It's hard to tell whether Attal means the fictional Yvan to be such an colossal jerk. His abrasive obnoxiousness undermines the film's generally light tone, and seriously deflects sympathy away from his character's dilemma.

Players give excellent portrayals, but the picture is lacking in both setting and direction.

Tame as can be by today's standards, but will charm fans of vintage erotica.

This modest little moral thriller is a pleasant surprise.

The film's greatest asset, however, is its unusually authentic use of Manhattan locations: Younger clearly knows New York much better than the topography of the human heart.

The boys' laddish catchphrase -- "Shut up!" -- is particularly irritating, especially since they never do.

Bopha!'s intentions are all good, but it preaches (and that is the operative word) to the converted.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON is idiotic at times, cute at others. Cameron shows a lot of charm, and the movie is a pleasant diversion.

A reasonably entertaining blend of Three Stooges and Bugs Bunny, using gracefully choreographed martial-arts slapstick without any infantile sound effects.

About 10 minutes into DEEPSTAR SIX, it becomes clear that the film is yet another uninspired variation on ALIEN. The mechanical screenplay and flat direction fail to build suspense, and the characters are routinely drawn. While the technical work, relying heavily on miniatures, is competent, the rendering of the monster is hardly worth the wait.

Delivers 90 minutes of riotously funny raunch; unfortunately, its running time is closer to two hours.

Undermined by contrived suspense sequences, a pointless subplot involving Claire's flaky, trashy sister, and a formulaic thriller ending.

Exciting and well-shot.

A strange movie that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Sentimental, biting, satirical, whimsical, and self-righteous, it begins with a romp at high speed, then goes straight into a hole from which it never emerges.

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.

Amateurish, badly acted and shot on the cheap (many sequences don't even have sync sound), this cult item features a 40-minute car chase (almost half the film's running time) that's nothing short of breathtaking, particularly in light of the obvious budgetary constraints.

It addresses issues of stultifying routine and the small crises of middle-aged life, and deserves credit for not obscuring the simple story with a flurry of smoke and mirrors.

An aimless and unexciting science-fiction story about a computer scientist, Segal, who undergoes brain surgery and is transformed into a maniacal murderer.

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.

David Mamet's political thriller about the disappearance of the president's daughter is an unsatisfying slipknot of a film -- it looks tight and elaborate, but give it a tug and it goes flat.

This brazen mix of old and new is undermined by the predictable story, shallow characterizations and a dopey sense of humor.

Despite excellent performances all around, the actors can't overcome the script's limitations.

The result is formulaic, shamelessly manipulative and surprisingly watchable.

There's so much going on it's hard to keep track, and after a while you may be tempted to give up.

Keanu Reeves plays a "courier" with a lot of top-secret data stashed in his brain; it's clearly interfering with his minimal acting capabilities, causing several moments of unintentional (but welcome) humor.

The script never resolves the different levels on which it tries to operate, and also throws in too many loose ends which never get cleared up.

Surfing isn't inherently service to humanity; it's a sport whose grace and athleticism Brown captures thrillingly, and that should be enough.

First-time director Noah Baumbach seems to have learned everything he knows about the world from MTV, and his style suggests that he's taken a lot of notes at Whit Stillman and Hal Hartley pictures.

The downside is that many of these characters are hastily sketched and their stories unsatisfactorily developed.

An eccentric historical horror tale whose blackly comic tone wavers distracting.

An overstatement. The movie's too long, and the direction is sometimes slack -- but the script is crammed with withering ripostes, ably delivered by Nicholson and Hunt.

The movie almost seems the same as the Bride herself--begun with all the correct parts, but eventually self-destructing. Before it falls apart, however, The Bride of Re-Animator does still have time for a number of clever, outrageous bits.

A mess. Casino Royale is two hours and eleven minutes of non sequitur.

Clearly, it's not for everyone. Extra points for a great electronic soundtrack, striking widescreen cinematography and an unapologetically freaky attitude.

This western almost makes the grade as high-quality moviemaking, but just never quite gets there.

