Driving the plot, Baldwin gives an inexorable, career-marking performance.

Too-laborious meditation on life and death.

I do hate to say it -- it's really a drag, but why did they let this Cat out of the bag?

Gothika deserves credit for embracing the ghost story genre so whole-heartedly, but as any ten-year-old girl can tell you, there's nothing original here to see.

Girard gives feisty life to the battle-weary professor, but Rousseau just follows the drill--he is glass-eyed to the point of distraction. And for all its intellectual maneuvering, the film never regains the simple power of its opening salvo.

Howard’s inclination toward graphic, gruesome violence, reminiscent of Ransom’s grisly denouement, The Missing is, at its core, a story well-told and built upon the solid foundation of Blanchett’s supremely capable performance.

There's a lot to be said for a movie that isn't after instant fame, but only wants to make audiences feel good.

Weir consistently proves that he can take any kind of material and adeptly make it his own.

It's flat-out comedy all the way, head-spinningly clever (you'll be talking about a sequence set in the Louvre for weeks) and always engaging. For my money, it's the comedy of the year.

Resurrection is a revelation.

There were times watching this movie when I felt I was being force-fed 30 pounds of crème brûlée. Which isn’t to say I choked on every minute: I chortled heartily at the thread about the comeback of the washed-up rock star (Bill Nighy).

Earle fans might see this film as a satisfying portrayal of a man they know and love, but those unfamiliar with the man and his music will likely leave the theater without much more interest in him than when the movie began.

On the plus side, there are these super-scary mechanical octopus-type things with a billion eyes and metal tentacles that fly in great awful swarms and look like the non-organic versions of the flying-brain-and-spinal-cord monsters that made the otherwise laughable '60s sci-fi flick "Fiend Without aFace" so cool.

While Bartley and O'Briain flat-out lucked out with this felicitous endeavor, their fearlessness, unobtrusive narration, and lack of Michael Moore man-and-microphone pandering is to be saluted.

Each segment introduces new characters and a radically different scenario, which suggests that Hancock's structure may actually be an insecure attempt to deliver a horror movie.

Against very steep odds, writer-director Billy Ray and company have, in telling the real-life story of fictionalizing "New Republic" writer Stephen Glass and his downfall, produced the most entertaining inside-journalism movie since "All the President's Men."

Documentarian Liz Garbus masterfully turns her minimalist camera's eye on young girls institutionalized at the Waxter Juvenile Facility near Baltimore.

When it's all over and it's apparent that entire sections of the film are irrelevant and the paper-thin love story leaves you unsatisfied, hold your tongue, and try to remember that this film is v-e-r-y important.

Both Harris and Gooding, Jr. are fine actors trapped in a mawkish, pandering production that wastes the latter and is a waste of time for the former.

While not a masterpiece along the lines of "The Lion King," and not a super-smart witticism-fest like "Lilo and Stitch," Brother Bear is deeply heartfelt, touching, and beautiful.

I haven't been crazy about a lot of Van Sant's recent work, but what he does here is simply astonishing. [November 2003, p. 25]

Manages to pull off an adequate amount of scares, when compared to most horror flicks in theaters this Halloween season.

Irritatingly, Fleder's flair for broadcasting plot twists treats the audience with the same patronizing indulgence as Hackman does his potential jurors.

A modestly scaled film on every level, but Hedges and company manage to ring true on almost all the material's sweet and sour notes.

The story and stunts are outlandish, and the effects are distractingly computer-generated. To be fair, some of the best things about the film are very Japanese, notably the anime.

Too bad the movie was assembled by Hollywood types -- Joel Schumacher directed, Jerry Bruckheimer produced -- who like to have things 15 ways at once. Hollywood types don't like journalists, so while they're lionizing Guerin, they go out of their way to make almost every other journalist depicted in the picture despicable.

While it's not nearly as beguiling as the Coen's last pic, the uncanny "The Man Who Wasn't There," Cruelty is still a brisk hoot.

Although this installment is a beautiful stand-alone thang (check out how its chronology-juggling storyline creates a perfect circle, structure-wise).