The best Hollywood movies always knew how to sneak a beguiling subtext into a crowd-pleasing story. Superman Returns is in that grand tradition. That's why it's beyond Super. It's superb.

Chris Paine's documentary makes an unapologetic case for the car and an unofficial indictment of the forces allied against it.

The Road to Guantánamo is his (Winterbottom’s) most unsparing statement yet of war's brutalizing effect on both the prisoner and his jailer.

Fetching little monument to the bard of rapturous bereavement.

This film is as smart and funny as its topic and its stars.

The first great movie of the summer.

Ward Serrill's feel-good doc, which covers seven years in the life of Resler's Roughriders, is hobbled by a narration so syrupy, it could be poured on pancakes. But the movie soars because of the sport's natural drama and its luck in finding a complex heroine.

Makes everything Hollywood has lately done in the action genre look clumsy, dull and stale. It is a short, nonstop stuntfest that, by going back to basics and placing them on the screen with simple, breathless stylishness, turns what is essentially a lowlife movie form into something one is not embarrassed to call "pure" cinema--all energy, movement and high kinetic wit.

Howard and Goldsman have efficiently touched all the bases. But they haven't found a way to replicate the book's page-turning urgency.

M:i:III accomplishes its mission: to run smart variations on dumb tropes. After all, summer movies are not for students but for thrill consumers. Devour and enjoy.

The controversial film that is unbearable--and unmissable.

This cheeky movie does not impose heavy-duty meaning on Page's life and times. It just lets us draw our own ambiguous conclusions about what she did. It is the better, the more enticing, for so doing.

The story never runs completely off the rails and is, in any event, just a pretext for a lot of very sharp badinage by Jason Smilovic--a screenwriter who would have been at home writing for Cary Grant--for yards of terrific movie acting and for some well-timed direction by Paul McGuigan.

It's a terrific movie. I love the look and the verve of the thing, the confidence of its epic design, its smart use of half a dozen noted British thesps, lending weight and wit to the supporting roles.

Ask the Dust is the ghost of a cult novel; it can't bring itself to life.

To make something like Firewall good, you have to make it at least a little bit new--or add more than an unending patter of rain and techno-talk.

The film doesn't judge or prod its characters, just watches the long fuse of the plot dwindle, then explode.

This may seem too inside-cricket for a U.S. audience. And it's true that Cock and Bull is so postpostmodern, it's very nearly postmovie. But it's no less diverting for all that. It would be a shame if the great novel no one has read becomes the terrific film nobody bothers to see.

When they get to canoodling and conniving, you won't ask for your money back.

This is no breathless film fantasy; its pulse is stately, contemplative. But anyone who has keen eyes and an open heart will surely go soaring and crashing with the lovers lost in Malick's exotic, erotic new world.

We the viewers are its beneficiaries, watching and waiting for something awful to happen. Here it does, first subtly, then spectacularly. The twist is not revealed until the last shot--if you keep your avid eyes open.

The film comes uncomfortably close to risible. But it also achieves moments of real power. It's worth a wary look before it attains midnight cult-movie status.

There's no attempt to address the show's endemic weak spots--a slow start and a contrived end. Mostly Stroman just lets it rip. But in some respects the movie is an improvement on the show.

Our response to the ape's doom, once touched by authentic tragedy, is now marked by relief that this wretchedly excessive movie is finally over.

For all its brave beginnings and real achievements--its assault on western mythology, its discovery of a subversive sexual honesty in an unexpected locale--Brokeback Mountain finally fails to fully engage our emotions.

The result is an admittedly minor, but authentic, holiday treat.

Disney is trying to lure the disparate audiences of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (kids) and "The Passion of the Christ" (Evangelicals). But on either level, Narnia fails. There's no fire, no passion and not much fun.

But the most impressive thing is how, a few minutes into the film, you stop noticing Huffman's external transformations and start to focus on the character. Not that the external stuff isn't impressive.

Not a conventionally satisfying movie but a kind of illustrated journalism: an engrossing, insider's tour of the world's hottest spots, grandest schemes and most dangerous men.

