Hark! A Christian thriller about the Last Days that doesn't (totally) suck. That's got to be a sign of the times.

An intermittently irresistible entertainment.

Perhaps most depressingly, in pulling out all the stops for an ugly, violent climax, he (Schumacher) cheapens this vividly drawn slice of life, turning it into a tiresomely flawed, garden-variety vigilante thriller.

Works so hard at being pleasant and ingratiating that it wears out its welcome.

Features a sexy, appealing cast, especially Guillermo Diaz.

Thanks to the first-time filmmaker's attention to character, Gun Shy is worth at least a shot at a matinee.

The appealing cast makes the most of the derivative story.

It's filled with far too much talk and it never justifies its length, but if you succumb to its old-fashioned Renoir style of storytelling, The Grandfather has its pleasures.

It's a yabba-dabba-delight.

Has an unforgettable artery of hot-blooded talent coursing straight through it.

Assiduous, temperate, and a lot more honest about government and politicians than any other Hollywood film of the last few decades, Thirteen Days is nevertheless too little, too late.

This jailhouse jam is quite a haul.

A reliably solid treat.

A vapor trail of a comedy, comfortable as an old chair (and deliciously photographed in shades of melon and banana by Chinese vet Zhao Fei), but ultimately quaint and unchallenging.

Has its funky charms.

Gets to the funny bone, but it could've cut deeper.

What ultimately keeps Titan A.E. from taking off is an ordinary script.

Dippy, funny, and fast-paced enough to be a guilty pleasure.

This is slight stuff, but the legions of budding Scorseses and Kevin Smiths might actually learn a little something, and they will certainly enjoy a chortle or two -- even if it is at their own expense.

For all its originality, O Brother doesn't seem to have a point, or enough spark to distract us from the lack thereof.

The frequent song interludes will distract the kids (but send the adults into comas), and the anti-Disney satire rages as never before.

Despite impeccable performances, this is bloodless, ho-hum stuff.

A generally likeable cast atones for the underwritten script with fine comic spirit.

Burton's films are endearing and impassioned despite the fact that they generally fail to tell a whole story, create a single rounded character, or inspire even mild laughs or chills.

The dilemma is simple: Living, making art, and then dying does not constitute much of a story.

Unsuccessfully attempts to fathom Kaufman's lunatic sensibilities, supplying scant psychological insight into what made the outrageous comic tick.

Brooks' least satisfying film in quite a while.

Accomplished, middlebrow costume-drama entertainment. It's not so simple that it could be mistaken for the work of, say, Lasse Hallström, and yet it's not so sophisticated that audiences of "Chocolat" would be mystified.

It's a drab, familiar story with no oomph (and less humor than you'd think), and it's inconsistent.

Mature and adroitly performed but ultimately underachieving.

Along the way, we end up losing patience with our couple-to-be because they seem too smart to endure the indignities ceaselessly heaped on them.

Plenty of the tasteless gags don't fly, and for every celebrity cameo that works (a hilariously heavenly Reese Witherspoon), there are two or three that crash and burn.

Hicks is far less interested in resolving dramatic conflicts than in framing shots.

"Run mad whenever you choose, but do not faint," Austen wrote in her early journals. Despite its brazen politics, Mansfield Park never goes giddily amok as promised.

For a modest film, however, Too Much Sleep is a modest surprise.

It's yet another serial killer movie, a plot element that by this point in time, far from being disturbing or fascinating, is just plain dull.

There's a sense of life to Committed that's unpredictable and sweet, but too much of it is cluttered with lazy shortcuts.

From the beginning of his career a fervent, epic documentarian, Herzog is a personal filmmaker as well, and My Best Fiend is certainly his most intimate and introspective film.

The flat, gross-out live-action bits, directed by (surprise!) Peter and Bobby Farrelly, don't jive with the zippy, Tex Avery-style animated segments, directed by former storyboard artists Piet Kroon and Tom Sito.

This might be as perfect a new-millennium Halloween creepshow as we can expect.

The result is a feast for the eyes but frequently a famine for the frontal lobes, a movie of towering imagination and middling rewards.

What's right as rain with Diary is the casting.

An enjoyable female buddy caper -- more "Outrageous Fortune" than "Thelma and Louise."

Too much of a locker-room melodrama to make for great tragedy.

The film has an unabashed romantic tone that's matched by Wenders' usual flair for visual drama.

It's the kind of flourish that makes you smile -- that makes you believe in the power of movies.

Simply a pleasant diversion rather the paean to crazy-in-love classics it would so like to be.

Like "Pollock," Nora is a convincing portrait of the intersection between creative genius and crazy, all-consuming love.

The voyage is never less than interesting, even when you have no idea where it could possibly go.

