Often so silly, it's surreal.

If ever a movie could be charged with imperiling the morals of a minor, it's probably Sleepover, a sleazy, PG-rated sex comedy that's apparently aimed at 8- to 10-year-old girls.

A miracle of indie filmmaking. Shot for practically nothing by first-time director David Barker, it delivers more bang for its minimal bucks than many a Hollywood blockbuster does for its multimillions.

The Inheritance has a promising start but soon becomes preachy and melodramatic.

Metallica brought back the rights and funded the project, and it's their honesty and willingness to front the cameras, warts and all, that makes this well-edited, often very funny, documentary so compelling.

Magnificent if overlong and oddly structured surfing documentary.

Twinkles and glows, but all the surface razzle-dazzle fails to mask the emptiness at its core.

Chance encounters and fated love are the stuff of fairy tales, which is what makes the deliriously romantic sequel Before Sunset a small miracle.

An extremely well- acted thriller that simply fails to thrill.

If Schwarzberg had chosen to concentrate on eccentrics, rural artists or people like his New York bike messenger, female aerobatic champion and California cliff dancer, "Heart and Soul" would have been a much more interesting film.

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.

Sequels don't get much better - or smarter - than the action-, drama-, romance- and comedy-packed Spider-Man 2, which miraculously improves on the webslinger's hugely popular first screen adventure in every imaginable department.

The Notebook is well worth the risk of diabetic shock for the sake of superb acting that transcends its teary milieu.

Visually stunning.

Haneke's images are so bold and riveting and the characters' emotions are so raw that the lack of a few details doesn't matter.

They resort too often to infantile flatulence jokes and fairly obvious gags about errant G-strings, with the anorexic plot culminating in the brothers having - yawn - learned to respect women's feelings.

A bizarre and campily amusing "tribute" to the late dance legend starring drag queen Richard Move.

Basically a two-hour argument for regime change that isn't half as incendiary or persuasive as its maker would have you believe.

Ben Stiller's overbearing schtick officially reaches its expiration date with the desperate and puerile Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

It's an original, and a gamble, and one of those movies that works better than it should, despite considerable flaws of conception and execution.

A superficial documentary based on a best-selling book by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons -- which is being released just before the ex-president's memoir hits the bookstores.

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 film is too low-key to be the farcical rock-and-roll jape it sometimes seems to strive for, yet too lighthearted to be affecting.

An atmospheric but sluggish and needlessly confusing British contemporary film noir that may indeed leave some audience members struggling to stay awake.

Quietly persuasive and very timely documentary.

What's Vincent to do? Will he come out of the closet? Will he lead the swim team to victory at the big match? Will he find happiness with Noemie? Does anybody care?

The movie is no more than a TV sitcom stretched to feature length. All that's missing is the laugh track.

Wastes some veteran performers in a slight, silly musical fantasy with two left feet.

Nearly two hours of New Age hooey.

Gets off to a worthy start, but falls apart about halfway through.

Might as well be called "Around the World in 80 Yawns."

Riddick-ulous.

Boasts a stellar ensemble cast and some priceless one-liners -- but those pearls of acerbic wit have been strung together on a cheap piece of thread which almost inevitably breaks in the third act.

Garfield is a downright cat-astrophe.

Refreshing for its simplicity and its originality in a marketplace dominated by soulless blockbusters.

A delightful "That's Entertainment" for the theater.

Cool graphics and music, combined with jittery camera work, keep the film's energy level high. Who knew Scrabble could be so exciting?

Throughout, Mrs. Marcos comes across as an elitist, insulated against real life by wealth and power -- yet one who truly believes she is misunderstood and has done nothing wrong.

This movie belongs to its young stars, who have grown immensely as actors since they were first ideally cast by Chris Columbus, the hack who directed the first two movies.

Essentially a more awkward Afghan version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

Enjoyable if only to hear KarKar perform his mournful and personal songs, including a tender tribute to his late wife.

A rare film offering from Mongolia, is an unusual, captivating and crowd-pleasing semi-documentary about an extended family of camel herders -- and two of their flock.

Delivers its provocative message in the measured tones of a college professor -- yet there's no danger of falling asleep in this lecture.

So potent, it could change the mind of even the most staunch defender of capital punishment.

It's depressing as hell. While most of the seven say they want to beat the habit and become productive citizens, only one, Ron, follows through successfully.

Disaster movies, from "The Poseidon Adventure" to "Towering Inferno," are impossible to take seriously and "Day" is no exception - it's simply a fast-moving pageant of end-of-the-world eye candy.

This one-joke comedy vehicle is flying through a laugh-free zone.

The most exhilarating film about indie moviemaking on a shoestring since "Ed Wood," even if its subject -- the director's dad, ultra-macho filmmaking pioneer Melvin Van Peebles -- couldn't be more different than the notoriously inept Wood.

The dirty old man who became a cult poet and author was a true original, and every minute he's on screen, whether it's reading from his brutally honest work or musing on a hard-lived life for the cameras, it's hard to look away.

A promising film that is dragged down by the weight of its gray morbidity.

Yet another teen comedy that tries to have it both ways -- basically, "Mean Girls" with crucifixes instead of designer jewelry.

Watching Wake is akin to listening to anonymous neighbors argue about matters you know nothing about -- nor care about. You only wish they'd shut up.

