It's bloody brilliant.

Though First Daughter delivers a nice twist about midway through and Keaton lights up the screen every time he's on it, Holmes fails to deliver the kind of nuanced performance "Pieces of April" suggests she's capable of.

It struck me as the most exciting and original Hollywood thriller, occult or otherwise, since "The Sixth Sense."

Captures the lovely, heart-and-eye-opening ode to youthful possibility with affection and compassion.

Baldwin and Broderick each click in their roles and consistently rise above their material in every scene. But the movie around them falls flat and can't begin to sustain its premise.

It may not be art, but A Dirty Shame is shameless fun.

Fascinates by its very premise: the fact that, on the basis of a Web site logo, these two bozos could so easily pass themselves off as important officials.

Ultimately a primer. Without actually putting it in direct terms, it proposes a revolutionary solution, not just in Argentina but everywhere that the corporate culture has failed its workers and their communities.

As fresh as a highlight reel of day-after replays, Mr. 3000 is a case of major-league talent stuck in a minor-league story.

Surprisingly, the weak link is Dunst, who's previously been the delight of all her movies.

For 12-year-old boys, period.

An exceedingly dull retro-weepie.

There is a heart-warming familiarity to much of its 2 1/2-hour tale, but the surprises around its edges gives Zelary a refreshing perspective.

An effective political lampoon.

A modest but amiable comedy.

The impressive marriage of CGI backgrounds and traditional hand-drawn characters gives Oshii more tools to sculpt his vision in color and light.

At once an elegy for the communal experience of cinema-going and another quintessentially Tsai portrait of loneliness and isolation.

In its final scenes, when truth and superstition collide, the film becomes more preposterous than anything Penn may have contrived earlier.

Less offensive than embarrassing, at least for the chagrined performers.

Very slick, very compelling and not nearly as predictable as it sounds.

Best enjoyed by keeping in mind the latest cinematic proposition that apocalyptic disaster doesn't bring out the worst in people, only the stupidest.

The film is inherently calculated and cold, so smugly satisfied with itself and its surprise final trick that it seems to be running its own con to convince us the script's house of cards is actually substantial, original and slick.

It's a rare film that's about social class in American life, and Bellingham writer-director Enid Zentelis explores its hidden structure and silent barriers in a novel, subtle way that makes its points without hitting us over the head with them.

The whole enterprise is a colossal waste of everyone's time.

The film is stylish, the compromising elements that usually junk up a Hollywood "date movie" are nowhere to be seen, the ensemble of supporting actors is strong and, despite a certain woodenness, Hartnett is appealing and mostly very believable.

The film plays like a Hollywood-influenced Japanese samurai movie, though nothing as subtle as Kurosawa's best, and with white subtitles that often are hard to read against the white of the Gobi.

An anti-war spectacle that uses the story of brothers divided by the 1950 civil war as a metaphor for the wounds of the split.

Witherspoon is terrific.

An honorable and often enticing piece of personal filmmaking.

Yimou plays his images like a visual symphony, and turns a potential costume pageant into an exhilarating national myth.

For all its improbable characters, wretched dialogue and stock situations, the movie has an earnest dumbness that sneaks up on you to be surprisingly entertaining.

Apart from Jon Voight, slumming and turning in a rather droll, if lonely, performance as the German-accented villain, the movie amounts to cynical, cutesy claptrap.

When, in its eventful final act, Merhige finally reveals what this thing is REALLY all about, it comes not with any blissful storytelling satisfaction but a grinding sense that this strange movie is a structural mess.

Yet another raunchy, gross-out farce, this one about smart-alecky city boys who have wacky adventures while exposing themselves in -- I mean to -- the great outdoors.

Love of dogs is key, because the amateurish acting, writing and production values in this independently made film feel more like the stuff of home movies than Hollywood.

Despite some moments, the movie stubbornly fails to be the kind of sparkling ensemble piece one would expect from its credits -- and the fault seems to lie squarely with Fry's unfocused script, lackadaisical direction and conceptual sleight of hand.

