Charming, low-key ensemble comedy that recalls the films of both John Cassavetes and Woody Allen, which is to say it's a loosely structured, quasi-improvisational saga about a bunch of New Yorkers obsessing about relationships.

As thrilling as they can be on stage, Chekhov's plays have never been the stuff of great movies -- there's simply nothing cinematic about them.

Has honorable aspirations, even as it becomes mired in mainstream movie conventions.

A strong cast that flounders in profoundly unappealing material.

Despite Trevor Nunn's direction, this gorgeously photographed travesty of history doesn't omit a single cliche of the costume genre and feels even longer than its 142-minute running time. Fans of RSC-style scenery-chewing will not, however, be disappointed.

The film is dreary and attenuated, the tedium broken only by the occasional golden moment when one of the stellar supporting players - Ron Silver as the principled presiding judge who alternately tolerates and quashes Jackie's antics, Peter Dinklage as the lead defense attorney or Annabella Sciorra as Jackie's ex - manages to cut through the clutter.

(Tykwer's) unpredictability has become predictable, and the only thing genuinely uncanny here is the unsettling — and unintentional — sense of déjà vu.

Given the serious subject matter, this adaptation of Irish writer Brendan Behan's autobiographical novel is surprisingly light and exceedingly good-natured.

No one and nothing can be taken at face value in Beach's twisty tale of secrets and lies, which buries its very interesting idea in a welter of ludicrous dialogue and skin-flick imagery.

How engaging you find this loosely structured road movie will depend on how charming you find the over-aged slackers played by Josh Alexander, who also wrote the screenplay, and Robert Bogue.

The gorgeous Mole Antonelliana is the breakout star of Ferrario's fluffy valentine to the cinema.

William Rose, with a stilted screenplay, and Stanley Kramer, make this dinner hour stand still--a really safe, lame melodrama.

This very Disney treatment of the classic fish out of water story ought to satisfy its intended audiences: kids and the parents who must accompany them.

It may not be as epochal a piece of work as "Mean Streets," but packs what feels like a real-life punch none the less.

Suicide, child molestation, corruption, insanity and the faintest implication of incest are wound around the film's suggestion that the cure for modern-day alienation and anomie lies in embracing traditional Japanese culture, like ritual tattooing.

The story is slight and would probably be better suited to a short subject, but first-time feature filmmaker Pierre-Paul Renders gives it a striking formal twist: It's told entirely in the first person.

Director Jack Bender films all this with enough style that Child's Play 3 never becomes overly boring or tedious, and there's some nicely timed tension and comic bits scattered throughout.

Hackman's performance, beautiful photography by Stephen Burum and Ric Waite, and some effective action direction from Ted Kotcheff make this watchable, but the jingoist wish-fulfillment inherent in the material is ultimately disturbing.

The non-action scenes are so pedestrian that one suspects the good stuff is less due to workmanlike director Lee Tamahori than to one of the best second-unit crews in the biz.

If this were a more mainstream film with a shot at a wider audience, we'd probably be talking Oscar nominations for Futterman and Ball.

So silly it's best taken ironically. But the film, much of it shot digitally, is also astonishingly beautiful.

Although the on-screen rapport between Redford and Winger is a delight, the film itself is less than that. The script by TOP GUN writers Cash and Epps is muddled and unconvincing.

Director Gore Verbiniski delivers the best one can hope for: a cleverly nostalgic, high-tech copy of the real deal.

Wan's debut feature is a twisted, squirm-inducingly nasty bit of work, which isn't a criticism because that's exactly what he and cowriter Leigh Whannell had in mind.

Hawks used more than 10,000 extras and handled the DeMille-type hordes well enough. The problems arose in the shooting of the small moments, the times when actors had to speak to each other.

It's all passably entertaining, but there's precious little that will stay with you; like so many contemporary movies, this one self-destructs five seconds after you leave the theater.

All the performers either overact laughably or underact to the point of just standing in place and speaking lines in a monotone. Whether the film ever stopped anyone from smoking marijuana is doubtful, but it certainly turned out to be a greater success than its producers ever dreamed.

As an action picture, Missing In Action works fairly well. Norris is a worthy hero, shooting and kicking Asian enemies right and left, and the film is blessed with production values that make it quite watchable.

This doesn't come close to the original in wit, style, or farce, although if the former had never been made, THE MOUSE ON THE MOON could weakly stand on its own as a mild comedy.

Trapped uncomfortably between its higher aspirations and the demands of genre, this picture never quite gets its bearings, but it's still a solid ride.

There's an argument to be made that the film's ending is the logical conclusion of its notion that everyone's trapped in a limbo of disappointment, uncertainty and paralyzing fear of change. But it feels like a cheap cop out: The cast, and the audience, deserve better.

The charismatic Mac has stepped into leading man roles with surprising ease, but Bassett -- a fine actress in all respects -- is clearly struggling with the film's broad comedy.

