Sweet, sexy, and unexpectedly enchanting, Yana's Friends is the little feel-good comedy that could.

It's bad enough that the lazy script substitutes goofy situations for actual gags, much of which falls flat under Rob Pritts' plodding direction, but Corky Romano finally sours in cynicism and hypocrisy.

The movie is never engaging on anything but a superficial level, and it gradually gets decidedly tiresome.

As riveting as it may be, his film is a total shaggy-dog story.

By the film's interminable, unforgivably embarrassing third act it sinks in a sticky swamp of sentimentality.

Assails with its in-your-face, repulsively compelling (like a train wreck) brutality.

We leave hungry for more of the film's substantial, if less physically perfect, subjects.

Skillfully crafted, flawlessly paced, intellectually challenging tension of classics like "Bad Day at Black Rock."

The masochistic brutality it's selling still seems glaringly out of step with the current mood of the country.

It all feels false and calculated, an overearnest attempt to find old-fashioned romantic innocence in the modern world by someone too jaded to believe.

Vital and alive. Frustration and malaise rumble through every richly textured frame, but behind it all is a restlessness and a desire for something better.

Forster carries the movie with an effortless grace and professionalism, creating a character of surprising nobility who is the very opposite of the Willy Loman caricature that's been the de rigueur salesman stereotype in movies of the past 50 years.

The movie is just grindingly by-the-numbers: an uninspired brew of all the clichés of the kidnap-thriller genre, liberally seasoned with brutality, stirred at adrenaline-rush speed by a director with a heavy hand and very little imagination.

The gags hit more than they miss, and Stiller has moments of inspired absurdity, but he's capable of something more cutting and clever. It's junk food moviemaking: fun to snack on, but hardly a substantial meal.

Inspiring without sinking into sentimentality or cliche, Hearts of Atlantis is intelligent, heartfelt and genuine, a rare story of childhood for adults.

Danny Aiello is right at home as owner Louis, a paternal Italian father to all but his own son, reigning over the throng from his corner table like a benevolent lord and maybe underworld gangster.

Even knowing the happy outcome, Butler masterfully keeps us on the edge of our seats, and communicates the full horror and seeming hopelessness of the crew's situation every step of the way.

What's left at the end is an emotionally restrained vision of harsh, impoverished lives, more thoughtful than affecting, and never less than gorgeous, but so unfocused it leaves only scattered impressions.

Has a good cast, a nicely sustained mood of paranoia and several genuinely creepy moments, but ultimately ends up being one more highly formulaic teen screamer.

It's a parade of insanity, murder, suicide, arson and crimes of passion; delivered in a style as sardonic and tongue-in-cheek as a Vincent Price monologue; complemented by deadpan narration that keeps injecting inappropriate bits of civic boosterism.

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

Wants to be an offbeat, hard-edged, inspirational sports movie, but it misses its target by a country mile.

Has the distinction of being the very worst of all the many film versions of Alexandre Dumas' classic novel, "The Three Musketeers." Nothing else in Musketeer movie history comes even remotely close to its staggering wretchedness.

An utterly nihilistic, harrowingly upsetting vision of hell on earth.

It's still too shrill and silly to take seriously, but the high spirits and naïve message of tolerance and pride is oddly, innocently winning.

Deliciously dark tale of insidious seduction.

Rock Star roars to life with a promise of something inspired and inventive whenever Wahlberg leaps onstage. Offstage, however, even he can't breathe life into this same old song.

An original, well-crafted plea that uses restraint instead of titillation to make a cautionary tale that aches with pathos and power.

Quickly becomes an endurance test: like watching an old Carol Burnett skit that's not working, or a high school play that's trying to be bad.

Sensitive and vivid response to the tangled issues of teen violence, race and self-esteem.

Salva spins a backwoods serial killer setup into something really scary.

In spirit and nuance, this is an amazingly faithful remake.

