An uneven romantic comedy that feels as fresh as a hunk of week-old soda bread.

Tales of cynical curmudgeons rediscovering their humanity have long been a cinematic staple, but Wonderful World brings a refreshing lack of sentimentality to its take.

Over-the-top -- and ultimately tiresome -- female mud-wrestling, kick-boxing and cat fights in a parody of old exploitation movies.

With neither the dramatic nor comedic aspects of the story line being remotely convincing, the best efforts of the talented cast go for naught.

An evocative examination of the clash between tradition and modernism in the handling of an age-old problem.

It's a superb cinematic work and an appropriately serious one, given its subject matter and its intentions.

The story is a sketchy, dramatically muddled rumination on familiar Williams themes about the Old South and its brave, beautiful, rebellion women always on the brink of love, suicide or madness.

The tight time-frame gives the excellent cast a chance to play with intensity, making even old genre hands hold their breath and feel their minds sufficiently shaken up.

Sherlock Holmes goes wrong in many ways except for one -- at the boxoffice.

The film is neither intelligent enough nor silly or grotesque enough to become a lasting favorite.

What Meyers doesn't do is take chances. She sticks to formula and predictability. In "Complicated," this is as much a matter of casting as writing.

Arriving amidst a tidal wave of overblown and frequently charmless big studio efforts, Sita Sings the Blues is a welcome reminder that when it comes to animation bigger isn't necessarily better.

Charmless sequel.

Not even the estimable comic chops of Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker can lift it above the level of ordinary.

A fully believable, flesh-and-blood (albeit not human flesh and blood) romance is the beating heart of "Avatar." Cameron has never made a movie just to show off visual pyrotechnics: Every bit of technology in "Avatar" serves the greater purpose of a deeply felt love story.

The disappointments here are many, from a starry cast the film ill-uses to flat musical numbers that never fully integrate into the dramatic story. The only easy prediction is that Nine is not going to revive the slumbering musical-film genre.

Emily Blunt, one of the best and most glamorous actresses to come out of England in recent years, makes an unusual but highly successful choice for the young Victoria.

Crazy Heart lacks that spark of originality. So what Fox Searchlight has salvaged essentially is a highly watchable performance by Bridges, one of many he has furnished throughout a long career.

There's really very little to say about this film beyond that it's absolutely brilliant.

Ricky is a bold, ambitious hybrid that only intermittently reaches the heights toward which it audaciously aims.

A temperate, evenhanded perhaps overly timid film about an intemperate time in South Africa.

Jackson and his team tell a fundamentally different story. It's one that is not without its tension, humor and compelling details. But it's also a simpler, more button-pushing tale that misses the joy and heartbreak of the original.

Sensitive and stylish.

The movie offers enough solid laughs to ensure a decent audience on DVD and cable. That audience could have been even larger, however, were the proceedings just a little smarter and a whole lot funnier.

Reveals writer-director Lee Toland Krieger as a talent worth watching.

The story is riddled with salutes to executive producer David Lynch and the film seems pointed hopefully in the direction of Lynch's audiences.

It's rare for a movie to be at once so biting and so moving. If Ryan's future seems bleak, there's something exhilarating about a movie made with such clear-eyed intelligence.

Three superb performances by Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy should have Oscar handicappers drooling.