An awkward comedy made surprisingly bearable, most of the way, by one actress' ability to turn on the charm and sparkle.

The saving grace of this French film is that it's anything but a sentimental story.

Could hardly be called a success -- it's rather a likable disaster.

A silly, snarling romp -- a fun (if you're in the mood for it), sometimes scary look at the life of a socially awkward man whose best friend is a white rodent he names Socrates.

Friedkin is steeped in gore, like some cinematic Macbeth, and it's obscuring his artistic vision.

An entertaining film for kids and young teens. It's also a product of the era in which we're living, and weird times make for weird movies.

Has no insights, no point, no urgency and no importance.

Routine, genial sports movie.

Ultimately lacks the narrative muscle that could have made it great. But it does have McDormand, who is great in this, her best showcase since "Fargo."

Sinks into melodrama.

This is strictly formula stuff, made worse by an utterly careless depiction of the characters.

A noble attempt that doesn't hang together.

Noe isn't a graceful filmmaker. He wants to traumatize his audience, barnstorm us, make us pay in anxiety and sweat and scorched nerves for the ugly truths he wants us to swallow.

What pushes it above mediocrity is that it ends better than it begins.

A minimalist film, Ten looks and feels like a documentary. At the end, there is no big denouement, but a profound realization that the people we see on camera are all aching for answers -- and struggling to come to terms with their lives.

Between the off-center comic riffs of Tom Arnold and the wildly improbable hair's-breadth escapes, the whole business dissolves into amiable action farce.

And you thought Hamlet was a melancholy Dane. Compared with this gloomy group, he's Pee Wee Herman.

Stays emotionally mired because of a static screenplay that fails to express its issues dramatically.

While Dark Blue may not be easy to watch, it's exceptionally well made.

The result is a film that's honest and tepid, intelligent and dull, worthy and forgettable.

It's a plodding, episodic film, reverent and sanctimonious, and its pro-Southern viewpoint -- a time-honored Hollywood tendency -- makes "Gone With the Wind" look like a Northern polemic.

The saving grace of Old School is that it has about a dozen funny moments. These moments aren't mildly funny or chuckle funny but really funny.

By the end, it reveals itself as too pat, too absurd and -- as a polemic against capital punishment -- philosophically self- defeating.

A documentary that is as thoughtful and inspiring as the music it celebrates.

A handsome film, filled with lavish costumes and set designs and told in a series of exquisitely composed images. But even with its visual polish, it's a chilly, largely unaffecting film about an unsympathetic man.

The overall result of this remake is something as safe and dull as oatmeal.

Gerry is ragingly bad art that contributes to a definition of independent film as something no one would want to sit through.

This is an acerbic examination of erotic obsession, told from different perspectives, with wit, suspense and cold-blooded detachment.