Attal's characters are one-note position statements, which forces the unsubtle soundtrack - mostly American pop songs that range from the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning" to Radiohead's "Creep" - to bear the brunt of clarifying their thoughts and feelings. Without it, you'd be entirely in the dark.

Director Paul Schrader's dreamlike, stylishly atmospheric remake of Val Lewton's 1942 horror classic needs to be taken on its own terms: viewers who assent to its Freudian logic and creepy sexuality will likely be entranced, but just a little critical distance renders the whole thing irretrievably ludicrous.

Would be more appealing if the women's behavior weren't alternately moronic and venal.

Given Argento's willingness to attempt the controversial book at all, she pulls a surprising number of punches. What at first appears to go too far in reality doesn't go far enough: Argento doesn't even broach the subject of child prostitution.

The extremes of this production's assets and liabilities are embodied by Caleb Deschanel's cinematography and Gabriel Yared's score: One is as glorious and transcendental as the other is execrably sappy.

While movies like "The Long Riders" (1980) and "The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid" (1972) aim to be serious considerations of the outlaws' lives and legends, this picture just wants to have fun.

The extremely intimate violence is more explicit than is the mainstream norm, and Dalle's mouth is the stuff of nightmares.

Despite a crowded cast of famous actors, this WW II adventure falls flat because of its claustrophobic sets, cliche dialog, and hackneyed story.

This film wants to be bleak, nihilistic, and darkly hilarious but Catch-22 emerges as an exercise in frustration for those unprepared for Nichols's episodic, detached, and surreal treatment of the novel. Like a nightmare, the film shifts from one bizarre episode to another, with Alan Arkin's dazed Yossarian reacting to the madness that surrounds him, but second only to the viewer.

There is much to enjoy in this movie, but just as much to yawn over. One has the feeling that this was a play that was never produced on stage but went directly to the screen from the typewriter. Since so much of it is dialogue with very little cinematic action, it just feels stagebound.

Not one of the team's best, but enough fun flowed from the combined pens of Barry (who wrote the play) and Stewart (who wrote the screenplay) to make it a pleasant comedy.

When it's not wasting time with character, this deliberately dumb collegiate comedy is good for a few laughs of the big butts and sex variety, but not much else.

Enjoyable and funny enough.

Isn't nearly as bad as it might have been.

There's not much substantive food for thought.

It is ultimately a simplistic film that will play better to youngsters who wish their grandpas were this cool and to parents who are nostalgic for the kind of exceptional childhood they neither had nor can provide for their own children.

Though filled with strong performances from all the principals, THAT WAS THEN...THIS IS NOW is thin material. We watch as Estevez's tortured character tries to come to grips with adult emotions and responsibilities, but we never really get a handle on what is inside him. Screenwriter-actor Estevez fails to provide any insight. What is refreshing about the film is that the teenagers seem real, with a keen sense of detail in the portrayal of their environment.

While far from the worst adaptation of Poe's work (there are so many candidates for that dubious honor it's hard to know where to start), Two Evil Eyes breaks no new ground.

Although an extremely violent movie, THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN benefits from skillful pacing, a literate script, and fine performances by Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern.

Aside from an inspired bit involving a pair of sycophantic starfish, it's amazing how unimaginative a movie about a mermaid can be, and it's sad how thoroughly its girl-power stylings devolve into a muddle of mixed messages.

This is director Luc Besson's first attempt at combining animation with live-action, and while the look of the film is impressive, he should have focused more of his efforts on fleshing out the script that he adapted from two of his own "Arthur" books.

Herek does capture the rush and crush of a stadium concert, and the music (more Leppard than Priest) isn't half bad -- in a disposable, arena-rock sort of way.

There's nothing much new going on here (we feel compelled to point out the resemblance to one of the worst-ever episodes of The X-Files, "Teso Los Bichos"), but it's all slickly done, with the requisite big jumps, false leads, weird science and scary trips down dark corridors.

But good intentions aside, Tucker and codirector Petra Epperlein only further confuse the issue: Their rap-video stylings and use of non-source music create the impression that you're watching characters trapped in a Tom Clancy Xbox game.

SCREAM, BLACULA, SCREAM benefits from a slicker presentation but the script is fairly unimaginative and fails to capitalize on the more intriguing aspects of the clash between voodoo religion and the vampire legend.

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.

God bless Jennifer Tilly, who attacks her role in this third sequel to 1988's killer-doll picture CHILD'S PLAY with incomparable slutty brio.

The cast is unusually good for this sort of film, which only makes the poor execution more regrettable.

Vastly overrated Crooks-R-Us--this time you wear the moustache, enhanced by fine period trappings and flavor. Ultimately empty stuff, but preferable to "Butch Cassidy."

Director Ridley Scott's visual gifts are still evident in Black Rain. But with retread plot and characters, Scott's stylistic flourishes become irritating clutter.

