An excellent documentary equal parts extreme sports and social anthropology.

It has some wonderful moments and a handful of delicious Maughamian characters.

It works as a wistful coda to suggest that the song will go on long after the show is over.

To the movie's credit, the cast is better than average.

There's not a lot of story here and the dialogue lacks the snap one usually gets in New York stories of affluent young adults, but the characters have an authenticity.

A pleasant, old-fashioned kind of a love triangle.

The most noteworthy thing about the Iraq war home-front drama, Grace Is Gone, is that Clint Eastwood composed its musical score and title song, which have both been garnering all sorts of accolades, including dual Golden Globe nominations.

It's a tale with plenty of spirit and a good heart, and yet, this story doesn't so much soar across the screen as it does waddle.

For such a harrowing portrait, Mandoki remains oddly distant but for a few scenes. He makes his points boldly when he should be making his points sting.

Stars are particularly strong. Snipes' fatalism is totally appealing, and Rhames makes a curiously compelling antihero.

It's often quite funny (when it's not spinning its wheels in rehashed skits and recycled gags), but when Myers gets his mojo working and his mind out of the toilet, he's capable of better.

It is charming and at times disarmingly surprising.

It's by far the most violent, most clinical and most sumptuously atmospheric.

Blunt, somewhat artless, but very effective.

Manages to squeeze by on Angelina Jolie's surprising flair for self-deprecating comedy.

Delivers a clever confidence game, if not much else.

It's messy and painful, eased only the admirable modesty of Stockman's writing and direction.

The ads for Stomp The Yard play like a music video and, thus, they are not misleading; the film consists of a series of phenomenal dance sequences, all highly entertaining and expertly choreographed.

A frequently amusing and consistently outrageous but ultimately tiresome farce.

The movie also is designed to be an actor's showcase for Norton and Giamatti, two of the best movie actors of their generation. Each has his moments of fire, but some element is missing from the script that would make this duel of the titans riveting.

It's colorful and determinedly kooky, with "Kung Fu" references and an H.R. Pufnstuf interlude between performances.

Although budding star Mendes and Washington sparked in "Training Day," there's less chemistry between them this time as she glowers and frets in her role as a big-city cop.

It's the first Hanson movie in a decade that doesn't quite click into place.

All the good intentions in the world and solid performances from three of the biggest and most respected movie stars of our time cannot disguise the fact that Lions for Lambs is resting on a talky, disjointed and not-very-well-thought-out script.

It may not exactly be a traditional love letter to his wife but actor-turned-executive producer William H. Macy has given her a plum part as Bree in screenwriter-director Duncan Tucker's offbeat road movie.

All told, the movie also is a tremendous downer. The script goes for a vaguely upbeat conclusion, but it has no spiritual dimension that the viewer feels with any emotion, and it conveys a hopeless, pessimistic future for the interconnected world that it portrays.

There are too few surprises and even less subtlety in the telling. We can only sit and wait for the next bomb to drop on this poor exploited girl.

Charged with raucous energy and a satirical slant, this witty history lesson is preaching to the converted, sharing a knowing wink with everyone who's ever inhaled.

It's rowdy, often tasteless and very much in the buddy-action vein of the scripts that made him famous, but in a much more comic spirit.

It's an enjoyable period romance. Yet, ultimately, the unique magic of Austen so beautifully caught in 1996's "Emma" is missing.

Jackman, who stepped in after a cranky Russell Crowe walked away in a salary dispute, strikes just the right chord as a scruffy romantic hero.

Ultimately, it's a surprisingly empty experience.

The sentiment smacks of "Titanic" for teens, but that doesn't make it any less valid, or the quietly told coda any less lovely.

A straightforward, no-nonsense, agreeably old-fashioned historical action movie.

There's still enough of Doyle's hilariously foul dialogue and outrageous, culture-shocked Irish characters for the film to be a good bit of fun.

There's such a good-natured heart beating beneath the cliches that it's easy to appreciate the film's willingness to poke gentle fun without a whiff of nastiness or judgment.

