Although involving, this remake of a recent French film never reaches the anticipated heights of excitement and suspense.

Beyond the dazzling "first contact" sequences seen in the trailers, Skyline is a spasmodic and incoherent shambles hampered by an astoundingly stupid screenplay.

It merely recycles 1987's "Broadcast News" with only a single reference to YouTube.

In retelling the still-astonishing story of the political career of Eliot Spitzer, a shooting star whose spectacular crash might forever obscure his accomplishments, Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney has all the ingredients for a potboiler: greed, corruption, sex, power, overweening ambition and jaw-dropping hubris.

Liman outfits the film with spy-thriller packaging worthy of his "The Bourne Identity," so the film probably will attract above-average coin and possibly awards attention.

A hilarious farce and a brilliant takedown of the imbecility of fanaticism.

(Perry) style is too crude and stagy for Shange's transformative evocation of black female life, and his moralizing strikes exactly the wrong notes to express the pain and longing that cries out from her heated poetry.

This tedious exercise in abstraction by Belgian filmmakers Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani well apes the visual stylization of such filmmakers as Mario Bava and Dario Argento without bothering to provide anything equivalent in terms of theme or content.

They don't make movies like Jolene anymore, and that's a good thing.

How much of this you'll find enlightening and how much simply creepy will depend on your tolerance for cinematic navel-gazing.

All of the key creative personnel contribute to the movie's nail-biting tension and unexpectedly moving finale. Jon Harris's editing is matchless, and Rahman's score effectively heightens the emotion. Ultimately, however, it is the talents of Boyle and Franco that sock this movie home.

Extremely crude in its technical elements, the low-budget film does reveal stylistic ambitions through devices like frequently reverting from color to black-and-white film stock. But the shaky narrative style and broad characterizations undo its effectiveness.

Whatever sociological interest it engenders is smothered by its hamfisted execution, including stubbornly lugubrious pacing, overly self-conscious performances and awkward dialogue and voice-over narration that all too bluntly lays out its themes.

Jonathan Lynn's lamentable black comedy Wild Target again shows that attractive and charismatic actors can do nothing to save a movie that's charmless, pointless and witless.

The movie never overcomes the triteness of its premise.

Overall, though, the project brings enough good into this rough corner of the world that viewers can walk out with honest cause to be hopeful for its inhabitants.

Although the tentative performances of his two human leads proves less satisfying, and the story's not-so-underlying sociological context can be hard to miss -- it takes place along the U.S.-Mexico border -- the overall picture still impresses.

The movie features a great finish, where three movies' worth of subplots and characters dovetail into a breathtaking climax and final confrontation that is positively soul satisfying.

Anyone who has seen the original knows exactly where things are heading, with the result that the proceedings seem far more manipulative than unnerving.

Although its sendup of L.A.'s shallow, self-absorbed show business culture is not exactly revelatory, the film does deliver solid laughs, many of them thanks to Philips' wittily provocative, surprisingly hostile confessional ditties.

This lame comedy about a big doofus who enters the fight game manages to take every cliche in the book and render them even more cliched.

The film captures the energy, the stresses and the tension of people striking punching bags and each other but without narration, it all feels a bit random and uninteresting.

The final act hits like a gut-punch. Worst fears are confirmed, and the protagonist faces a moral dilemma no father should have to confront. Kormakur and his writers give their protagonist no easy way out.

The film is in the tradition of fighting-the-system stories drawn from real life such as "Erin Brokovich," and its powerful emotional appeal should draw a substantial grownup audience.

The film never is less than intriguing, right from its tour de force opening sequence, and often full of insights into why people long for answers, sometimes with great urgency.

Jaunty and entertaining.

There is not a credible moment in this overly calculated melodrama.

Very much a lesson, and a repetitive and uneven one at that, GhettoPhysics succeeds at least as a conversation starter.