An imaginative and original picture turns conventional as it ends.

Despite that nagging whiff of familiarity, there are enough character quirks and inspired bits of funny business to carry this amiable if slight tale.

The richness of the characters and themes in Nearing Grace inspire director Rick Rosenthal and his cast to create a film with terrific emotional energy and larkish humor.

Spice is full of colorful family moments and flavored with observations like the role of spices in provoking wars. Takis Zervoulakos' elegant camerawork serves up painterly, magical shots of condiments, lavish banquets and mysterious spaces.

Comparisons to "Hotel Rwanda" make sense up to a point - both feature heroes who have the scales removed from their eyes - but "Fire" is no tearjerker, and here the story of Chamusso's conversion serves mainly as prologue to the main plot, a history-tinted cat-and-mouse policier in which he will attempt to finish the job he was wrongly accused of starting.

While Saw III provides a decent number of new twists, psychological as well as torture-wise, it necessarily lacks the originality of its predecessors.

The film penetrates the myth and mythos surrounding Wilson, making his works more accessible and open to those of us who sometimes puzzle over the methods and meanings in his cerebral, psychologically complex expressionism. The film should engender an art house following in sophisticated urban venues before its HBO broadcast.

In practice, "Fiction" isn't nearly that unusual. Less like "Adaptation" than a smarter version of "Click," the picture pleases while remaining unchallenging to a broad audience.

A simple story yet told with such conviction, delicacy and instinct for truth that it carries keen emotional power. This is the first film from actress Joey Lauren Adams, so one can only hope she has more stories inside her for she has genuine storytelling talent.

A lively and often enlightening documentary.

Bielinsky is a most expressive director, achieving considerable nuances and depths of emotion with characters' looks, gestures, body language and silences.

If you liked the play and the compelling ideas Bennett kicks around, the movie makes for an intellectually invigorating couple of hours.

Sticks to formula but delivers some seriously dumb laughs.

Even if he's never able to mount a full-scale return to the happy depravity of his youth, Waters is one of bad behavior's most likable champions.

It's formulaic but with a big heart.

The film is unusual in that it is a co-production with the Chinese. Whatever difficulties this imposed on the Western filmmakers, the reward is a period film that feel authentic to its time and place.

Defies all expectations with a low-key, technically stripped-down production that really does come close to capturing the heart and soul of the original.

By the movie's end, writer-director Karen Moncrieff's The Dead Girl delivers considerable emotional impact. But that doesn't mean you've enjoyed the journey.

Fortunately, unlike so many similarly politically themed documentaries, the film makes its case with substantial intelligence and conviction.

Augmenting Baer's interviews with various figures embroiled in the Middle East struggle, including members of Hamas and the Hezbollah, is chilling footage of actual attacks, much of it emanating from the terrorists themselves.

Editors Alexis Provost and Beth Gallagher cut back and forth between the talking heads so deftly that you have the illusion that Nader is answering his critics in real time in a very lively debate.

Brainy and balmy.

An agreeably loopy romantic comedy that bounces along effortlessly on the genuine chemistry of leads Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore.

The fantasy-adventure incorporates the novel's magical and emotional elements without overplaying either -- a balance that hasn't always proven easy to maintain in the world of kid-lit adaptation.

Films about serial killers have become so ubiquitous that they now form a subgenre of the crime movie. Even so, Antibodies, has a bracingly original take on the matter.

Bookending the film is the relationship between Jessica and the grandmother who raised her. This role is delightfully played by Suzanne Flon, who recently died at age 87. The film is dedicated to the veteran actress.

Although Vallee's remarkably assured film, which clocks in at more than two hours, proves that it's possible to have too much of a good thing, Canada's official Oscar submission for best foreign-language feature still manages keep up the entertaining yet emotionally satisfying pace sufficiently to earn audience accolades.

The Astronaut Farmer, is goofy, wholesome and, well, sweet. Despite some droll humor and on-target political jabs delivered deadpan by a uniformly strong cast, "Astronaut" often is too corny for its own good; it could have used more of those zingy lines.

It is hard to imagine a better cast or production values so the film should find audiences among sophisticated urban adults.

If the movie only lavished as much thought and care on its characters as it does on each intricate set piece, Shooter might have been a classic.

A reasonably engaging movie filled with fun visual effects and an appealing tone reminiscent of a certain Spielberg movie about an out-of-his-element extraterrestrial.