There is more to the intertwined stories of Murrow and McCarthy than this simpleminded, rhetorically driven movie begins to encompass.

The Squid and the Whale is domestic tragedy recollected as comedy: a film whose catalog of deceits and embarrassments, and of love pratfalling over itself, makes it as (excruciatingly) painful as it is (exhilaratingly) funny.

The whole rollicking adventure zips along a mile a minute.

Hoffman and the film are terrific. Supported by the eminent Catherine Keener (as author Harper Lee) and Chris Cooper (as detective Alvin Dewey), Hoffman begins with a dead-on impersonation of Capote that soon becomes a kind of channeling as the audience comes to see this American tragedy through his eyes.

Von Trier has a tendency to go overboard in his denunciations of American violence (Dogville). By contrast, Dear Wendy is a cogent, comprehensive take on the land and the films that obsess him.

It turns a hot topic into a pretty cool entertainment--one that satisfies the viewers' need for righteous revenge while leaving them a queasy little question on the way out: Does gun diplomacy make sense only in movies? Or do Americans want it to play out in real life?

Proof is on the side of the lost, blessed souls. Paltrow, as alluring and reassuring as ever, emphasizes the blessedness in the isolation of genius, giving a new dimension to a complex role. New, true and thrilling--she is the Catherine that Proof was waiting for.

This often vivid movie, though it doesn't quite attain its highest intentions, is well worth seeing. And thinking about.

Without question, the best crime movie of the year--and one of the best movies of any sort now playing.

Funny in its deplorable way.

Even if a Chinese movie doesn't sound like your idea of summer fun, give 2046 a chance. Its pearly artistry and gorgeous faces should put you quickly, deeply, in the mood for love.

For all the menace of its techno-prattle, its implicit boosts for humanism and its swell production design, the picture is finally a bore. Sci-fi was more powerful when its special effects were cheap and crude, its ideas simple but potently stated.

Neither lurid nor especially compelling. This is the triumph, and the limitation, of 9 Songs: it makes explicit movie sex ordinary--as ordinary as the sexual activities of most of the folks watching it.

This is rather a thin tale, not much thickened by Burton's direction or Depp's playing. There's a distance, a detachment to this film. It lacks passion.

It parades a screen chemistry rarely seen since the original Butch and Sundance.

Saraband makes for a powerful and poignant final roar from the grand old man of cinema--the movies' lion king.

Out of a borrowed and preposterous premise, Audiard has fashioned a film that is more haunting--and more compellingly watchable--than it has any right to be.

The new film is a toss-up with George Pal's very watchable 1953 version: the special effects are even better here, the drama even lamer.

Bewitched means to be a civilized entertainment, which occasionally it is. But the gentility of this antique sitcom cannot be recaptured at this late date.

It's a gentle film about somewhat alien beings, who entertain us by creating instead of destroying.

Nolan's effort is not dishonorable, but what it needs, and doesn't have, is a Joker in the deck--some antic human antimatter to give it the giddy lift of perversity that a bunch of impersonal explosions, no matter how well managed, can't supply.

Pretty lame. Sharkboy has an especially frantic, amateur atmosphere, with a mostly maladroit cast.

The perfect e-ticket for a flight of fancy into a world far more gorgeous than our own. The film doesn't halve itself to appeal to two generations. At its best, it turns all moviegoers into innocent kids, slack-jawed with wonder.

The film is most significantly about puzzled people trying to comprehend the cosmic reversal of fortune that was the Depression. They don't have much more than raw courage and simple virtues to rely on. Unlike most period pieces, Cinderella Man encourages us to fondly recall not songs or clothes but values we have largely mislaid.

Savvy family entertainment.

Layer Cake is a treat--especially if your taste in desserts is devil's food.

The battle skirmishes here mix sudden violence with slow-motion artistry. The attractive cast can sell an obsession or articulate a conundrum with equal fervor.

There's enough narrative for three fine films. But not enough for The Interpreter. The thriller pieces feel assembled rather than organic.

