Entertaining and piquant. The film does possess some of the bittersweet qualities that usually mark Hallstrom's films, but it's generally a tougher, more incisive work that ranks as one of his best.

Overlong and overstuffed with characters and situations, Ping Pong doesn't really succeed on a dramatic level. But there is no denying its skill in rendering its chosen milieu with an intense visual immediacy.

Whether outsiders will find much to appreciate in The TV Set is another question because the film fails to provide the thematic resonance of similarly themed predecessors like the brilliant "Network."

One either likes this sort of thing or not. Even fans might not buy the ending in which more people get wiped out than in Hurricane Katrina.

Tpicture delivers the requisite number of pratfalls, and the genial Ice Cube makes for a credibly hapless everyman, but the comedy still feels a little too safely soft around the edges.

No best in show but a decent family comedy.

It succeeds on almost all fronts. The epic film is a high-octane adventure rooted in fact with a raft of arresting characters, big action sequences and twists and turns galore.

The blissfully silly Blades of Glory is one of those rare comedies that puts a goofy smile on your face with the premise alone -- and keeps it planted there right until its wacky finale.

The most un-Disneylike cartoon yet from Disney animation. The thing is a hellzapoppin' of eccentric characters, zany situations and wacky gizmos, but little effort has gone into making any of this connect with an audience.

Once again Bier demonstrates just how misleading appearances can be, as she artfully removes the veneers concealing the dark truths locked away by her intriguing characters.

Loaded with obtuse symbolism, the film is not only hard to understand, it isn't much fun trying to figure it out.

Although more than a little familiar in its road movie-style romantic banter and bickering, the film is easy to take for a number of reasons, including the witty and frequently caustic dialogue. Modest in its aspirations, "Race You" succeeds by not trying to do too much.

Brilliantly sung by an extremely talented lyric theater company in Cape Town called Dimpho Di Kopane. Whether this all works will be a matter of opinion -- mine is that it does not -- but the experiment is fascinating.

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.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 proves that even grisly, gory violence can be awfully boring.

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.

Terrence Howard delivers another solid lead performance and competition swimming is a new arena for such films. Nonetheless, Pride is just plain trite.

It doesn't exploit our emotions about Sept. 11; it simply tells a story that exists because of what happened that day -- one that should resonate with a wide, appreciative audience.

A tad too conservative and calculated. CGI delivers best on moody sets and a noirish atmosphere achieved by lighting, backgrounds and visual effects. But the characters look like plastic dolls, and the story is recycled sci-fi.

At best a kitschy "Catch Me If You Can" and at worst a tedious comedy that grows more tiresome by every self-consciously irreverent minute.

The actors, all strong, give the lyrical but never artificial dialogue the ring of life. Pearce is riveting as a go-getter who finds himself trapped between a murky past and a future defined by ambition.

A movingly rendered, stirringly photographed first feature by Ham Tran.

Women's roles and the eternal fight to expand their rights in Iranian society get a light, hugely entertaining treatment in Jafar Panahi's Offsides.

A muddled and routine murder mystery tricked up with a science fiction gimmick that wouldn't pass muster for a "Twilight Zone" episode. The writing is poor, but the direction is even poorer. This is a film to delete from one's memory bank.

The problem is that if Callahan spent even a week writing this script, he wasted four good days. The dialogue, characters and situations are distressingly bad.

Most of this is fairly predictable spoofing, and Englund is wasted as a psycho-hunting shrink clearly modeled after Donald Pleasence's character in "Halloween." But there are moments when the proceedings are unsettling and original.

Boasts nothing new under the sun, but it does provide a few decent scares.

In I Think I Love My Wife, Chris Rock does something entirely unexpected. He isn't funny.