They take on special powers that the filmmakers are incapable of making interesting, partly because the characters are ciphers, and partly because the story is listless and uninventive.

Bergman has not gone soft, not emotionally, philosophically and certainly not artistically. This is as tough a film as he has ever made.

Cronicas has a cracking good plot, a central moral issue and John Leguizamo speaking Spanish. What more does a film need?

Won the Golden Spire Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival a few years back, and now, finally, the documentary is being released into theaters. It's a film with distinct virtues: It tells a fascinating story.

An entirely unconventional, hypnotic, meandering film.

Even without surprises, or drama, or clever dialogue, or even a single scene of any merit, Rebound goes along pleasantly.

A good French film that was inspired by an American classic.

At best a little boring and at worst stomach-churningly offensive.

A heartbreaking, beautiful movie that gains strength from its deep characterizations.

It is, simply, the alienation-invasion movie to beat all alien-invasion movies: meticulously detailed and expertly paced and photographed, with sights so spectacular and terrible that viewers will have to consciously remind themselves to close their mouths when their jaws drop open.

An entirely unconventional, hypnotic, meandering film.

It's funny, easily the funniest and least self-conscious movie that director Nora Ephron has made.

The master is back, and there's no shortage of exploding brain matter -- or fun -- to be had in the theaters this weekend.

Riveting.

Mostly unbearable.

Doueiri sprinkles Lila Says with moments of humor and violence -- a mix that keeps the film fresh and unpredictable.

An astonishing documentary.

It's a kids' movie from a better time, with a few small concessions to modern audiences.

Intends to inspire outrage, and to an extent it succeeds.

A bigger mess than the gas crisis.

Solid if unspectacular.

There's just the matter of facing it: that The Perfect Man is just something slapped together -- by people who don't care, for an audience they figure will care even less.

Perversely fascinating.

Totally original yet filled with familiar human frailties, "Everyone" leaps off the screen to become one of those rare movie-going experiences.

Instantly captivating.

Occasionally funny and touching, but often embarrassing and cringe-inducing.

Desperately wants to deal dramatically with the legitimate issues of homosexuality, tolerance, homelessness and drug use. But to do so, the movie, like Ethan, would first need to grow up.

It's all pleasant but fairly unimportant, and then -- POW -- comes the great scene, almost out of nowhere.