It is aided both by fine performances by Auteuil, Aumont and Depardieu and by wonderful pacing.

Really a vehicle for Dunst, which would be fine if only the vehicle were more inspired.

The film is masterful in many ways, and brilliantly acted by its lead player, Eriq Ebouaney, but it's often overly dense and fast with information, background and ideas.

Singleton just may be challenging us to laugh at the film or with it and then feel extremely uneasy for doing so. If so, that's admirable; if not, he's made a very strange soap opera.

Every once in a while a picture comes along that captures not just love, but romance in all its fear, yearning, fantasy, eroticism and unexpected epiphanies. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer's The Princess and the Warrior is one such film.

This is not a movie about actors. It's a movie about racing, chasing, chicks and adrenaline -- just what many theatergoers are dying for in a summer dominated by a sweet ogre and a dumbed-down historical tragedy.

It's a terrible picture: ugly and illogical and clumsily staged and peppered with crude, witless humor.

Understated fun, but not much more.

The opportunity to give Jolie the room to swagger like the "Charlie's Angels" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" ladies is utterly squandered, and a video game franchise that might've resulted in a hoot of a film -- has been blown to dust.

It's all jolly bad fun, but the primo aspect of the exercise is the phenomenally intense performance by Kingsley as a careening sociopath who is every bit as dangerous to his friends as to his foes.

Jinxed itself into being nothing but an inane popcorn flick pretending to be edgy.

Tired, clumsy and appallingly ugly to look at.

For all its superfluous and self-conscious moments, the picture is a draining kick.

A tedious let-down that will bore adults and only mildly amuse children.

The stifling piety of this film -- which regards anything old and vaguely arty as next to sacred -- needs some serious airing out.

A film with almost zero redeeming value.

Entertaining, well-acted and hopeful about a world in which sexual orientation isn't a big deal, Big Eden is a pretty picture -- it just tends to be a little too perfect and cute for its own good.

It's a Ritalin-deprived sensibility, but it keeps you skating over the dull spots, in which the film unfortunately is rich.

Dreary and dull.

Funny, irreverent and moving, the unconventional Shrek may mock fairy tales, but in the process, creates its own.

With no easy heroes or villains, Startup.com can be a Rorschach test for viewers.

To some, this will seem the height of aesthetic experimentation; to others, the most unendurable arty hogwash.

Though the picture is definitely flawed, it maintains a joie de vivre that's surprisingly refreshing.

A lyrical, exciting adrenaline rush.

So action-packed from start to finish that the final result is grating rather than thrilling.

It is a brisk and sometimes bizarre comedy; funny, yet able to accommodate several sudden deaths comfortably.

It's splendid period filmmaking, grown-up and luxurious and gossipy without ever feeling fussy.

A witty, frightening, well-acted picture with near-perfect cinematic timing.

Capable but not transporting, never unraveling the mystery of its hero's genius or, worse, making us care enough to look deeper.

No matter your opinion on where we're headed, this film will give you some crucial information about where we've been.

It works for the most part, though some scenes come off contrived or directed without flavor. But thanks to the likable, rough-hewn crew and Forster, the film flows along gruffly and with eloquence.

Bloody, profane and compelling, Chopper marks an impressive debut for Dominik and a revelation of Bana's talent.

The perfect thriller. Nothing too gross to creep you out.

The re-creation of early 20th-century Beijing is dense and loving, and Hu shows just as much affection for the people who start to trickle into the shabby little cinema.

Surprisingly bland even within its dubious genre of "chick flick."

A limp and annoying picture.

Simply something you don't want to touch.

Developing late in the film, the romantic subplot has the effect of retarding the war story, stretching it out and adding unnecessary elements of sentimentality and sensationalism.

A hard and bright and tough film in all the best ways.

Appropriate music, lovely cinematography and stellar performances by both a subtly moving Neill and a likable, barrel-chested super-American Warburton.

Westfeldt becomes irritating. That's one of the film's points, but it's made a little too well.

Lacks the perfect timing, luster and true vitality of its predecessors.

An unsteady and uneven film, which bangs up against its ambitions gracelessly and distractingly.

Wide-eyed, deadpan and, more often than not, note-perfect.

Waddington's wonderfully textured film is an unforced work of naturalism.

For a Hollywood studio movie, you see, The Mexican is remarkably strange and eccentric with a plot like a wrinkled bed sheet and a black comic sensibility that consistently swerves away from the cliches that have been established in this Age of Tarantino.

A vile, stupid and ugly movie lacking utterly in pep, thrills, humor, finesse or morals, a dissipating waste of time, money and human resources.