The material it does pull off is daring and sharp.

Arresting, visually accomplished documentary.

Repetitive, aimless, and as frustrating as you'd imagine any two-hour music video to be.

Come Undone is the quintessential gay date at the art house.

As amusing and sharply performed as it is, Lisa Picard quickly grows thin and dull. Perhaps it would have been better as a real documentary, with Kirk and DeWolf simply playing their pathetic selves.

Almost nothing happens for most of the movie.

A tepid and surprisingly dull farce stamped from the "About Mary" mold.

Glossy, gruesome police drama.

At once arch, derivative, and, in the end, bizarrely lyrical.

Just try not to smile while watching Jump Tomorrow.

Mild as satire and completely unconvincing as tragicomedy.

Makes for compulsive viewing.

Spacey and Bridges -- generally provide exactly the level of investment required for their characters to be convincing. Neither one showboats, and both make good use of the dry humor in Leavitt's script.

Wincer keeps the insubstantial story moving and the comedy light.

A smirky black comedy that, like its John Lurie score, is jazzy, dry, and light on its feet.

Packed with melodrama, and often it works in the passionate, easy-to-watch manner of an old-fashioned "woman's film."

The real reason to see it is Brian Cox, best known for being filmdom's other Hannibal Lecter (he played the role in Michael Mann's "Manhunter").

Strictly where the boys are: posing, posturing, and talking engine envy.

This is, recognizably, an indie film, in the best sense of the term.

Ultimately too slight and opaque to inspire much ardor.

What does it say that we have a closer relationship with the car than with the characters? It says Bruckheimer.

The overlapping dialogue and the comedy of famous people playing self-variations is pure Altman (Leigh, not surprisingly, has worked in three Altman films).

The ending is so absurd, in fact, that it feels like it was improvised by a committee of 6-year-olds. If the raptors truly were intelligent, they'd have eaten the final reel.

The rapper-ever-increasingly-turned actor -- is having the time of his life, big pimp styling in a flashy wardrobe as he guts and struts.

It's a coffee-table movie, but what saves it are a couple of performances.Rowlands puts a spin on every line reading, Harris quietly mines regret, and Shields, assured and sexy, has never been this good.

For some viewers, this will seem a trial of predictability and unrelenting sweetness; for others, it's more than enough.

A mess, bouncing nonsensically from one style of farce to another, leaving large vacuums and dead spots — which may themselves, of course, be deliberate.

Makes for compulsive viewing even though its noirish plot doesn't make a lick of sense.

Too much of a study in formalism to register deeply on an emotional level.

The more we realize that we're stuck in the company of a totally relentless loser, the drearier the entire experience becomes.

Families already know exactly what they're in for, and they're likely to leave the multiplex high on the hum of a charming cast, sunny San Francisco locations, and a suitably happy ending.

For the most part, it's when the women do the singing -- that Songcatcher really comes alive.

Sags, lollygags, and blusters too much to sustain the what-the-hell momentum that Kitano achieves in his best movies.

Quite handsomely produced, and there's a definite swashbuckling verve to it. Most of the characters have been contemporized, but the actors are engaging.

Too often, the movie is more forced and frantic than actually funny.

Pure, irrational, claustrophobic, gritty, unpretentious.

It's not a movie you could call dispassionate, however aimless and unfocused. It's a Molotov cocktail tossed in several directions at once.

Its emotional sweep is ultimately undercut by murky characterizations and generic plotting.

Has one of the most stupendously tasteless premises in cinema history, and much of the time when this movie tries to beckon a smile, the effect is closer to astonished nausea.

The movie's most glaring flaw is that the brothers and their screenwriters, Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias, don't manage to preserve the secret of the Ripper's identity for nearly as long as they intend to.

If you're looking for refuge from summer movie bombast, it's frequently intoxicating.

This fictionalized, frequently stomach-churning biography of Australian criminal Mark Chopper Read features the most bloody ear-severing scene since "Reservoir Dogs."

The cast is largely nonprofessional, and the story has the simplicity of myth.

It's a shame that Jeepers Creepers cops out -- as American genre movies have been doing for years -- and plays it safe with an F/X-heavy creature that no one would believe in a thousand years.

A modestly entertaining ride.

The naked, artless display of nerve and rebellious bile is altogether unique in modern movies.

This bed-swapping crime story is ultimately too protracted, but Piñeyro's direction is richly atmospheric, full of noir shadows and strong period detail.

The wrap-up's pretty charming, as are the performances, but the film's too heavy for its soufflé-ready ingredients.

Plays like "The Honeymooners" might have if Ralph Kramden were from Pakistan, but with less laughs and more ignorant spite.