As solid as Cranston, Leguizamo, Kruger, Bratt, and all the rest are, the built-in constraints of the movie format don't do their real-life counterparts full justice.

Stymied by a clunking script, crammed with expository exchanges and urgent blather.

A touchy daughter and her feely mom form the emotional axis of Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, a touching, feeling, touchy-feely series of emotional encounters that generate much warmth in Bruce Beresford's balloon-light family comedy. If it were any lighter, it would float away.

While I didn't love it, I enjoyed The Last Stand because it made me imagine the mutant powers I want to develop. I'm thinking along the lines of merging Rogue's suction abilities with Storm's controlled-rain skills.

Gretchen Mol stars as a 35-year-old virgin deflowered in lusty romance-novel fashion on a trip to Mexico. Her hunky lover-boy's name? Jesus Christ (played by Justin Theroux). The segment? "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain."

Clones makes the Frodo-speak of "Lord of the Rings" sound like Noel Coward.

Moderately compelling and clinical. This isn't "Breakfast at Tiffany's"; this isn't even "Klute."

Invention - a mash-up of two Jim Carrey comedies, "Liar Liar" and "Bruce Almighty" - flirts with being a one-gag pony. Shocking sincerity loses its comic impact after a while.

22 Jump Street's scattershot approach to comedy is rooted in the belief that for every anatomical, scatalogical, sexual, or pop-cultural reference and pun gone awry, another will stick to the wall like, um, bodily fluid.

Likable-to-a-point.

Barnz tries, at least a bit, to acknowledge the heroic and historic legacy of the union movement and its rightful place in the contemporary labor landscape. But much of the blame for the sorry state of Adams Elementary, and the school system at large, is placed at the union's feet.

More a grab-bag of loosely connected scenes and lives than a film with a firm sense of direction.

The result is like near-beer: The taste is familiar, but the spirit is missing.

Girl With a Pearl Earring is really about watching paint dry. S l o w l y.

Ultimately, the movie's a bust.

This ninth installment in the Marvel mutant superhero franchise is rife with urgent and (dare we say?) apocalyptic comings and goings, with characters and confrontations that seem at once familiar and befuddling.

This mildly amusing tale of infidelity, blackmail, class differences and corporate greed not only strains credulity - it strains for laughs.

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.

While the situations don't add up to a satisfying film, the characters are pleasing to watch.

One of the problems with the way Mamet resolves Mike's predicament is that it's ridiculously implausible - even in the context of a far-fetched fight story.

Admission works in stops and starts.

If your kids are old enough to safely see the movie by themselves, drop 'em off and pick 'em up after. You don't need to see this one.

Finding Amanda isn't bad, and there is some smart, jagged humor.

The humor and chops are there, but the story isn't quite.

The biggest surprise of his film is that what begins in sentimental cliche concludes with melancholy insight.

Verdict? Mixed. Loved the slapstick, winced at the toilet humor, and mourned that the female performers were given so little to do. Funeral is funnier the second time around.

There's a difference between velocity and momentum, and while the chases, shootouts and close-quarters combat rarely flag, our interest does.

In some ways, American Reunion is the Charlize Theron indie "Young Adult" all over again: In both, a small-town high school reunion is the setting for a lot of nostalgia and narcissism and nasty behavior.

Less successful in exploring the long-term effects of mental breakdown than in dispensing short-term comic pick-me-ups, Ya-Ya wrings abundant laughter and tears.

The shared energy created by audience and performer that is so restorative to Garland is where the movie finds life.

With border crossings and familiar buddy-cop movie tropes (think Lethal Weapon, think 48 HRS, think The Heat), the Wahlberg-Washington express hits lots of comfortably familiar notes. And more than a few viciously uncomfortable ones, too.

The Spanish actress Marina Gatell is exotic and engaging as a young writer drawn to Lorca and puzzled why he is not drawn to her in return.

An enjoyable throwback to the way monster movies used to be made.

