Engagingly odd and full of sad, funny moments.

Kudos to Clifton Collins Jr., who appears as a dispenser of cleaning products and common sense.

Visually, taking its cues (mostly) from Van Allsburg's Hopperesque art, The Polar Express is eye-popping. Storywise, however, it can be eyelid-drooping.

A smart comedy that serves as both bittersweet coming-of-age tale and '90s nostalgia piece, The Wackness has the feel of authenticity about it, even if some of its details (the ice cream cart, and the therapist's bong, for two) seem a bit much.

It's a noble enterprise, and a remarkable story, but it's not a movie that will set you free.

While the film pivots around Nazneen, perhaps at the expense of other characters, it doesn't sell her short. This is a rich, revealing and elegant portrait, and one well worth spending time with.

This delicious adventure of crude betrayal and elegant revenge is yummy even when reheated by director Kevin Reynolds.

Oleanna is Mamet's form of intellectual hazing, and we seated in the theater are, alas, his victims. [11 Nov 1994, p.05]

A triumph for Cheadle and Sandler, whose performances strew the seeds of regeneration.

In much the same way that the smash "Zootopia" demonstrated that creatures of different culture and class and species are better off when they come together, The Secret Life of Pets is a testament to teamwork and friendship and fixing the rifts that divide us. Let the fur - and the warm, fuzzy feelings - fly.

No manner of bizarre distraction can keep Anchorman's hapless hero from his mission: "I'm going to do what God put Ron Burgundy on this earth to do," he declares. "Have salon-quality hair and read the news!"

It is at its best when examining alternative sources of energy and how their development has consistently been thwarted by the energy industry.

As a director, Cassavetes is a keen observer of character and social interaction but not yet much of a visual stylist (which might also describe the improvisational dramas made by her actor/director father, John).

Stronger on character than on story, the film version of Janet Fitch's best-seller is shaped and propelled by the astonishing performance of Alison Lohman.

Overall, Matchstick Men, which is based on the novel by Eric Garcia, is more memorable for Lohman's naturalistic acting and Scott's mannerist direction than it is for its O. Henry surprise.

The To Do List is sex-obsessed, to be sure, but it's a chick flick, too. And in what it says about women (or girls) and men (or boys) and what they want, maybe it's a movie for us all.

Robert Altman's droll 1976 deconstruction of a western icon with Paul Newman in peak form. [12 May 2001, p.E01]

A promising filmmaking debut, Star Maps defines a landscape where everyone has a dream - and where a lot of people will do a lot of things to achieve that dream, however misguided and delusional it might be. [22 Aug 1997, p.10]

Doesn't have the exuberant inspiration or seamless, polished dazzle of "Toy Story 2," but if the latter is sold out at the multiplex this weekend, the mouse is a passable substitute.

Triumphs by taking an elliptical approach that still reaches directly into the very core of genius.

Achieves the rare feat of fusing tightly ratcheted suspense with intense romance.

Boy, can Harvey Keitel be bad -- and not bad like "Bad Lieutenant," bad like bad acting.

A dynamic portrait of an artist by an artist, one as wry, audacious and erotically charged as its flamboyant subject.

A worthy subject is poorly executed.

The tone of The Soloist is wildly uneven. Though unsparing and unsentimental when framing the principals, Wright is hyperbolic when depicting the agitation of the mentally ill and the soothing rapture of music.

A wistful little thing about regret, jealousy and love.

Take the flat tire that was "Madagascar." Retread it with "The Lion King" storyline. Pump it up with air. Now you have Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

The Weather Man belongs to a school of earnest, artsy Hollywood flicks that includes the Michael Douglas-goes-bonkers "Falling Down," and a lineage that goes back to revered 1970s pics like "Five Easy Pieces."

Watching Shepard work his pony down a snaking mountain pass, playing a mandolin and singing the blues, or seeing him sitting, stone-still, beneath a railroad water tank, waiting for something to happen - these are scenes to be cherished, from an actor who has found the soul of the character he's playing.

Don Cheadle, wiry and wired, delivers an electrifying performance in Traitor.

Think of it as"Airplane"! with controlled substances.

That's what Blue Crush is getting at: girls going for the gold in a sport that's traditionally been the domain of men.

Wang's young actors are impressively natural, and his documentary-style camerawork captures the rhythms and cacophony of the big city, all its crazy-quilt comings and goings.

Funny and not-funny, slapstick and slapdash, Welcome to Collinwood is a seriously uneven caper comedy in which a bunch of really fine character actors get to act really, really silly.

