Much of Astronaut comes off as tedious and self-amused, but the musical vignettes are fun.

O has one advantage over "Othello" -- since it's a new movie, not a classic, it has the power to surprise.

The first half-hour of this movie is sensational, creating an atmosphere of dread that any horror master would envy.

It's a resplendently basic, lovey- dovey and inside-out "King Lear."

The equivalent of a full-course meal with no calories. It is a mirage of a movie, 100 minutes of nothing.

A gentle, sprightly satire that pokes fun at these trendy communards but emphasizes their humanity and fallibility.

A tired and dispiriting affair that takes forever to get going.

It's middling Allen, which means that fans won't be sorry to see it, while everyone else can wait until the next "Bullets Over Broadway."

The actors have enough appeal to keep it moving over the speed bumps.

In addition to being his filthiest, this is his most free-associative movie. In spite of and because of its homemade look, it's also his funniest.

This movie has a sweetness at its core.

Often hilarious mockumentary.

Remarkable in several big ways.

This plot leaves ample room for viewers to sweat the small stuff, like whether Trevor Nunn's score is more Marines ad or deodorant commercial.

Handsomely weathered John Hurt, as Pelagia's father, gives a performance of such unhackneyed dignity that it provides a moral compass for the action and helps to keep the ricocheting emotional content of the film in balance.

The funniest film to come along since "South Park," and one that succeeds in a more difficult and satisfying way.

They don't get more frustrating than American Rhapsody, a near-great film for about an hour that changes into a self-indulgent mess.

If you want to watch a gaggle of pretty faux-neurotic people hang out and throw quips, you're probably better off watching "Friends."

No longer fresh -- though that's to be expected in a sequel -- it contains none of the virtues that made the first one anarchic and original.

The story doesn't quite pay off, characters are underwritten and the surprise ending is contrived and unconvincing.

The Others is great as a collection of acknowledgments, but a ghost story made of a bunch of ghoulish thank-yous isn't that haunting.

Osmosis is really an occasion for the brothers to take their culture- debasing scatology to a PG crowd.

The resulting film is nobly ridiculous and ridiculously noble, doing everything in its power to subvert the dross it's fooling around with.

This movie can be recommended only to dyed-in-the-wool fans of the genre. Anyone who goes into one of Miike's films must be prepared to be put through the wringer.

Neither epochal nor epic in its ludicrousness. It's just run-of-the-mill trash.

Philippe Blasband's screenplay is witty and economical, and the film's editing is crisp.

A charming, finely nuanced romance.

Entertaining and pleasing for children and parents, and not in the schizophrenic way of most kid's movies, which toss naughty in-jokes over the kiddies' heads.

It's a fact that becomes riotously evident in the reel of outtakes that caps the picture and incites wonder about why no one thought to give us 90 minutes of those instead.

Apocalypse Now is a mixed bag, a product of excess and ambition, hatched in agony and redeemed by shards of brilliance. The new Redux version isn't a better film, but for Coppola fans and film lovers, it's essential viewing.

Only occasionally does the film fall into the trap of making the prisoners cute, but it never falters in important ways.

Poetry, lesbian sex and murder might be a killer combination if a deadly pace weren't included in the mix.

The new Planet of the Apes is not a remake, and it's not a sequel. It is an amazing display of imagination.

A movie about serendipity and spontaneity.

Uses loneliness and alienation as the primary emotional colors on a surprisingly expressive canvas.

Harmless enough, and its team of actors so frisky and enthusiastic that it manages to deliver a modicum of laughs despite itself.

It's more psychological than a genre movie, and that is the source of both its greatest interest and its biggest problem.

The filmmakers throw in an extended flatulence routine and enough graphic references to female anatomy to make "The Vagina Monologues" blush.

A wonderful, cockeyed sex comedy.

This is the downside of Roberts' giant success and her dazzling ability to charm: Every time she goes plain, as she did in the little-seen "Mary Reilly" and "Michael Collins," our princess simply fizzles.

Beat Takeshi fans wouldn't think of missing this one. Moviegoers who hate violence wouldn't be caught dead at it.

Falters in its final 15 minutes, when the funny lines peter out and the flashbacks get fuzzy.

Bests most other teen comedies right off the bat. If you got a kick out of "Crumb," this film will crack you up.

This is a monster movie -- 92 minutes, lots of action, lots of green legs stomping, get in, get out.

Some of the dialogue in Made was improvised, and the comic invention at work here -- Vaughn's and Favreau's -- make Made into a rough gem.

Benefits enormously from smart casting across the board.