The result is a confused mess of mixed signals that substitutes a brutal climax for any kind of satisfactory resolution. Parents should be warned about the frequent gunfire and a grisly death by hanging.

Considering that Disney couldn't help but trash Victor Hugo's novel in the process of reforming it for tender young sensibilities, this animated adaptation of his Notre Dame de Paris is pricklier and more disturbing than we had any right to expect.

There are a few laughs from Grodin and Cannon, but Beatty and Christie are like 400-pound gorillas chasing a milkweed seed. The more Beatty concentrates, the more glazed and distracted he looks.

Reiner does one of his best directing jobs and never resorts to some of the silliness he's demonstrated in other films. Denver is very affable and could have had a good movie career given the right material.

Although Foxes's attempt to delve into the problems of modern-day teenagers is admirable, its screenplay is frequently trite, lacks any leavening humor, and too easily ties together its plentiful loose ends with a contrived plot device.

A peculiar and oddly haunting achievement.

The film's rather shallow treatment of his art only reinforces the long-held opinion that Hockney is more a brilliant visual stylist than an artist of any great depth.

It's a dumb movie, but it's good for a few profoundly undemanding laughs.

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

The film was a big hit at the box office, but, although the series would produce one more episode, the fizz was definitely gone.

Falk is as good as ever and the rest give it their all; you couldn't ask for a better cast, just better material.

The film never escapes the constraints of its genre, but it's a hell of a ride.

Director Jack Sholder is a whiz at coordinating the traffic in the many catch-me-if-you-can-or-explode sequences, which provide a visceral thrill to appeal to the six year old in everyone, but which must be balanced against the lame story, offensive ethnic stereotypes, and perfunctory acting.

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.

Coppola's awkward screenplay never finds its tone -- or perhaps it deliberately evokes the pulp conventions of WWII adventures, horror films, weepy melodrama, psychological mysteries and superhero origin stories as a way of evoking the fundamental artificiality of the cinema. Either way, it never comes together into a cohesive whole, and is seriously undermined by Roth's morose performance.

The story line is as direct as can be, and little time is wasted with extraneous subplots. Very effective use is made of the location, a decaying old school building that would give anyone the creeps. Good performances by Scuddamore, Iannaccone, and veteran B-movie starlet Munro further enhance the film. The effects are rather good but not too gross, tending to be near-comic.

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

This feverish drama examines issues of faith and redemption through the practice of prayer intercession.

Paper-thin.

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.

It's a sorry state of affairs when a goldfish and a frog (Ginger's prize specimen, unsubtly named Casanova) have more chemistry than a romantic comedy's human leads.

One of the first American films to present the philosophy--rather than just the warmongering--of fascism as a danger, WATCH ON THE RHINE is rather dully helmed by stage director Shumlin, who too often fails to avoid the static pitfalls of so many play adaptations.

The film basically follows Moore and Slater's book, but without the details that reveal the strange complexity of the Bush-Rove symbiosis.

Cynical and bloated, Maverick is a comic western whose high-powered cast does very little but looks damned fine doing it. Even fans of the vintage TV show may find it trying.

The result is 93 very long minutes' worth of admirably committed actors putting themselves through the emotional wringer to very little end.

This thin chronicle of bad behavior among the rich and self-obsessed is above all painfully derivative, borrowing wholesale from Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" and echoes Allen's own "Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Neither as dull nor as insufferably smug as it could easily have been.

Vallone's production design is a knockout--the film is weakly scripted and scored.

This handsomely photographed, briskly directed sci-fi fright picture is enjoyable enough on its own limited terms.

During its opening scenes, Under Siege threatens to achieve something like Die Hard's blend of wit, ingenuity and action, with Jones and Busey making highly entertaining, creepy-funny villains. Once the stolid Seagal takes over, however, we settle into a predictable high-tech groove of explosions, gunplay and gore.

Fairly lackluster Disney effort is saved by Niven's great performance.

Heartfelt but only intermittently interesting documentary.

Q&A is a pungent, graphic drama sabotaged by a stupid romantic sub-plot, misjudged casting and a truly abysmal soundtrack.

