Director Payne, who adapted Tom Perrotta's novel with Jim Taylor, has an authentically dire view of human behavior, which he expresses in crisp, edgy and sometimes startlingly raunchy style.

You're not sure where it's headed, but with an ensemble this good the aimlessness seems invigorating. It's when the plot kicks in that Newell's movie gets less interesting. It's frustrating to see such a promising premise, and such a delightful cast, wasted.

We don't really need some young punk to tell us that anarchy is an untenable idea, but watching him live it is an invigorating experience.

John August's trickily structured script owes an all too obvious debt to "Pulp Fiction," but Liman's film is more like kiddie Tarantino.

The script is an odd take on the Cinderella formula, but Barrymore makes it shine with her relentless charm.

Too bad the film ultimately fails to explore [provocative questions], falling instead to cliches.

Pure formula. But thanks to charming performances, particularly from its two stars, the winsome Stiles and a hunky Heath, it gets the recipe right, and the result is surprisingly sweet.

With an arsenal of cool f/x at their disposal, the Wachowskis have come up with a dizzyingly enjoyable junk movie that has just enough on its mind to keep the pleasure from being a guilty one.

A Walk on the Moon not only effectively captures the emotional development of all its characters, but it also neatly encapsulates the tumult of the 60s.

Ron Howard's version is--no surprise--a funny, audience-friendly entertainment that's ultimately less scathing satire than conventional Hollywood romantic comedy outfitted in trendy new clothes.

Bad, but not criminally so.

Refreshingly, the movie doesn't treat you like a moron who needs to be told which woman to root for. If Ben has to choose, why shouldn't you?

Matthew Lillard of "Scream," flies like his nickname and tries to bring the film some comic relief not already provided by the stultifying stupidity of the script.

It's just a standard, mediocre horror flick that wants to be taken seriously. The creators missed the point entirely: even teenagers know that there's no audience for this type of film anymore.

There are some moments that fall flat—the cinematic world might be a better place without Crystal's deeply unfunny parody of a gangster—and the delightful Lisa Kudrow is woefully under-used.

You won't be able to resist the film's ribaldry and cynicism.

Provides some great laughs, but founders when it tries to tackle more serious issues. Entitled "10 Dates," it might have been a much better film.

Spacek is brilliantly funny, slowly transforming Helen from a nervous 60s housewife into a liquored-up one. I could have watched her in the vibrating fat-burner, eyes closed, lazily gripping a martini glass, for hours.

The film has its dumb points: too many shots of churning surf and lovers nestled in beach blankets, not to mention the premise that women find incommunicative, hulking shells like Blake the height of irresistibility. But it gets you.

Payback may not always be P.C., but it's not interested in making friends, anyway. Just killing enemies.

A flat, cliched film in a flat, cliched genre.

Juxtaposes beauty and horror to fashion a savage and lyrical cinematic poem.

Schrader has never been one to coddle an audience, and this is as uncompromising a vision as he has given us.

Told from both women's points of view, this fascinating, if sometimes overwrought, tale packs a wallop.

Zaillian's meaty movie, at once bleak and hopeful, speaks volumes about the maddening distance between justice and the justice system.

Ultimately achieves that lump in the throat that is the romantic comedy's promised land.

There's something decidedly mechanical about this intermittently gripping movie's bleak view of human nature.

The beauty of this extremely clever movie, directed with fleet, robust theatricality by John Madden, is how deftly it manages to work on multiple levels.