If The Good Thief isn't up to the work that inspired it, it's nevertheless fresh and distinct, a shot of citrus in a movie season far too often tasting of pablum.

With a less popcorn-friendly cast and some cheesy special effects, this is a surprisingly engaging, sometimes foolish but often roughly intelligent film.

One of the purest instances of indie cinema this year. "Pure" meaning that in every aspect of filmmaking and intent this picture is peerless, so truly real, funny, poignant and sexy that it almost feels like a watershed cinematic moment.

Disconnected and even disoriented, Assassination Tango is an atmosphere in search of a reason.

Basic essentially is a fun movie, surprise ending and all. To take it too seriously is to miss the point. Travolta is charming, his performance recapturing the old charisma.

Opens with a statement that Hillary Clinton, Bob Dole and Al Sharpton are not in the movie. Also not in the movie: laughs.

The film drags and lingers and goes more or less nowhere, imitating its protagonists' lives so exactly that you want to give them both a good smack.

If the new I-wanna-be-a-stewardess picture View From the Top were an airplane, it would blow up on takeoff. If it were an airline meal, it would infect you with E. coli. If it were a parachute, it would be riddled with holes.

So often out of control that it becomes absurd and exasperating.

It's a lame, gender-mixed, mistaken-identity, cross-dressing comedy: "Some Like It Tepid," if you will.

Enough. There's no fun in bashing a Piglet movie, even a nickel-cadging spinoff.

The "Citizen Kane" of rat movies makes for a terrific overhaul in this wonderfully entertaining and, yes, touching take on that terribly confused man/child named Willard.

With understated skill and absolute authenticity, the film builds with enough layers that by its powerful ending, you'll feel as if you have been kicked in the stomach.

Some will hate this film, but there's something delectably junky about it -- like a bright colored candy glistening from a gutter, you just have to look at it.

While the plot of The Hunted is tiresome and the character development is phlegmatic, the picture holds fascination in its determination to trim away chat and guff and focus on tempo and filmic textures.

The film paints a by now familiar picture of suburbia as a pit of dysfunction, though some nice dark-humored moments and generally fine performances make up for a lot.

Fuqua has made three films before his newest, Tears of the Sun, and they've all begun well enough but then collapsed under the weight of his heavy-handed visual technique and his indifference to plot, character and logic.

Sometimes funny but mostly stupid film directed by Adam Shankman might have worked had it been made on TV by Norman Lear in the 1970s.

Made with disarming craft and cunning. Intermixed in the memories it leaves of horror and disgust are glimpses of impressive technique and savvy psychological insight.

Working toward its refreshingly light but utterly apt ending, the film teems with insights into the human condition revealed by an unusually smart script and a wonderfully committed cast. It's a truly fine work.

Although the plot might sound like the stuff of a soap opera, a smart script, strong performances and an ideologically determined lack of filmmaking niceties result in a shattering, deeply felt work.

So what will happen? Sadly, some overacting and a bad "And Justice For All"-style speech at the end.

The film strives to be poetic, but it exposes nothing especially moving or relevant. Rather, the engaging leads wander around like actors lost in an ill-fated exercise in subtext.

With little cohesion and no respect for the editing process, Old School often feels like someone threw film clips on the floor and strung them together willy-nilly.

In the end, the intelligence of the dialogue and crack acting are wrestled to the ground by the zealous politics, the formulaic narrative and a wan and flaccid air unusual from the reliably nifty Parker.

Far too often, the film has to submit to the inevitable and stop so that Affleck can struggle like a yoga student to bend his face into a human emotion. He even cries. So might you.

The film holds charms for everyone but in a very unusual way: If some audience members feel cheated at the halfway mark, others will feel that the film is finally getting started. Nifty!

There's a lot of fascinating talk here and a genuine passion for ideas and words. But it's also a case where the messenger is so grating that we feel the perverse urge to kill the message that he carries just to spite him.