There's a dark and demented little psychodrama of self-inflicted madness beneath the narrative contrivances. Vigalondo's direction makes it work more like a waking nightmare than a genuine experience, and he gives it the quality of madness.

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.

Never more than an extended TV episode, the originality of its heroine and messages merit a recommendation for families seeking slightly more thoughtful animated fare.

With The Brave One, Jodie Foster and director Neil Jordan shift the genre to the murky left, where right and wrong are not so black and white. In doing so, they have taken away the very thing that makes a vigilante movie work.

The snappy wit of the script make Ol Parker's British romantic comedy the equivalent of comfort food a pleasant cinematic snack.

Something doesn't quite gel in the end.

Bassett's portrayal of Turner's transformation from wide-eyed teen-ager to subservient star of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue is skillful and absorbing. It doesn't take long to accept Bassett as the ersatz Tina and immerse oneself in the story. On the other hand, Ike Turner (Laurence Fishburne) comes across as such a flawed and unredeemable human being that one is left with a yearning for his version of the Tina Turner saga. [11 Jun 1993]

As energetic and irreverent as it is -- the movie never finds the inspired blend of edgy black comedy and gleeful journalistic adventure that it's after.

It delivers everything you expect on a timetable you can predict to the minute. It's filmmaking as a cross between a carefully choreographed dance and an elaborate pageant.

Never as visually or viscerally thrilling as some might expect, but it still manages to be a fascinating study of a national phenomenon that has had very little impact in our part of the country.

Several of the special-effects sequences -- a Tokyo hailstorm, a system of tornadoes ripping through L.A. (and tearing up the Hollywood sign), a tidal wave breaking on the East Side and washing through the canyons of Manhattan -- are just dandy.

This gory, ghoulishly funny horror goof is shameless fun in its own right.

Tinged with sadness, and despite overstaying its welcome a wee bit, remains an anthem of insurrection, melding its political and humanistic truths into an almost dreamily subversive film tinged with humor and some small hope.

In Costner's best moments, he makes us absolutely believe this character and feel his pain.

As the very traditional hero, Li keeps us riveted through the fisticuffs, and he also carries off the film's heavier dramatic moments well enough -- though, as always, his lack of a strong personality prevents the movie from ever genuinely catching fire.

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.

(Bacon's) most believable, heart-wrenching and charismatic lead performance in many years.

Even though almost everything about it feels forced and its casting chemistry hardly sizzles, its heart is in the right place, it has its quota of funny and touching moments, and it's ultimately fairly enjoyable.

tTere are two things going for Melinda and Melinda: Woody's not in it and Radha Mitchell is.

A good-natured movie.

The story is patently implausible and unnecessarily confusing, and it works to a moral dilemma for its hero -- and a trick ending for the audience -- that resolves the action with so little satisfaction that you wish they hadn't bothered.

A kind of homage to that more simple and elegant time.

Definitely works as an action piece, it's often surprising and never boring, and several sequences had me positioned well on the edge of my seat.

In the lead, Anderson ("The X-Files") is competent but never quite makes the character come soaring to life.

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.

Just a silly mess of a movie in which no one is trying very hard to do anything but goof off. [6 March 1998]

An action buddy comedy is such an offbeat and inspired notion that it's impossible not to think of it without smiling.

A rare flub for the usually spot-on director and cast.

Wanders off on story tangents that can't be called anything other than bizarre, but nevertheless oddly engages.

Patrice Leconte's new film, My Best Friend, is probably his lightest and sweetest to date. Fans of his serious historical dramas ("Ridicule") or raucous farces ("Les Bronzes") may be disappointed, but others should find it a reasonably enjoyable feel-good comedy.

They try too hard to be funny. It's hardly a damning fault, but it has a tendency to drown out their satiric observations.

