A slow-moving, unashamedly weepy, middle-age love story of the kind big-studio Hollywood doesn't often make anymore.

It's all too much and too little: a history lesson in institutional racism that falls into character cliches, a human drama that gets lost in melodramatic detours, a war movie put together by a fan rather than a filmmaker.

A strangely warm, affectionate look at bad behavior amid emotional damage and a stranglehold of identity issues.

Burger is so respectful of the trio that he never gets under their skin. Apart from the generosity of strangers who pay tribute to the soldiers with little acts of kindness, you get the same generic observations of any road movie.

Not a moment rings true in this sentimental drama.

Ghost Town reworks "Ghost" as a romantic comedy with a miserable hero who sees dead people and is really annoyed by them.

Too bad Igor didn't jolt the film to life with his Frankenstein shenanigans.

When a film has to blare its racially and incendiary stance as obviously as Lakeview Terrace, you know it's trying too hard.

An old-fashioned Western with all the classic elements -- buddy loyalty, stalwart heroes, despicable villains, plenty of gunfights and marvelous wind-scoured desert landscapes -- marked by some modern ideas about relationships.

Is it too much to ask that the fictional scenes have at least some of the complexity and unpredictability of the real-life theater?

Provided you don't take it seriously, it makes for an addictively entertaining diversion that's as hard to stop watching as the books are to stop reading.

Contrary to its title, Virtual JFK is less a counter-history of the Vietnam years than a tribute to John F. Kennedy's stubborn resistance to a military that pressured him to go to war on six occasions during his short presidency.

One of the Coens' more playful projects, much lighter and significantly slighter than "No Country for Old Men" or "Fargo," but it's put together with such perfection that you can't help but be won over.

Feels the scratches of too much time and tinkling and is as disjointed as a dislocated shoulder.

Ball's snide humor and cynical arrogance undercut his message at every turn.

Were it not for its pat resolutions, Mister Foe might deserve a mention alongside such classic psycho-sexual thrillers as "Vertigo" and "Peeping Tom." Instead, Mackenzie has reined in the strangeness to deliver a conventional, if better than average, mystery.

Yu has a good time making fun of white people, in particular a pair of rival ping-pong teachers who seem inspired by the gay villains in the Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever."

For its intention to promulgate the compatibility of Christianity with homosexuality, Save Me deserves a footnote in the political battle between these traditionally adversarial groups. As a movie, it doesn't amount to much more than an after school-special with sex and profanity.

Pleasant viewing, but the unbalanced script and amateur performances keep it from being much more than a walk in the park.

Director Takashi Miike's dish of sukiyaki spaghetti ala Sergio Corbucci is badly seasoned with scraps of reservoir dogs.

An eye-opener for those unfamiliar with the tribulations many immigrants endure on their road to American citizenship. And yes, it is also a fairy tale, but not all fairy tales are for children.

A tough, taut, mostly well-executed morality parable and thriller that explores some of the bitter ironies of this strange religious vendetta in which America unwittingly finds itself.

This new version has absolutely none of the distinctive tongue-in-cheek black humor that was the keynote of its model and the trademark of its original director, Paul Bartel.

It's funny. Dumb, yes, but funny.

A frequently amusing and consistently outrageous but ultimately tiresome farce.

This shambling mess -- offers nothing but a lesson in how not to make a movie.

Perhaps, like Al Gore's lecture on global warming, the force of its argument will stir some of those who see it to further research the subject.

The most surprising thing about The Rocker is how enjoyable it is.

It might be impressive as a made-for-DVD production, but coming from producer George Lucas, it makes for a cheap excuse for a big-screen spectacle.

The movie goes down very easily.

This may sound like a satiric comedy, and its intriguing setup carries a faintly comedic tone, but the movie becomes more straight-faced as it moves along and ends up being a fairly serious examination on the nature of, and necessity for, faith.

Would be totally unexceptional if not for its visual telling of the Apollo 11 flight and the fact that the movie is impressively shot - the first animated feature film in 3-D.

Some of the writing is very smart, its strain of show-business satire is dead-on and often hilarious, and some of the performances have an insanity and intensity reminiscent of "Dr. Strangelove."

An absorbing but somber drama.

Terrible in a terrible way: It's pretentious, incomprehensible and just numbingly dull.

One of the most hilarious and engaging films from producer Judd Apatow's often inconsistent comedy factory, thanks to inspired dialogue, dynamite chemistry between Rogen and Franco and perfectly pitched stoner gags (undoubtedly the result of copious research).

