Good enough to almost overlook a so-so ending.

A genuinely clever plot.

Features all too much footage of the scowling Burns, who has a narrower range than almost any actor working in Hollywood these days.

Unfortunately, you really only hear about prostitution from the side of the pimp.

Credit the disarming cast, especially Oshri Cohen as the boy and Arie Ellias as his eccentric grandfather. They help turn what could be a standard comedy into a life-affirming, enjoyable one.

Isn't a total loss, but neither does it have the charm of "The Full Monty" or other feel-good indie Brit flicks it emulates.

The Drama, for all its heat, is not perfect. I wasn’t won over by its climactic series of calamities that fall in rapid succession like dominoes at the end. However, most movies are completely forgotten by the time the credits roll. This one, like it or not, lingers for days. It’ll likely wind up one of the most controversial movies of the year.

It's mindless entertainment, so take it or leave it.

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

An interesting but flawed look at the birth of the French New Wave.

If you're looking for great action scenes, you've found them. But if you desire more than eye candy, such as character and plot development and historical accuracy, you'll have to look elsewhere.

By the movie’s end, the party guests may be ready to dance the hora — or they may find themselves sitting this one out. “Hava” will have its revenge, however: It’s still stuck in my head.

Savage yet spellbinding.

A disturbing and daring thriller with an exceptional performance by 13-year-old Laurien Van den Broeck.

Limitless may please a few looking for a shallow fantasy thriller, but won't fire up the synapses of the intellectually demanding.

It’s Margaux, the tragic supermodel and failed actress who took her own life at 42, who emerges as the film’s fount of heartbreak in several stunning scenes.

None of this is ever quite as great as it is in Spielberg’s work, but it’s reasonably close; the worst you can say about the movie is that it sticks to a highly potent formula.

Barrow's frozen vistas are a perfect match for the noir tone of On the Ice. Unfortunately, the emotional landscape of MacLean's stoic main character, Qalli, is often as blank as the tundra.

Though overlong, there are many stunning special effects, including a car chase up the side of a building, as well as the sort of wild animated subtitles that turned up in "Night Watch."

Picture Monty Python writing an unusually odd "Twilight Zone" episode directed by surrealist Luis Buñuel. Or just empty your mind of all sense: This is Rubber.

Mostly We Are Wizards is a loving, if flawed, tribute to creativity and artistic freedom.

Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel have great chemistry together as the lovers, and the scenes of their lovemaking and frequent battles bring the movie to life. Outside of those moments, however, the film is too stagey, talky - and long - for its own good.

Despite an empowered female protagonist, manages in its own way to be as misogynous as "In the Company of Men."

Who needs mind-bending drugs when they can see this.

One of those films that takes up a potentially fascinating subject only to fumble it.

A calculating crowd-pleaser that sometimes feels like a movie equivalent of the corporate chains it's decrying.

Hollywood's umpteenth tale of robots run amok is surprisingly smart, cool-looking, nicely paced and well-acted.

The movie is at its best when Gekko gets back into the game, with his impish smile and his perfect hair.

Working in Terribly Serious mode, rookie director Chris Terrio proves as pompous as filmmakers three times his age.

Playing for only one week. Parents of tweens, you've been warned.

A pointless drama that trafficks in cliché.

A likably gushy celebration of female friendship, sometimes feels like a throwback to the Drew Barrymore of the mid-’90s: At times you wonder if she and co-star Toni Collette might actually break out into a lip-sync-with-hairbrushes routine.

Like one of those five-minute featurettes on star athletes deployed to soak up time on the pregame show -- expanded to a paralytic length.

Despite being a She-Hulk who’s seemingly impervious to physical pain, Jolie turns in her best performance in a while — arguably in over a decade. She’s relaxed, determined and maternal here, and connects well with Little, who is a big talent.

Too much screen time is devoted to producers Lloyd and Susan Ecker, fans who serve as on-screen narrators and serve up tidbits from Tucker’s 400 scrapbooks, some of which, frankly, seem highly improbable.

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

The movie putters along as softly as Wendy drives. Despite its lack of narrative horsepower, though, its character sketches are pleasing. And amusing.

Too bad “Ballerina” drops the ball. Despite being led by an actress who once took on the role of Marilyn Monroe, it’s a much less attractive movie — downright ugly sometimes.

