt, poorly executed ending.

Makes the Columbine shootings seem both abstract yet more painful and vivid. It also gets you excited all over again about the things movies can do.

The movie is all moist grime and seedy atmosphere, and it's certainly something to look at: It's beautifully lurid. But it's an empty, unengaging movie, and by the end, it has become ridiculous, too.

This new, presumably improved Chainsaw is just as humorless as the original, but it's also slicker, glossier and resoundingly artificial.