It's a complicated plot, but one that leaves plenty of room for everything a fan could want: gunplay, swordfights, brutal mano a mano fisticuffs, motorcycle races, car chases, Japanese gangsters eating sushi off of topless women, and that old standby, a decapitated head in a box.

This examination of unexamined lives is beautifully acted by all involved, notably former pop diva Deborah Harry, whose nuanced portrayal of a middle-aged tart is almost painful to watch.

Restrained and decorous to a fault.

The feisty supporting cast is forced to carry the show, and fortunately, they're more than up to it, notably Olin, Platt and Jeremy Irons.

Rarely has more high-powered movie technology been deployed to achieve such frivolous ends. Kids seem to love it, while sophisticated viewers may find it enchanting, appalling, or both.

The film is flat-out gorgeous and contains moments of sheer lunacy.

The film's performances are uniformly strong and remarkably coherent, given the conditions under which they were delivered. The actors shot for eight hours straight in a fully lit and set-decorated house, each individually miked and followed by his or her own personal camera operator.

Expanded by writer-director Randall Miller from a nostalgic half-hour short he made while a student at AFI, this well-intentioned film about loss, grief and new beginnings gets bogged down in syrupy cliches and blunt self-help dialogue.

The superego gets bested by the id in Spanish director Joaquin Oristrell's curious period sex comedy, which mixes intellectual musings on psychoanalysis with vulgar guffaws of the basest sort.

There's no getting around the fact that Ross's whole cynical premise is based on the lurid male assumption that nubile, college-bound teens have few qualms about selling themselves, a fantasy as deluded as the targets of Ross's barbed arrows.

Screenwriter David Auburn's awkward dialogue spells out the film's themes with painful literal-mindedness.

The result is the farthest thing from a bland, spineless sequel: It's a brutal, insanely excessive successor to grindhouse pictures of yore.

Mona Demarkov may not be a convincing woman, but she's an awe-inspiring embodiment of the female principle at its most devouring, Medusa, Kali, and praying mantis all rolled into one frilly, garter-wrapped package.

The film's strident tone also serves to undermine its generally above-average performances.

Stanford's script is painfully obvious, right down to the line of dialogue spelling out the title's significance.

The film, though admirably ambitious, is resolutely earthbound, mired in ick and slime and never more wooden than in the delirious climax.

If you're expecting anything resembling the beloved cartoon, you'll enjoy the title sequence and nothing else. If, however, you set your expectations just low enough, or are an easily satisfied 8-year-old, you might have a bit of fun.

Rather than concentrate on Ann's disappointed infatuation and providing a satisfactory reason for its failure, Minot and, one suspects, Cunningham in particular, chose to flesh out the character of Buddy.

Director Zelda Barron has a real affection for her characters, enabling them to retain a sweet dignity even under some excessive circumstances dictated by the unimaginative, slight script.

The fewer movies like this you've already seen, the better this one will play.

The film belongs to Steve Martin, whose crisp, almost bitter delivery, although frequently off-putting, manages to put an edge to a film that, without him, would be mush.

Litvak's broad comedy has novelty on its side, and though the script never rises above sitcom-style one-liners and sight gags, strong performances invest both the jokes and the syrupy moments of forgiveness and reconciliation with no small measure of, yes, heart.

The result is something close to a textbook example of how NOT to visualize spiritual principles of the "be here now" variety.

The film's flippant style ultimately undermines its material - Rosen's decision not to immediately identify interviewees is especially irritating - and, ironically, makes the American art scene of the '60s appear as shallow and trendy as its detractors always claimed it was.

Attempts at balance through interviews with unidentified U.S. soldiers is halfhearted at best. In the end, Berends sacrifices coherence for the sake of a story he's determined to tell, rather than focusing on the one that's practically telling itself.

The script pushes all the expected buttons at all the expected moments, leaving you wondering what could have been achieved with a more rigorous, unsentimental approach.

Nobody goes to these movies for their comic-book plots, klutzy dialog, or hammy acting--all of which Kickboxer has in abundance. They go for action, and on that level Kickboxer delivers the goods.

The inspired pairing of "Talledega's" Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, two actors smart enough to play dumb and make it work.

This is the kind of movie in which a dozen bad guys with an automatic weapon in each hand couldn't hit a lake if they were standing at the bottom of it, to steal the screenplay's best wiseacre remark.

Leguizamo deserves real kudos for making what he does of T.C., who is the film's walking lesson in how to undermine elitist clichés about working-class Long Island.

Billed as the first film to originate from the newly democratic South Africa, this disappointing prestige production is a ploddingly earnest adaptation of Alan Paton's 1948 novel.

