A respectful, accomplished, non-exploitative piece of historical filmmaking and -- for audiences -- a gripping white-knuckle ride all the way.

In the end, this is a film about retribution and justice within unjust circumstances. Each character has a personal code of honor -- Arthur, Charlie and Capt. Stanley are all given their dignity -- and it's that code that sets the film apart.

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

Terrifically fun entertainment; wonderfully shot and acted, instilled with spirit and life and able to woo us with its exhuberant freshness.

The real joy here is the performance of Jean Dujardin, who, besides being very funny as the Gallic Maxwell Smart, is also enormously charismatic and is made to look uncannily (and I do mean uncannily) like the young Sean Connery of "Dr. No" and "Goldfinger."

It's naturalistic, briskly paced and never overreverential. It's not a bit stagy, yet it manages to be dazzling theater.

This moody, progressively enthralling little French psychodrama is very much it's own thing: a boldly conceived, impeccably crafted and wonderfully enigmatic two-character study that turns out to be a most powerful showcase for its two stars.

Is it possible to have yet another expensive excursion into this genre that seems in any way fresh, original and alive? The answer, surprisingly, is yes.

Several times, Hotel Rwanda teeters on the edge of making a unique, visionary statement about our times, but can't quite do it. Too bad. If it could have pulled itself together in one brilliant scene, this may have been a great movie, instead of just a very good one.

A paragon of subtlety. Yet this message is exactly what we carry out of the theater, and it lingers on with a powerful resonance.

The film's real feat may be in its production design, in the sumptuousness and veracity with which it re-creates central Saigon and the Vietnamese countryside of the '50s: an exotic lost world of brothels and opium dens, trishaws and ao-dai dresses, Ming-deco interiors and water buffalos in rice paddies.

In a movie era when brand names mean very little, it shows once again that Pixar is a stamp of quality.

The stripped-down dramatic constructs, austere imagery and abstract characters are equal parts poetry and politics, obvious at times but evocative and heartfelt.

The film is magnificently mounted, it moves like a speeding bullet and it's so respectful of Superman traditions that even the pickiest of die-hard fans should love it. After a lapse of two decades, it revitalizes the franchise and makes it seem fresh and alive.

The sudden turns of temperament are a treat after the smart-ass attitude of American horror flicks, and the film is full of minor surprises, squirming in unexpected directions without leaving the conventions behind.

It's a richly textured, leisurely paced, visually impressionistic epic of the American past that fairly hypnotizes the viewer with its tapestry of sights, sounds and colors.

It's by far the most inspirational sports movie to come along in many a month.

It's a terrific movie -- intelligent, magnificently acted, highly compelling as a thriller, and downright scary in its implications for the corporate-run world of the new millennium.

That rare animal, a dialogue-driven comedy -- and a good one at that. While one or two of its scenes may seem a tad too talky for today's low-attention spans, the script is mostly razor-sharp acerbic and sophisticated.

Reminds us of just how exciting and satisfying the fantasy cinema can be when it's approached with imagination and flair.

A funny, rousing crowd-pleaser.

There's still nothing quite as thrilling on the screen as the spectacle of an icon movie star in a perfectly tailored role.

In Wonderland, Winterbottom has found a script worthy of his passion.

The movie is a delicious, consistently hilarious screwball farce that gives Clooney his best comedy role to date and should finally, forever, lift the Coens into the wide-release movie mainstream.

It's a well-crafted, intelligent, no-nonsense western epic that zips us through the famous siege and the birth of Texas with style, verve and impressive historical accuracy.

An engaging and intelligent comedy that manages to pay tribute to the conventions of its genre and still be very much its own thing. [02 Oct 1992]

Some will find the surprise pleasant, others unpleasant. Whatever it is, it's the least commercial, most somberly heartfelt movie ever made by the cinema's most commercially successful filmmaker.

So devoid of the usual coarse Hollywood calculation that it plays like a breath of fresh air.