If you were keeping score, it would be Quentin Tarantino 1, Robert Rodriguez 0.

You might call the film "Rear Window Times 100."

For connoisseurs of stories of show business near-disasters, "Bells" is compelling viewing.

Nicely balances action and adventure with American Indian wisdom and a modest romance to provide a graphic-comic-book movie experience for males in urban markets.

Overall, Year of the Dog evinces an appealing sentimentality without being maudlin or only puppy-dog cute.

The movie entertains, but it's a shallow entertainment where you have no rooting interest in the outcome.

For all its flaws, is an often spooky and imaginative ghost story that contains a genuine creepiness.

While the film doesn't fully succeed in its striving for a Hitchcock-style ambiguity in its storytelling, it is consistently engrossing in its exploration of the fine line between civic duty and vigilantism.

More a series of loose-limbed vignettes than a sculpted narrative, Chalk lacks a compelling dramatic drive. But the cast creates a fine, improvisatory interplay, captured with verite-style camerawork, and the unforced humor and insights go a long way.

With his (Friedkin) vigorous camera compositions and a talented cast, he manages to straddle a wickedly fine line between taught portrayal of paranoia and parody of paranoia.

More than ever, Depp masterfully keeps the enterprise afloat, even when the sheer weight of all those other characters threatens to throw it off-course.

This time, in a clever script by Brian Koppelman & David Levien (who wrote the poker drama "Rounders"), the heist is for friendship.

Roth has managed the rare feat of actually improving on the original.

A cheerful and frequently amusing bit of nonsense, which certainly will provoke children into giggles. The film does not measure up to "March of the Penguins" or "Happy Feet," both Oscar-winning efforts. Nor is it trying to.

The result is a highly unusual viewing experience that stimulates the senses and the conscience simultaneously.

Even with its flaws, 1408 deserves to be appreciated by connoisseurs of acting and bravura filmmaking.

A giddily subversive addition to the age-old cinema tradition of the horror comedy.

Demonstrating that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, the screenwriter-director has delivered a well-observed film boasting highly realistic performances and dialogue, if not plot elements. But it's Posey's fascinating portrayal of a thirtysomething Manhattan single woman looking for love that lifts the film above its "Sex and the City" predictabilities.

Its razor-sharp script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and the hilariously deadpan comic performances by Ben Kingsley and Tea Leoni make it a consistent pleasure.

The result is a pleasingly discursive film that depicts Klimt and the ideals and locales of fin de siecle Vienna.

John Travolta takes on John Waters in Hairspray, and the result is anything but a drag in this appealingly goofy, all-singing, all-dancing screen adaptation of the Broadway musical based on the 1988 film.

Spectacular photography of the frigid domain of polar bears, walruses and seals is the chief attraction of Arctic Tale.

Documentary filmmaker Julie Gavras has made a successful transition into narratives with the remarkably assured, thoroughly delightful Blame It on Fidel.

Although The Willow Tree occasionally suffers from a surfeit of portentous symbolism, it is ultimately a powerful portrait of a man who gets what he always wanted.

Catapulted by an endearing lead performance by Reece Daniel Thompson as a stuttering high-school student, Rocket Science transcends the predictable high-school yarn and arcs into usually unexplored domains of self-discovery and personal growth in a coming-of-age film.

Diverting and pleasurable to watch, Stardust, a tongue-in-cheek sword-and-sorcerers romp bolstered by a top-flight cast, is most adroit when it plays the fantasy straight rather than sending up the genre.

Quite an entertaining genre piece boasting a terrifically sinewy lead performance from Wanda De Jesus.

Atkinson remains an expert clown, and there are sufficient numbers of gags to ensure that Bean fans worldwide will be kept fairly happy.

Charged by a knock-out performance from Samuel L. Jackson, this compelling story of manly redemption will deliver a winning boxoffice combination of word of mouth and ultimately step outside the generic ring of sports lore.

The two actors are solid, never overplaying scenes and capturing well that slow realization that their lives are never going to be the same.

An impassioned ecology-themed documentary that ultimately is more rewarding for informational than cinematic reasons.

An involving sci-fi action-thriller, probably longer on chase sequences than the original director wanted and shorter on the "ick" factor than the studio wanted.

One might question the operatic finale, which doesn't quite have the inevitability of the greatest tragic love stories. But the film's humanism gives it an overwhelming impact. To Israeli audiences, the experience must be even more explosive.

