Carell's frantic mugging as a modern-day Noah barely keeps Evan Almighty afloat.

Remarkably apolitical, considering that it comes from the director of the Bush-bashing "The Road to Guantanamo."

This is a one-joke skit that trots in a straight line, and your enjoyment of it will depend entirely on how many times you need to see gonzo sheep rip out human entrails.

Posey is a delight throughout, and Zoe Cassavetes is clearly a filmmaker to watch.

Intelligent and tasteful, even while being sexually frank.

Just as the story is minimalist, so too is the documentary-like film's look: long static takes and tons of close-ups. An epilogue allows viewers to come to terms with the film's tragic ending.

It's the best role in years for Leoni, but You Kill Me really belongs to Kingsley, whose character's deadpan reactions to his new environment are priceless. He really kills.

Burtynsky doesn't preach. He's content to let viewers make up their own minds from his eye-opening and eye-pleasing images.

The silliest sci-fi movie since "An Inconvenient Truth."

A well-written and in many ways pleasing update of a character who has endured in print for 78 years. Too bad it's sadly slow-paced.

Never before have I been so emotionally involved with an apple core, or seen salvation in a flip-flop. Taika Waititi, you had me at nunchuks.

Amusing without being particularly biting.

Johnny Depp puts in a cameo declaring that "most Americans believe the clichés about Gypsies." Unfortunately, the well-intentioned film never gets beyond clichés itself.

The script plays fast and loose with the facts and adds soap-operaish touches, but Thalbach is a feisty delight.

The film did well at the local box office and has been shown at some 40 international festivals. Eat your heart out, Michael Moore.

Say hello to my leetle dagger! Shakespeare meets "Scarface" in an Aussie adaptation of "Macbeth" gone gangsta.

If you're new to Kaurismaki, the film will make you a fan. If you've seen everything else he's ever done, the comedy will confirm your commitment.

It's skillfully rendered fun, but don't expect to remember much the next day.

A suspenseless rehash.

Doesn't do enough with a righteous premise.

Thanks to the extraordinary performance of Cotillard, who expertly lip- syncs to Piaf recordings and disappears into the part, few will regret seeing La Vie En Rose, named after a famous Piaf tune. Just brace yourself for a film of unvarying intensity that seems longer than its 140-minute running time.

Porumboiu, who also produced and wrote, elicits remarkably deadpan performances from Teo Corban (as the show's host), Ion Sapdaru (the professor) and - especially - Mircea Andreescu, as the old man. Even the subtitles cracked me up.

Considering that Gracie says nothing that hasn't been said in dozens of films, one does wonder whether Hollywood is being as diligent as it could be in digging up fresh story ideas.

Ridiculous comedies can be fine, but the ones that matter creep up close to the truth. This one lives in it.

Coincidences and plot contrivances pile up. What starts out as a delightful black comedy and social commentary ends up, at best, as a guilty pleasure where I had a hard time sorting out the intentional from the unintentional laughs.

The story is still so compelling - and the principals still so eager for attention - that the filmmaker's pedestrian treatment can't take away from the impact.

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."

Watching I'm Reed Fish is like being forced to read the diary of a dull-witted teen who is breathlessly beginning a lifelong fascination with himself.

You have to wonder just how true to life the melodramatic depiction of these events is, especially since the film was made in partnership with TV's "Masterpiece Theater."

Jokes about flatulence, human excrement and the size of someone's manhood also come into play, but they never cheapen this lush and enjoyable film.

As a one-time suburbanite now living happily in Manhattan, I can attest that Radiant City tells it like it is. The film ends with a surprise that you won't see coming and I won't spoil.

Buzzes around in random menace for an hour until its third act, when - zzzzzt! - it flies straight into the zapper.

It's not a total shipwreck, but abandon hope all ye seeking a coherent, much less satisfying, narrative. Expect instead a reported $300 million worth of eye candy, delivered with enormous technical skill.

