The colorful cultural history lesson in an idiosyncratic key is entertaining and informative, if a little indulgent in its adoration of Roth and his counter-car culture.

So magnificent in so many ways that, for the first time, it seems to raise the docudrama to high art.

The film's grueling training sequences have a perverse fascination, and, though he's nothing special here, Kutcher is probably the most appealing he has been in a big-screen role.

It's a tired rehash of animation cliches that distinguishes itself only by the extent to which it's crammed full of scatology and gleeful violence to animals, and otherwise panders to the worst instincts of its audience.

Ben Stiller provides a jolt of personality as a past victim who rouses himself from exile, but otherwise Todd Phillips' fitfully funny script never delivers the crude creativity or the raw energy that feeds this genre of proudly crass male-centric comedies.

Like too many films of faith, it mixes its message, proclaiming that a life given over to God is a reward unto itself, and then handing over victories to its faithful like some overtime bonus.

One of the American cinema's rare excursions into pure autobiography: the movie is Montiel's own coming-of-age story, with little or nothing disguised as fiction.

The concert footage, which is exceptionally well photographed and recorded, offers clips of varying lengths from a wealth of songs. The rest of the film glimpses the stress disorders that can develop when average people with problems become popular celebrities.

The movie is an extraordinary personal adventure that views everything through the eyes of its hero as it carries him from one apocalyptic situation to another.

The new production is handsome and offers a few riveting moments, but it's basically a botched job that misses all the impact of both the original movie and the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren that inspired it.

As imaginatively as some of them are staged, the action scenes are never authentically gripping. This seems to be the hidden handicap of our new digital filmmaking era in which all big action sequences are generated in the computer and look vaguely like cartoons.

There is a point, however, at which the movie becomes simply sickening. Between the electric shocks and hot-iron branding, feats of grossness are accomplished that are so vile even the hardiest among the cast cannot suppress the upchuck.

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 makes an unsettling case that America is fast becoming the thing it professes to hate.

Hardcore remains, in the words of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye, the voice of "kids who refuse to be slotted into generic kids roles," so fans of current groups such as Disturbed may feel shortchanged by allegations that it was all over by 1986.

The actors, all unprofessional with the exception of Kim Chan as the Zen master, step on each other's clipped lines so regularly that it becomes a stylistic affectation, like Mamet directing Beckett.

This scruffy, unkempt tale lacks the narrative satisfaction of Kaufman's dramatic design, but between the chaotic zigs and creative jags, it proclaims its own kind of messy authenticity and a bittersweet beauty.

A fumbling attempt to create the European equivalent of a Japanese manga thriller in the conspiratorial mold of "Akira" and "Ghost in the Shell" has a stunning look.

For all the ephemeral pleasure of the company of old friends, there is a chasm between them and the dynamics shift from moment to moment. The beauty of the film is how director Kelly Reichardt brilliantly captures those moments with lucid simplicity.

The Black Dahlia, looks so terrific and is filled with so many imaginatively showy sequences and masterful directorial touches that you almost don't notice that, in every other way, it's just not a very good movie.

Grown-ups, depending on how in touch they are with their inner child, will be split during most of this, inspired to either smile or roll their eyes.

Ultimately, the script lacks the ambiguity, irony and heartfelt emotion that would make the conversion of a dozen hardened criminals very credible, and -- despite its obvious good intentions -- the movie seems pat, simplistic and slightly phony.

An exceptional Italian film becomes an average American one in this bland remake of Gabriele Muccino's "L' Ultimo Bacio."

The script offers neither character revelations nor plot twists. It unfolds by the numbers, like the product of an amateur screenwriter's salon. Its second-hand ideas originate in movies ranging from 1960's "The Apartment" to 1997's "The Ice Storm."

The humor is sweet-spirited, the dialogue (all improvised by the cast) is acerbic and witty, the celebration of unbridled tackiness is often hilarious.

Anyone who claims to support the troops owes it to them to see the film and hear their stories.

Welcome to the tawdry end of paradise, where no melodrama is too obvious and no conflict too contrived.

What is ultimately so special about this film is its handling of the relationship between Lennon and wife, Yoko Ono.