A frustrating, pedantic, cacophonous jumble of a picture, peopled with as many straw men and caricatures as living, breathing humans.

If you're an actual adult who likes old-school Westerns, this won't disappoint you.

There have been plenty of mountaineering documentaries over the last few years, and Everest suffers in comparison to them simply by being a dramatization. As realistic as the effects are (and you can occasionally tell when a shot is green-screened), you're still aware on a gut level that Jason Clarke and Josh Brolin were not actually filmed at 29,000 feet above sea level.

Loaded with fine performances, traffics in audacious images and generally comports itself with a great deal more grace and gravitas than most movies with roots in fantastic themes.

For those to whom life is but a stage, this will be sweet, sweet candy; to those of us destined to be their audience, it's a satisfying, if flawed, look behind the curtain.

Surprisingly flabby, with lazy writing and some final-act lurches into unironic rom-com that seem at odds with the bizarro premise.

It's part action film, part buddy movie, part love story, part political tract and, in sum, much less: a meandering, preachy, condescending mess that only occasionally bursts into life and even then at such a tepid level that you can hardly call it living.

What makes Freedom Writers work is the very thing that makes it seem like a drag: predictable inspiration.

The Other Guys finds McKay back to trying something wildly ambitious with his comedy, and largely succeeding.

Kennedy fills this with Western cliches, character actors and sprawling action. [09 Mar 2001]

Tasteful, thoughtful fare that entertains without ever speaking down to the audience.

Like "Crumb" or "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," it's remarkably close-up moviemaking, with family secrets laid bare for all the world to see.

It's the kind of story that can look pedestrian on paper, but when brought to life this skillfully, proves to be genuinely inspiring.

Hogan whips up a high-energy family entertainment that fairly erases memory of the other filmed versions of Barrie's tale.

Clever and charming.

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.

Very much a time-and-place film, by 2030 it will be useful fodder for historians.

Lymelife is more shaggy character study than rewarding narrative; its fateful final moments are self-consciously ambiguous in a way that (to me) feel almost flip, given the long dramatic build that preceded those final moments.

While the film has visual verve, its faux-Fellini finale only underscores how remote, repetitive, uninvolving and contrived the whole enterprise is.

Genre movies are often mere excuses for shows of gore and tricked-up suspense, and while The Grey should satisfy anyone who seeks only that there's something more profound and pure at its heart, making it a genuinely entertaining thriller that puts a chill through you in more ways than one.

The result is a hodgepodge: not as unpleasant as the alleged foodstuffs described in Schlosser's book, but not exactly prime rib.

Despite the stories' brief running times, they don't manage to generate much interest or make much sense.

Ought to win a prize for sheer audacity.

Has a sweaty, weary, often intimate feel, with the human aspect dominating the mechanistic. Donner can't help but push it over the top now and again, like a bodybuilder flexing his muscles when he spots a potential mate. But he contents himself with aiming for small virtues more often than grand impact.

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.

Mostly, constant little reminders show that Breillat knows the business of movies in her bones. You can learn from it and enjoy it -- two things I never thought possible to say about a Breillat film until now.

van Dormael’s vivid visual sense and genuine curiosity about the nature of love and life, time and death, make it well worth surrendering to his imagination for a while.

Monsters is a tiny sci-fi thriller that makes up what it lacks in big effects with a fine photographic eye, a low-key sense of scale, and a genuine (if not always well-performed) human drama.