It's a brilliant little microcosm of the '60s experience that, in a most gentle way, shows us how the counterculture probably was doomed from its inception.

A redundancy, and a bore. The characters are harrowingly unsympathetic, the action sequences are by-the-numbers, and Carpenter's usual saving grace -- his sense of humor -- is nowhere in evidence.

Anderson is a hopeless romantic in a cynical world, and for a brief moment he makes the case that true love is the only power that can crack time and space.

I can't imagine how Smith can capture a big enough audience to pay off this private joke, but the inner geek in me had too much fun to care.

Tries mightily to have the charm of "Bull Durham," but instead fields raunchy sex jokes, predictable story line, dumb dialogue and a lackluster love affair.

It's hardly original and rarely laugh-out-loud funny -- the filmmakers constantly fall back on the sight of bounding balloon Jimmy squeezing his way out of one situation after another.

So lame and Woody himself seems so worn down and the humor is such a pale shadow of the former Allen brilliance that -- despite a few chuckles here and there -- it's a considerable disappointment.

Sometimes so intimate it's embarrassing, and the messiness at falling in love at any age is disquieting.

Behind the narrative twists and contrived dramatic complications is a searing and scary look at dysfunction.

Ultimately, it's a surprisingly empty experience.

A pretty dreadful affair -- ludicrous as history and a veritable gallery of visual cliches.

A sad, sad, sad, sad rip-off.

The film leaves an acrid taste with the viewer who sits through its long and winding tale of tortured courtship.

Hardly sophisticated, but it's as inspired as teen sex comedies get.

Surprise of surprises, it's a blast.

The result is a heartfelt film brimming with ideas and passion but hampered by a literal approach that douses the emotional heat.

There are hints of madness in all the characters, and it gets creepier and more surreal as it goes along until it finally comes to a showstopping climax that took me completely by surprise and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.

Ultimately successful at what it sets out to do, even if it's not as much fun along the way as the original.

The first two-thirds of the movie are a kind of stumbling relationship drama, but the last third segues into a spooky feast of torture, mutilation and murder.

Since we never see Thomas, we can't care for him. And he's hardly a sympathetic "hero" in his treatment of women and his insistence that other characters honor his personal boundaries while he ignores theirs.

A first-class snoozer.

A winning combination. By some bizarre quirk of star chemistry, their persona complement each other, the action scenes have comic flair and the movie is mindless fun.

A rarity: A fun, entertaining 'G' movie.

It has its flaws, and traditionalists are likely to think it falls well short of its inspiration, but it works on its own terms, it fills the screen with Burtonesque excitement and it strikes me as one of this tepid movie summer's better offerings.

It isn't quite like watching a train wreck -- it's more perverse and anti-climactic -- but it's as hard to shake once it's passed.

A sweet-spirited, extremely well-cast little comedy.

Clearly, this film is less than a suspense masterpiece. Its violence is often gratuitous.

It comes out less like a spoof than a smart-aleck remake of "Meatballs," minus the energy of Bill Murray.

It's too quick, too pat.

But the main reason you might find the film a bad trip is that its 30-year-old Holden Caulfield-type hero is so harrowingly unsympathetic: unpleasant, unappealing, self-pitying.

It's a romantic fantasy of the gangster brotherhood and their doomed lives, executed with Takeshi's unique mix of stoic ruthlessness and giddy energy.

Though an uneven, often confused, mixed bag -- the movie gradually comes together to be a fairly hilarious inside-Hollywood farce.

John Cameron Mitchell credits Plato as the inspiration for his rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Now Mitchell has turned his play into a raucous, touching celebration of a film.

A funny, sad, scary and ultimately tragic coming-of-age drama/black comedy that skillfully -- and uncompromisingly -- creates its own world and uniquely pessimistic vision.

Definitely still beating a dead dinosaur here, but the film is leaner, more exciting and superior in every way to the last outing.

