In a captivating climax, the movie turns attractively freaky, though somewhat marred by cheesy special effects, and there’s a huge debt to the immense leaps of “2001.” An abrupt ending feels frustrating and leaves questions floating in space. Then again, I’m using only 3 to 5 percent of my capacity, so what do I know?

It's expertly directed in a low-key, naturalistic way that brings to mind French auteur Robert Bresson. It's also emotionally forceful and contains heartbreaking performances.

RV stands for "Retread of 'Vacation,'" or possibly "Robin's Vehicle," but to me it's funnier than "National Lampoon's Vacation." I always found Chevy Chase's road trip more unpleasant than outrageous, but RV has laughs spilling out of its overhead bins.

Sparse of dialogue and plot (think Andrei Tarkovsky), the import - named best first film at Cannes 2005 - has to do with Sri Lanka's unending civil war and it's devastating effect on residents of a barren no man's land.

A taut thriller, The Good Liar keeps you guessing ’til its explosive end. Director Bill Condon’s film is based on the novel by Nicholas Searle, and builds much in the same way a book does. You gotta get through the first 30 pages to become fully absorbed.

The first film was set during the happiest time in human history: World War I. A tormented Wonder Woman took to the trenches and endured a solid hour of smoke and soot. Squint and you could maybe spot the main character. Wonder Woman 1984, by contrast, is visually dazzling with kaleidoscopic color and buoyant action sequences. The plot, thank Ares, is no longer so self-serious, even if it is a bit knotty.

Hollywood loves nothing more than a true-crime story about a serial killer, but a new movie directed by Anna Kendrick does a number on that familiar genre.

Rarely less than compelling, must-see entertainment, thanks to Farrell, Schumacher and company.

This warped masochistic cousin to David Cronenberg's "Crash" - not to be confused with the Oscar winner of the same name - is well worth seeing for Farmiga's stunning performance.

Slight but utterly charming.

Heiskanen is a revelation as the put-upon wife, and the cinematography (some by Troell) effortlessly transports us back 100 years.

The intolerance and inflexibility that marked the Taliban's brutal rule takes a solid hit in this lovely import from Bangladesh.

Probably more gut-bustingly funny than anything else out there right now.

For a change of pace, you leave the entertaining “Superman” not confused or clobbered, but feeling good.

“Twelve Final Days” is a tender, mellow film that delves inside the head of a deeply enigmatic figure as he asks the relatable and terrifying question: “What’s next?”

Boasts dynamic performances by the two leads, as well as tight directing (a lot happens in just 82 minutes) and eye-pleasing cinematography (by Alain Marcoen, who also lenses for Belgium's acclaimed Dardenne brothers).

In his later years, Smith, who was also a gifted photographer, largely abandoned films in favor of performance art - and his art apparently included deliberately contracting the AIDS that ended his life.

Though most foreign films are best seen subtitled, the nonstop overexcitement of these anime performances can be exhausting. I’d have welcomed the dulcet tones of Pace, who voices Mr. Suga.

Audiences may find that the deliberate, Kubrickesque pacing -- without his intellectual rigor -- causes them to tune out.

By the time the final shot arrives -- a rooftop panorama in the falling snow -- we don't know much about any of the people we've just encountered. But we have been treated to a feast for the eyes.

The movie is a good 40 minutes too long and momentum ceases to build a while before it finally ends. Still, when the director’s party is raging, you’ll wish you had an invite.

Walken gives a beautifully understated performance.

A gleefully cunning comedy.

The effect is informative and moving, even if the film has an attack of the gooeys at the end.

Fight Club badly wants to be "A Clockwork Orange" for the millennium - and succeeds to a surprising extent until director David Fincher ends up sucker-punching the audience.

The lazy story takes on a passion and urgency that peaks in an emotional finale.

You may feel echoes of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Starman,” but writer-director Jeff Nichols has ultimately crafted his own unique twist on the genre.

Their clashing on the court has steam heat. For well over 10 minutes, the electrifying finals match is re-created realistically and with unexpected suspense, even though we’ve known the result for 38 years.

The Chinese pleaser Electric Shadows belongs to a genre they don't teach in film school: Triple S, as in sweet, sappy and sentimental.

Light summer fun with a Flemish accent.

The material, filled with peppy pop songs, is admittedly funnier than Murphy and his cast make it. Barry (played on Broadway by the brilliant Brooks Ashmanskas) was a riot onstage, but Corden’s bland performance is generically kind, fey and mostly joke-less. Someone like Nathan Lane would’ve made a meal of every line. That said, the story is more moving here than it was at the theater, which comes as a surprise.