Highly derivative of Night Of The Living Dead and filled with amateurish performances, strained comedy, and zero production values, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things does convey, nonetheless, an undeniable power in the rising-dead scenes and a genuine mood of unease throughout that most big-budget horror outings fail to capture.

The surprise is how tame and passionless it all seems, particularly after director Philip Haas's fevered "Angels and Insects."

The phrase "Everything happens for a reason" is heard more than once, a risibly simplistic cliché that not only stands as this film's hackneyed theme but also as a surprisingly honest confession as to just how calculated the entire film is.

Uncomfortable hodgepodge of poignant fantasy, showbiz satire and crime thriller.

Splatterpunk novelist-turned-screenwriter David Schow and director Jeff Burr take the material back to its roots, re-creating the minimal plotting and alternately muddy and washed-out look of the original. In deference to contemporary tastes, Leatherface pulls as few gory punches as prevailing standards permit (Texas Chainsaw Massacre only seemed unbearably graphic) and underscores the mayhem with an abrasive speed metal soundtrack.

The film boasts slick production values and a charmingly modest turn from the charismatic Barrymore, but it's too trifling and uneven to be a good date movie.

Formulaic but surprisingly affecting drama.

If you were watching it at home you wouldn't feel compelled to pause the film before going into the kitchen to fix a snack.

The skating photography is excellent and, like the documentary's soundtrack, songs from the Stooges, Blue Oyster Cult and the Weirdos set the proper mood. But this dramatization does nothing Peralta's documentary didn't do better.

The film's worth as a propaganda piece was considerable, but too many long-winded speeches about people uniting to fight the Germans date the film somewhat now.

Though the performances are surprisingly good - the characters are drawn with a broad brush, but the actors, almost all professional comics, hit all the right notes - the material just isn't funny enough to justify the film's length.

Yes, it's a testosterone cocktail, but at least it doesn't leave you feeling as though you've been tumbled around in a gem polisher for two-and-a-half hours.

Occasionally marred by purple narration; it's also a mite sloppy in terms of time-passage and geography. Yet its mythic characters feel like genuine, hurting human beings.

Cinematographer Alain Dostie's stunning, painterly cinematography is the best -- and perhaps only -- reason to endure this stunted epic.

The film is relentlessly peppy, often quite funny, sometimes a bit too convinced of its own adorableness and ultimately as smoothly reassuring as a TV sitcom.

Director Furie's stylistic method of dwelling on certain scenes, a penchant for close-ups so large and exasperating as to blot out the screen and confuse the vision, worked effectively in his Ipcress File, but here his shots of teeth, guns, horses' eyes, Brando's jowls, and Comer's brow are merely specious, distracting, and as amateurish as a TV director shooting into the sun for reflection or allowing water on the camera lens to remind the viewer that technicians are present.

Casting Caine as Austin's father is a stroke of pure genius.

Predictable but sometimes moving.

The performances are rough and sometimes amateurish, but that works in the film's favor more often than it doesn't -- there's none of the false slickness that comes with hot young actors playing rock 'n' rollers.

It's not as if Fighting is terrible. The acting is well done, as is the unique look at the underbelly of the Big Apple.

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

The film is beautifully made and thought-provoking, but vacillates too much between the sentimental and the metaphysical.

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

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

A disappointing, quickie follow-up that vainly tries to imitate the look of the original on an obviously limited budget, and for the most part, eschews the philosophical, social, and racial subtext of the first film in favor of straightforward shoot-em-up action and comic-strip characters.

Charlie Sheen and Michael Biehn star in this visually engaging, fast-paced action film about an elite anti-terrorist unit of the US Navy. Unfortunately, an uneven script and undeveloped characters weaken the dramatic content of the story.

It's all pretty entertaining in a shallow sort of way.

Horror buffs looking for a novel twist on genre formulas should look elsewhere, but this body-count potboiler about a sinister video game and the poor dopes who make the mistake of playing it is the movie equivalent of junk food: It's not good, but it's predictable and even satisfying, in a low-expectations way.

The kids will love all the visual gags in this pleasing if lightweight Disney film.

This relentlessly depressing film biography boasts a moving performance by Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer, one of the most beautiful movie actresses of the late 1930s and early 1940s, shown here as the victim of a forceful mother (Kim Stanley) and a tyrannical studio system.

Sweet and sort of cute -- watch and see if it doesn't kind of sneak up on you.

While it may not be "Citizen Canine," Rise of the Lycans tells its tale competently and without the derivative nature of its predecessors.

A leaden excuse for family entertainment, loosely inspired by Jules Verne's 1873 novel, coarsened almost beyond recognition and dominated by Jackie Chan's comic martial-arts schtick.

Kilmer slips in and out of a series of ludicrously elaborate disguises, some more convincing than others, while poor Shue shuffles through the role of a sexy, book-reading babe pretending to be a dowdy lady scientist in kneesocks.

A reasonably entertaining way to kill an hour and a half.