Makes a great time capsule, a shot-on-the-streets glimpse into the texture of a bygone time, place and attitude, but a listless, lightweight odyssey.

It has a terrific retro style, it's well-directed and it makes an engrossing showcase for its trio of stars.

Imagine the sequel to "Clueless" reconceived as a peroxide "Paper Chase" and punched up with a valley girl version of "My Cousin Vinny" for the climax.

It feels like a peek into the closet of a pedophile and it's genuinely discomforting.

For all the grace of the animation and visual splendor, the stilted script and emotionless "performances" give this digital artifact a distinctly stiff, wooden flavor.

It makes for a sweet and heartwarming story even as it celebrates and justifies the entire ridiculous phenomenon that Deruddere has been spoofing all along.

Lively but incredibly dumb.

Much of the film is oddly ambiguous, as if Tran used it to explore conflicts of tradition and modernity and never came up with any answers.

It has a frenetic, unsettled edginess that chafes against its serene, woodsy, upscale private school setting.

At times a bit stilted, a common quality of first-time directors who try too hard to sculpt every scene, but it's refreshingly bereft of slick cynicism and smart-ass snideness.

"Shrek" had some refreshing, genre-twisting innovation but Cats & Dogs plays it safe and nice instead and, by not taking risks, doesn't quite make it out of the doghouse.

There's a vicious, crude nerve that snakes through this sequel and it leaves no group unscarred -- but unfortunately, women and the handicapped take most of the thrusts.

Loaded down with gritty Glasgow atmosphere and authenticity, and works so well as an ensemble piece

Kassovitz keeps the film zipping along with solid pacing and just enough action to clear the credibility gaps as long as the film is rolling.

Hilarious, near-flawless.

An absorbing little drama full of unexpected revelations, keen insights into the Anglo and Hispanic cultures of L.A., and strong supporting performances.

The movie is exactly what it's billed to be: the successful blending of two distinctly different filmmaking sensibilities from two different generations. But the stronger, and more pessimistic, sensibility -- Kubrick's -- carries the day.

Writer/director Raoul Peck never gives us enough intimate moments to let us feel we know the man on a personal level, and he doesn't have the narrative skill to economize the necessary exposition or steer a clear storyline.

It's more ambitious and passionate than thoughtful. Singleton is better at criticizing than understanding, and he leaves too many characters lacking a legitimate voice.

The plot is often bewilderingly complex and the dense layers of subterfuge hard to follow, but by the climax the fairy tale has been twisted into a fascist fable of realpolitik mercenary opportunism.

When (Tykwer) connects it's exhilarating and gorgeous, a sight to behold.

With its machine-gun editing, extremely loud (mostly rap) soundtrack, occasional music-video interlude and overall in-your-face sensibility, it's a movie that's determined to chase anyone past age 30 or so right out of theater.

All that's left are cute animals with animated mouths spitting out fitfully inspired one liners, sophomoric sexual innuendo and enough poop gags to last a lifetime.

It's smart, instructive political cinema that tackles complex issues of the globalization with practical examples and vivid images and presents its effects in immediate human terms.

The music is truly the thing in Songcatcher and it's awesome, haunting stuff.

Since the expensive new movie version of the popular video game, Tomb Raider, is very true to its origins, it's a colossal bore.

Plays in spots something like a stage play smartly brought to screen.

The style is dated, and its neorealism seems forced and ineffective, but it's still delectable, and mostly for the things Pontecorvo hated about it: its delirious '50s color, and its stars, particularly Montand at the peak of virility.

A slick, cynical, nasty piece of heist-film plotting that hides its more obvious logical gaps in techno-babble and distracting spectacles of wanton violence and big explosions.

There are a handful of funny moments, and the top end of the cast comes off rather well. Duchovny has some of that same easygoing likability that made Glenn Ford one of the biggest stars of the '50s.

Grand and imaginatively designed epic that forgets that the spectacle -- and this is nothing if not spectacular -- is just the flourish.