Writer-director Erik Palladino's admirably subtle bit of chronological trickery allows his small-scale drama, set in 9/11 New York, to deliver a sucker-punch of an ending.

Mixes broad humor with a surprisingly subtle portrait of a family pulled in a bewildering variety of directions.

The silly script lurches from one jarring, implausible moment to another, and Marshall directs like he was wearing earplugs and boxing gloves on the set.

Stuart and Margolo are genuine marvels of computer generated special effects, each feather, whisker and strand of fur beautifully rendered. But they're bland and rather boring characters, dumbed down for kids.

Never adds up to much of anything.

London-born director Asif Kapadia's second feature, following 2001's critically acclaimed "The Warrior," is a slow, low-key supernatural thriller whose story is too slender to justify its feature-length running time.

The special effects are unrealistic, as are the dialog and performances. However, despite everything, the picture still makes for great fun.

The film bogs down, however, because of De Palma's penchant for technically slick but overblown action scenes that call attention to themselves as virtuoso set pieces instead of advancing the narrative.

Stylized to the point of poetry.

Crafting this crude, noisy remake of Disney's first live-action comedy required the labor of no fewer than five screenwriters.

Stylish and twisty, but not clever enough to support its more outrageous plot machinations.

This animated children's film focuses on a unicorn and her mission to free the rest of her breed from the tyranny of an evil king.

Actor-turned-director Clark Johnson uses the flashy, up-to-the-minute editing and camera stunts action fans expect, but keeps the mayhem on a recognizably human scale — it's big, but not insanely overblown.

Joe himself is an amazing creation, less personable, to be sure, than the original lovelorn King Kong, but a far more fully realized character than any of the flesh and blood humans by whom he's surrounded.

A whiz at crafting conventional Hollywood screenplays, Meyers's direction is overreliant on close-ups and medium shots; there's no life to any of the images. Still, the film coasts along smoothly on the charisma of its stars.

Undeniably handsome..., but no cliché is left unturned, right down to the spray of toy soldiers falling from the hand of a dead child. Everything old isn't new again.

Routine thriller.

As provocative as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," but nowhere near as engaging.

Sandler's performance is aimed squarely at the fans who love his smarty-pants man-boy shtick and Rock gets off some funny lines, but overall this is one dreary, formulaic slog through sports-movie cliches.

Though produced by the same people responsible for the classic King Kong, Mighty Joe Young is a pale imitation.

The film's liabilities include Lustig's excessive reliance on flashy editing, tacky special effects and a blaring alterna-rock soundtrack that's used to make the characters' thoughts and motivations painfully obvious. Among its assets are the clever premise and generally appealing performances.

By the film's finale the descent into unintentional parody is all but complete, with a big death scene for Jackson complete with an angelic choir on the soundtrack -- the surprise is that they aren't singing "Dixie."

And if you can't figure out who [the bad guy] is the minute he first appears, you've either seen too few movies with mind-numbingly predictable plots or you've seen far too many.

As the barbaric Montgomery, who helps bring out the beast in the beast-men, Val Kilmer raids the closet of sinister mannerisms and tries them all on for size. Poor David Thewlis is in another movie entirely.

Manipulative but fitfully entertaining "Twilight Zone"-ish comedy of redemption.

It has the air of a particularly accomplished student film, by a student whose philosophical concerns outweigh his interest in narrative filmmaking.

The picture is nearly stolen, however, by co-star Greg Germann (of TV's Ally McBeal) in the role of Joe's company's resident corporate weasel. Germann's squinty-eyed insincerity is truly a marvel to behold, and it's an astringent corrective to the film's rather too frequent feel-good passages.

Everything looks fabulous, but the fight scenes are stagy, the dialogue stilted, the characters underdeveloped and the tone superficially cynical.

Even by the standards of pop-moral parables passing for entertainment, this is bland stuff.

Levinson, who has directed enough films to know better, should recognize a stinker of a script when he smells one: Instead clever laughs he serves up sloppy schtick, dead spots filled with lame ad-libbing and Walken crooning "The Happy Wanderer."