Cholodenko takes us inside a bohemian hive where everyone buzzes around the Queen Bee. McDormand is superb. Likewise Bale and Nivola.

With mixed results, Moore singles out those who profit from the misery of American workers.

The result, if occasionally forced, is also irresistible.

She's So Lovely means to be a parable of the inextricability of mad love and madness, a longtime obsession of the elder Cassavetes. Only in Penn's performance does it begin to grasp its elusive goal. [29 Aug 1997, p.03]

The fascinating aspect of the rambling and involving film is how Ralph and this no-nonsense dame who married Dad become confederates.

The plot and dialogue are still stilted and stupid, but that only proves that Justin Lin, who has directed the last four F & Fs, has his priorities straight.

Hong, who makes his feature debut here, has a masterful command of rhythm, beautifully weaving each strand of the narrative around that momentous opening scene.

13 Tzameti is cut from the same cloth as the humans-hunted-for-sport classic "The Most Dangerous Game" - and from that early talkie's many subsequent remakes and rip-offs, including John Woo's "Hard Target."

A mix of coolheaded cultural satire and anxiety-inducing workplace and marital shenanigans, Extract is an odd project. It's smarter than most of the comedies out there right now, but that doesn't necessarily make it funnier.

It's pretty formulaic stuff, and earns its R rating with profanity and unapologetically gratuitous female nudity, but somehow has a winning knuckleheaded charm.

Whatever our misfortune, The Kite Runner says, sometimes we are fortunate enough to get a second chance to make amends for a first mistake.

Apart from Luna's exquisitely subtle performance, Criminal's strongest suit is the so-artless-it's-artful cinematography by Chris Menges, which gives the impression of being shot by a fly on the wall. Similarly, Alex Wurman's jazz-infused score contributes to the improvisational atmosphere.

An epicurean dream where the dishes conjured up by the characters are as essential to the experience as the characters themselves.

Surely a life sentence goes by quicker.

Those who know Austen novels will recognize how much each character resembles a figure in one of them. Those who do not will enjoy the amusing types. Men, this means you.

Don't run off before the credits start to roll, though: The Incredible Hulk ends with a jokey cameo by a certain movie star with his own newfound superhero franchise.

There is much of interest in Baumbach's pictures - the confident handling of actors, the introspection, the terra-cotta and teal-painted walls. But what do you call a comedy of manners that's not particularly funny? [19 June 1998, p.04]

This is a sweet, gentle film - slow and sunny like a summer day, with a message that growing up can be hard, but can also serve as the wellspring of memories that will sustain you for a lifetime.

Filmmaker Roger Michell doesn't so much adapt Ian McEwan's fine novel Enduring Love, a surgically precise anatomy of romance and obsession, as eviscerate it and wave its entrails before the audience.

Think "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," but then think fun.

Although it's fascinating, intelligent and scathingly accurate in its depiction of a certain milieu, The New Age is a more problematic picture than 1991's The Rapture - where Mimi Rogers played a sexually adventurous woman who finds spiritual succor in fundamentalist Christianity. [23 Sept 1994, p.03]

Because Trance is principally about the thrill of the ride rather than the inner lives of the riders, it lacks that outlaw humanism specific to Boyle films such as "Trainspotting," "Slumdog Millionaire," and "Millions." In other words, it's an ingeniously built automaton, sexy as hell, and devoid of a heart.

A rich, beautifully detailed espionage thriller that captures the bygone days of Shanghai - and 1940s Hollywood noirs' romantic evocations of same - Lust, Caution is also one of those rare movie experiences: Its scenes of the trysts between Yee and Mak, from their rough-stuff first encounter to the long, tangled love-making sessions of subsequent meetings, are truly erotic.

It's a heavy-metal opera with humor.

It's a grand and glorious mishmash of the Bible and the Beats, of German expressionism and Hollywood B- movies, at once pretentious and naive, jokey and deadly serious. You'll love it or you'll hate it, and you know who you are. [04 Feb 1994, p.03]

A chick movie for guys that zings and pings like a game of supersonic pinball.

Either an airless allegory about opportunistic Americans or another one of the director's parables of female persecution. OK, maybe it's both. But life is too short for three hours of misanthropy and misogyny.

It's smart, it's exhilarating, and Gilroy's depiction of a high-tech world where our every move is captured by surveillance cams and Big Brother-types deploying the latest spyware feels authentic, and troubling.

Among the slew of recent futuristic hell-in-a-handbasket spectacles, Elysium takes the cake.

In the hands of a less talented filmmaker, The Machinist would have felt like a stunt. But Anderson, with a terrific assist from Bale, makes his character's plight achingly physical.

