If you like Prince's music, you'll love this movie. If not, stay away.

With an often very funny story line that eventually touches on parental disappointment and suicide, it's clear that, his debt to Hess and Wes Anderson notwithstanding, Waititi has learned a thing or two from fellow antipodean Jane Campion as well.

While director Tony Scott's brash and boisterous take on the material may lack that certain '70s quirkiness, it gets just about everything else exactly right.

(A) languorous, mud-spattered psychological tale.

Situations don't come much more claustrophobic, and if the payoff doesn't quite live up to the build-up, the film is still an enjoyable exercise in claustrophobic suspense.

With a little more plot, this could have been a killer.

The pressure often shows: For all its charm, the dramatic moments are awkward and the final act feels rushed and under rehearsed.

The detatched, fly-on-the-wall perspective, however, offers little insight into the strange gender game that's played out in the dark safety of the porn theater.

There are two kinds of police officers in David Ayers and James Ellroy's convoluted, ultraviolent tale of corruption within the LAPD: dirty cops and dirtier ones.

While Rick Baker's special effects work is remarkable (and won the first competitive Oscar for makeup), Landis seems content to simply showcase it, shooting it in close-ups and bright lighting without any attempt to build any emotion into the sequence.

Unfortunately, this visually sumptuous epic is the very definition of a "prestige production," swaddled in good taste and better intentions.

Despite a few good moments here and there and a stunning performance by Gena Rowlands, Light of Day is an anemic drama with little to say.

Milo Forman's Valmont is the weakest version so far, suffering from willfully wrongheaded casting, a comic-strip "free" adaptation by former Luis Bunuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere, and Forman's heavy-handed direction of material that requires the most sophisticated glancing touch.

The verdict: More thoughtful than Harlin's version, but hardly the invigorating mix of shocks and metaphysical horror needed to revitalize the Exorcist franchise.

To help break the monotony, Frost relies on relentless digital effects; there are so many shots of giant golf balls whizzing toward the screen it looks like the film was meant to be projected in 3-D.

Linear storytelling was never Herzog's strong suit even under the best of conditions. His strength lies in capturing lucid lunacy on film, and Manoel da Silva's descent into the jaws of madness is a straight shot into the heart of darkness, a place familiar to both Herzog and Kinski.

Strictly for the young ones.

The Comancheros is not a terrible film; in fact much of it is entertaining. But it is obviously the effort of two talented men far from their peak powers.

This is a very funny satire of television.

The feminist subtext here is intentional -- the credits list a Wiccan priestess as witchcraft consultant! -- but any subtlety soon gets lost in the thud and blunder of special effects, trendy music and a predictable Hollywood-style climax.

A little too much talk and not enough action, but it's still fun.

Like Night and Day and Words and Music--film biographies about Cole Porter and Rogers and Hart, respectively--Rhapsody In Blue has little to do with the real life of its subject, but, as is the case with those films, its subject's wonderful songs are the main attraction.

The plot is a bit busy but the performances are solid, even though Douglas seems to be doing a reprise of his role in OUT OF THE PAST (1947) as a cruel, unfeeling villain.

The last of seven "Road to" pictures and an awkward attempt at re-creating the fun of the previous films, this one has a few funny moments, but it's so filled with inside jokes that a lot of it will be lost on anyone who hasn't seen the other six movies in the series.

Director Arthur Penn uses every trick in the horror book to pull this one off, but nothing really works, including his accent on scary noises. Everything is forced, contrived, and not too neatly lifted from other classic doppelganger films.

Herman fails to journey beyond the surface-level realities of his central perspective, which makes his film feel half-developed and poorly conceived, and drives it into sensationalism.

Hawn has the right screen persona to carry it off, but her character is lost in a barrage of weak comic moments and absurd action.

Where "Charade" unfolds in a fantasy Paris full of glamorous white people, Demme's film takes place in a gray tangle of streets teeming with multi-ethnic Parisians. Newton and Robbins mimic Hepburn and Matthau, while Wahlberg is the anti-Grant, lumpen and thuggish rather than beguilingly debonair.

Grace fares better than Linney, and both escape with more dignity than Harden, whose blowsy, wanton Missy is a coarse, soap-opera caricature of a suburban hoyden.

Blanchett's insouciant but steely performance alone makes the film worth watching, but it's Brenda Fricker's quietly underplayed turn as Guerin's mother that makes your throat tighten.

