The silver lining in the film is Paul Rudd, who brings some nuance to his character that, given his past work, you can assume was all his doing. Jason Biggs, in his role as Ashley's gay best friend and catering partner, carries out an interesting, if somewhat left-field plot twist.

Rambo is surprisingly effective as an action movie precisely because the villains seem truly dangerous and the "mission" truly a death wish.

A remarkably engrossing and thoughtful picture, beautifully rendered in an artful mode of realism.

Lichtenstein's putative switcheroo on the Vagina Dentata trope is to play it as some kind of token of female empowerment, but it's pretty clear that the writer/director didn't think things through on any counts, contenting himself that the putative outrageousness of the concept could see him through.

Takes a long time to say nothing new, which is a shame because it wastes fine performances across the board (it's a nice reminder that Farrell, can, in fact, act), and, well, a really effective score by Philip Glass.

It's not the life-changing movie experience the intense viral marketing attention would lead you to think it is, but its decision to focus on ground-level humanism rather than epic disaster is what separates it from the pack.

Affable Ted Danson makes few ripples as Bridget's husband Don; while Roger Cross and Adam Rothenberg also glide through the film in their minor "significant other" roles to Nina and Jackie, respectively.

A chick-flick on a sugar high, so giggly-bouncy and nostalgic for the fantasy-girlhood of its audience that the DVD, which should follow relatively quickly, should come packaged in big pink bows and include a coupon for a free pony ride.

With his preferences for static, colorless visuals and exposition-laden dialogue over conversation, director Valette has now set the bar for the worst film of 2008.

The Orphanage's joys come from the experiential: Bayona's cultured technical skills, including some phenomenal sound design, and sustained anxiety. It's about as healthy as junk food gets.

There Will Be Blood is, in fact, not a historical saga; rather, it's an absurdist, blackly comic horror film with a very idiosyncratic satanic figure at its core.

This terminally ill, terminally awful dramedy marks a sad cinematic milestone: The Bucket List is the first film in history to feature a truly wretched Nicholson performance -- and we're not talking about the character he plays.

While The Great Debaters' intentions don't lead it to movie hell, this picture is far more diffuse, commonplace, and predictable than the surprisingly convincing "Fisher."

While avoiding specious bromides about universality, Persepolis insists on communicating with its audience, and insists that communication and empathy are the keys to our survival.

Julia Roberts has never played a dowager before, but heaven knows she makes a good, and funny, one.

The movie does feature a nice, teasing chemistry between veteran actors Voight and Mirren (who clearly relishes the chance to break out of stuffy melodrama), but this shallow, empty puzzle requires more than playful banter to satisfy audiences willing to pay to play.

The result is one of the odder and, certainly the most compelling of the short stream of Broadway-to-Hollywood transplants of recent years. The interweaving of the music and the visuals casts an unusual, restive spell of delight and unease.

So you'll laugh, you'll groan, you'll leave the theater singing "I'm gonna beat off….all my demons/That's what lovin' Jesus is all about" -- and isn't that, ultimately, a good thing? Yes.

At times funny, and even occasionally witty, Alvin and the Chipmunks is a lively, entertaining romp that will certainly bring smiles to the young ones this holiday season.

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

As a fan and well-wisher of Coppola's, I wanted very much to like this movie, and I'll probably give it another shot once the DVD comes out. But, at first sight, Youth Without Youth's striving for exuberance reveals an almost desperate effort too much of the time.

An inoffensive piece of seasonal movie-muzak.

The settings are handsome, the cinematography accomplished, the performances first-rate.

Ultimately fails as a film in its broad strokes and inadequate scene development.

A picture about tragedy in one American family's life, and it's a convincing and humane one.

If a woman had not in fact certifiably written the picture, I might have thought that Lester Bangs had come back from the dead to pen an account of the teen years of his ideal mate.

You won't see the twist coming, thanks to a clever and precise piece of casting, but that's the best compliment that can be paid to Awake, a plotty and unfocused medical thriller.

Every performer in the international cast -- Seigner, de Bankole, von Sydow (magnificent as Bauby's father), and the late Jean-Pierre Cassel to name but a few -- completely disappears into each of their roles, which I think is as much a testament to Schnabel's talents as to theirs.