If we can agree on anything in this great divided land of ours, it's this: Mischa Barton can't act.

Clichéd stories, clichéd characters. All that's missing is Ed Burns.

"HP6" is suspenseful and artfully realized. It's a definite improvement over J.K. Rowling's dimly written and exposition-clogged book.

Like its star, the movie is too short and a little thin but just about perfect.

Isn't especially hilarious, but it has a warm sense of humor instead of a string of gross-out jokes. It'll be a cable mainstay.

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

Not only isn't the new effort up to the standards of the anime, it's bloody awful by any standard.

Few kinds of art are more boring than the insistently transgressive, and few movies are more boring than Humpday.

With Lake Tahoe, Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke proves himself adept at turning a blank screen into a work of art.

May be momentarily entertaining, but don't expect anything profound from the lightweight saga.

Stick a fork in Nia Vardalos. I've been to funerals that were a lot more fun than I Hate Valentine's Day, her second alleged romantic comedy in less than a month.

After winning raves at last year's New York Film Festival, Pablo Larrain's Tony Manero, from Chile, is receiving a run here.

There is much more of an emphasis on action in this nicely crafted, fast-paced sequel, which at its best shares the antic qualities of classic Warner Bros. cartoons.

Disappointing, curiously uninvolving.

A sentimental, whimsical autobiography.

A lighter hand would have enhanced some very good performances.

Stretched both timewise and for plausibility.

The show works pretty much the same as "Idol" does, with Afghans voting by cellphone for their favorite performers. But this is Afghanistan, where the Taliban still has power, not America.

The movie is a visual feast, with Oscar-caliber sets and costumes that for many will justify the trip to the Paris Theatre.

Stick around till the end. You don't want to miss an unexpected cameo from a filmmaker I won't name. Hint: He's short, likes younger women and isn't Woody Allen.

It also gives another black eye to Iranian fundamentalists. It is most unfortunate, then, that the film isn't better.

Either a ludicrously bad movie or a parody of same. Either way, it's pretty funny.

Dazzles the eye, numbs the mind and may cause deafness in some cases. Did I mention to bring along some Excedrin?

Its script isn't worth the papyrus it's inscribed on.

Shamelessly derivative, contrived and predictable, The Proposal is nonetheless a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy.

Fans of deadpan comic fantasy writers like Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut are likely to be intrigued by this lively little packet of weird -- then dive like a dolphin into Keret's loopy story volumes.

Wirkola keeps the narrative taut, wasting not a frame; and he throws in funny moments.

It isn't the laugh riot of the year.

The movie is frightening not only because of the severe effects the ailment can have on the human body but also because it shows that many doctors are unable to diagnose, let alone treat, the malady.

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

The movie offers very little that food radicals don't already know.

Cutesy? My pain was acutesy as the entire plot yawned before me.

Freaked-out funky weirdness starts to happen all around him (Rockwell).

For gays who remember the nightmare, Sex Positive may be too depressing to watch. But the movie strikes a cautionary tone for a younger generation that, it says, isn't taking the HIV threat seriously.

The film works best when we see N'Dour onstage. He has a great set of pipes and is nothing if not charismatic.

The more dramatic revelations and tragic inevitabilities that turn up, the harder it is not to laugh. Give credit to its maker for directing with an earnestness suggesting a pretentious 22-year-old. Having passed through the phases of Interesting Apprentice, Mad Genius, Chastened Bankrupt and Shameless Wage Slave, Coppola at 70 may be the world's oldest student filmmaker.

Raunchy frat comedies are as hard to pull off as any other kind because they have to keep surprising the audience, and The Hangover does with a bizarre series of uproarious situations with explanations that just about stay within the bounds of plausibility.

Just to give you a taste of the movie's sophisticated idea of wit, it also makes fun of gay men.

The strange thing about the movie is its idea that such couples are rare flowers. But you can scarcely take a step in Seattle or San Francisco or Los Feliz without meeting them in hordes.

Will Ferrell's terminally stupid, sloppy, campy and cheesy -- and thoroughly unexciting and unfunny -- experiment in "family entertainment."

The result is surprisingly engrossing -- even lively, due in part to brief musical numbers inserted amid the interviews.

An icky S&M thriller.

A twist ending does nothing to make the previous 85 minutes interesting.

I hope they have shrinks in remote Nepal, because this kid is going to need one. P.S.: The scenery is awesome.

An exquisite work of cinematic art that also happens to be the funniest, most touching, most exciting and most entertaining movie released so far this year.

Drag Me to Hell is pure cheese. Goat cheese.

Takita could easily trim 30 minutes of flab and oceans of tears from Departures. It still wouldn't merit an Oscar, but it would be a lot more watchable.

The premise has potential, but there's no follow- through. And there's no actual zombie mayhem; we learn everything secondhand -- from phone calls to the station.

That rare commodity: a film with only good things to say about public schools.

Damonically awful.

