A disturbing, wonderfully acted, well-scripted, and suspenseful study of a murderous 13-year-old girl.

Granted, the film is a technical marvel: The many chases through rooms, under floors and behind walls -- including one very scary encounter with a nail-gun -- are all done to jaw-dropping, state-of-the-art perfection.

The movie's refusal to treat young girls like silly tramps-in-training is almost radical: It's just good, clean fun and actually offers children of a certain age a role model even adults can feel good about.

Zwick frequently sacrifices dramatic urgency in the name of sobriety.

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.

This is a fast and funny film that will appeal to viewers of all ages. The kids are particularly good, lacking any cloying cuteness. The Aussies sure have a way with chase films, keeping the moves motivated and logical, with no gratuitous cars flipping over and burning.

It's a mainstreamed, big-screen version of the bowdlerized, endlessly syndicated version of the show, not the raunchy original.

A big success in Europe, the film has already spawned two sequels, the first of which is due to be released in the fall.

The ensemble is a tight one that places the audience right in the middle of the nightmare.

Despite the overplotting, there's scarcely any of the characterization that might have made some of it interesting.

Stripping away the false glamour generated by pop culture's undying fascination with the Mafia, this hour-long film tells the tragic but inspiring story of a 17-year-old Sicilian woman who risked — and ultimately lost — her life in order to reveal just what a nasty bunch they really are.

An oversized National Georgraphic special whose images of the Nile and Egyptian ruins are absolutely breathtaking on the oversized IMAX screen.

The mixture of action, drama and romance isn’t as potent, and Kaige’s reliance on subpar special effects hurts the movie. Wu xia fans will still find things to like, but the uninitiated will probably find this slow going.

Oshima's ambitious film is not without faults, but these are overshadowed by its emotional power.

Pinter's adaptation is uninspired, and this half-heartedness, combined with Schlondorff's heavy-handedness, serves to crush Atwood's feminist concerns through overkill and to turn a provocative novel into a screen polemic that invites no discussion. This isn't filmmaking; it's haranguing by celluloid.

The film is as beautiful as it is unpredictable.

However deep the divide currently separating the Middle East from the West appears to be, there's at least one thing we can all agree on: Albert Brooks isn't all that funny anymore.

Claustrophobic, jittery at times, and electric in pace, Quarantine is a stripped-down bloody thrill ride that -- while certainly not catering to everyone's tastes -- should satisfy gore-hounds looking to step up their theatrical horror cuisine beyond the usual creepy little kid rehashes.

Smilovic's rapid-fire, Tarantino-esque dialogue is consistently razor-sharp, and the elaborate set design - which leans heavily towards shiny, riotously patterned wallpaper - is an eyeball-jangling blast.

Richly atmospheric but a little thin in the character department: It feels oddly truncated, despite nicely textured performances.

Wahlberg acquits himself well, and the supporting cast -- which includes pioneering rocker Levon Helm in a scene-stealing cameo as an aging gun buff who knows a thing or two about cover-ups, Ned Beatty as a corrupt politician, and a Strangelovian Rade Serbedzija -- is so strong you almost wish the film were longer so they could have more screen time.

Though a minor work, this worldly comedy is handsomely staged, and Hitchcock's dry wit is already in evidence.

Ultimately, the film feels unfocused and attenuated, despite its brief running time.

Kapadia's intelligent, nuanced performance is the film's highlight, balanced by Khanna's portrayal of Nashaad, who could easily be a patronizing, chauvinist caricature.

Without question the breeziest viewing experience now available at a multiplex near you.

De Marken and Freeman preserve the group dynamic by dividing the screen into six parts, each mini-frame capturing actions and reactions from a different camera angle, and while the film drags in spots, the performances are unusually powerful.

Screenwriter and co-director West -- who works in gay porn -- evinces an easy and even-handed familiarity with the milieu, and his characters only occasionally lapse into broad caricature.

Sidney Lumet's overblown direction strips the story of its magic, Ross is too old for the part and never quite captures Dorothy's innocence, and Pryor is wasted in a film ill-suited to his talents.

Jodie Foster's fiercely intelligent performance drives this disappointing thriller, whose taut, carefully constructed first half is sadly negated by its implausible and -- worst of all -- unengaging conclusion.

Adapted from J.G. Ballard's cult novel, a dispassionate exegesis of warped desire, Cronenberg's movie is suitably cold, cold, cold: proof positive that movies about sex aren't always sexy movies, at least by conventional standards.

