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.

Offers what her fans came to expect from the "Jezebel of Jazz": great music.

To say Wes Craven's rewrite of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 "Pulse" isn't as bad as it could have been sounds like faint praise, but Kurosawa's "Pulse" is one of the true masterpieces of recent Asian horror, and the track record for Hollywood horror redos isn't great.

Seriously flawed and not for every taste, the film was shot quickly and on the cheap, and is driven by Argento's slurred, scratchy voice and Bette Davis eyes.

B-movie stalwart Michael Madsen turns in a no-holds-barred, road-wreck performance in this nihilistic crime thriller, which plays out a variation on the old maxim that there's no honor among thieves -- even if they're cops.

There's something disheartening about seeing real-life stories and their inevitable complexities put through the Hollywood sausage machine and transformed into bland parables about a privileged, wayward young bucks redeemed by wise, infinitely patient mentors and the self-abnegating spirit of team sports.

It's all pretty rough going, but even with its microbudget there's enough blood, booty and bling to satisfy fans of the genre. It's also never dull, thanks to Silvera's restless pacing and a great reggae soundtrack.

Her heavy-handed montage of war, civil rights demonstrations, revolutions and KKK gatherings, intercut with Shicoff's delivery of the opera's devastating fourth-act aria, is so amateurish it very nearly succeeds in trivializing the power of his performance.

Lepage maintains a leisurely pace and lets the narrative wander, but ultimately lands on the right side of the line between contemplative noodling and aimless navel-gazing, ending with an image that's simultaneously melancholy and playful.

Little Acuna -- who looks even younger than 11 -- gives a sweetly unaffected performance as the beleaguered child.

Marshall delivers what he promises and Mitri makes for a cool, kick-arse heroine in the Ellen Ripley mold.

The result is a mixed bag of lozenges, some sweet, some tart and others that just melt away into nothing.

A thoroughly conventional exercise in pop paranoia with trendy appurtenances, The Net has little to offer outside of Bullock's moderately appealing presence.

Egoyan drains the life right out of the material, and the result is a chilly, complicated thriller that's neither thrilling nor a "Through the Looking Glass" head spinner.

It's none too deep and a tad cartoonish, but also fast-paced, filled with quotable one-liners and often very funny.

Rivette brings a refreshing realism to what could have been a stodgy costume drama, it's still pretty slow going.

There are nice touches, particularly in Venora's performance and Timothy Kendall's editing, but the film's maudlin edge illustrates the dangers of directing your own material: There's no one on hand to tell you when what you think is "just enough" is actually way too much.

Lee deserves a lot of credit for attempt the same kind of complex story structure Quentin Tarantino made look so easy in "Pulp Fiction": Like Tarantino's interlocking stories, Lee's four segments occur achronologically and come full circle in a neat twist at the very end.

True to its serial roots, this equally silly but undeniably entertaining sequel to "Underworld" (2003) picks up right where its high-grossing predecessor left off and offers more of the same.

First of all, it has no music. That aside, it doesn't have any wit, joy, or drive. Children who haven't had the pleasure of seeing The Wizard of Oz might enjoy this film, but it will also frighten them. There are some fine, Oscar-nominated special effects, but the excitement just isn't there.

While it doesn't miss a cliche, it also invests every one with vigorous conviction.

A film that's brimming with fascinating ideas and elevated by some memorable performances.

Poor Liv Tyler, the slight screen presence around which Bernardo Bertolucci's elaborately awful new romance revolves, comes prepackaged as Hollywood's next superstar, and she's hard-pressed to justify the hype.

Edward Zwick brings unimpeachable good intentions to his film about the bloody underbelly of the international diamond trade, but when social conscience jockeys for attention with movie-star glamour, glamour always wins. The result is a rip-snorting adventure set against the backdrop of African misery.

Malkovich pulls out all the gaudy stops.

A perverse mixed-martial arts film in which talk trumps action.

Johnny Depp's coruscating, rigorously uningratiating performance as debauched, self-destructive 17th-century aristocrat John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, is the glue that doesn't quite hold together first-time director Laurence Dunmore's adaptation of Stephen Jeffreys' 1994 play.

Actually a marked improvement over the plodding and confusing original.