The famous soliloquies are heard in voice-over -- a risky idea that works -- and Wright has found clever ways of naturalizing the play's more supernatural elements.

The sequel is something of a disappointment, embroiling its refreshingly level-headed heroines in a series of clichéd romantic dilemmas.

The underlying political motivation may be unclear, but the violence and desperation of lives lived in something close to hell on earth is terrifyingly clear.

This fifth film should please fans who rate the films based on their fidelity to the canonical texts. But for the uninitiated, it's a dry and slightly dreary introduction to the world of Hogwarts and Azkaban.

There are a number of excruciating moments that are almost too silly to mention.

The mix of rollicking, family-friendly action and backwoods mysticism is odd, as is the story's progress from larky escapades to increasingly grim consequences, and Craven never quite manages to make it all seem a smoothly integrated piece.

This slight story of youthful dreams and adult compromise is bolstered by finely modulated performances from the three leads.

Despite the frequent and elaborate sex scenes, the film's overall tone is both melancholic and alienating, suffused with the sad certainty of Claudine's impending death in Venice.

We never see enough of the small compromises Willie Stark makes on the way up to fully grasp the tragedy of his fall. Some will undoubtedly find Penn's hamboned, spittle-lashing performance a bit much, but it's a pretty close to Warren's original conception.

A cute, slight tale.

While sumptuously beautiful, the film is often stilted and undermined by some painfully amateurish performances that no good intentions can smooth over.

As soon as it pitches camp in generic romantic-comedy territory, it loses its intriguing edge and becomes one more predictable girl-meets-unsuitable-boy story.

Luke gives a powerful performance -- with his looks and talent, he should be a much bigger star -- but Robbins is the one you'll remember. Fixed with the faraway look of a doomed man who knows the center cannot hold, he gazes fearfully toward a future he knows is coming and can do nothing to stop.

The film's tone - a mix of childlike directness, twee whimsy and arty sentimentality - is a matter of taste.

It's hard to tell whether Hyams' subjects are exceptionally nice guys or whether there's an excess of decency on the PBR circuit, but if even one were more conspicuously flawed, the film might be more compelling.

This is pure big-budget formula filmmaking.

What it lacks in objectivity, it makes up for in vivid intimacy.

While funny enough, it's essentially a one-joke movie.

The younger actors bring varying degrees of experience to bear on their roles, but all capture the desperation beneath their characters' tough fronts, while the NYC locations are suitably depressing.

Jeannot Szwarc does well in the director's chair, and Jean-Pierre Dorleac deserves special commendation for his costumes. But Seymour is given too little to do, and Reeve does too much.

For Hartley, the third time is definitely not the charm.

In an age when special effects and flashy cinematography often trump narrative, there's a particular charm to the plain-Jane story of self-discovery.

Zahedi has been compared to Woody Allen, and he shares Allen's neurotic sense of entitlement and navel-gazing fascination with his own sexual peccadilloes. Whether you find either man funny or infuriating depends in large part on whether you identify more with their narcissistic quests for self-knowledge or the collateral damage left in their wakes.

An improvement over the tedious "Saw II" (2005), this second sequel to the surprise 2004 hit still features the series' trademark gruesome "games" but shifts the focus to the relationships among the characters.

Though the story is formulaic, the bleakly naturalistic performances give it an uncomfortable sting.

Unfortunately, Virtuosity ignores character development in favor of slick set design and mindless action sequences. Consequently, it plays like an outdated video game.

A predictable moral tale enacted by blandly pretty young things who bear little resemblance to the average brainiac.

Though neither subtle nor particularly original, Gens' spin on the meat-movie classic has both nightmarish energy to spare.

The results are, quite surprisingly, fairly charming.

Todd Komarnicki's screenplay relies heavily on red herrings and a host of suspects (there are more murderers swanning around Hill's sleek offices than there were aboard the Orient Express) to keep audiences distracted from what, in retrospect, is really pretty obvious.

While we at home can't come close to experiencing the war in any real sense, we do come away from Scranton's film with a greater sense of the soldiers' everyday fear, helplessness and horror.

This formulaic adventure pays tribute to George Hogg, a true hero largely forgotten everywhere but China, where a statue of him now stands -- a rare honor for a westerner.

While not every artist Aaron Rose profiles in his documentary about one colorful corner of the 1990s New York Art scene is "beautiful," they're all "losers" and proud of it.

Perry certainly loves his divas -- the best parts are written for Scott and the wonderful Smith.

The film's depiction of life among the salt of the earth is blandly cartoonish; and the "Super Sounds of the '70s" soundtrack meticulously matches songs to action, as though the filmmakers didn't trust viewers to figure out what these one-note characters were feeling.