Illuminated by dim candles and the rare glimmer of sun, the movie is grainy, closed-in, and likely to cause spasms of claustrophobia.

Jobs is a just-the-facts - and fiddling-with-the-facts - dramatization, forgoing any kind of deeper psychological exploration of the man and his motivations, his demons and dreams.

The movie would pour nicely onto a thick stack of pancakes.

While the movie is content to be merely atmospheric, the performances convince you that here are two misfits who might be a perfect fit.

The movie is well-edited and lean, a fast-paced, action-filled bit of froth that manages to be diverting and surprisingly fun.

A must-see for genre fans. Jaa in action is poetry - even in a disappointing film. Let's just hope he regains his senses for Ong Bak 3.

Rango is best enjoyed by those over 10 who have an idea of what "existential" means and can appreciate a surreal mashup of "Chinatown," "Gladiator," "High Noon," and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

Licence to Kill continues the salvage operation begun in The Living Daylights and rescues a series that was in danger of shooting itself in the foot.

The Hip Hop Project, a documentary about Kazi and the young men and women he mentors, isn't quite as successful as Kazi himself - a Bahamian orphan and teenage street hustler who turned his life around, and got folks like Queen Latifah, Russell Simmons and Bruce Willis to help out him and his project.

The movie is beautiful but, for one unfamiliar with the source material, confusing. I needed an owl scorecard.

Fails on a couple of levels. It never really gives you a sense of the psychology, the root causes behind Glass' elaborate frauds... And since we don't know the why, the how becomes considerably less interesting.

At best diverting, at worst an almost self-parodic compendium of French film cliches.

The kids will relish flying Air Jordan, but it's Bugs who makes the trip worth it. [15 Nov 1996, p.3]

I Am Legend is essentially "28 Days Later" . . ., or "28 Weeks Later" . . ., only with millions more for special effects, and with nothing approaching the heart-pounding, bloodcurdling power and smarts of the two British-made yarns.

A pleasant production that retained the familiar touchpoints of the TV show while adding big-screen pizzazz. [03 Apr 1998, p.14]

It does commit a cardinal sin of filmmaking. It's boring.

Any semblance of seriousness and verisimilitude suggested by the marketing campaign is quickly forgotten once director Antoine Fuqua's enjoyably tacky Die Hard-on-the-Potomac gets under way.

It's a cinematic feat, an art lover's dream, but as a moviegoing experience, Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark is something of a letdown.

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.

This film is a philosophical musing -- a humanitarian speculation, not a drama about real people, historical figures or not, who seem fully formed.

There are chases that feel way too long, and dialogue that feels flat. Affleck and Thurman make a handsome duo, but there's no spark between the actors.

A kind of Tracy/Hepburn rom-com with a "Dead Poets Society" backdrop and dollops of human failing for added drama, Words and Pictures stars Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche - a matchup that makes you want to like Fred Schepisi's film, even when it becomes impossible to do so.

A thriller fusing the primal elements of "Bambi" with those of "The Blair Witch Project."

The formula in Chain Reaction is familiar, but at least it has been entrusted to a proven technician. [2 Aug 1996, p.03]

Ready-made for Valentine's Day, The Vow is, like the offerings at Cafe Mnemonic, a total sugar overload.

Cross Dog Day Afternoon with This is Spinal Tap and you have the concept behind Airheads: heavy metal trio seeking record contract holds radio station employees hostage, much mayhem and moshing ensues.... Airheads isn't nearly as good as its antecedents, but it does manage to produce a stream of lowbrow laughs. Or smiles, anyway. [5 Aug 1994, p.3]

Echoing the lessons learned from "HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey," the message of Transcendence is that computers should not be allowed to become sentient.

Lopez is so remarkably unaffected and guileless that she manages to carry the film through its mood swing, if not successfully to its conclusion.

Cheesy, cheesy, cheesy but fun, fun, fun.

Diverting, if undistinguished.

As Hopkins himself goes wild-eyed and FX-ed with popping veins, The Rite gives up on asking us to take it seriously.

