Does its job colorfully and entertainingly, as long as you don't lean too hard on such niggling details as logic, legality and the laws of physics.

The script is tight and well-constructed, director Ernest Dickerson has a feel for film-noir aesthetics, DMX exudes a certain brutish charisma and the movie is as morbidly compelling as a good train wreck.

Though it's rarely dull, first-time feature director Yasuo Inoue has a better eye for intriguing and unusual imagery than dramatic staging, and he illustrates his points long before he runs out of un-endings.

No, it's not the big screen version of "24." For one thing, Sutherland is in the wrong role.

After its irresistible first act, Owning Mahowny loses its energy and focus very fast.

There's much to admire in this ambitious indie: top-notch production values, a gallery of evocative period detail (with location work on Scotland's famed St. Andrews' course) and solid performances from a cast .

A collision of medieval fantasy and commando action movie, where you can almost believe in the high-concept mix-and-matching.

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.

In place of the dysfunctional family Christmas story we've come to expect for the holidays, The Family Stone gives us a cheerfully uncensored, generic counterculture clan and tosses a tightly wound control freak into the center of their holiday celebration.

Exotic Ninth Gate breaks down into clichés.

Visnjic is charismatic, sympathetic and believable in the role, and the first part of the film -- in which he's being drawn into the case against his will and then use his hypnotic skills to get inside the mind of the little girl -- is quite riveting.

Under Schnabel's direction, it becomes stilted and static, if not simplistic.

The Last Sin Eater has a specific audience in its sights, one that doesn't mind the film's characters having their problems solved by the healing power of truth and faith.

The movie is so surreal it's just not very involving. As an action extravaganza, it's busy but dull.

Amounts to little more than high-class soap opera.

The minor pleasures of P2 lie in the simple effectiveness of the sleekly unshowy direction and the clean, unadorned script, which pares away extraneous distractions like motivation and complicated back stories to get on with the mechanics of tension and the obligatory jumps and startles (which stand in for genuine scares).

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.

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.

Most of the film, however, goes down easily enough. The Queer Strokes, an all-gay rowing team, provide a humorous contrast to the less sexually confidant characters.

Despite laughs, the movie only sporadically works. Its satire is too broad and silly to have much sting.

The movie is not exciting, original or instructive enough to justify the unpleasant experience.

The new new new Jason Vorhees, played by Derek Mears in this Michael Bay-produced homage/update of the '80s slasher franchise, is a bit of a fox.

Cranks up the hysteria to screechy sitcom levels.

Treu's sweet-spirited vision of life, and the winning performances of his ensemble of kid actors, gradually broke down most of my resistance.

While their stories are well worth telling, first-time director Ruskin fails to shape his material into the dynamic film it might have been.

Forget "The Revenge of the Nerds." This is the real thing.

Barely substantial enough for a feature but just light and tasty enough to satisfy.

This is standard fare on the subject of father and son relations.