Those expecting an exhilarating, "Pulp Fiction"-style wrap-up will also be disappointed. Instead, Flowers gives us the impression - as the end of "Traffic" did - that we've just taken a few turns on a merry-go-round of doom that is going to keep spinning long after the movie ends.

Ethical objections to Milgram’s work are presented as killing the messenger; well-known issues with his methodology appear not at all. The movie’s an intellectual shock tactic, but it succeeds.

The plot isn’t really, but who cares? Think of Bad Boys for Life as a Pennsylvania highway store: full of explosives and fun.

This film of mistaken identity, murder, class envy and (bi)sexual tension doesn't live up to its own promise.

The film is shaky as a procedural, and the level of official corruption seems more Moscow than Melbourne. Yet as a fable of power, vengeance and betrayal it exerts a quiet, increasingly wicked pull, equivalent to that of the wrinkly but ruthless grandma.

The overall film is a mix of “The Thin Blue Line” and Costa-Gavras’ “Z.” At times overemphatic (no one will ever accuse Gitai of holding too much back), this docu-thriller is also agonizingly suspenseful, despite the foreordained conclusion.

Gini Reticker's embracing documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell shows how Taylor got his comeuppance from a coalition of tenacious Christian and Muslim women armed only with matching T-shirts.

Much more rewarding than its earnest title or its very modest production values -- it's basically an ambitious home video -- would suggest.

The Vast of Night goes cold-turkey on most of the elements that have come to define science-fiction in recent years. There are no explosions, car chases, superheroes, hot aliens or lack of self-respect here. Instead, it boldly goes where great sci-fi used to go.

Q Ball is a moving and dynamically shot portrait of the Northern California prison’s basketball team, which is sponsored by the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.

Picture how insufferable "GoodFellas" would be if it climaxed with a federal agent making a speech about the victims claimed by organized crime.

The music is vibrant and the presentation is appealing.

When all is said and done, Lies is just good, dirty fun.

Sometimes gets repetitive and is slightly overlong. But it's got solid performances.

Sharp little psychological thriller.

Director Griffin Dunne's adaptation of Dirk Wittenborn's fiercely personal novel ambles pleasantly through coming-of-age movie territory, then takes a jarring Agatha Christie detour.

The Miyazaki legacy is in good hands.

Check your brains at the popcorn stand and hang on for a spectacular ride.

Any parent who has ever scrambled desperately to find a doll to appease a wailing child as though it were a life-and-death situation will appreciate the wit of this multilayered, dread-soaked chamber piece.

With one slight wobble toward the conclusion, Ashe’s screenplay is terrific at letting its characters speak and act honestly: His dialogue is heartfelt and realistic. “Sylvie’s” is a love letter to the delights of a well-told love story.

That 20-minute white-knuckle sequence - which includes Washington's character, Whip Whitaker, flipping the plane upside down to pull out of a tailspin - is by far the most effective part of director Robert Zemeckis' first live-action film since the underrated "Cast Away" 12 years ago.

What emerges is a portrait of a complex man - one who had no qualms about murder and drugs but who won a national poetry contest and read "Moby-Dick" while in jail. Go figure.

It's what Hollywood calls a 'tweener - not quite edgy or artistic enough to satisfy the art-house crowd, but a tough sell for family audiences because of its extensive subtitles, two-hour-plus running time, and a (tastefully rendered) male rape scene.

It's worth seeing the movie for Hathaway alone.

Ines Efron and Martin Piroyanski give strong performances as Alex and Alvaro, respectively. Debuting director Lucia Puenzo, who co-scripted, tackles a dicey subject with sensitivity and taste.

Revenge is a dish best served with bullets, high explosives and giant rolling flameballs. In Quantum of Solace, James Bond orders the revenge buffet, deluxe.

A gleaming hunk of French period schmaltz expertly rendered by director Christophe Barratier.

A passable French homage to the American crime epic, The Connection has plenty of visual style to go with stock characters.

Probably the most definitive portrait of Johnson that we are likely to get.

They’re the ditziest, most solipsistic protagonists I’ve seen outside of a Neil LaBute project.

Ai is his country's most celebrated avant-garde artist - he's had shows around the world, including in New York, where he lived as a student - and China's most outspoken dissident.

The film flawlessly glides along as bodies start piling up. The finale brings to mind another Hitchcock film, "Psycho."

[Refn] mixes jittery hand-held camerawork, improvised dialogue and available light to create a nightmarish world of sex, drugs and horrific brutality that will turn off many viewers while delighting others.

It might take a while to figure out what is happening, because Khoo provides no expository dialogue. But viewers' patience will be rewarded as the stories come together in a moving fashion.

Cinematographer Darius Khonji does a superb job of conveying both the sensual beauty (there's a spectacular moonlight-on-the-water sex scene with Leo and the lovely Ledoyen), and the darkness of Richard's paradise lost.