The shtick movie Paranormal Activity 3 is the horror equivalent of vaudeville comedy: a little patter, a little pie in the face, repeat.

As nutty as you'd expect when two of our most eccentric auteurs join forces.

On the plus side, Definitely, Maybe has an appealing cast, some amusing scenes and at least tries to do something different.

Joker starts grim and gets grimmer, as Arthur embraces his inner demons and finds they resonate with the huddled masses of Gotham.

Should entertain less jaded youngsters.

Francois Ozon, perhaps France's hottest director of the moment, is often better creating stylish visuals than dramatically credible situations, but Criminal Lovers is never boring.

There's extreme brutality, gore and violence, scads of severed body parts and oceans of squirting blood, as the brave -- and buffed -- people of Bang Rajan fight to the death.

Despite real actors, CGI and brand-new material, “Mermaid” is the studio’s latest flesh-and-blood cash grab that’s more lifeless than far better two-dimensional painted drawings.

It's basically left to the viewer to figure out the historical significance of this drug-fueled odyssey.

Viewers are left wondering just why they should care about them and the rest of the film's one-dimensional characters.

The story quietly builds to a rueful and fraught climax in which Campbell Scott does his usual exceptional work

What If is a case of the cutes the way the Black Death was a case of infectious disease. The movie is saturated with cute, teeming with cute, rancid with cute. I’d endured all a man could fairly be expected to take when I glanced at my watch and realized there were still 95 minutes to go.

Thebest sports movies aren't really about sports. Dreamer has a few thundering horse races, but its finest moments are beautifully still ones, like the one in which a little girl peeks through a fence to give a lame filly a Popsicle.

Names of the other artists - such as Barry McGee, Ed Templeton, Margaret Kilgallen and Jo Jackson - won't necessarily ring a bell, but they all have interesting stories to tell in this pleasant film, which sings the praises of nonconformity.

Grant hasn't had any real chemistry with a female co-star since Julia Roberts in "Notting Hill," but Barrymore works so hard at it and is so charming that you might be fooled.

More funny than scary.

Delivers an important message, and its underwater photography is breathtaking. But Stewart lessens the impact by focusing much too much on himself. Did he really have to go into detail about his own health problems? This should be a movie about sharks, not Stewart.

Doesn't have a particularly well-defined point of view, but it is a succinct, entertaining and valuable record of a time that in some ways now seems as remote as the Roaring '20s.

I don't think he (Apatow) did enough research on his topic. Because no one could be as whiny, spoiled, tasteless, combative and reliant on annoying stand-up comedy riffs as the entire cast of this film, the most disappointing one of the year.

This film is so sexy and cool and punk rock, you forget all about that Mickey logo and Cinderella’s cutesy castle.

I enjoy a cozy homage to Dickens - it beats another ripoff of "The Matrix" - but though the movie has a gentle spirit, neither the actors, whose performances are broad caricatures, nor Thompson bring any wit to it.

The pace slackens a little after the first hour, but the photography by Remi Adefarasin and music by Magnus Fiennes keep the emotion stoked.

No one will mistake But Forever in My Mind ("Come te Nessuno Mai") for something by Fellini or Visconti. But it is, in its own way, skillful and most entertaining.

An ultra-predictable if essentially painless romantic comedy.

A lot of this is typical rom-com fare. The genre is not boundary-pushing and that’s perfectly fine — ideal even. But Ryan doesn’t have the sparkle and fizz as a director to make this lacking material sing.

This generic exercise in computer-generated animation may provide passable entertainment for very young children, but adults will be less than enchanted by its preachiness, talkiness and Communist Party-line political views.

For anyone with an interest in racing, "First Saturday" is a sure bet.

Says Rampling: "If you're going to do a story like this, it's not going to be all flowers and roses and smell nice."

These are characters with whom it's a pleasure to spend a couple of hours.

On the whole, the film would probably be more at home on cable and at a reduced running time. I’d like to see a competition series of the same name, in which rival engineers compete to see who can endure having the hard-driving Cameron for a boss.

Colman and Cumberbatch’s appealing energy is always a pleasure — and clearly the draw here — but I didn’t enjoy spending my night with the sourpusses it’s wasted on.

