This is not a movie to see if you're contemplating tying the knot; it's a hard slog for those of us already entwined.

It's too bad that halfway through, Collateral turns into a series of loud, chaotic, over-the-top action set pieces in which the existentialist Mann proves he's lousy at action.

It's about unruly passion, but it's icy and cerebral, and Robbins has become a disappointingly tentative actor, playing emotionally straitjacketed men in a self-imposed straitjacket.

This is not to say that it is bad writing, shooting, or acting: It would need to be more ambitious to be bad. It is simply the most mundane sort of behavior presented in the most mundane sort of way.

When those talking heads metamorphose into familiar ranting heads, it becomes another mesmerizing right-wing horror show.

Beautifully made and unsurpassingly creepy, it's the rare remake with something contemporary to add.

The photography is excellent! the music is striking! the movie is a stinker!

Say this for actors: Too self-centered to be embarrassed, they can be existential heroes of a (moronic) sort.

What saves Zatoichi is that it ends -- for no clear reason -- with a foot-stomping ensemble dance number that is both delightful and unhinging: It sends you home with spasmodic giggles, convinced this Japanese imp has discovered a new path to your unconscious.

The sequel is simply a tour-de-force of thriller filmmaking.

It walks and talks and moves very fast, but it never lives.

The whole movie, of course, is a setting for its jewel, Catalina Sandino Moreno as Maria: With her clear, round eyes, long dark hair, and radiant transparency, she brings to mind two of the loveliest ingénues of the last quarter-century -- Meg Tilly and Jennifer Connelly.

Bridges has evolved into a miraculous actor: one who signals wildness through the intensity of his containment.

It strides above its crudeness like a colossus. It's smart people telling dumb jokes with a brilliant sense of irony. Anchorman gives you permission to laugh like an idiot.

The band's implosion and reassembly makes for one of the most marvelous rock documentaries of all time.

King Arthur is profoundly stupid and inept, but it's an endless source of giggles once you realize that its historical revisionism has nothing to do with archeological discoveries and everything to do with the fact that no one at Disney would green-light an old-fashioned talky love triangle with a hero who dies and an adulterous heroine who ends up in a nunnery.

The bad news is that Before Sunset is not as delirious an experience as its predecessor. The good news is that it's wonderful anyway, and in ways that tell us something about our romance with "Before Sunrise."

It's the tone of the picture that's most striking. This is nothing less than a superhero's lament--Spidey Agonistes, a comic-book spectacle in which the primary struggles are behind the mask.

It delighted me; it disgusted me. I celebrate it; I lament it. I'm sure of only one thing: that I don't trust anyone--pro or con--who doesn't feel a twinge of doubt about his or her responses.

It's coarse, primitive, regressive, often very stupid, and sometimes, against all odds, really a hoot.

Isn't a disaster, but after an entertaining start it congeals into something icky and fake, and it leaves you thinking that Spielberg and his team of screenwriters (Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson, from a story by Andrew Niccol and Gervasi) missed the real story.

A simple, chronological history, narrated with melancholy gravitas by Morgan Freeman.

I had a fabulous time. Well, I did once I accepted that it was a campfest--a great Provincetown drag show of The Stepford Wives.

Napoleon Dynamite is too low-wattage to be a true nerd anthem, but it's charming in retrospect.

In Cuarón's hands, the world of Harry Potter doesn't feel like a synthetic movie theme park anymore. It's almost real, Hogwarts and all.

When it comes to weaving personal stories in and out of the special-effects set pieces, the director has the most colossal antitalent since Ed Wood Jr.

It's a remarkable film--one to gnaw at you and keep you up at night.

I wasn't prepared for the slap-happy brilliance of Shrek 2, which should ideally be seen twice--once with kids, once savored at something like a midnight show.