It also boasts a killer breakout performance by comic Patton Oswalt as a former classmate who becomes Theron's unlikely co-dependent and sometimes co-conspirator.

A blackly funny provocation.

Dennis refuses to push a political agenda down viewers' throats. But the message of his film -- a breathlessly paced look at the realities of war -- is clear: War and its aftermath are indeed hell.

Gives a taste of what it might be like to live inside Mike Tyson's mind.

No matter your take on Merritt's persona, there's no denying that he's a unique musician whose songs -- such as "Papa Was a Rodeo" and "Living in an Abandoned Firehouse With You" -- are worth discovering. As is this film.

The on-camera experts make intelligent, earnest points, but the Web means there’s no such thing as a real ban. Indeed the movies have always been available, as two former neo-Nazis point out.

The feature debut by hot, young Singapore director Royston Tan, 15, is a descent into hell -- a hell inhabited by five scuzzy 15-year-old boys whose world, as one puts it, "only consists of darkness."

Limps to a fairly lame conclusion, but until then its remarkable candor is like spending a memorably hilarious, harrowing and unforgettable weekend with your wacky in-laws.

Generally delightful, and reminiscent of two vanished ages: when men were men, and when movies were movies.

If the plot becomes a bit scattered in its third act, a generous interpretation might be that it’s a reflection of the chaotic cultural backdrop. Chon directs with style and a humane eye for all parties; he’s a dynamic young director to keep your eye on.

It’s not exactly giving away anything to reveal that Stamp also sings three numbers in Unfinished Song — the last one so stirring that you should bring at least one box of Kleenex.

The result is quite a ramble: Leacock talks about how equipment influences filmmaking, the making of a custard and the wanderings of his cat. Through it all, happily, his company is a pleasure.

The movie is an entertaining stroll through a colorful gallery of characters including, in villain mode, former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving. "She knows nothing. I am an expert," huffs Hoving, who is so nasty he might as well be wearing a monocle - making Horton that much more fun to root for.

An intelligent and entertaining exploration of racial and sexual politics that brings alive the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, and draws parallels with African-American identity crises of today.

Filled with arch wit, the film is sweet and sorrowful at the same time. Like many indies, it lacks much of a conclusion, though writer-director James C. Strouse shows that simple ideas, ably executed, can make an endearing film.

Even if you've never ridden a skateboard or had any interest in people who do, you'll get a kick out of Stacy Peralta's documentary Bones Brigade: An Autography.

Birds of Prey moves at a breakneck pace with a dry, totally unsentimental sense of humor, and it never gets caught up in cliched morals or weighty lessons.

Mostly it’s up to Lawrence to wring all the drama and pathos she can out of a battle over patent rights that pushes Joy to the brink of bankruptcy. No surprise that her mettle cleans up all the messiness in Joy.

Fans of Hou know just what to expect from his slow, contemplative films - and they won't be disappointed.

Pepe Danquart's To the Limit from Germany looks great, but it's an altogether different animal.

The cheesehead noir Thin Ice presents Greg Kinnear in a role that's almost too easy for him: He's a morally flexible Wisconsin insurance salesman for whom honesty is the least-likely policy.

The new "Pelham," although no classic, is a lot of fun if you're in the right mood.

If the end of the world was just hours away, would New Yorkers still be able to get takeout? Yes, if Abel Ferrara's mind-bending 4:44 Last Day on Earth is any indication.

In the last 20 minutes, the film moves as breathlessly as a Hollywood thriller -- only it's much more frightening, because it's true.

Savage yet spellbinding.

It’s a lark, if you can tolerate the hammy redneck accents, and confirms that Soderbergh is as agile as ever at knitting together all the moving parts of a complex heist.

Plays like a very good TV movie. Short on visual flair and starpower, Thirteen Days is not the definitive story of the Cuban missile crisis, but it's an engrossing historical lesson nonetheless.

Michael Kang makes an impressive feature directorial debut with The Motel. But the person to keep an eye on is Jeffrey Chyau, a student at the Bronx High School of Science, who is a delight in the lead role.

The fun in Knives Out is watching an ensemble of super-serious actors getting to misbehave.

Accurately described as an Icelandic version of Pedro Almodovar's gender-bending black comedies -- but it's also reminiscent of early Woody Allen movies.

At heart, The Italian is a Dickensian tale that paints a vivid portrait of post-Glasnost Russia en route to a four-handkerchief ending.

I’d love to tell you Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals is a cinematic masterpiece, and for most of its running time, that’s what I was planning to do. You must see it. But a great movie requires a great ending, and Nocturnal Animals doesn’t have one.