Seems to go on for several days and nights, though in fact it lasts just 105 minutes. I checked my watch. A lot.

Time for another of Steven Soderbergh's "experimental," i.e., half-assed, films.

Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and a host of other notables sing the praises of the estranged siblings, whose work is illustrated by copious film clips.

A crass, heavy- handed and -- most unforgivably -- largely laugh-free adaptation of The Master's infrequently revived 1924 comic melodrama.

At 86 minutes, the film spends exactly 86 more minutes with its subjects than can possibly be tolerated. Coincidence?

Yet what makes this movie is the digital effects. It's got all the heart of a demolition derby.

The news footage, so powerful on its own, needs no enhancement. The dramatized scenes only slow the film's momentum.

It's got enough going on to sustain five blockbuster thrillers. That is its blessing and its curse.

The movie fails to add up to the sum of its laborious parts. There's no emotional investment in any of the characters, and you can see the writer-director's windup con coming a mile away.

At nearly two hours, Big Man Japan is clever (in a sick sort of way) but overlong. It needs judicious editing -- more mockumentary, fewer superhero antics.

Marlene Rhein has directed 40 music videos, including ones for Tupac Shakur and Amy Winehouse. Judging by this, her feature debut, she should stick with the music.

The final twist is completely unexpected.

The film is a failure if it can't convince us that these two people belong together. It can't, and barely tries.

Even for a French drama, Summer Hours is so slow as to be practically still.

Adoration, which hinges on a number of coincidences, contains some really fine performances.

Picture "Fargo" played with no sense of comedy, and you'll get some idea of the absurdity of this drunken floozy, clicking and wobbling on high heels, often with bits of her anatomy hanging out, trying to pull off the perfect crime.

An exceedingly silly historical fantasy.

Routine stuff, but things move quickly, with several offhand funny moments. Mos Def is hilarious in a cameo as another delivery guy.

What is Dick's excuse for outing one cable news anchor but not a rival counterpart who is far better known? The anchor isn't antigay, but Dick likes the other network's politics better. Hypocrisy? Your call.

An occasionally amusing but strained fable about the dangers and delights of sibling rivalry that asks us to believe (for instance) that soccer scouts roam Mexico looking for 30-year-old recruits.

Vigorously played as a young man by Chris Pine, Kirk is a brilliant, sports-car driving, bar-brawling rebel who is finally shamed into joining Starfleet Academy.

Last week I thought watching women take their clothes off was sexy. This week I saw A Wink and a Smile.

Aggressively ugly and intergalactically boring, the dismal sci-fi kiddie cartoon Battle for Terra is too weak to be shown anywhere except maybe on the next flight to Saturn.

The season's first genuine guilty pleasure.

This is one of those movies that's too cool to have a plot.

The potential for suspense is dropped (there's a subplot about the receptionist's flight from her violent husband, but he appears in only a couple of scenes) in favor of lots of hushed interludes in which nothing happens.

The coincidences might be too much for some, but viewers who can get past them will be treated to a suspenseful, well-acted, crisply photographed character study.

This is powerful filmmaking for discerning viewers.

There's no shortage of "wow" moments, but the strong liberal political subtext of the trilogy has largely disappeared.

Fighting arrives fully charged by the charisma of its star, Channing Tatum, who has landed the lead in the upcoming "G.I. Joe."

The script doesn't offer anything especially new, but Burman infuses the film with innovative lensing and capable acting.

The highly stylized, often outrageously funny biopic is anchored by a devastating performance by Toni Servillo as Andreotti, brilliantly capturing the gnomic politician's trademark slouch and inexpressive face.

Tedious and tawdry.

Like the prototypical "Shine," this is a film that romanticizes mental illness.

Fleck fails to provide any personal charisma, although the music is infectious.

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

Earth, you had me at baby polar bears.

With Treeless Mountain, Kim establishes herself as a first-class filmmaker.

State of Play is bordered by the states of absurdity and cliché.

This laugh-starved twist on "Big" and the many lesser body-swapping comedies of the era is basically a lecture on sexual abstinence.

Plodding drama.

Every Little Step shows only this: It hurts to flunk an audition, and it's nice to get hired. Everything it has to say about Broadway was said better in Bob Fosse's movie "All That Jazz" -- in its opening five minutes.

All-too-familiar and schmaltzy territory for both coming-of-age films and movies with elderly actors.

You know a performance has to be special when a Palestinian wins Israel's version of the Best Actress Oscar. But why should politics detract from a stunning performance?

Far more worth seeing than most of what's out there.

Not exactly as well known as Megadeth or Metallica, Anvil did indeed have 15 minutes of fame back in the 1980s. Then it went into obscurity. Now it's back, trying like hell to be somebody.

The thing is a virtual remake of the fusty oldie "Sweet Home Alabama," which came out back when movie scripts were written on stone tablets.

You know a movie's got problems when the most memo rable thing about it is Sienna Miller's mustache.