This poorly done, digitally animated work, directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo, might be of interest to die-hard fans of anime. Others should pass it by.

Intelligent, moving and often beautifully photographed, Aberdeen boasts superb performances.

We began this dismal movie season with one lethally bad World War II romance -- "Pearl Harbor" -- and now we're wrapping up with another howling dog.

Repackage clichés and stereotypes with attractive young performers in a simple-minded script that panders to the teen audience.

A cheesy affair with no big winners. Especially the audience.

You can tell this is a smart take on Hamlet from the first wordless opening shots.

In general, it's a confusing, rather shapeless disappointment.

Indulges in some of the crudest Jewish stereotypes seen in a recent movie, right down to the crack about every Jewish girl having a nose job.

Very, very funny, albeit inferior in a number of ways to the original.

It's no funnier than your average grade-school biology lesson and less pedagogically useful than your typical Farrelly brothers comedy.

It's in the teenage section where the film goes seriously wrong and veers from an absorbing family story.

The film isn't remotely scary. That's a shame, because it has top-notch performances by Peter Mullan and David Caruso.

What Amenabar offers here is an unconvincing, pretentiously artsy pastiche of just about every hoary old gothic thriller you can think of.

An intelligent, extremely well-acted thriller about a mother's endless love for her son.

The faint of heart might want to leave early. If you elect to stay, remember: You were warned.

Even the lovemaking scenes between two of Hollywood's most attractive stars -- often shot from above, like Cinemax soft porn -- are so unerotic, they make your skin crawl.

The contrast between Chan's charm and physical prowess and Tucker's lack of same is even more dramatic in this tiresome, leaden sequel.

Occasionally funny but more often hackneyed, schmaltzy, predictable and overdone fairy tale that seems longer than 100 choruses of ''Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

You won't see any film this year as beautiful, and plain thrilling as Apocalypse Now Redux. Watching it after sitting through this summer's record number of dumb, dreadful movies is almost a painfully good experience. [3 Aug 2001, p.30]

The marvelous Burtonic gothic/nightmare production design -- scenery, weaponry, costumes, etc. constantly pleases the eye without ever distracting you from the plot.

Remarkably sluggish and not particularly suspenseful.

So s-l-o-w-l-y paced it seems twice as long as its two-hour running time.

An utterly beguiling tale.

The director has listed Jean-Luc Godard as an influence, which explains the movie's French New Wave exuberance.

Barely enough chuckles to keep from running out of gas. Yet it's the sharpest-looking movie shot so far on digital video, outdistancing even "The Anniversary Party."

Mostly it fails to score. Maybe that's why no one has attempted summer-camp comedy since the third "Meatballs" sequel a decade ago.

Entertaining and heartwarming -- especially when Mirren sweeps into scenes with acid observations that fail to disguise a heart of gold.

Accurately described as an Icelandic version of Pedro Almodovar's gender-bending black comedies -- but it's also reminiscent of early Woody Allen movies.