Ferrera walks this fine line between the real and the fairy tale – she's the only one in the film who doesn't seem to equate a good performance with a lot of blinking – and it's fun to watch her outside the confines of her TV character.

Anyone in the market for an overblown and totally mindless adventure-comedy will certainly get his money's worth.

The thing is far too absurd and broadly played for its own good.

The rude naturalism of the opening scenes between Wilson and Jacob recalls the spirited vulgarity of "Clerks," with dialogue that would be hopelessly offensive were it not so funny and true to life.

A wide-ranging, disturbing look at our obsession with our looks.

Most films about illegal immigration are set on the Mexican border, and Frozen River is free of the stereotypical characters and situations of that familiar setting. It also offers a rare look at modern Native American life, exploring the ambiguity of what it means to say that the laws of the white man cannot be enforced on Indian territory.

Does nothing so much as stir up a pining for the show in its prime -- a darkly imaginative and wonderfully weird thing -- though it is always nice to see old friends, however mellowed by age they turn out to be.

The Will Ferrell comedy engine is running on empty in Step Brothers.

An entertaining slice-of-life documentary that gets ever more fascinating as it moves along.

More clever than smart and isn't always emotionally convincing, but the cast brings a palpable, persuasive awkwardness to the social tensions of this not-so-romantic getaway, and there's a sly wit to the way the filmmakers mix and match and upend genres.

Bound to seem, at best, a kind of CliffsNotes guide to the novel's highlights, especially if the casting is not all that inspired.

The concerts themselves are only exciting when Young is at center stage. Although a balding millionaire in his 60s, he retains the ragged energy of a rock 'n' roll road warrior. Not so with the other members, particularly Stills.

An engrossing study in abnormal psychology, an inspirational drama that tells us a determined man really can do anything his mind can envision and is the first film that plays on what could become a phenomenon of the new millennium: World Trade Center nostalgia.

With The Dark Knight, the cinematic superhero spectacle comes closest to becoming modern myth, a pulp tragedy with costumed players and elevated stakes and terrible sacrifices. It's the new gold standard for superhero noir.

This is an actress (Streep) who can pull off anything -- including a shamelessly kitschy musical.

It's a little sloppy and full of convenient coincidences, but at its best roils with edgy character tensions.

It definitely gives us our money's worth in the sheer volume of its imaginative fantasy creatures and it's that rare superhero-movie sequel that's better than the original.

It's harmless fun, and it makes for an often impressive display of the latest generation of computer-wizardry. But the enterprise is utterly void of substance: instantly forgettable and about as enriching as a rerun of "Johnny Quest."

There's no real wit or cleverness to the script.

The film walks a fine line between contempt for Polanski's crimes and sympathy for his trials and his screwed-up psyche, and it manages both while showing us why he fled the U.S. rather than face the corrupted judicial circus.

Whether or not Garden Party is an accurate portrait of the shadow L.A. culture where the young, pretty and desperate can find quick rent money, this low-budget production never engages with its characters or stories enough to make you care either way.

The film is annoyingly sketchy on Thompson's early years and education, and it spends so much time on his coverage of the 1972 presidential election and his own race for sheriff of Aspen, Colo., that major aspects of his career get short shrift or go unmentioned.

The script doesn't always find the most effective way to the heart of the conflicts and Berg struggles to balance the mix of tones and the conflicts of man and superman, but he never sacrifices the integrity of his characters or their relationships for an easy ending. That alone makes Hancock the most adult of the new wave of superhero dramas.

It's a solid study in paranoia and gamesmanship.

A charmer of a film and a delightful piece of storytelling.

Jolie steals the film from nominal star McAvoy in the wild gunfight and dynamically absurd chase that kick Wanted into high gear. Her wicked moves and seductive smirk brand her immediately as a true believer who really, really loves her work.

And who would have guessed that, in this age of excess and one-upmanship, when bigger is always better, the year's most romantic screen kiss would last a mere two seconds.

Seems like very tame stuff, with little in the way of graphic sex and all the baggage of a run-of-the-mill art-house costume drama.

Get Smart is action movie and spoof and, though it's often a little unbalanced, the ultimate result is a harmlessly entertaining picture.

If you're a Toronto native or a big-time hockey geek, there are enough little in jokes to probably carry you through the leaden pacing and barrel-scraping gross-out humor, but it's an awfully dull ride for the rest of us.

It's an unashamedly old-fashioned and richly visualized evocation of a time when values were key, trust in your neighbor complete, and a way of life that should be simple is made unfathomably complex because of economic hardship.