It feels as though everyone involved was having a rollicking good time, and while the film itself is wildly uneven, Lin and company get in a few pointed jabs at Hollywood fatuousness and self-delusion, cultural stereotypes and '70s fashions.

While rich in ethnographic detail, the film ultimately recalls nothing more than pulp fictions like Robert E. Howard’s "Conan the Barbarian," which validate their worship of ubermensch-ian brawn by way of sad tales of childhood victimization.

The film's underlying notion, that imperfection is the essence of humanity and the pursuit of bland flawlessness a kind of soul-killing drug, is far more compelling than its story of clichéd teen angst.

Falls disappointing short of its ambition to be both sympathetically straightforward and funny.

There are moments of genuine humor in the film, but Finney virtually sucks the oxygen out of the story, and even tempered pros like Gambon and Fricke can do little to save it.

Despite its philosophical pretensions, the film is fairly lightweight, and its good-looking cast and sleek production values are more memorable than any of its heady themes.

It now seems that style has completely replaced substance in Scott's films, and he leaves gaping holes in his heroine's character.

Director Kevin Reynolds isn't so much inspired as determined to tell it with period accuracy, without bothering to be historically accurate.

Rich with atmosphere but too similar to films ranging from "Children of Men" to "Doomsday" to carve out its own distinctive niche.

Luckily the story behind the suds is a pretty good one.

Bean fills in some empty spaces with heady thoughts about the nature of power and beauty, but the movie's real appeal lies in the simple but by no means inconsiderable pleasure of watching Tim Robbins take a hammer to a parked car as it wails pointlessly, deep into the night.

While far from the cream of the mockumentary crop, it's still a pleasant diversion.

A snapshot rather than a sustained look at Meat Loaf's tumultuous life and career, Klein's film is a revealing glimpse at the late career of a performer who looked a safe bet to die before he got old, then surprised everyone by hanging on long enough to find fans who weren't born when he started out.

This is an extremely faithful film adaptation of Ira Levin's gimmicky stage play.

If you don't already have a handle on the complicated conflict at the heart of Darfur's ongoing genocide, you probably won't come away from this harrowing documentary with any comprehensive understanding.

No matter what, it's safe to say that this entirely acceptable retooling of the franchise makes for a satisfying experience for those who enjoy four-wheeled chases, hot bodies, hot cars, and a tall dose of tough-guy machismo.

It's a terrific showcase for battling Boleyn babes Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman.

Mark Boone Jr. makes a vivid impression as eccentric loner Beau Brower, and Danny Huston is mesmerizing as the leader of the shrieking, slashing, wallowing-in-gore bloodsuckers. They effortlessly eclipse the rest of the cast.

It's all terribly trite, but Durst does make an effort to keep his film grounded in the reality of a lot of once thriving towns like the fictional Minden.

While Burnam and Garrison imbue their characters with authentic-feeling frustration and anger, they never succeed in making them especially interesting; it's hard to care in any serious way what becomes of either.

While the aerial dogfights are handsome and apparently historically accurate, right down to the tracer bullets that leave graceful, crisscrossing trails in the clouds, they have a video-game feel.

A chilling corporate thriller with an intriguing mystery on the surface and a deeply troubling idea at its dark core.

While most of the show's scenes work well cinematically, some are laughably miscalculated. Rock-video aesthetics and overamplification swamp "Glory" and "What You Own" while also robbing other sequences of their depth.

It's almost three hours long, and that's a lot of time to invest in what is, essentially, a theme-park attraction you can't ride.

For all its impeccable indie credibility, writer-director Zoe Cassavetes' bittersweet romance is little more than a hipster chick flick in which the same old smart women make the usual foolish choices.

Sweet-natured, formulaic and ripe for an American remake.

Yankovic fails to come up with anything new to freshen the stock storyline, and is content instead to let it serve as a creaky showcase for his forte, media parodies. But even the quality of these parodies is inconsistent, with the movie and music takeoffs being obvious and out of date.

Formulaic but well-acted variation on the theme of pursuing your dreams through dance.

Kilmer and Dorff, who was also an executive producer, immerse themselves in difficult roles.

"Make a Wish" (2003) actually beat this film to the gay-themed slasher-picture punch with its story of lesbians on a camping trip being stalked by a killer, but writer-director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts' background in art direction serves him well — his movie wins hands-down for style and attitude.

Looks great but has a shambolic, off-kilter feel that might not be entirely intentional, and is alternately tedious and shocking.

Produced by the son of Trinity Broadcasting Network founder Paul Crouch, this historical epic offers a solid two hours of spectacle and intrigue drawn from The Book of Esther by way of Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen's novel "Hadassah."