The important thing is that Clark has found a new way to be creepy, which isn't easy. In the process he has created something irresistibly watchable, the kind of original piece that might mean less but reveal more than its creator intended.

This is a solid suspense thriller that's fun. These stars have put it together in a spirit of playfulness -- as in playacting.

Tends to be lugubrious.

The result is a sprightly, entertaining film, but one in which the satire is neutralized for laughs.

It is not merely a thriller but a shocker. It will separate hard-core Jet Li followers from the fair-weather fans.

Plays like a holy, erotic mood piece, steeped in so much subdued jungle fever that it practically runs on photosynthesis.

Pool captures the crazed urgency of first love -- the feeling of a passion so fierce that even a disapproving society can't crush it.

The story is fluff, but it's mostly appealing.

It is never less than interesting. But who wants interesting from a movie called Cats & Dogs? It needs to grab the audience by the scruff of the neck and shake it.

A pure Frankenstein flick -- ugly, profane, terror-inducing, clumsy, nasty, desperate, stupid, contemptible, horny and brought to life by schlocky, shoddy science and an electric wish to prove that its makers still matter.

Neither a "gay" movie nor a straight one; it is simply a funny one.

Does not end well. But there's a lot of pleasure in getting there.

Even when the movie is bad -- it's addictively so.

By the end A.I. exhibits all its creators' bad traits and none of the good. So we end up with the structureless, meandering, slow-motion endlessness of Kubrick combined with the fuzzy, cuddly mindlessness of Spielberg.

The photography is strong, the performances sympathetic and the sex plentiful.

The film feels like bare- bones docu-fiction, though, resisting the attendant drama until the bitter, grisly end.

It would have been enough that Singleton raise these difficult questions without trying to wrap them up, too, in the last five minutes.

The film is built to quaver and buckle along with its victims and martyrs. In an almost soulful way, it bespeaks the reality lingering when the final fantasy ends.

It's dreary and self-indulgent but has its crystalline moments.

It is the Eddie Murphy movie where Eddie Murphy has next to nothing to do. Do little says it all.

Something special about it. It's a formula movie, to be sure, but it's Formula One.

It's an intelligent movie about economics. As such, it would probably make more sense to have it reviewed by economists than film critics.

It's a distinctly French feeling -- an air of caprice and light expectations -- and a perfect prologue to a delightful film.

One of those go-out-for-coffee-afterward-and-talk-about-it movies, and those are always welcome.

Greenwald is fine at creating the texture of early mountain life but loses her footing by embracing several plot points at once.

These are good moments, and there are a few others, that prevent Tomb Raider from being one of the worst films of the year. But they're not enough to make it worth seeing.

A vicious horror flick with an actual beast and someone who just acts like one.

The emphasis here is less on cuteness and romance and more on the "Raiders of the Lost Ark"-style adventure.

In a movie as hackneyed and as dull as Evolution, the small favors of Duchovny's performance stand out.

The only performer who breathes any life into the proceedings is Vincent Perez.

This is no-holds-barred filmmaking. Some viewers will find it disgusting. Others will call the director's bluff.

A caustic comedy of Hollywood manners.

It is a warm, closely observed satire of lived life, and it is a charmer.

This lurid thriller comes to life in fits and starts, and then sinks into the bog of its own cleverness once again.

Audiences will talk about how satisfying this movie is.

An Irish drama that's a lot more sly and a lot less straightforward than it appears on the surface.

It's unlikely that the whole cowboy town would really applaud all the queer goings-on, but it's a lovely sentiment in a lovely movie.

It's a bizarre hybrid: one part feminist screed, one part French art film and one part skin flick.

This sometimes funny but ultimately convoluted movie would have benefited enormously from letting Lawrence loose.

Charmingly quirky.

They are naturals at acting, not because they're good at lying but because they can't be phony.

It feels both big and little, concentrating as it does on the small movements in people's lives and the huge tides of history.

It's a simple story, reminiscent of the Iranian film "The Wind Will Carry Us."

It expertly capitalizes on the emotional associations Americans have with Pearl Harbor and renders the battle scenes with an excellence that goes beyond proficiency and into the realm of art.

The movie's soul isn't its plot but the relationships among the girls.

Has a vacant, inept, why-oh-why feeling from its opening minutes and only gets worse.

Mediocre-TV-drama-load of formulas.

Angel Eyes is the rare film that presents a family dynamic as demented as ones we know from life.

A movie so cheeky, aggressive and bursting with vitality that it can't help being annoying and exhilarating at the same time.

As innocent as a Disney movie -- and a lot more entertaining.

The laughs come in all the wrong places when they come at all.

An eye-opening documentary.