An improbably funny and transcendent account of soccer-mad Tibetan monks in exile at a Bhutan monastery.

Like Liam Neeson's "Taken" series, Costner's 3 Days to Kill finds its absentee-dad action hero facing off against hordes of goons and gorillas - not to rescue his loved ones, but to prove himself to them, and maybe get a little extra quality time, too.

A pumped-up, plotless montage of extraordinary landscapes, colorful wildlife, and interesting people performing feats of derring-do.

Unpretentious fun.

If Mark Wahlberg's new pic, The Gambler, feels like a stale rehash of existential tropes, that's because it is.

Part biography, part idol worship, Bhutto is a bullet train through South Asia, chronicling its subject's 54 years, a period of unrest in her nation and family.

The intention is clear: Garneau wants to make his points as persuasive and accessible as possible. Yet, the truths That Sugar Film contains were already obvious decades ago. It's sad that we need reminding.

Weaknesses are confirmed in the movie's laughable climax.

In a way, The TV Set suffers from the same syndrome as the industry it's parodying: bland and compromised, it feels as if it's been fine-tuned and focus-grouped within an inch of its life.

That very curious thing, a Shakespearean happy meal.

As stories go, The Astronaut Farmer is engaging, even if it serves up a kind of Plains State brand of Rocky-esque hooey.

The new King is competent, reasonably entertaining, faithful to the original, wholesome, sometimes even enjoyable.

For all the film's gritty verisimilitude, The Messenger is not the great Iraq War movie that Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" is.

Imagine "King Lear" art-directed by Martha Stewart and you have Hanging Up.

Tries too hard to be playful and sensual, wacky and romantic, and comes away feeling fake and prefabricated instead.

No one has done the journey quite like Takeshi Kitano in Kikujiro

While it's not entirely successful, this stylish shocker is a big step up from the earlier film.

It's hard to feel compassion for these Masters of the Universe. I'm not even sure Chandor wants us to, but if he doesn't, then what's the point?

Whether he's smacking into an iceberg or flopping topless onto a sandy beach, DiCaprio is still maddeningly lightweight.

Is Django Unchained about race and power and the ugly side of history? Only as much as "Inglourious Basterds" was about race and power and the ugly side of history. It's a live-action, heads-exploding, shoot-'em-up cartoon. Sometimes it crackles, and sometimes it merely cracks.

Where "Run Lola Run" was like a perpetual-motion machine, The International seems to forever be stopping in its own tracks. Tykwer takes coffee breaks to explain the convoluted and dicey plot.

A cheesily entertaining effort that recalls the irreverent '50s comedies of Jerry Lewis. [12 Apr 1996, p.03]

Unnerving.

What it lacks, though, is any sense that these people - are real.

There is a sequence where his four felons parody a sitdown from The Godfather that is both inept and painfully out of place. But there's enough in Set It Off to set it apart and to argue that, when it comes to putting a new spin on the inner-city heist, you're better off with the ladies. [06 Nov 1996, p.E01]

Grisly stuff. The movie, shot in Australia with an Aussie and British cast, makes "127 Hours" look like a walk in the park.

Though not deep, the movie is diverting.

Although Solondz's view is omniscient, as a filmmaker here he condescends to his characters' innocence, ignorance and bigotry, making him guilty of the same narrative crimes.

A picture that's pleasantly forgettable.

Falls short of being totally absorbing and compelling.

It's never entirely clear whether Borchardt is also an object of ridicule for documentarian Chris Smith.

The MST3K folks have gone all-out and found a movie in actual color to lampoon: This Island Earth, a 1954 Universal sci-fier with a no-star cast, low-tech special effects and a logic-defying plot. It's a perfect vehicle for Mike, Servo and Crow to go after - and following a brief prologue that brings MST3K novices up to date, that's exactly what they do. [19 Apr 1996, p.03]

Easily the best 1975 B-movie made in 2005, Four Brothers is a raucously entertaining vigilante film.

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