Over the Hedge isn't by any stretch bad. It's just banal.

May strain credulity, but it still leaves a memorable mark.

Illuminating and unsettling.

There's nothing hip or ironic about Poseidon, which makes Russell and Lucas the perfect leading men.

Lohan is superfluous to the qualities that elevate the film above other Clearasil comedies.

Despite problems of tone and tempo, Steins is appealingly cast.

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

Best of all is the ride through the architect's own domestic space in Santa Monica, dubbed by locals "the house that built Gehry."

Russian Dolls isn't quite the gem that its precursor was. It rambles. It's less of an ensemble effort. There's more of Xavier's moping self-centeredness. But Duris is terrific as the confused cusp-of-30 protagonist, and the rest of the cast is bright and beaming.

Unlike the previous two films in this series, Abrams is more concerned with his hero's heart than with his hardware. The result is a pulse-racing thriller that restores the human factor to the franchise, and to its producer-star.

As the film devolved from satire to slapstick horror, I didn't believe in it at all. But in his beetle-browed intensity and tremulousness, I completely believed in Minghella's Jerome.

Based on the charming young-adult novel by Florida bard Carl Hiaasen, Hoot is a pleasant diversion on the order of a gloriously photographed after-school special.

As it progresses, the film takes us to another borderland, that between reality and delusion. This is where Harlan's mind freely gallops.

The Proposition, a beautiful, bloody meditation on justice, family, and the trap of retribution, is in every respect an artful addition to the canon of six-shooter morality tales.

Subversively funny, Stick It sees gymnastics as a microcosm of teen life.

It's Greengrass' way of asking a question that looms large in these post-9/11 days: Are we all praying to the same God, or is one man's God better than another, and one man's God vastly more terrifying?

In its final act, Akeelah is as exciting as any Final Four matchup. What it may lack in cinematic art it compensates for in abecedarian adrenaline guaranteed to pump the pulse and the spirits of viewers from 10 to 90.

I would have told you that its title refers to recreational vehicle. Having seen it, I now know the initials stand for reeking vulgarity.

Profound, passionate and overflowing with incomparable beauty, Water, like the prior two films in director Deepa Mehta's "Elements" trilogy, celebrates the lives of women who resist marginalization by Indian society.

Lady Vengeance is not for everyone. The violence, while less over-the-top and orgiastic than Park's two previous installments, is still hard and crackling. The sex is grim and graphic. And deadpan nihilism permeates the air.

By recording this all too commonplace and dehumanizing process, Puiu's film shows the sick old man and the strangers who deal with him to be all too human - extraordinarily so.

The only likable characters are ebullient Omer (Sam Golzari), a show-tune-loving reluctant Iraqi suicide bomber who comes to the O.C., and earnest William (Chris Klein), an American GI wounded in Iraq, who are mirror images.

Eva Longoria brings a crisp swagger and fluent Spanish to her role.

Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil open Scary Movie 4 with an achingly unfunny couple of minutes of severed limbs and errant hoop shots.

Kids under 6 will dig it - though the alligators and wildebeests might scare them. Certainly they scared this groan-up.

This pleasant but predictable affair does one thing very well: showcasing the versatility of Chiwetel Ejiofor. The London actor can be seen as Denzel Washington's detective sidekick in "Inside Man." Watch him chomp down on a New York accent with Washington, and then watch him as Lola (a.k.a. Simon), a cabaret performer in makeup, wig and wild gowns. That's acting.

Icky, incoherent thriller.

In the odd, and oddly compelling, biopic The Notorious Bettie Page, Gretchen Mol is a delight as the saucy brunette.