For two-thirds of its running length, Zack and Miri is vintage Smith - profane humor that knows no boundaries and obeys no rules. What's most amazing about Smith's barrage of hard-R jokes isn't the range of subjects he covers, but how few of them "miss."

If The Player set the bar high for this sub-genre, Levinson's attempt, which too often falls prey to self-indulgence and tedium, comes up significantly short.

The final 15 minutes are so awful that it's difficult to believe that the bulk of the film is actually decent.

While Straczynski should be commended for remaining reasonably true to the historical record, this results in an open-ended conclusion that isn't entirely satisfying.

The movie's action largely takes place beneath the skin. The pace is slow but not glacial, yet Claudel demands patience. Ultimately, I've Loved You So Long is uplifting, although one might not expect that from the thematic material.

Some will classify Let the Right One In as a horror movie, and I suppose that's technically accurate. To me, however, this is much more of a coming-of-age/friendship movie.

Just because a movie is ambitious and challenging doesn't mean it can't also be tedious and at times unbearable.

Superficial, uninformative, and inert, this two hour snoozefest isn't even inflammatory enough to stoke a righteous anti-Bush brushfire. W. does for recent history what Oliver Stone's epic "Alexander" did for ancient times.

The film provides ample opportunity to attack the MPAA's hypocrisy. Max Payne is a bloodbath, yet it manages a PG-13 rating by keeping the explicitness of the killings just a whisker shy of what would be necessary for an R.

The other actress to stand out is, unsurprisingly, Queen Latifa, whose intense screen presence makes her a force to be reckoned with even when she's simply standing in the background, not saying anything.

Sex Drive's first 30 minutes may lead one to suspect there's nothing new to be seen here, but it undergoes a transformation once the preliminaries have been dispensed with. John Hughes would be pleased - and so also might Judd Apatow.

Body of Lies neither panders nor condescends. It involves current events and has a political viewpoint, but it overplays neither.

It's easily the weakest entry into this ever-expanding category and is inferior to its subtitled source material. Quarantine implies "stay away" and that's not bad advice.

While Ernie's on-field accomplishments were extraordinary, it was the environment in which he struggled to achieve them that makes him the worthy subject of a motion picture.

City of Ember has almost anything one could want from a science fiction-based family adventure film: likeable characters, an imaginative setting, and a fast pace.

While any or all of the events related during the course of the film might seem to form the backbone of an unendurably boring motion picture, everything comes alive because of Poppy.

As punchy and energetic as the first few moments are, the rest of the film quickly falls back into mediocrity.

The problem with the movie, whose title compresses "religious" and "ridiculous" into a single word, isn't that it milks more than one sacred cow but that it does so with minimal subtlety and intelligence.

Feels jumbled and disorganized. It's not altogether unpalatable, but that doesn't present it from being a mess.

Geared more toward teens, although that won't prevent older viewers with an affinity for romance from appreciating the vibes it gives off.

It engaged me throughout and I found the ending to be surprisingly hopeful.

In short, Flash of Genius fails to make viewers care with any depth about the story it's telling.

At times, the movie gets bogged down in minutia but the emotions evoked and captured are as honest and brutal as one is likely to find on film.

There is no truth to the rumor that free frontal lobotomies will be performed at the entrance to all theaters showing Eagle Eye.

Most of the laughs are unintentional, but the result is absurd and laughable.

Miracle at St. Anna is overlong and poorly focused. It tends to meander, the military context is not well established, and too much time is spent on interaction with underdeveloped secondary characters.

The movie veers with surprising ease between comedy and tragedy. Some scenes are hilarious; others are somber.

The weakest aspect of The Lucky Ones is by far the conclusion, which is flat and contrived.