All things considered, Grumpy Old Men might have fared better re-worked as a domestic drama that took full advantage of its talented cast, with the lame funnybone attempts left, like the ubiquitous dead fish, buried in the backseat.

The first-rate cast is lost at sea.

Despite the obvious potential for comic disaster, the results are only intermittently amusing. Keaton's Kinney is such a selfish, lemon-lipped wet blanket, you can't help wishing he'd been diminished a little with each cloning, until there was nothing left of him at all.

Hit-and-miss.

Director and cowriter Niall Johnson's black comedy falters at the end, but until then it manages to wring gentle humor from murder most well bred.

Lisa is no mindless run-of-the-mill ripoff. Closer to a true homage, it has a style and wit all its own in the hands of Sherman, who, after a decade of turning out such minor genre gems, continues his career as one of Hollywood's most underrated directors.

While there are a couple of genuine laughs here, this AIRPLANE!-style collection of gags and blackouts is strangely sour and ultimately wearisome.

This is a shameless, straightforward soap opera (no Almodovarian excess here!), but it's pretty entertaining on its own sudsy terms.

Piper Perabo is a revelation -- and Barton is maturing into a sensitive, subtle performer with a marvelously expressive face.

And while the divas make their characters hugely entertaining, they're also such high profile actresses in such a soft-edged film that it's hard to actually worry about what's to become of them.

The resulting awkward, earthbound mishmash thoroughly overshadows Judd and Kline's authentically moving performances.

It comes as a huge disappointment, then, that having cast Witherspoon as Miss Sharp, director Mira Nair and Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) were unable to resist that impulse to find 21st-century prototypes in 19th-century literary characters, fictional creations whose values lie not in the way they reflect our own narcissistic times, but the way they reveal so much about their own.

Johnny Suede's stylish, dreamlike mood and abstract dialogue cannot compensate for its unsatisfying storyline and characters.

Bad Boys is disturbing, sometimes annoying, often painful, and never boring. Writer Richard Dilello and director Richard Rosenthal have taken a difficult subject and infused it with interesting people, some wit, and a lot of careful thought.

Anyone who grew up in the Brooklyn of the 1950s will recognize the essential honesty of this picture.

This one combines elements of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, GREASE, and PORKY'S with a liberal dose of TV's popular sitcom Happy Days.

Fairly effective action-horror film.

Palindromes read the same way backward and forward, and Todd Solondz' sour tale ends where it begins.

It's ultimately hard to care deeply about a silly, sheltered girl-woman who's taking an inordinately long time to learn that money can't buy happiness.

A feature-length Twilight Zone episode, filtered -- not entirely successfully -- though the sensibilities of David Lynch and his Wild at Heart collaborator, Barry Gifford.

To his credit, writer-cinematographer-director Peter Hyams (RUNNING SCARED) doesn't pretend he's reinventing the wheel here--he just sees to it that all the pieces are in place and that there aren't too many opportunities for the premise to trip over its own implausibilities.

Like most contemporary romantic comedies, the film's plot works only if you accept that everyone behaves like a complete and utter idiot at all times.

Zeffirelli's production is neither high art nor lowbrow pandering, but something in between.

"Charlie's Angels" director Joseph McGinty Nichol (aka McG) shows surprising restraint with this emotionally freighted material, weighting the movie heavily towards relationships.

Essentially, this is RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK without the narrative savvy and self-referential cleverness.

But this $3.5-million rehash -- about the brothers Fitzpatrick and their troubles with girls -- is a real turnoff: smug, smarmy and utterly unconvincing.

A lavish parody of/homage to Hollywood big business comedies, The Hudsucker Proxy is gorgeous but lifeless, a very small joke writ very large by the talented but perversely insular Coen brothers.

Photographed as harsh spectacle in brown and gray with unfailingly overcast skies, the story is affecting and suspenseful enough when focusing on Vassili, the humble peasant youth, and his patrician adversary playing a chess-like game of cat-and-mouse.

The film is rich in period detail and a keen visual sense of irony, but it's curiously static; scenes that blister the pages of Miller's novel barely move.

The film's style is best described as utilitarian, but it gets the job done; the performances range from good to a bit amateurish.

Slight and pleasantly predictable film coasts along on the considerable charms of its cast and exotic setting.

