As though fatalistically compelled, all three leads self-destruct: Li is as flat, colorless, and stiff as a panel of Sheetrock, Karyo plays his every syllable in overdrive, and Fonda seems trapped in the midst of a failed screen test for Pretty Woman II.

Pie has some nice surprises and is enjoyable in a smutty, sitcom way. It offers up the outrageousness of "There's Something About Mary" without wallowing in cruelty.

May not have enough story to sustain its narrative momentum, but Gray just might be our best shot at a new Coppola.

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

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.

If you're desperate for a James Bond fix, skip the movie and blow your 007 bucks on a copy of the soundtrack.

Might be structured like a soggy house of cards, but it's shot beautifully and acted expertly.

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.

Bossa Nova has no beat.

A seven-course melodrama.

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.

Invoking unpleasant memories of "Caligula" (only without the sex), Titus does no justice to Shakespeare.

Every frame of Scott's film is gorgeously lurid and baroque, but it just hangs there like bad art, even during the gore-spilling, Grand Guignol climax.

Brooks' least satisfying film in quite a while.

The narrative disjointedness is not at all relieved by confusing editing, an uncertain tone, and a dragging pace that makes the film a progressively dreary experience.

The total lack of sexual chemistry between them doesn't help. Frankly, I'd rather see Scott Thomas play a nun than sit through another one of these turgid romancers.

The film is never less than a satisfying mix of compelling entertainment and social critique. The performances are uniformly superb.

Appears to have been written and directed by a grade-school dropout snorting airplane glue.

All this artful violence won't change your life, but Non-Stop is a satisfying quickie.

While An Everlasting Piece is rife with engaging family moments and an undeniable charm, it never allows its characters to find the very thing they're seeking: peace.

Actually lighter, wittier, and more original than it has a right to be.

A thoughtful, stunning piece of work in what, of late, has been an otherwise arid indie landscape.

A ponderous stage adaptation that expends only the mildest effort to overcome its staginess.

Beautifully performed and filmed, but tiresomely schematic episodes like this one cause us to experience major sensory deprivation.

Despite good performances and moments of spectacle, it seems to go on longer than the Cultural Revolution.

If Lee's intention was to cement our loathing of blackface comedy, he's succeeded all too well.

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

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