Writer-director Richard Shepard assembles all the elements for a dark suspense comedy only to lose his way in a surfeit of plot mechanics and unlikely behavior.

The film's dramatic moments are small but exquisitely rendered so that you feel the emotions experienced so many years ago. The film lingers afterward in your mind like a favorite vacation that triggered moments of sheer intensity.

A vigilante drama boasting a powerful Jodie Foster performance and carefully weighted direction by Neil Jordan.

The film's characters are lively, the women all look terrific (the guys do too, for that matter), and its many romantic story threads weave into artfully told tales of love lost and found.

The film, with its intersecting vignettes, might ultimately feel like more of a sampler platter than a sustaining smorgasbord, but it's effectively rooted in a lovely Morgan Freeman performance.

At the heart of the film is a powerful performance by the beautiful and most promising Hao Lei as its tempestuous, complex heroine.

Farrelly brothers films are looking better and better, but aren't nearly as funny as their grungy early films that hit with the stealth and vigor of guerrilla commandos. Maybe there is a kind of heartbreak here after all.

A true gift to fans of this important musician.

Livingston and director Steven Sawalich keep the character in constant motion, his dialogue sprinkled with humor and his energy contagious. The film also is surrounded by a crew of ferociously individualistic characters.

Despite top-flight acting from Michael Caine and Jude Law, it loses its grip in the third act and let's the air out of what might have been a memorably gripping film.

A fascinating film even if it never completely pins him (Verges) down.

Those who stick with Martian Child won't entirely avoid mush, but they will find terrific performances.

A refreshingly upbeat film that finds its roots in some seriously sobering events.

Amusing cinematic buffoonery by a man poking fun at movie conventions and the movie business itself.

Director Robert Zemeckis not only deploys 21st century movie technology at its finest to turn the heroic poem into a vibrant, nerve-tingling piece of pop culture, but his film actually makes sense of Beowulf. In Zemeckis' hands, it's an intriguing look at a hero as a flawed human being.

The story is about musicians and how music connects people, so the movie's score and songs, created by composers Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer, give poetic whimsy to an implausible tale.

A sometimes clever, other times grating mix of live action and animation that plays tricks with levels of movie reality as the world of fairy-tale animation invades contemporary New York.

The star of the show is undoubtedly Blanchett, who has great fun playing Dylan as a showboat who quite knowingly goes about creating his reputation for rebellious independence.

Stewart's documentary is seldom less than compelling in its quest to raise international awareness about a situation that is threatening to put sharks on the endangered list.

The most alarming cautionary tale for men with wandering libidos since "Fatal Attraction." It may also be the first horror movie that women drag men to see rather than the reverse.

Has thoughtful and funny characters, something that should give this droll drama appeal beyond a niche gay audience.

A "soft" epic, a film touching on childhood fantasies with sturdy, unwavering characters driven to evil or good. More "Harry Potter," in other words, than "Beowulf."

Smith, sporting a newly buffed physique, delivers an extraordinary performance as a man slowly coming unglued under the strain of no human contact and a constantly alternating role of hunter and prey.

In this film, directed by Mike Nichols in one of his most satirical moods and scripted by Hollywood's most politically astute writer Aaron Sorkin, a womanizing, alcoholic, easily tempted bachelor gets elected in a Texas district that doesn't care what he does as long as he brings home the bacon.

An earnest drama about the search for self-esteem and sense of responsibility among young black people that successfully relies on its fine actors.

His heart -- and musical soul -- is in the right place, but the film makes you at times uncomfortable with black and Southern stereotypes that may hinder some from fully enjoying an otherwise benign and cheerful tall tale of the Saturday night when rock came to rural Alabama.

This Spanish supernatural thriller begins interestingly and finishes intriguingly. But what lies between drags because the film lacks a driving story line.

Think "Godzilla Unplugged" -- with chillingly effective results.

Slickly made -- in the good sense -- and most entertaining.

In the end, this passionate indictment of present U.S. policies stirs both sadness and outrage.

Highly watchable, anchored sturdily by Lane's convincing performance.

Warm-hearted and accessible, it could benefit from good word of mouth in a limited art house run, particularly among audiences who like their rom-coms laced with foreign ingredients.

Comes as a godsend to those hordes of desperate parents unable to secure tickets for their heartsick tweens during the teen star's sellout tour last year.

Chock full of wonderful lines delivered by a splendid cast, the film toys with the conventions and mostly transcends the limitations.