Not entirely persuasive, not entirely schmaltzy, "The Tic Code" is one of those well-meant dramatizations... that mysteriously made it all the way to a theater near you.

Cop Land presents a fairly involved plot, and Mangold is not equipped to do more than blurt all the information onto the screen and let the nuances settle where they may.

The boredom of the temporary office workers of the title was nothing compared to the boredom I experienced as this movie dribbled on before my eyes.

The entire film rings totally fake and the resulting dishonest sentimentality makes you fidget in your seat and count the seconds until the sweet but completely predictable ending.

Ultimately affecting mix 'n' match weeper.

This is a giddy parody of gang pictures, West Side Story without the music and set in the Bronx of the '60s. The music is solid early '60s rock 'n' roll ( My Boyfriend's Back, The Wanderer ) and the acting is broad and often silly.

Most of American Psycho just sits there, looking at trouble, rather than looking for it - complacent, overjoyed in fact to exist at all.

It fails to capitalize on its own gifts, coming darn close to greatness but never quite catching the brass ring.

The Wachowski brothers are to be applauded for a film that is also nearly as stylishly funny as it is sexy and fast-paced.

Plays like a lost Rockford file.

Gray is more interested in hobnobbing with thespian greats than he is in making a good movie.

A fun movie, with moments guaranteed to bring you close to tears. But, like most of Robbins' work, it's a cartoon, an emotional cartoon.

A mixed bag with the promise of a better sequel.

The maturity of the Star Trek saga and its remarkable fan base have combined to produce a polished film that shines like a crown jewel in the Star Trek firmament.

Scenes go on and on in endless, witless dialogue, ever accompanied by John Williams' hideously gushing music.

Gattaca is a welcome throwback to the days of good, low-tech sci-fi, stressing character and atmosphere over computer-generated effects and juvenile thrills.

The title comes from Indian legend in which Lord Rama tests the purity of his wife by a flaming ordeal (which we see enacted in an open-air pageant with comic overtones of Bunuel). This bit of mythology too handily prefigures a major element in the film's conclusion.

Be that as it may, the movie offers the uplifting news bulletin that life is not about being happy with how much you weigh but with what kind of person you are. This is where the movie starts getting sloppy.

A movie too smart and too urgent to be categorically awful. Clinically insane may be another matter altogether.

You may find yourself weeping toward the end, and, later, you may also find yourself wondering why. The revelations are staggeringly obvious.

They have created a strange document about the unmaking of young lives, but it is a movie made without comment. Clark has stepped back into objectivity so far that he has neglected his role as interpreter for us.

Lindsay Lohan, 12-year-old veteran of commercials and television, is a frighteningly poised child who is truly impressive as the long-separated twins.

The Patriot makes the Revolutionary War look like super-produced studio footage of the L.A. riots.

Most of the movie seems stilted and uncomfortably girdled by efforts to work around the cumbersome Brando, who is shot mostly from above the waist, where the full effects of gravity and avoirdupois do not seem so egregious as they do at belt level.

The disappointing ending aside, there is much to enjoy in The Game, a creation with a sheen so highly burnished that sometimes you feel you must look away.

Dern is nothing short of brilliant here.

If it's difficult to find straight laughs in a colorblind prison movie (It's difficult enough to find a colorblind prison movie), finding straight laughs in a black one is almost impossible.

Then there are times when the humor and the pathos of these losers catch you off-guard. Those moments are nearly profound, and elevate the film above the slacker cliches in which it wallows.