A thoughtful and often evocative drama of identity and assimilation, but she leaves Nazneen so cocooned in her protective shell of disconnection that we can't connect emotionally.

An unapologetic B-movie.

It may be that the Hulk role was not made for sensitive method actors like Norton or Bana. When '70s TV-"Hulk" Lou Ferrigno made his obligatory cameo, a palpable wave of affection swept through the Seattle preview audience.

It's a twisted but beautiful love letter to a city, not factually correct but emotionally true.

An engaging and generous profile of the fascinating folks who have chosen to live at the end of the world.

It's not an instant classic, but it's imaginatively drawn, full of charming characters, alive with action sequences and blissfully free of the snickering scatology and endless pop-culture references.

Imagine Warren Beatty in "Shampoo" by way of a Jewish Rambo.

The casting also works. As the Khan, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano ("Zatoichi") is all effortless charisma, and Chinese actor Honglei Sun (as his best friend-turned-enemy) and Mongolian actress Khulan Chuluun (as his faithful wife, Borte) are just as effective.

At its best, The Promotion offers a sympathetic view of ordinary people caught on the hamster wheel of corporate politics.

It's an interesting and eye-opening journey.

It's still primarily a showcase and offbeat star vehicle for Moore. It's a bravura role and she brings it off with a chilling malevolence and a strange, disjointed vulnerability that almost, but not quite, makes her sympathetic.

In this film, the clothes and the city are characters as vital as the four leads, and they don't disappoint. But don't expect any trend-setting in the manner of the series. This is a runway that begins and ends with the movie.

Is Hollywood so disconnected from its past and bankrupt of ideas that it doesn't even know this movie is a screaming cliché?

It's an elegant nail-biter.

Unlike the worthless torture porn that is destroying the genre, Stuck is a horror movie with a reason for being.

What Spottiswoode lacks in subtlety and restraint, he balances with a heartfelt passion for the material.

Its comedy too often blunders into meaningless slapstick, with bombs and bloodshed replacing pratfalls and pies in the face.

It's crammed full of the dash, filmmaking flair, swashbuckling magic, impossible stunts and tongue-in-cheek humor that made the series such a phenomenon of its time, and -- for those versed in its traditions -- almost every frame is enjoyable on some level.

In this sequel, magic still reigns but suspending disbelief doesn't come as easily.

This one is a kiddie show all the way, with characters as broad and one-dimensional as a billboard, a vision of good and evil as simple as a bumper sticker and a tiresome chimpanzee mugging through every other scene like something from a bad Tarzan movie.

A deliciously vivid adventure fantasy.

The real joy here is the performance of Jean Dujardin, who, besides being very funny as the Gallic Maxwell Smart, is also enormously charismatic and is made to look uncannily (and I do mean uncannily) like the young Sean Connery of "Dr. No" and "Goldfinger."

Filmmaker Pray, who is building an impressive body of documentaries on American subcultures, including the Seattle grunge scene in "Hype," graffiti artists in "Infamy" and truckers in "Big Rig," does an admirable job of allowing his subjects to represent themselves.

A first- or second-date flick, after which there can be some Cheesecake Factory and maybe a peck on the cheek, no harm done. What Happens in Vegas is pleasant enough for all of that (and it sidesteps all that "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" raunch).

Sivan makes it all quite beautiful with verdant imagery and tastefully melodramatic direction, but at the cost of emotional and social ambiguities, not to mention living, breathing characters.

Dillane gives such a layered, detailed, utterly convincing performance as a man struggling with an inescapable and suffocating burden of guilt that he quickly makes us forget that he's too old for the part.

Is it possible to have yet another expensive excursion into this genre that seems in any way fresh, original and alive? The answer, surprisingly, is yes.

Dempsey also needs some fashion advice. As always, he sports his trademark five o'clock shadow in every scene (which in itself is excessive). But with Dempsey at age 42, it's beginning to make his face look more sinister than sexy, less Dr. McDreamy, more Richard Nixon.

Korine's latest film, Mister Lonely, is no different, but this film has a sweetness that has rarely, if ever, been present in his previous work.

Mamet is more respectful than exciting as an action director, but his fascination with how things work, be it the mechanics of designing and promoting a big pay-per-view event or battling a world-class Jiu-jitsu master, makes it all quite mesmerizing.

Perhaps the most ingeniously imaginative element in Son of Rambow, a film exploding with imagination (some of it scrawled directly over the film in animated expressions of Will's private world), is its very conceit.