Doesn't press all its obvious lessons, and there are actually a few surprises -- and even a couple of moving and interesting moments -- before an all too predictable resolution.

Self-indulgent folly.

Slick but painfully precious, it strains to be darkly romantic but is bereft of genuine feeling.

Engrossing.

PAGING Pedro Almodovar! We have a movie badly in need of your help.

Anselmo handles sensitive issues not with kid gloves, but with a metaphorical baseball mitt, fumbling with tone and obviously laboring to force quirks upon characters and situations.

More tedious than affecting.

So gorgeously animated and so thoroughly entertaining for all ages that only an ogre would complain it's not quite as fresh as the original.

Man's inhumanity to man is gruesomely detailed in S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.

Not entirely bereft of chuckles, though it misses one comic opportunity after another (the best jokes are in the trailer).

What really wrecks Wolfgang Petersen's Troy is some of the worst casting in recent Hollywood history: The lackluster ensemble hired by the director is overwhelmed by the generally impressive sets and crowd scenes, by the task of playing epic heroes and by David Benioff's rambling, tone-deaf screenplay "inspired by Homer's 'Iliad.'"

Boasts one of the most ludicrous plots ever committed to digital video.

Carandiru, which ends with actual footage of the prison being demolished in 2002, marks a terrific comeback for Babenco - it's the roughest picture of life behind bars since "Midnight Express."

Indie hipster Jarmusch's distinctive brand of effortless cool and quirky humor percolate through each of 11 vignettes, all shot fairly statically in crisp, aesthetically pleasing black and white.

Approach is too heavy-handed to have much effect. Rod Serling probably could have turned the premise into an enjoyable episode of "The Twilight Zone."

Kalem's grasp of dramatic storytelling is no firmer, and the disorderly film merely chases its tail for the second half, going nowhere fast.

Can be summed up in one word: style.

The result is, alas, competent but unexceptional.

Something high schoolers might yawn through in history class, but they have no choice. You do.

Sweet, often poignant little film.

In trying to straddle both the grown-up and kiddie worlds with this inappropriately sexualized effort - their first theatrical release since 1995's "It Takes Two" - the Olsens have lost their footing.

There is fun to be had at Van Helsing, but it requires considerable suspension of disbelief at the apparently deliberately ridiculous plot necessary to bring the three monsters together.

Offers an idyllic, comforting surface of tree-shaded lanes and sunshine-dappled fields - but a disturbing tale throbs beneath.

You'll have to look long and hard to find a performance as emotionally raw as that of Moon So-ri in the startling South Korean love story Oasis.

What is astonishing is that husband-and-wife writers Wally Wolodarsky (who also directed) and Maya Forbes, with combined credits that include "The Simpsons" and "The Larry Sanders Show," could churn out something this nasty and ludicrous.

More popular today than during his lifetime (his music even made it into a Volkswagen commercial), Drake once complained, "Everybody tells me I'm great, but I'm broke. Why?"

An amusing McGimmick.

There are a few chuckles here and there, and there are odd wisps of cleverness in the script by Steve Adams, but for the most part, Envy is a film that doesn't know where it's going.

There's no excuse for a thriller as lame, leaden and unthrilling as Godsend, which manages to take a potentially interesting subject - human cloning - and use it to put audiences to sleep.

What the filmmakers do to the splendid Moore is simply criminal.

Basically a watered-down collage of scenes from "Heathers," "Clueless," "Sixteen Candles" and numerous other teen flicks.

A sluggish meander through the life of the man considered by many to be a deity of golfing.

The best actress currently on New York screens is Esther Gorintin, a 90-year-old Pole who provides the emotional center for Julie Bertucelli's delicate, bittersweet comedy-drama, Since Otar Left, which is set in Paris and Tbilisi.

The gay sex scenes that punctuate Eloy de la Iglesia's limp Spanish comedy, Bulgarian Lovers, are frequent and graphic, and it often seems as if the lackluster story exists solely to showcase them.

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

Cadigan is honest enough to leave in a disturbing scene in which he talks about the "violent imagery" in his head and fantasizes about using a kitchen knife on his mother, before breaking down in tears. It's raw stuff.

Meant to evoke filmmaking of a bygone era, but this time the director is more restrained visually, while making use of a more conventionally structured script than usual. And he has a real, honest-to-goodness star in Rossellini.

The filmmakers have an pleasurably accurate sense of the embarrassments that darken early adolescence and of the amazing cruelty of teenage girls.

Where Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" radiates freshness and vigor, Man on Fire feels vaguely like something left over from the 1980s, when action heroes were one-note tough guys methodically picking off baddies.

If you can overlook its TV-episode look, occasional lapses in logic and detours into lurid overkill, this old-school psychological thriller, which marries a tracking-the-serial-killer narrative with occult themes, is a creepy diversion.

Should please die-hard fans as well as viewers who have never heard the band and its anthem, "Kick Out the Jams."

A postcard-pretty psychological drama that's too moody and enigmatic for its own good.

Manages to create a creepy atmosphere, even if the plot itself is somewhat unfocused and the scares scarce.

The stylish flick harkens back to the work of old masters like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu.

The Agronomist uses archival footage and music to tell a moving story that's all too common in the Third World.

Beautifully shot and well-meant -- but fairly snoozy.