It's alternately mind-boggling and patience-testing, mixing astounding sequences of over-the-top invention with scenes of inept acting and indifferent filmmaking.

Leconte's signature on the film alone makes it worth seeing.

The trouble is that it's so lead-footed and delighted with itself even as bit after bit sinks like a lead weight.

This one is shot, recorded and edited without so much as a pinch of craft -- it's one of the ugliest big studio films in a long while.

It's classic movie manipulation gone amok.

A grating experience from start to finish.

It's gory, really gory, gratuitously and often inelegantly.

Delivers the oft-trod subject of boys' sexuality with intelligence and freshness.

Freddie Prinze Jr. gives cute a bad name.

Lopez is fine, sometimes quite funny, but she's better playing the take-no-prisoners planner than a goofy, insecure dork.

One of the most aggressively ambiguous pictures of the year. There is a certain power to that.

The convoluted story is an excuse for comical tricks of the camera, fractures of chronology, acid punch lines and amusingly excessive performances. (In this latter category, Pitt, so deep into his character that you can smell him, wins the day gloriously.)

Panic never lets you forget that Donald Sutherland can be one of America's greatest actors.

If ever a film was fit only for straight-to-video release, it's this one.

Filled with too many issues -- along with young motherhood, street gangs, city life, sex, peer pressure, grief and, oh yes, dancing, which is nearly lost in so many poorly written subplots.

It's hooey, but it's hooey that picks up in the second half, not exactly redeeming itself but fitfully engaging.

The film moves too slowly and dispassionately to resonate as it should.

Built on an absolutely marvelous idea but manages to make only about two-thirds of a good movie of it.

A stunning film.

Intriguing, containing a truthful kernel of sweetness, rot and brutality that will shock many.

One of the most exciting American movies about recent political history since, ironically, Oliver Stone's "JFK."

Anderson, possessed of an eerily Edwardian aspect, is superb, luminous and knowing and convincingly proud and desperate as the situation requires.

With its weary introductory and concluding passages, it announces itself as the most typical of fare, a real letdown after that stirringly fresh central part.

You can't just rework a beloved Christmas classic, set it in reverse and expect it to run smoothly.

Bullock maintains a luster and comic naturalness that most actresses couldn't pull off in such mediocrity.

Bouncing giddily from subplot to subplot and wisecrack to wisecrack, Mamet and company (and this is one of the truest ensemble works in years) satirize the slippery morals of the film racket and the surface-only decency of small town America.

Finding Forrester achieves a distinct success few Hollywood movies can even dream of: It overwhelms and inspires with understatement.

It's never subtle or clever, but it's big, loud and clear.

The resulting film is a labor of love with all the strengths and weaknesses you might expect from such a designation.

A spry and appealing film that throws off comic sparks with aplomb.

It's built of such exquisite craft -- the acting, the decor, the photography, the music -- that to refuse it is to refuse the very sensations that draw us to art, romance and maybe even life itself.

One of the most wearisome "high adrenaline" movies to come along in a while.

A spell-binding, engaging and often breathtaking work in which exquisite sets, costumes, photography and music combine with top-notch acting and out-of-this-world fighting scenes.

Hollow, frequently boring picture.

An exquisitely crafted film filled with little shocks and deep echoes of humanity. It'll stick with you.

Noisy, random and hard on the eyes.

Isn't sexy, funny, smart or fun.

Under the tight wraps provided by a veteran director and a generally clever script, he (Arnold) has, in The 6th Day, his best picture in many years.

Filled with skewed humor, inventive animation and earthy jokes.

Though it's debatable whether Sandler is squandered or just supremely annoying here, the film's flaws aren't entirely his fault.

With very little dialogue and through what's essentially a gimmick, we come truly to like these guys.

It's a movie about having a sibling and all of the pain, joy, love and anxiety that that entails: a movie, in other words, for almost everyone.

Leaves you exhausted and even bored.

Seems deeply influenced by American film noir, the Western fairy tale (in this case, mermaids) and the works of Alfred Hitchcock in particular.

What it plays like is a trifling story strung out to great length without much narrative drive, tinged with some disturbing racial undertones.

A big, loud, sometimes clever, often dumb behemoth of a movie.

Marshall does such a good job re-creating the otherworldly energy of a temple of youth that the rest of the picture feels strained and sometimes trite. Nevertheless, parts can be absorbing, reflective and touching.

Goes overboard in its presentation of supposed reality.

Tends to beat some plain unfunny material to death.

A profoundly anxious picture that from its first frame holds you, clenched, never able to let go, even after its unresolved coda.

The movie falters when it gets mean.