A 108-minute film of a two-minute song.

It's so earnest it hurts.

The contrast of the naive assurance of youth with the confusion and ambiguity of adulthood is sweet but simplistic and the wandering script hasn't much else to offer.

Cedric Kahn has caught the irrational compulsion, nail-biting tension and unpredictability of plot that is Simenon at his best.

The stylistic cleverness of the opening minutes settles into a self-satisfied flair.

What it lacks is the wit or even the cynicism to lighten the emotional load.

Fans of the first "Princess Diaries" will find enough laughs and diamonds in the rough to sustain them on their way to this important moral.

If you're a fan of Maddin's expressionist style, you'll find the humor within. Everyone else will be scratching their heads, despite Maddin's extraordinary visual imagination.

It's pure romantic fantasy, almost too cute and naively innocent for its own good. Jeff Balsmeyer, a former storyboard artist making his directorial debut, stumbles through the clumsy establishing scenes, but his playful direction smoothes out as the characters settle in.

Cruise is a man whose youthful cockiness has aged into self-assurance and cool confidence. It's a masterstroke of casting. The dynamism of Collateral, however, comes from Jamie Foxx.

The result is a film with an identity crisis, a fluffy romantic farce that gets progressively darker, more destructive and finally so downright demented that the featherweight story line is crushed under the weight of brutal, unpleasant truth.

Like a boulder bouncing down a long hill, the momentum keeps the film barreling along to the tragic inevitability promised in the opening titles.

This sci-fi film noir craves a passionate center, an intoxicating core or some pulse that makes us want to keep taking that first step into dark waters, but it leaves us drowning in its quiet tedium instead.

It becomes a dreamy study in stillness broken by suicide fantasies, flashbacks, and the hired killers, but even the violence has a meditative even melancholy quality to it, as if it's all been processed through the eyes of its Zen hero.

By no means a good movie. Although based on a true story, the mathematical error that led to Daniel and Susan's predicament is handled with such dramatic slovenliness that the viewer is apt to be confused as to what actually happened.

Very surprisingly, Meryl Streep is not wonderful as Schreiber's scheming, incestuously possessive mother. She gobbles up all the scenery but, for whatever reason, she's just not half as chilling a portrait of demented mother love as the original's Angela Lansbury.

Director Jonathan Frakes keeps the tone just this side of tongue-in-cheek.

The Village goes up in smoke (and mirrors). It wants to find a profoundness that hints at something deep and dimensional, but it hasn't the courage of conviction to stay on course as an unabashed ode to innocence.

With the exception of some minor glitches in the sound synchronization and a nighttime performance of The Band's "The Weight" that is uncharacteristically grainy, the film looks and sounds great.

Gozu is prime evidence in the argument that gonzo gangster movie maverick Takashi Miike is a major director goofing on minor works.

The official R rating is for "strong language, sexual content, drug use and some crude humor," but the MPAA is just being polite. It's all crude.

At age 37, she's (Bonnaire) developed into a consummate film actress and a unique star whose enigmatic persona has never had a more exhilarating showcase.

While most movies would sink under the weight of such eccentricity, pretentiousness and earnestness, Garden State is so full of wit and the genuine heart of characters that you can't help but care about what happens to them.

The commentary alternates between witty insight and opinionated bunk, but it's always fun -- and a must-see for movie buffs.

What is this movie about? Is it a morality tale? Is it about the complexity of romantic love? Parenthood? Accepting the often-blurred lines of our sexual orientation? Is it about the role of race in white-collar crime? What?

More reinvention than remake, this black-humored, blood-soaked adventure is a colorful if impersonal audience pleaser done up in a showy, fluid style with a tongue-in-cheek flair.

Delivers the expected adrenaline-driven thrills with a fresh eye and a refreshing attitude.

A cinematic cat-astrophe.

There's something essential and emotional missing in this character-driven piece. It's more an admirably performed and observed study -- of a time, place and three very different people -- than it is the heartbreaking and engrossing story it could have been.