Jump scares are the film’s most-used horror device, but it does feel like Øvredal and del Toro are pushing the envelope of the film’s PG-13 rating with how creepy some of the stories get.

Apart from Khodchenkova, who displays the acting acumen of a runway model and gives new meaning to the term Russian mole (she's the villainous vixen of the tale, suited up in high heels and slinky, scaly couture), the cast of The Wolverine is uniformly good.

The kung fu sequences, although enjoyable, probably would not make the Jackie Chan Top 10. However, Chan's acting is his most affecting since the 1993 policer "Crime Story."

On many levels, Kingsman has the makings of a sure-fire hit. Yet, this is one spy story even the most dedicated addicts of the genre would do well to miss.

Part of the problem lies with the venue. When it comes to standup, bigger is not better. One-man shows work better in smaller spaces. In his bid to proclaim his giant stature as an entertainer, Hart loses himself.

Funny People turns out to be fairly predictable, and not so rough. In a thoroughly satisfying way.

Just about the only cast member who doesn't go misty at one point or another is the horse that Down Under cinema charmer Bryan Brown takes for a trot late in the film.

This being the "ultimate" movie about "extreme" sports, there's a lot of superlative slinging in the commentary.

Touching historical fantasy.

It's refreshing to see an actor tell his own story with some real honesty. Overall, however, Tab Hunter Confidential is too much like every other Hollywood True Story out there.

Mostly The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest belongs to Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), the tall and intrepid magazine journalist who is determined to clear Lisbeth's name, and who goes about doing so - and making espresso and checking his e-mail - with zeal.

It's business as usual, even if that business is pulled off with brilliant precision, ingeniously choreographed action, and an itinerary boasting some of the most photogenic spots on Earth.

Femme Fatale is glossy, glamorous cinema as collage. Maybe all the pieces of a truly good film noir are here, but the filmmaker has opted simply to toss them into the air and let them fall where they may.

McCarthy, Wiig, McKinnon, and Jones bring a spirit of spontaneity to their interactions; it's not exactly seat-of-the-pants improv, but it doesn't feel blocked-out and belabored, either.

At a lean - and decidedly mean - 77 minutes, the suspense-horror hybrid Them by French writer-directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud is nothing short of revelatory.

While this hugely likable cast is, indeed, hugely likable, no one's sweating things at all. The comedy's relaxed, moony rhythms imbue it with a certain charm, but can result in a certain stop-and-start awkwardness, too.

Hill, Redford and Goldman reteamed for 1975's The Great Waldo Pepper, which is set in the barnstorming days of aviation, but never really takes off. [04 Jan 2003, p.C01]

In 50 years, film lovers will look back on 9 as the debut feature of an original talent.

Casting herself (as the proprietor of the local cafe) along with a mix of professional and nonprofessional actors, Labaki tries to get across her give-peace-a-chance message with humor, with song, with melodrama.

A feverish melodrama about an idealist who, in following his heart and his bishop's orders, leads himself into temptation and his parish into hypocrisy.

It hobbles its otherwise fascinating premise by descending into hagiography. Webb's story is a tragedy, to be sure, but portraying him as a saint and martyr does little to advance the truth.

Nothing in this quiet, quirky comedy from the brothers Duplass comes close to Jeff's inspired, bong-fueled deconstruction of "Signs," but it gives us a good idea of where this guy is coming from.

It's a scary tale.

It's a period piece full of colorful characters, natty costumes, jaunty music.

Skarsgard's performance is bold and raw (and reminiscent of vintage Jack Lemmon in its earnestness).

A good-natured comedy of errors from Belgium, should elicit smiles, if not belly laughs.

Despite good taste and good will, this romp through Victorian parlors frequently falls flat on its rump.

Together's mix of classical gems and composer Zhao Lin's plaintive score is stirring, soaring stuff.

Classy but ultimately unsatisfying film.

The takeaways of the film are horror and hope: horror that institutionalized homophobia was so pervasive, hope that that intolerance is a thing of the past.

Allied comes off like a highlight reel that mimics the look and feel of a whole school of great films, from "Casablanca" to Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and "Notorious."

The romanticized image of the tortured artist - never mind how warranted his or her angst might be - is the stuff of stereotype unless it's leavened with humor, or limned in art. In Fugitive Pieces, neither element appears in sufficient quantity.

For sci-fi action fans, it's an instant classic. For everyone else, it's a dark, bloody mess.

A movie where the action scenes feel like filler, the romantic leads have little magnetism, and, before long, its metaphysical underpinnings fall to pieces.