Though it comes from a director whose résumé includes "Flashdance" and "9 ½ weeks," these smoke-filled interludes are less erotic than today's average car commercial.

A harmless celebration of idiocy that is the cinematic equivalent of an overeager, block-headed puppy chasing its tail.

Bursting with the usual colorful pop music numbers and lighter-than-a-soap-bubble quandaries, the film is a typical Bollywood entry, not likely to win over many new converts

Best advice: Wait for Two Men Went to War to go to the small screen.

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.

Portman is always consummately watchable, and she tries her best to telegraph the utter existential confusion engulfing Lucy at work and in love. But the film around her is simply not up to her level.

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.

Since the thing is increasingly impatient to jump forward to the next big torture set piece, there isn't any time to establish anyone's character. Butcher shops are bloody, too, but they're not scary.

The extra money has bought a professional crew for scripted sequences, in which Jonathan and his mother too often mug for the camera.

The demand for her services is so great that she suffers from "penis elbow," but her popularity also brings self-esteem and a possible boyfriend in her boss (Miki Manojlovic) in this lethargically directed comedy.

Novak’s forever-skill as an actor is likability, and that approachable magnetism is on display here. What doesn’t work in this otherwise naturalistic movie are the punchlines he’s written for himself. Too planned and stilted, not terribly funny. The huge size of all the actors’ humor never matches the intimate way the film has been shot.

The tales mostly drift along and wrap up unresolved. If this is an accurate slice of Paris life, I'll take the relative excitement of Topeka.

Half dark, deliciously topical political satire and half somber portrait of a flailing counterinsurgency effort. The two don’t mesh well, and given the number of modern war movies already out there, it should have stuck with the former.

Detour does a fine job of giving drivers yet another reason to stress out, but that anxiety doesn’t extend to its hero’s fate.

The only really believable character ends up being Bilson's chaste Laura, who snags herself a slot on the reality-show competition "America's Last Virgin."

If you've come to appreciate Hal Hartley's idiosyncratic style through films like "Flirt" and "The Unbelievable Truth," his take on the monster movie genre will intrigue you. But, ultimately, disappoint you.

Audiences will laugh, mainly to prove they're awake, but the humor is pretty thin.

The film - dimly lit and with an ominous soundtrack that verges on overkill - is largely a showcase for the heavy-lidded Renner.

Has some entertaining moments, thanks mainly to Bullock herself, who is surprisingly glamorous as well as endearing.

The next time Siddig plays a man of intrigue, let’s hope he’s chasing something more interesting than a clueless kid.

The hippie heroine of this wacky Aussie comedy cheerfully theorizes that Australia was actually originally settled not by convicts but by mental patients — which may possibly explain the antics of Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, among others.

This cliché-filled labor of love is staffed with some fine performers - Jennifer Holliday sings at a juke joint and Frances Sternhagen plays an older version of Emily's sister.

Lee may not want to let anyone in, but it’s hard to engage fully with a film that doesn’t seem to want to, either.

It’s refreshing to see a nonwhite lead, and the husky-voiced pop singer is likable as a brave-hearted kid searching for her mother. But man, is there a lot of Rihanna in this movie: She also provides what seems like the entirety of the film’s soundtrack, making it feel like a vanity project (is “vanimation” a thing?).

Gandolfini acquits himself well in a rare big-screen lead as the depressed operator of a rinky-dink amusement park in the waning days of winter.

Little more than a series of sketches, tied together by Joe's on-air interrogation by a nasty shock jock played by Dennis Miller.

Director Adam Green's genuine affection for the genre helps make Hatchet a cut above average.

Suffers even more than the Harry Potter films from a compulsion to be faithful to the source material, including cramming in a head-spinning assortment of characters and subplots.