It's professional, smart, quick-footed and snappy -- enviable traits in both a prizefighter and a nice little B-movie.

A lazy, trite comedy that's made by people who don't care either.

It's a strange, uneven film, hilarious in moments and tin-eared in others, alternately subtle and hammer-handed, acid and dull, as schizophrenic as "Signs" and probably, like that film, best enjoyed in discrete chunks rather than as a whole that needs to be digested equally all at once.

Ultimately well-made but only intermittently gripping.

Blue Crush, which might appear exciting in an "Endless Summer"/"Where the Boys Are" kind of way, actually is really boring.

The highlights are the writing and the performances. There are real laughs to be had -- several scenes end on sharp, witty shards of dialogue. And whenever Eckhart, Northam or Ehle is the focus, the thing soars.

A feel-good movie that doesn't think it needs to rub people's noses in the happy stuff to get its points across or eliminate all the disturbing shades to make a uniformly glowing whole.

One of the great marvels of the medium, a film that you cannot miss if you hope to be literate in cinema -- or, indeed, if you seek acquaintance with the great works of modern times.

The story told by I'm Going Home is small and perhaps not terribly universal. But there's something poignant about an artist of 90-plus years taking the effort to share his impressions of life and loss and time and art with us.

Wilson's account is enormously self-serving and self-aggrandizing, but the film makes his ego a virtue and a running joke.

It's too ridiculous, too flatly acted, too action-packed, too, well, fun.

There are mysteries and twists in Blood Work, but its real work isn't ratiocination but healing and connection. Outwardly it's a detective story; really it's a tale of the heart.

A funny, puzzling movie ambiguous enough to be engaging and oddly moving.

A slow burn. A portrait of the mundane humor and horror of everyday life, it scalds nerves you may have never thought existed. And yet the film is funny, almost hilariously at times.

The plot is tired, the energy sputtering, the jokes less manic. "Spy Kids" was a shot out of nowhere; Spy Kids 2 feels like a shot from someplace tiresomely familiar.

Feels like a tonic for its makers, a means of clearing the palate after a series of rich meals. For viewers who appreciate risks, it should be just as refreshing.

There are bits of this film that titillate, undeniably, but mainly you wait for the comic to bring out the big guns, and then he leaves you feeling more teased than tickled.

You get to know each person just well enough to compare them, allowing you to judge as you like; the film, nicely, refrains from moralizing.

A deeply weird film, accomplished, gripping, disorienting, icily adept and barking mad at once. It makes for invigorating viewing.

You go into an Austin Powers movie with a big grin on -- or at least you should. The charm of this one is that you leave smiling even more broadly.

This is a beautiful, moving picture about a love affair between two very different Chinese men.

The script doesn't give Bigelow enough human stuff to balance the mechanical. For good or ill, like so many other submarine thrillers before it, K-19 is more about the machine than the men.

The people behind Eight Legged Freaks were absolutely correct not to make it too loopy or too dark. But they ought to have made it too something. Real fun is never this tame.

The film is tangled but not chaotic, thoughtful but not terribly deep. Still, it's intimate, entertaining, and most impressive, genuine.

Like a dog walking on its hind legs across a freshly waxed floor -- awkward, slow, deliberate, seeking approval -- the action thriller Reign of Fire gets from start to finish, somehow, without tumbling into complete disaster.

It's a dark, brooding, moody film that follows a grim narrative to a logical inevitability and is nonetheless fully infused with a spirit of humanity.

Isn't profound or dazzling or groundbreaking. But it's a pleasant, clever and sincere little romp, proof that you don't need to harbor heroic ambitions to create something satisfying.

Passingly engaging. But you emerge from the film knowing as much -- or, indeed, as little -- as when you went in, and that's not exactly what documentary filmmaking is all about.

A slight, smartly dressed bit of melodrama that thinks it's gritty when it's really a bit of puff.

Though you get caught up in the criminal element (you really want these people to get away with it), you're also fascinated by who to trust. It's an unusual dance between the awkward and plain that becomes romantic and thrilling -- a subtly impressive feat to say the least.

For all its bells and whistles, only when it lingers on Jones' dry wit and pained, rheumy eyes does this film about aliens ever seem alive, let alone human.

All in all, as products go, The Powerpuff Girls Movie is an honest one, probably better constructed than the trio's lunchbox and a little more reasonably priced than their T-shirts. But it's still a product, not a picture.

