Ultimately, Hart's War can't decide what it is: treatise on racism, escape (and escapist) thriller or murder mystery. So it sits there -- and we sit there with it, waiting and waiting. And waiting.

For better or worse the movie is simply simple -- the project's quality and significance depend upon one's perspective: Is this a daring and impressive homespun yarn or just a very middling stab at soft-core?

While Brother may be the perfect introduction for Kitano newcomers, longtime fans may find it superfluous and even a step down from the likes of Hana-Bi (1997) and Sonatine (1993).

Fortunately for the brothers, when your protagonist is personified as Jack Black, you can get away with a lot.

This is mostly well-constructed fluff, which is all it seems intended to be.

An occasionally funny, but overall limp, fish-out-of-water story.

More art-directed than directed, there's nothing in the way of serious thought to be found here,

Their (Tunney and Nelson) interplay is what saves the movie, and possibly should have been expanded upon to the exclusion of the other plot points.

Moves in fits and starts, with some crafty and credible fight choreography by Xin Xin Xiong on either side of the pretty but boring middle hour.

A lacerating study of sexual alienation.

Here's a fervent, G-rated version of contemporary life in which the divine overcomes the earthly and miracles are commonplace. It's aimed squarely at the emerging Christian market.

It just doesn¹t get very good until halfway through, in large part because the usually excellent Walston is miscast.

A unique and striking film for at least the first two-thirds of its running time, after which it turns, all too sadly, predictable and mundane

When Affleck keeps getting work, the terrorists HAVE won. With blank eyes and soft features, he has none of the gravitas of his predecessors, Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford, who saved the world with swagger. Affleck merely looks like a frat boy in over his head, which is perhaps the point.

Just barely diverting, even at under 80 minutes -- a TV episode inflated past its natural length.

Of all the A-list men playing dedicated authority figures, Star Wars alums Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson remain among the most amusing and pleasing, which is why K-19: The Widowmaker glides along engagingly rather than sinking.

Solondz's singular game plan is to dangle profoundly obnoxious caricatures before us, then punish them mercilessly for their stupidity, which is amusing enough if you're in the mood for that sort of thing.

Vera's technical prowess ends up selling his film short; he smoothes over hard truths even as he uncovers them.

Even Hartnett, designated Next Big Thing last year, seems like he's barely trying.

Highbrow self-appointed guardians of culture need not apply, but those who loved "Cool as Ice" have at last found a worthy follow-up.

Neither sensuously sizzling nor daftly off-beat, Better Than Sex occasionally rises to its own modest occasion by gently reversing our expectations.

At its best, Jurassic Park III is eerily similar to some of the more recent dinosaur-themed video games on the market.

The over-the-top sincerity that is so rewarding in "Face/Off" (1998), Woo's best American film, feels too clichéd in this more conventional context.

what we've got here is a little propaganda film. A mild one, certainly, but the cliché of DIY hopefuls (band) versus the Big Machine (music industry) foments the same tedious struggle of art versus commerce.

It's all a bit silly and predictable, but maybe that's the point.

Serendipity already feels archaic, like some dusty relic that's been unearthed from an antique store's attic and polished off for display.

It's by turns poignant and cold, twisted and sweet, dreamy and drab, effortless and overwrought. In short, the movie is a stunning, ambitious mess that leaves you wondering how much better it might have been without Kubrick's specter peering over Spielberg's heavy shoulders.

Les Destinées has a leisurely, contemplative pace without ever growing boring. Still, at the end, we are left somehow empty. For all the time we spend with these people, we never really get inside of them.