There are some very funny bits, but they're interspersed with long stretches of exposition that drag the whole thing down, down, down.

Beautifully shot in rich colors by Franz Lustig, it's possibly Wenders' most accessible film to date, and among his most emotionally satisfying.

The animation is no better than competent, but the film has a nice bluegrass-style musical score by Ed Bogas and should be fine for the kids and "Peanuts" fans.

By the time the film winds itself up, the sophisticated fizz of its first 45 minutes has been smothered by explosive bombast.

Some nice scenery, an unexpectedly funny performance by Jodie Foster and a unflaggingly spunky Abigail Breslin make for above average family entertainment.

Somehow the filmmakers managed to take the subject of the mistreatment of migrant workers and turn it into a vehicle for displaying Bronson's violent heroics.

Sebastien Pentecouteau's startlingly beautiful cinematography lends the film a dreamlike quality and perfectly suits Kounen's mystical subject matter.

Ultimately, Tenacious D is a sight gag -- two unprepossessing, chunky dudes rocking out like wiry guitar gods -- supplemented by spot-on digs at the macho bombast and Dungeons & Dragons silliness that drives heavy-metal mania.

The basic flaw in Falling in Love, however, is that no one in the film--including the lovers--seems to be in love.

Faithfull is marvelous: Once notorious for her own escapades, this great-great-niece of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is no shrinking violet, but she's perfect as a plump, frumpy widow with a huge heart and a hidden talent no one would ever suspect.

Frequently funny, generally fizzy and occasionally piercingly perceptive about the price love exacts.

However fact-based the material may be, Jordan's salt-of-the-earth characters, with their bluster and pride and rough-edged loyalty, are all too familiar, and their travails feel formulaic, right down to the life-affirming climax.

Pryor--whose customary profanity cuts into the story's essentially sentimental nature--is able to energize the material, but in the end Bustin' Loose remains a minor effort from a major talent.

Alda's debut as a director is nevertheless impressive, even if he clearly doesn't know what to do with the camera.

God moves in mysterious -- some might say positively spiteful -- ways in this trio of scabrous tales adapted from short stories by "Trainspotting's" Irvine Welsh.

Though ultimately something less than the sum of its parts, the film's performances are reason enough to see it.

Stiller's performance throws the whole enterprise out of whack -- he's a grotesque mass of tics, twitches and swaggering macho shoulder action.

No doubt about it: Unlike David Lean's much-loved classic, Cuaron's film is loosely based on Dickens. And that's just fine.

De la Iglesia's years of filmmaking experience are obvious in the film's formal touches -- his transitions between scenes and time frames are smooth and very stylish.

One of the most downright sleazy major films in recent memory, 52 PICK-UP works mainly because of its vivid villains, who are more intriguing than the hero. Glover is superb as the totally amoral blackmailer who uses his superior intelligence to keep his dimmer comrades in check.

Only the performance of Elam remains lively, but it is the type of characterization he has done dozens of times. A sad finale to Hawks's magnificent career.

An uneven and somewhat predictable thriller.

Highly sentimental, KITTY FOYLE features typically variable direction by Wood and includes an unnecessary prologue showing how the treatment of women supposedly changed through the years. Despite these drawbacks, this film makes no apologies for being a romantic tearjerker.

When the average comedy is aimed at juvenile 12-year-olds of all ages, the fact that Russell's target audience is precocious 12-year-olds of all ages is a significant improvement without actually being a triumph of mature wit over boorish puerility.

Silly but endearing comedy.

Taut, powerfully acted political thriller.

The comedy is broad, cartoonish, and quite funny in a faux "Little Rascals" manner. The movie is almost completely derivative, but that's part of the fun.

Rob Roy succeeds more as an old-fashioned romance (nice to see Jessica Lange, instead of some babe du jour, as Rob's fiercely proud wife), than as an action epic.

The film's utterly predictable dialogue and plot developments will leave most viewers cold. Ice-struck preteens are, of course, the exceptions.

Putting Julie Andrews in a Hitchcock film at all, meanwhile, proves that a spoonful of sugar doesn't help the medicine go down...in the most de-light-ful way. Dull and way too long.

A couple of good jokes and a superior performance by Martin are all that distinguish this feeble attempt at capturing the same audience who loved Newman in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. Rosenberg's direction is pedestrian.

The look is overpowering enough to delay--though not forever--examination of the plot, which has to pull a fast one at every turn to keep moving and which eventually makes a mockery of plausibility.