For all of its weakness, Ju-On: The Grudge is creepy and unnerving, qualities in short supply in gore-filled American horror films.

Perhaps worst of all, this film seems to assume its teen viewers are a bunch of drooling half-wits, going to great pains to explain everything in so much after-school-special detail.

It dares to test the audience in several ways: It may not be Asimov but its plot is truly labyrinthine, it works a specific theme (the very real possibility that robots will evolve on their own) and it's happy to end itself in a shroud of enigma.

The film's only misstep is its again-used theme (especially when it comes to a woman's rite of passage) of exacting some punishing loss when our heroine pushes to transcend her limitations by seeking a better life.

A film that turns a comedic eye on the cultural, sexual and generational gaps that divide families and lovers and just generally make life the tricky mess it so often is.

Full of mystery, romance and ambiguity, Zhou Yu's Train is a tight mosaic of a film.

It works as a fascinating and often very funny character study/satire of a famous author, though it loses interest the harder it tries to be profound and falls apart completely toward the end.

Ferrell, of course, has his moments. But he doesn't have an engaging "center" as a comedian.

Empowers its 14-year-olds and comes through with a Cinderella story sure to charm every girl who isn't part of the cool clique.

Berlinger and Sinofsky, with their knack for penetrating the diabolical pretensions of weak and disaffected human beings, have brought Metallica to its knees.

May well be the most thrilling and educational surfing movie ever.

While Keira Knightley brightens things up as Guinevere, the casting is otherwise lackluster.

Flies so gallantly in the face of what's supposed to work at the movies these days that you just have to love it.

Romantic, real and as generous as it is vulnerable, the art of conversation has rarely been so acute, honest and revealing.

The performances are immaculate, especially Dafoe and the always-magnificent Mirren, who rarely gets a vehicle this worthy of her talent.

Its overall impact is soothing and reassuring without being overtly manipulative, propagandistic or flag-waving.

A warm exception to coming-of-age stories that accent the tacky and vulgar aspects of adolescent awakening.

Forget "Raising Helen" and "The Notebook," this is the movie summer's most touching young romance.

Doesn't completely work on its own terms, mainly because its romantic casting just doesn't spark: It doesn't make us fall in love with its lovers.

In the best tradition of Annaud's work, Two Brothers works as an engrossing outdoor adventure and quasi-documentary.

It's a much more interesting and engrossing film than its somewhat nefarious reputation may indicate -- though, granted, elements of it are very hard to take, and it finally leaves you feeling pretty down and out.

For a film that uses race, class and sexual stereotypes as the starting point, this is disappointingly skin deep.

The sum of all this is moderately rousing and deliciously irreverent in the Moore style, but not earthshaking as journalism, and devoid of anything that the average person doesn't already know from reading the newspaper.

It may not be original, but it's often shamelessly funny and more clever than I expected. Not much, mind you, but enough to catch me off guard with a few surprise throws.

As well made, entertaining and seductive a showcase for Hanks as it is, the movie doesn't have a magical impact and doesn't stay with you. And while you're watching it, there's always some slight annoyance, inconsistency or motivational-lapse to slap your face in almost every scene.

Effective piece of election-year propaganda.

Hodges cuts the film like a diamond, but it's just an exercise in cut glass, an impressive surface that only looks tough.

The script keeps to the point, the performances sparkle with originality, the direction of Jean-François Pouliot mostly has the right touch and the film ultimately generates some of the distinctively eccentric appeal of a classic Ealing Studio comedy of the 1950s.

Tells a light-hearted fictional story and creates a maze of imaginative animation and special effects to illustrate how the heavier thoughts of the science apply to the everyday world.

Istanbul-born director Ferzan Ozpetek has outdone himself with this wise and ruminative mystery about memory, unfulfillment and yearning.

It's been turned into a stupid kung fu movie.

The film's creepier moments are pathetically weak, and its thematic update fails to attain the minimal credibility that even a wild farce needs to sustain itself.

This isn't a movie, it's a marketing ploy. Would you like a plush Garfield toy with that popcorn?