Fails to grab the imagination as it unfolds in familiar TV-movie fashion.

A black-and-white fantasia shot against a bright backdrop of famous sites, and it has potential to be a cult hit on its dreamy-hipster look alone.

The acting is superb, especially the always alluring Charlotte Gainsbourg as a mysterious Englishwoman taking the ship to America. Agnes Godard's lensing is painterly, and Crialese's direction is seamless.

I can't claim to have followed the story line of Paprika any better than I did "Pirates of the Caribbean," but this mind-blowing, adult animated adventure from Japan is half the length and maybe five times as much fun.

Excellent performances by a good cast and a fairly authentic look at working-class struggles go only so far.

Funny is not a word often used to describe von Trier's output, but "Boss" definitely is that, thanks to a breezy script and a bright cast.

There are a few scares, but not enough to make up for the murky script.

The big new addition in Shrek the Third is Justin Timberlake as the high school-age future King Arthur, but if Timberlake contributed a song to the soundtrack it would have to be "WhinyBack."

Fay Grim is like watching stoners playing Risk and Clue at the same time.

The kind of movie that cries out for the fast-forward button.

Slight but consistently entertaining.

Kim Basinger gives one of her strongest performances in Even Money, a kind of "Crash" fueled by gambling instead of racism.

Unspeakable brutality ensues, including a rape, a castration and cold-blooded murder. Dumont never mentions Iraq, but the parallels are clear.

Huppert is, as usual, superb, proving yet again that she is the finest actress working in France today.

A must for Jaglom fans. For other viewers, it will depend upon how much they can take of Jaglom's improvisational style and Frederick's over-the-top, tear-filled acting.

Despite solid contributions by vets such as Michael Lerner and Daniel Stern, Caleo isn't able to sell The Last Time - not the affair and especially not the ludicrous twist ending.

As the wife, pixie-ish Kanako Higuchi provides the perfect accompaniment to Watanabe.

What "Rent" should have been, Once is: a Bohemian rhapsody.

The latest catastrophe from the Weinstein Co.

t's an exciting, well-directed thriller that, while providing more than enough action and gore to satisfy genre fans, also offers the political commentary that has characterized zombie movies going back at least as far as "Night of the Living Dead."

Larry the Cable Guy channels both Moe and Curly in the Three Stooges-go-to-war comedy Delta Farce.

WARNING: Do not take your mom to Georgia Rule unless she's Roseanne Barr. You may expect a three-generational chick flick, but what you get is a child-rape comedy.

IF you like rap, you'll probably enjoy The Hip Hop Project. I don't like rap.

A clueless Mundhra tackles the subject with a heavy hand and a contrived script. The result is a daytime soap mixed with a second-rate women-behind-bars flick.

A feeble dramedy about a Baltimore beauty shop where someone should come in to sweep up the clichés.

You'll have to look elsewhere than this love letter to the Great White Way to explain why "Wicked" and "Avenue Q" became huge hits, and why "Caroline, or Change" joined "Taboo" as a costly flop.

The indie film is funny and, at times, heartbreaking. Wisely, it avoids the happy ending that Hollywood would have insisted upon.

Why has She chosen to end her young life with a senseless act of mass murder? We never find out - which is a good thing. Too much information would only get in the way and lessen this compelling film's evocation of dread.

Not many people are making silent horror serials these days, but Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin pushes his love of lurid melodrama to the limit in his latest demented treat, Brand Upon the Brain!

This spring, boredom has a new name: Lucky You. In the poker flick, an announcer calling a climactic poker match uses a Texas hold 'em term frequently, saying, "And the flop. And the flop. And the flop." This movie reviews itself.

Julie Christie is simply astounding as a woman slipping into the ravages of Alzheimer's in Sarah Polley's deeply affecting and artfully crafted Away From Her.

Overly long and complicated, it's packed with crowd-pleasing moments and satisfactorily wraps up the trilogy - without quite capturing the magic of the first two installments.