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

Relying mostly on slapstick visual humor (only 15 words are spoken, otherwise the dialog is all grunts and groans), the action quickly becomes madcap.

Character-driven thriller, which plays out against a backdrop of desperation, self-loathing and grinding poverty.

Intelligent but incomplete-feeling documentary.

It is a small film, with small, and at times cliched, ideas about rural life, but there is a sweetness about it that is an appealing and refreshing change from the usual roller-coaster films that bombard audiences in the summer.

The situations Carroll devises are perfectly controlled but dramatically void.

Though screenwriter Dianne Houston spent time observing the real-life Dulaine, her screenplay is a showcase for triumph-of-the-underdog sports-movie cliches and coming-of-age-through-adversity moral lessons.

The script is full of inconsistencies, and the humor is strictly of the New York nebbish school, but it's well worth checking out.

A generally disappointing film, with only Bolger and Wynn to recommend it.

The cast is uniformly excellent - particularly the relentlessly effervescent Posey and the imperious Sasha von Scherler, the director's mother - and the modern take on old-fashioned romantic comedy is surprisingly effective.

The ideal viewer is a Miike fan...You know who you are.

This surprisingly effective low-budget effort from Canada plays on universal childhood fears, and manages to be scary without resorting to scenes of sadism or graphic bloodletting.

For the most part, the "Rocky" pictures have been outstanding entertainments, beautifully crafted and executed, and Rocky V is an important and worthwhile addition to the series.

Gloriously seductive musical sequences seem suddenly hokey and self-conscious when they're staged in Western settings, and the songs' English-language lyrics are painfully banal.

Huston, with a flawless Irish accent, is simply wonderful as the tough, foul-mouthed and very funny Agnes Browne.

Cinematographer Ken Kelsch, Ferrara's frequent collaborator, picks up the theme of overlapping lives by layering images within scenes -- the ongoing interplay of reflections and shadows is breathtaking -- and through slow, shimmering dissolves.

Much of the credit for what works in the film should go to the excellent cast. Berenger is superb, and Rogers proves here that she can handle a lead role with class and aplomb. Bracco, however, steals the picture with a refreshing energy and wit.

Fast-paced, fully aware of its own foolishness, and with lively dance sequences, BREAKIN' 2 is an enjoyable diversion for those who like breakdancing.

Redford and the Oscar-nominated Natwick, fresh from their Broadway triumph in the play, perform with the ease familiarity brings, and Fonda and Boyer also display the appropriate lightness of touch.

Though the story meanders, the film's look is nothing short of breathtaking.

A dreary, downbeat "Field of Dreams."

A hokey, more-than-a-little-annoying mystical journey of self-discovery.

The movie's greatest liability is the familiarity of the material, much parodied since the glory days of John Ford. Unfortunately, Thornton's love for its iconography doesn't quite bring it to life.

It's an amiable enough picture, and genuinely insightful about the emotional appeal of devoted fandom.

While Brosnan, an Irishman by birth, lays it on bit thick, his performance is surprisingly effective.

Steers clear of historical accuracy. Herzog is obviously looking for a moral to his fable, but the notion that a strong, unified showing among Germany and Eastern European Jews might have changed 20th-Century history is undermined by Ahola's inadequate performance.

As Lord Peter Carrington, former mediator of the European Community, points out, a case can be made for all sides in this highly complicated civil war.

Hicks smothers the story in portentous images and the obligatory memory-inducing soundtrack. The effect is like peering at a photo through layers of shellac: evocative but remote.

More isn't always better; everything feels slightly forced, and the funny bits -- make no mistake, there are several -- are all but lost in the noise.

It would be hard to mount a straight-faced defense of Brisseau's feverish moral tale, complete with a lurking angel of death, but the carnal machinations are hugely entertaining -- particularly if you like your skin with a bracing sermon chaser.

Blends history and mystery into an entertaining, if somewhat slight, romance.

You may not care for the message, but there's nothing insidious about it.

The Armenian-American quartet have taken it upon themselves to teach their fans about what happened to their families in that now-forgotten time, a deeply personal mission that has proven effective in politicizing their audiences.

While the cast is uniformly committed, some are able to make more of the material than others.

Although the film plays a little too heavily on this patriotic theme, its simple boy-and-his-horse story is beautifully effective.

Hanks is excellent and has a way with funny lines that marks him as one of the better droll comic actors, if given the right material. Here, writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs have provided the actors with solid jokes.