While recollections of the participants in the rescue are often riveting, the subject of Jonathan Gruber and Ari Daniel Pinchot's film remains elusively out of grasp.

Night Watch may be derivative of American movies, but when our ideas ooze out of the dank Russian filter they're weirder, crazier, grimier.

Sexist, racist humor abounds, with Jews and gays especially taking a beating. I don't always object to non-PC humor -- but I like it to be funny, and here it isn't.

Beware of blood-sucking Mormons! At least that's the tongue-in-cheek message in Trapped by the Mormons, a campy sendup shot as a 1920s silent movie.

Directed and co-written by Thierry Binisti, a TV veteran, the film boasts solid acting (especially from red-haired Bonitzer) and handsome cinematography.

There isn't enough revealing material in the tedious documentary Jimmy Carter Man From Plains to sustain an 800-word magazine profile, let alone a two-hour film.

Ryan Reynolds is chillingly perfect as a nice-guy factory worker struggling with schizophrenia and murderous impulses in this tonally wild indie, which is nearly too horrifying to be funny — but not quite.

As a French Resistance thriller, Free Men is so-so, but it is driven by a mischievously interesting idea: that Muslims and Jews have more in common than they normally allow.

A triumph of misguided moviemaking, starting with a grotesquely miscast Mira Sorvino, who arguably gives the worst performance ever by an Oscar winner.

A stinker.

It's hard to imagine hardened New Yorkers actually paying to see this totally uncritical, gee-whiz celebration of stock car racing, its fans and its history, breathlessly narrated by Kiefer Sutherland and perfunctorily directed by Simon Wincer.

Who’s the audience for this movie? It’s not smart, scary or funny enough for adults and older teens, and it’s inappropriate for young kids.

The gorgeous heartache of songs by the group Belle and Sebastian gives God Help the Girl its dreamy appeal, but thanks to a poky story line it essentially amounts to a series of music videos.

A supernatural “What’s Happening to My Body?” parable in company with “Carrie,” “Ginger Snaps” and last year’s “Thelma,” Wildling is low-key with an undertone of menace, skillfully directed by Fritz Böhm in his feature debut (though some of his nighttime scenes are so dark it’s genuinely hard to tell what’s going on).

Better than any automobile flick put out by Hollywood in a while and, thanks to some genuinely exciting moments, it is easily the most entertaining so far of this summer's big, brainless action movies.

For a sex movie, Norwegian Wood is about as dry as a pocketful of sand. Even for a film set in a land that considers paper folding an exciting activity, this is dull stuff.

Typically, To the Wonder seems mostly locked in the thoughts of its characters, whispered so only we can hear, with no more actual back-and-forth dialogue than would cover the back of your ticket stub.

Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor are good, but the real surprise is Ross. She's so magnetic that you can't believe this melodrama didn't lead to a real movie career. [06 Nov 2005, p.76]

What they say is superficial. They never really explain why they risk their lives. In the end, Steep plays like a TV infomercial - and who wants to hand over $11 to watch one?

Danes and Parsons are a weird pairing, who carry their TV personas with them like tote bags. Their “Homeland” and “Big Bang Theory” shticks don’t quite click. Even so, when Danes’ mother comes to realize that her sweet kid is more than just a talking point, she’ll have you wiping away tears.

To enjoy this film, it helps to check your brain at the box office.

This maudlin, fact-inspired and anti-feminist dramedy is no "Far From Heaven" or "The Hours."

It's a clever concept that should play well on TV and the Internet. But as a big-screen movie, Life in a Day -- which lists brothers Tony and Ridley Scott as producers -- elicits a shrug and a question: Who cares?

Even for a movie about complying with USDA regulations, Dolphin Tale 2 is a little lacking in excitement.

There is still enough venom spilled in August: Osage County to make this drama relatable to anyone who’s suffered through a wildly dysfunctional family dinner — and who hasn’t, especially at this time of year?

A very fine follow-up to the most successful horror film ever.

A real crock.

A pretentious left-wing monster movie with about 15 minutes of alarming creatures and a whole lot of bickering, is a pre-9/11 story which Stephen King wrote eons ago. It operates in the post-9/11 era about as well as a Studebaker at the Daytona 500.

This morbid, cruel movie seems leached of all things that might inadvertently give viewers pleasure.