A picture that certain Brits and connoisseurs of British colloquial English might call "a grower" … more moving and funny the more I think about it.

As a fan, it's upsetting to admit that Dumont's ideas and insights have narrowed with this picture, his relaxed pacing now lethargic, his physically and mentally thick characters too familiar, and his ice-water shocks a bit predictable. It would seem self-parodic if it weren't so damn tragic.

Olivier Assayas latest effort could be mistaken for a hipper-than-thou thriller. But it isn’t--it’s in fact a difficult, challenging, and troubling art film. [October 2003, p. 19]

Resurrection is a revelation.

Underscored by the fragility of a plinking piano and well-timed flourishes to uplift, this heroic heartstring-tugger is still frequently and unexpectedly affecting, so much that it's able to hide its true face as a glorified movie-of-the-week.

The movie has some pleasures, but can be heartily recommended only to those who like their entertainments equally inoffensive and inconsequential.

It puts almost everything it has into its explosive set pieces, but manages to instill the audience with just enough emotional involvement. If, Ah-nold decides to come bach again, this installment should ensure he has an audience.

Frances McDormand, as Erica’s younger sister, flourishes in her few minutes of screen time. She’s flinty, ferocious, and purely hysterical.

A giddy kick-out-the-jams entertainment. Diary takes a tack that's not exactly new, but is new to Romero, and as one might expect, the director brings a sharp and uncompromising new perspective to it.

Though Steamboy could have been smarter and more dramatically engineered, this razzle-dazzle ride won't disappoint if you just need to blow off a little you-know-what.

A comic tour de force from Damon, who gained 30lbs and sports an unflattering moustache as the dishonest and delusional Whitacre. But it’s a performance that never loses sight of the man behind the lies.

This tale has been told so often (in fact, its roots can be traced back to Fellini's 1953 coming-of-age classic "I Vitelloni") the only way to keep it remotely fresh is to keep changing the time period and the professions of the principal characters.

It's too bad that the movie induces eyeball-rolling almost as much as it does armrest-clutching.

A brilliant little exercise. As a horror movie, it packs one genuine scare after another, right up to the moment of its inconceivably ghastly end. As a mystery, it unfolds with an almost supernatural elegance. And as a metaphor for the movies themselves, it's truly exceptional.

Terrifically charming and energetic film.

If The Prestige is something of a let down as a magic trick, it's more successful as a tale of obsession. The rivalry between the magicians is brutal and bloody and Bale and Jackman do their best work when they're plotting each other's downfall.

Stardust is an eye-poppingly elaborate fantasy that's shot through with action-movie adrenaline and attitude.

So if you like Ferrell or Cohen, go ahead buy some popcorn, check your brain at the door, and you will laugh.

Margot is a fleet, strangely enjoyable film, animated by the acuity of Baumbach's perceptions and -- this helps a lot -- the frequent laugh-out-loud wit of his dialogue.

Irresponsible, morally murky, and batshit insane--in other words, Kick-Ass might be the most fun two hours you’ll spend in a movie theater. It delivers the darkly comic laughs (the movie is clearly not taking itself too seriously, so you should do likewise) as well as the jaw-dropping action, but Kick-Ass’s real accomplishment is bringing back the winkingly crazy Nic Cage we used to know and love.

Mean Girls depicts the kind of traumatic high school experience that might await spoiled rich girls who grow up in two-parent households with designer clothes and Escalades.

Just when the plot should start coming together, the pacing goes slack and the narrative gets bogged down in routine cop-movie clichés.

The flick is driven not by special effects or outrageously gory acts of violence, but by its characters. Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley reinvent the crazy scientists playing God, turning in performances that are charming one minute, petulant the next, and ultimately, compellingly hubristic.

The film succeeds on the strength of the four actresses, first and foremost America Ferrera, who beautifully essays the role of narrator Carmen.

One of Cruise's most deeply cherished ambitions is to be a great actor, and this movie goes to great lengths to let him do that--sort of. You'll understand what I mean during the sequence in which there is more than one Philip Seymour Hoffman on the screen.

Overall, I Am Legend is a wasted opportunity -- a rickety, weather-beaten framework around an otherwise strong central performance from Smith.

At best, this movie functions as a brief companion piece to Boy George's new Broadway show, “Taboo.”

By the end the movie has pretty much ceased taking itself at all seriously, devolving into a nonchalant giggliness of the stoned variety that's completely apropos.