The old formula is showing its age. The movie just doesn't deliver the emotional highs that addicted millions to the Rocky cycle. For the first time, one does not leave the theater floating on air. [16 Nov 1990, p.8]

As it turns out, the movie is still very much about two well-dressed undercover cops who strike sexy poses, express plenty of attitude and drive expensive cars and fast boats as pop music plays on the soundtrack and palm trees sway gently in the tropical night.

Not the most thrilling of competition films. There are only two short debate scenes, and each time the team gets to argue (in sound bites of rhetoric) the politically correct side of the issue.

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

Anges has nothing but affection for its characters and fondness for their quirkiness.

For all its good performances and family values, it's a painful movie to endure. It consists of watching this poor guy suffer one agonizing setback after another for nearly two hours, and its modest emotional payoff comes only in the final moments.

Ok, I admit at first I was just laughing at the sheer gutsiness of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. But after 10 minutes, I was laughing at the script.

An engagingly whimsical, sporadically charming, frequently very funny Southern Gothic fantasy that somehow doesn't quite come together to be as magical or meaningful as it's intended to be.

Has its own peculiar charm.

It's more thrill ride than movie and Wong plays it that way: no sentiment, no complications and no pesky story to get in the way of an arsenal of flashy special effects.

It's nicely crafted, respectably acted and often quite compelling in a low-key way, but it doesn't have the kind of flair, impact or resonance we've come to expect from the director.

Sandler and Watson make something out of their underwritten roles, and that they do is testament to their talents: They make this punchy romantic comedy more engaging than it should be.

A handsome documentary on a brutal subject.

It's an interesting and eye-opening journey.

A gentle and often beautiful study in opposites.

The movie is occasionally funny, always very colorful and enjoyably overblown in the traditional Almodóvar style; and the performances -- especially Javier Cámara as the gentle, sweet-spirited Benigno -- are exquisitely tender and moving.

Under De Palma's cool disconnection is an anger, and it's this anger that drives his act of political theater.

It doesn't, as they say, really work -- but it's enjoyable enough in spots to leave one feeling passably entertained.

Many will be left scratching their heads at the point of the entire enterprise, but fans of Jarmusch's askew view will clink coffee mugs and toast to the glories of human eccentricity.

Make no mistake: This not high art. But it does its job without insulting our intelligence or unpleasantly jangling our nerves.

Far from a great movie, it nonetheless does its job as a family adventure and saga of a woman's personal growth.

By most of the standards by which we judge movies, Jungle Fever is pretty bad. Scenes seem structured solely to provide an excuse for characters to deliver speeches, everything seems heavy-handed, obvious and didactic - and false. [7 June 1991]

Surprise! The remake is not a heresy. It's a decent enough stab at being what the old movie was to its time, following the same basic plot, full of respectful references to its model, updated with a gallery of fairly imaginative special effects.

It's nothing new, but Hawke captures some evocative textures and honest moments.

It's the strangest comic-book superhero movie you're likely to see this year. For anyone looking for something totally different in this most overworked of Hollywood genres, this is it.

Above all, the film suffers from a lack of originality. The premise of Goodbye Charlie was at least something new in 1964, but Switch comes at the end of a long cycle of body-switching comedies that ran out of steam more than two years ago. [10 May 1991]

Even though he's strikingly played by Rockwell, Barris comes off as such a distasteful character and the silliness is so unrelenting that the movie wears you out. Long before it's over, you feel yourself reaching for that gong clapper.

All the furiousness doesn't really add up to anything, but there is grungy fun to be had in gizmo-laden art direction and the increasingly bizarre battle of wits of the weirdly warped South Korean sci-fi black comedy.

Like many of Chen's movies, which are so precise and composed and lush, it's not really emotionally engaging. It is, however, a dazzling and dynamic spectacle that risks being ridiculous to create an unreal world of the romantic imagination.

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.

Before the film flails, like a balloon losing air into a terrible finale, it has the audacity to lay siege to just about every xenophobic bias possible. No one -- or country -- is safe in this comedy and for that alone it's admirable.