The charming thing about Anacondas is that it neither takes itself too seriously nor is it steeped in postmodern irony.

Among the lamest serial-killer movies ever made.

Extremely dumb, sporadically funny.

If you feel, like me, kinship with this essential building block of music, you owe it to yourself -- and to the Ramones -- to see this film.

A shabby, joyless, 90-minute slab of "advertainment."

An absorbing relational Rorschach test masquerading as a domestic drama, a sardonic examination of marriage and friendship that invites the audience to think for itself.

Panders to the worst traits in the target audience of spoiled third-grade girls.

A charming small-town comedy, thanks to the playfully romantic lead actors.

Devolves into a contrived, coincidence-driven, by-the-numbers thriller in its final act. That's not to say the movie's a failure. It's impossible to dismiss a film that starts out as such a sensuous, existential crime story.

Still, given the fact that it's August, you could do worse than hide out from the heat with the cute-as-a-bug Murphy, who manages to be funny and entertaining despite the material.

What is deeply stirring is Code 46's sound, light and texture. It's probably bad critical form to recommend a movie based largely on abstractions like "vibe," but Winterbottom does such a glorious job building his world that a certain breed of filmgoer can get punch-drunk lost in the pure cinema of it all.

A fascinating experiment in both filmmaking technology and narrative style, but one that can be counted a success only in limited ways.

With his periodic porn-star mustache, shaggy hair and reckless demeanor, the movie Stander embodies a certain brand of brooding outlaw cool that feels increasingly rare.

Neither the social commentary nor the story ever overpower the other, a feat that allows this remake to stand proudly alongside the original, its equal in every way.

The trouble is, the kids seem to be in one earnest "After School Special"-type of movie, while the adults occupy a retro-futuristic world more like the original TV show.

Thriller is hardly the word for this tedious exercise in clue-hiding.

Slight on personality but long on music; Janis Joplin elevates it to near-great concert-film status.

Terrific lead performances make this epic stoner comedy watchable but can't save it from flat direction.

The result is a handsome, intelligent film that feels as restrained as its protagonist -- a comic premise without many laughs, a thriller without many thrills.

Zach Braff has come up with a charming, funny, melancholy ode to twentysomething angst.

Gives us a fresh way to think not only about movies but about the town in which so many of them are made, and in that regard it's kind of amazing.

Given the abundance of tedious sex in She Hate Me it's no wonder the whole thing's such a turn-off.

What really separates Zatoichi from a run-of-the-mill action pic is the sense of humor -- and even more than that, the sense of fun -- that Kitano brings to it.

Solid summer entertainment set in a recognizably real world.

Berry has no character to play, but Sharon Stone's an over-the-top hoot.

The film equivalent of the blind date described as "really nice." It's neither bad nor good, just sort of earnest and well-meaning.

Creepy, purposefully frustrating, nonlinear horror exercise from Japan that quietly burrows right into your skull.

Longer cut's slapdash additions make a cool, ambiguous film more literal; original 2001 version is far better.