About how women see themselves in terms of bodies, age and careers, but without all the "you go girl" tripe crammed into so many other movies of this ilk.

The film does leave you with the lingering regret that you missed a hell of a good party. It is, as the kids used to say, a trip.

Hey Arnold "don't get no respect," it's not half bad, either. Kids will certainly like it. For adults, it's perfectly watchable in a Rugrats sort of way.

Though it's enjoyable, you can't help but feel the squandered situations and talent, flattened by mediocre writing and direction. Scoff if you will, but the gifted Sandler and his audience deserve better.

Jas some nice moments, a great soundtrack and some wonderful works by the dark-even-while-light Ricci.

"Tootsie" meets "Hoop Dreams" in Juwanna Mann, and they don't get along. This basketball comedy turns out to be a total drag -- in both senses.

It's ambitious, sharply observed and spectacularly well-acted like so much of Sayles' canon. But it's also overstuffed and underdeveloped.

It's a triumph of the film that it manages to make Jeffrey Dahmer a human being -- at least a member of the species -- without ever bending toward empathy with or excuses for him.

The most compelling question dangling at its end is, "Didn't Steven Spielberg used to know how to bring a movie to an end?"

Cage is superb as a hollowed-out, ferocious man of action chasing his demons recklessly with machine gun firing away.

It's a shame director Care didn't take more time with his characters, even making the film a bit longer to deepen the connections between them. Still, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys is a keen slice of teen angst and peril.

Isn't a bad movie so much as one that feels like an amateur version of material from more accomplished works -- a movie that not only isn't sure what it really is but doesn't seem terribly much to care.

There's a touch of second-rate playwriting about it that imparts a flattened feel to the end of an otherwise crackerjack picture.

Scooby-Doo is bad. Let's just get that right out of the way. Filled with unclever quips, tired humor, a lazy silliness and bland execution, the picture is a tedious puff of nothing.

Although some of the secondary roles are awkwardly acted, the leads are impressive.

Watching Rocks shows, we know he's sharper than the average actor. But watching him flail and play funny in movies that aren't as smart as him is simply depressing. Someone give this man a good role. And please, let him do a few more takes -- these scenes can't be his best efforts.

During one or two comic set-pieces, you can see the appeal that the Ya-Yas hold for readers. But you can also sense, farther in the distance, the more vital film that might have been.

A gorgeous, engrossing, utterly alien and fresh movie that has the human truth and impact of classic Greek myth and the overwhelming beauty and mastery of the greatest epic films.

The tension is so plausibly high that you're eager to see how it winds up. Eager enough, in fact, to forgive Jack Ryan for reversing the aging process and winding up as Ben Affleck.

It's a goofball of a movie and a throwaway, but it's also completely free of self-import and the slightest hint of sentiment -- a perfect light entertainment that's guaranteed to launch itself as a franchise.

Simultaneously modern and yet gorgeously primitive with its budget sets and simple but influential score, this is not just a film re-release but a film event.

It's a remarkable, thoughtful achievement that will make you want to watch it twice. You should.

Taking the film as a thriller, it's neither exciting nor scary, hampered by a middle that plays much too long.

About as good a movie as you could have hoped for. Really good. Hole-in-one good.

The animation is dull, the thought is fuzzy, the storytelling is vague and the music just plain stinks. It's not "National Velvet," it's sure not "The Black Stallion," it's not even "Dances With Wolves."

With all this raw material, it's a puzzlement and an annoyance that Parker feels so obligated to interpose fantastic elements and comic action sequences and other tacky touches. As a result, while this "Earnest" is lively fun, it never quite feels sufficiently important.

Doesn't give off the same happy feel of the Indian arranged-marriage movie "Monsoon Wedding." Rather, it poses hard questions and leaves them unanswered.

The timing and cutting of the film are terrific, the build-up to an absurdly hilarious climax is just right, and the performances are near perfect.

A deep and extraordinary film that isn't afraid to look evil in the face -- or, for that matter, to acknowledge that evil can be more complicated and even attractive than we'd want to admit. It's very, very difficult to watch, but you shouldn't miss it.

Don't go if "Star Wars" isn't your bag: You'll only resist and resent it. But if you're a fan, it's hard to see how you'd be disappointed. Me? I can't wait for May 2005. "Episode III": Hot diggity!