Moviemaking doesn't get much smarter, funnier, handsomer, better than this.

Sin City is brazenly, thrillingly alive.

The film doesn't scale Shakespearean heights, but it does give its star a nicely gnarled ogre to play.

Allen has assembled an attractive cast and given most of them clichés to inhabit. He has also stinted on inventiveness.

Robots goes for a color scheme that is cool, muted, instantly aged. Director Chris Wedge wants the eye to concentrate on the gags he and his writers (including veteran comedy craftsmen Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel) have stuffed into the film.

Constantine is a one-of-a-kind hybrid: a theological noir action film. And until it goes irrevocably goofy at the end, it's a smart ride--and smart-looking too.

Pummeling, exhilarating.

Heart and art can make a beguiling pair. Those are mostly missing in this strained hybrid, which is less Bollywood than Follywood.

The differences between the two Assaults--the new one's pretty good, the old one near great--are of tone, style and perspective.

Leaves a quiz show's quantity of unanswered questions. But it has the optimism and determination of a corporate whistle-blower. It makes us believe, for a moment, that it's possible to end-run the spirit of Enron.

Pacino seems to recall, from his early Michael Corleone days, the power of whispered menace.

It is among the best and most delicately managed films of the year.

It is a powerful portrait of a slightly befuddled man who, when inhuman demands were placed on him, found within himself an unexpected response.

Despite its star's heroic efforts, The Aviator is a gorgeous jet, flying on automatic pilot.

For those of us who think this is the best comedy of 2004, the genius of the movie lies in its relocation.

Very moving film.

Funny, hurtful, splendidly acted.

The cast list is like a convocation of the Three Chinas: Taiwan's Kaneshiro, Hong Kong's Lau and the mainland's Zhang Ziyi. All are terrific, but the lady shines brightest.

Can a movie have too much good stuff? Not when it's stuffed like this one.

Makes for a long, lumpy trip with a charismatic guide and some brilliant detours.

Finding Neverland takes a big, brave leap and lands splat on the sidewalk.

We forgive Bridget the movie its obvious flaws because of its equally inescapable charm.

The movie wants to entertain and educate, not leer, about people flummoxed by participating in a revolution they had meant only to calibrate, and at that it succeeds handsomely.

Tom Hanks doesn't turn Polar Express into much of a thrill ride. For that you need 3-D goggles.

The Incredibles has those characters, that heart.

If there were an Oscar for ensemble acting, Ray would win in a stroll.

Sideways is by far the year's best American movie.

The real kick, however, is in the grandeur and detail of the production design, by Jim Dultz and David Rockwell.

This very patient film reaches out and unshakably grips us.

The film has a hectic, sitcom air and a full-of-himself hero who is as likely to grate as to ingratiate.

Conran hasn't attached his technical virtuosity to a ripping yarn or infused it with behavioral brio. The first of its kind often doesn't work; Sky Captain may be the Moses that leads other directors to a blue-sky, blue-screen promised land.

An uninvolving muddle.

It points out what's missing in his (Oshii) approach: fluidity of character line, the subtlety of expression that brought humanity to a Warner Bros. cartoon duck or rabbit.

There's something about her (Nair) Vanity Fair that doesn't quite work. There is no depth beneath its bright surfaces, no potent emotional undercurrents.

Hero is the masterpiece. It employs unparalleled visual splendor to show why men must make war to secure the peace and how warriors may find their true destiny as lovers.

As much a dark, odd couple comedy as it is a quirky, efficient little thriller.

The film's payoff raises more questions than it answers, which may be Shyamalan's intent in this political parable of fear.

It proposes that you can make an extraordinarily satisfying comedy without writing a joke. Subtly played and elegantly directed, this is an Adults Only movie in the best sense of the term.

In the end, I, Robot is just an assembly-line product of a not very advanced model.

What we come to care most about in writer-director Joshua Marston's film is how his heroine achieves the state promised by his title, Maria Full of Grace. Our emotional investment in her derives primarily from the astonishing performance of Moreno, 23.

A formally elegant, subtly savage and powerfully affecting film.