Peter Krause, the fine actor from "Six Feet Under," gives a one-note performance that seriously undermines Civic Duty, a thriller mining minimal dramatic payoff from the potentially potent subject of post-9/11 paranoia.

Gordon and Abel (who delivers one of the longest yawns in screen history) are howls as husband and wife. Their long, lean buddies seem custom-made for slapstick humor. Keaton would approve.

A wan effort at "Annie Hall"-style comedy, has about as much Manhattan sophistication as a gas station in Chippewa Falls, Wis.

Too many cooks spoil the broth, and too many directors spoil the anthology film Paris Je T'aime.

Basically, this tale of a pregnant waitress looking for a way out of an unhappy marriage is a funny and touching riff on Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," not to mention its better-known sitcom spinoff, "Alice."

We also begin to suspect that Deraspe is putting us on - that this is a mockumentary, not a documentary. About the time that a bunch of grown men and women - stoned and drunk - start playing spin the bottle (spin the bottle!), we're certain that she's tricking us. Or is she? It's anybody's guess.

A depressing and tedious movie.

Sickeningly violent and inane movie.

A 12th-grade "Sixth Sense" with a third-rate plot.

A pathetically unfunny comedy that should have been shipped straight to video, if not recycled as guitar picks.

Next, which makes "National Treasure" look like a model of narrative logic, is almost beyond criticism.

Ken Marino of "Dawson's Creek," who wrote the somewhat autobiographical script, plays one of Rudd's pals.

Alan Rickman holds the film together.

A poignant moment occurs in Election when a young boy sees his father brutally beat another mobster to death.

Poison Friends deftly sketches the fine line - is there one? - between "critic" and "loser."

Wind Chill is very much Blunt's show - there are no other major characters save Holmes - and she even gets to climb a telephone pole in her Prada heels. Brava!

Solidly old-fashioned entertainment.

A bizarre quasi-documentary that more or less tries to rationalize bestiality as a harmless quirk.

Nobody familiar with To will be surprised by the way he presents stylish violence in innovative and humorous ways.

A real actioner, generous with the bullets and blood and chase scenes, that simultaneously mocks shoot-'em-ups.

The acting is solid, especially Whaley, whose nasty variation on Norman Bates is his showiest role since he memorably played Kevin Bacon's assistant in "Swimming With Sharks."

This is a slickly entertaining package, beautifully photographed on well-chosen locations with an unerring sense of pace by Gregory Hoblit.

In the Land of Women is one of those films informed by intimate personal experience - the experience of seeing "Garden State."

Sweet but not especially original.

As always in Veber's films, the predictability is part of the fun.

The movie amounts to an extended short story that progresses slowly and fades away with key questions unanswered. Ambiguity isn't necessarily interesting.

Strictly for art-house types, particularly those familiar with the director, who makes no concessions to mainstream audiences. You have to abandon any preconceived notions about movies and allow your mind to be seduced by the mystifying, occasionally humorous world of a one-of-a-kind filmmaker. You might even find yourself becoming a fan.

Dickie is intense in her screen debut, which requires her to be in nearly every scene. The supporting cast is strong, and Robbie Ryan's handheld camera provides gritty ambiance for this taut thriller.

It's ragged, and at times it scrapes your comedy ganglia like a cheese grater. But 15 minutes or half an hour is an ideal chunk of time to set aside for truly inspired absurdism.

The movie takes us on a journey to an ugly, contentious period in our misty, ancient past - all the way back to four months ago, when "Apocalypto" came out.

Have you ever seen a movie without a single believable moment? Perfect Stranger, a convoluted and altogether risible thriller with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, manages this difficult feat.

Some ideas are auto-stolen (from Coupland's last novel, "JPod"), but those quirky atmospherics aren't enough to sustain a largely plotless film.

Too much of the film is given over to the soap opera of Elmer's life.