Has its cheesy moments but it's bolstered by interesting performances and a final scene not typical of a mainstream movie. Though no "Fatal Attraction," Unfaithful nevertheless is an interesting and worthy film.

It has all the raw materials for greatness -- a brilliant concept, a sharp cast, the jokes -- and still doesn't come together. You could do a lot worse than Hollywood Ending, but you could also do better.

It's hard to recall the last time a big-ticket summer movie delivered so fully on its promise.

It's creepy, but it's not horrifying. Still, the movie has its distorted, haunting moments that will stick with you, and it's stunning to look at.

Quiet, sexual, disturbing, often beautifully melancholic, Rain, as seen through the eyes of a precocious girl, recalls a parental split-up with sobering accuracy. It reminds us why so many teen-agers go through a sullen phase -- and sometimes never shake it off.

The Marquis de Sade makes for entertaining screen time, as the jovially subversive "Quills" proved a few years ago. For a more subdued version of the infamous writer's life, there's French director Benoit Jacquot's Sade --praised as the more "realistic" of the two and criticized for being dry and overly intellectual.

The overall effect is awe and affection -- and a strange urge to get on a board and, uh, shred, dude.

Has cheesy effects and a hoary plot, but its macabre, self-deprecating sense of humor makes up for a lot.

Along the way it provides the grand, intelligent entertainment of a superior cast playing smart people amid a compelling plot. It may not be perfect, but it's decidedly a cut above.

Watching it is like filling up on baklava: Later you may feel really guilty, but you don't exactly complain while it's going on.

Bang-bang, kiss-kiss, yawn-yawn. While dull death metal churns on the soundtrack, Johnson engages in one big brawl after another.

Starts out dark, thrilling and inventive, then, regrettably, becomes sappy, mainstream and mundane.

Limps shallowly along.

It's a gorgeous picture and features three substantial performances, but the material is chatty, forced and excessively arch.

Both deeply weird and charmingly dear.

Deeply strange, oddly shimmery movie.

The story sounds horrifying, but the film takes some unfortunate twists and never presents us with a multifaceted character in Paxton. Paxton just doesn't play the nice-but-nuts role with a modicum of terror.

Swell when it purrs, when the three top stars are in full form, but it spits and hisses and screeches too often to take full hold.

Garners only a few chuckles, becoming, even in its short running time, boring.

The parts of "Run Ronnie Run" that advance the minimal plot can be painful to sit through, but the jokes scattered along the side of the story often are hilarious. [19 Sep 2003]

Rich in detail, gorgeously shot and beautifully acted, Les Destinees is, in its quiet, epic way, daring, inventive and refreshingly unusual.

It's something we might mildly enjoy on an airplane (well, not anymore) or on a lazy Sunday TV day when nothing else is on, but in theaters, it's a clunker.

A family film, but it's a wonder if kids will really enjoy it. The picture is geared for older folks, people who'll be heartened by the message that sometimes, you can return to your passions.

Recoing's performance is chillingly low-key -- sometimes you can swear that he believes his own fictions -- and Livrozet, making his film debut, has a perfect long-in-the-tooth charm.

Daring work of genius.

Richly frightening film.

A movie that will wear you out and make you misty even when you don't want to be. It's a gushy, sometimes-maudlin, often-charming movie that highlights the importance of little things.

At the end, you're refreshed, like Pauline after she swallows an entire soft drink in one gulp, and it feels terrific.

Can a film so expertly capture the odious and bitter that it becomes deliciously, disgustingly beautiful? Yes, if that film is 1957's Sweet Smell of Success.

Teems with pot smoke, body parts and profane outbursts -- you ride a giggly wave throughout, jokes and turn-ons and shocking sights alternating in buoyant fashion.

Its breeziness keeps it from ever being completely bland or flat.

While there are some glittery bits in it, the film is frustrating, cluttered, inelegant and garish.

The film's soldiers are more the mom-and-apple-pie, God-fearing lads of World War II movies than the cynical grunts of "Platoon" (1986) and "Full Metal Jacket" (1987).

Though exploring, among other things, fallibility, homosexuality, injustice and loss, the picture seems afraid to really make any kind of strong statement, whether political or psychological.

Strictly for boys -- grown-up boys -- the more boyish and less grown-up the better.

It's frustrating and still oddly likable.