There's not a whole lot to Waking Ned Devine, but it may be enough for those who like their quirky comedies from the British Isles - a burgeoning genre now - both atmospheric and gentle.

Hung skillfully evokes the oppressive congestion, squalor and heat of Ho Chi Minh City. (Amazingly, given the controlling nature of Vietnam's socialist government, the warts-and-all movie was shot on location.) But he is less successful at developing the character of his characters.

Because Wilde was a dandy and a wit, as well as a clever writer of daring plays, any actor who plays him must have charm. Fry has it in abundance.

A dashing fusion of the literary and the cinematic.

Shivers exhibits the major characteristics of Cronenberg's canon, his use of architecture as reinforcement of the film's creepy tone and the deliberate reduction of men and women to a single, compulsively sexual aspect of their identities.

An alt-country paean to libidinal mothers and the little girls who clean up the mess.

A finely coiffed, cream-cheese "8 1/2" remix with Gere, a Marcello Mastroianni for Oprah Winfrey times.

Even those unfamiliar with the entire "Star Trek" phenomenon (it's now been 30 years since the original TV show sprang from the fertile mind of creator Gene Roddenberry) will find this a clever action movie, with a well-written screenplay and tight direction of a fine cast.

The author calls the movie "perfect" - reassurance that the director hasn't tried to pull any fast ones.

This is the sort of movie that doesn't become irritating even when it's predictable.

Franklin juggles it all with wit and style, and suddenly you feel fine that this is only Mosley's first Easy Rawlins novel. Several more are just waiting to be adapted.

What the story lacks in tension, Waterhouse's writing and Leconte's direction make up for in entertainment.

Especially fine are Spade and Louiso, the latter possessing a quality of injured integrity that is priceless here.

Deceptively keen as both a paranoid political thriller and a caveat against the trustworthiness of your friends and neighbors.

What remains of the book's psychological underpinnings -- there are enough here to leave a permanent dent in the couch of any Freud-loving shrink

Spirited, madly educational docu-quickie.

I think the script by television writer Channing Gibson (no relation) is the funniest of them all.

Certainly it isn't about to give "Das Boot" a run for its money - but nevertheless it is irresistible entertainment.

A smart, funny and endearing movie. It has enough cynicism to satisfy the part of DiCillo that would mock a blue-eyed superstar, yet enough genuine sentiment to make it possible for us to swallow the cynicism.

Revelatory.

It succeeds because of the frenzied, kinetic direction by Mike Newell, one of the most interesting big-hit directors.

Funny enough that it could make buddy pictures respectable again.

The acting and writing is a cut above the ordinary.

Tyler is a find for a director like Bertolucci. She is a blank slate of prettiness with her unadulterated, thoroughbred, long-limbed looks.

Loose and funny with verve.

De Felitta has taken potentially overripe material and given it real heart.

Voight's Wright is one of many examples of how Singleton and Poirier succeed in suggesting the ambivalence and shadings that make movie characters believable.

All the performances are good, the script is subtle and waste-free and Danny Elfman's score is evocative and appropriate, but the direction is what gives the movie its sweep.