Snappy and smart, the film gets surprisingly far on a fairly contrived conceit, proving that there's no energy quite like energy fueled by anger and disgust.

Achieves what Hollywood never quite gets right: a tense and timely thriller that also serves as a political and a moral allegory.

The very definition of sentimental overload. It's also impossible to resist.

Eisenstadt has an unerring sense of comedic rhythm and a knack of cutting away just in time to extract the drop of humor from a potentially pathetic situation.

Director Cokliss directs in a workmanlike manner, but his action scenes are unimaginatively handled and lack pizzazz. Luckily, his cast is almost strong enough to make up for it.

SUBWAY is DIVA with no brains--a film of all style and little substance. Ah, but what style!

Leisen, who would go on to make Hold Back the Dawn and Lady in the Dark, rarely equalled the splendor of this film.

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.

Amiably undemanding...Exhausted though the action-cop-buddy-comedy genre is, Another Stakeout manages to be fairly entertaining.

Despite some plausibility problems, the movie is well handled by director Peter Yates. There is no question that Suspect is capable of putting a lump in one's throat; the problem is that it's a little hard to swallow.

Who knew the rock 'n' roll life could be so mild?

Amazingly, not all of the witty and wise barbs are Wilde's, and any confusion between the old and the new is probably the highest compliment one could possibly pay to screenwriter Howard Himelstein's tart screenplay.

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

The movie's is really good, clean fun that's fine for slightly older kids and a lot of fun for adults.

The most popular film in Indian history.

It's alternately stimulating and exhausting.

The Great White Hope persuasively recreates the climate of the time and generally avoids the preachiness for which director Ritt is sometimes known. The love story between Alexander and Jones is touchingly portrayed.

The folks at Jim Henson Pictures have wisely opted not to mess with the late Jim Henson's winning formula; the crowd-pleasing soundtrack features hot '70s funk classics, the Muppets are as cute as ever and there are more than a few flashes of adult humor to keep grown-ups laughing right along with the kiddies.

Most of it comes across as overheated nonsense, but Page's egomaniacal telephone soliloquy at the film's climax is reason enough to tune in.

Elvis Presley again plays a successful racer in this, his 27th film.

A deadpan satire of the espionage film that explores the accepted logic forming the basis of the genre. Although not as interesting as some of Penn's other genre experiments, TARGET is worth seeing if only for the inspired teaming of Hackman and Dillon.

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

An entertaining road movie with a topical point: The three passengers on this cross-country trip are U.S. soldiers who've just returned from Iraq.

Australia goes for the absolute limit in terms of scope. And let's not be coy -- size may not matter, but it still helps.

This loud and thoroughly obnoxious comedy about a pair of squabbling working-class spouses is a deeply unpleasant experience.

Every character fated to die in Othello meets his or her maker by the time the curtain falls on Blake's adaptation, which means the manicured campus of Palmetto Grove is left littered with slain coeds.

Driven by sheer enthusiam (much of it for the worst excesses of Hollywood filmmaking), which makes it fun to watch in spite of its fundamental ridiculousness.

This is a smart and witty romantic farce that mixes sweet and sexy with surprising aplomb.

The quality of the CGI-heavy special effects is variable and Nomura's fey performance as Seimei gives his relationship with Hiromasa a distinctly homoerotic cast that may or may not be intentional, but the demon zombies and Doson's cackling familiar are crowd pleasers.

Hooking up can be as random, and as rewarding, as hitting the jackpot -- and helps makes "This Car Up" the best of a pretty good bunch.

Swaddled in terms so trite and cliched that they're almost guaranteed to bring out the closet cynic in even the most sympathetic viewers.

Baldwin dominates the screen with his slick, beefy swagger, and if Prinze is less than convincing as a kid from Brooklyn, Caan and Ferrara nail Carmine and Bobby with such assured economy that it hardly matters they're one-note roles.

It's an uncommonly mature and intelligent chiller, particularly in a period when the genre has devolved into wisecracking fiends and empty special effects showcases.

A hoot and a half.

Queen Latifah's warmly formidable presence drives this amiable but poky comedy.

Overall, the performances are surprisingly convincing, but the mockumentary elements – feel out of place and the intrusive.

There's not an original thought in sight — the story is Evil Dead in a movie theater — and it doesn't pay to give much thought to the self-referential implications of the story: The demons and their gross-out antics are the main event.