It's tremendously clever, but ultimately pointless.

Anchored by Friel and Williams's exceptional performances, the film's power lies in its complexity. Nothing is black and white, starting with the girls' complicated relationships with their parents, which are simultaneously nurturing and fraught with psychological peril.

Their mania might be funny if it weren't so creepy.

In its own quiet way, it's among the most important films you're likely to see this year.

The cast is similarly impressive; they're American through and through, and thankfully refrain from affecting anything remotely resembling a British stage accent.

A finely crafted and beautifully acted adaptation of John Le Carre's glasnost-era spy thriller that never quite gets as gripping as it should.

The real irony is that for all its integrity, the film isn't nearly as thought-provoking as Steven Spielberg's recent "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" or "Minority Report", and nowhere as entertaining.

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.

Would be funny if it weren't so horrifying.

Trust is stylishly photographed and crammed with quirky, offbeat incidents and dialogue.

A brilliantly realized series of sucker punches, a philosophical howl disguised as a muscular guy movie.

Singaporean writer-director Eric Khoo's third feature is a beautiful, contemplative study of love -- unrequited, unfulfilled and reborn.

What do you get when you cross a serial-killer movie with a sappy father/son drama and give it a time-travel twist?

Diop Gaï's performance is equally beguiling: She's both bold and mysterious, a femme fatale bursting with life.

A grim and deliciously twisted Gothic chiller from the dark side of sunny Down Under.

Slight and whimsical.

The sight of Dracula climbing down a wall headfirst is the highlight of the entire movie; the rest of the film is just another plodding remake. The familiar story is given no new twists, save for an updated Edwardian setting and a few automobiles.

The Wind And The Lion is certainly jingoistic to a fault, and its portrayal of the various factions is little above the cartoon level, but thanks to marvelous performances by Keith and Connery, the film works as a maker of myths.

The film flows like a sinister and unsettling piece of music, from gripping overture to the tightly orchestrated movements to the unforgettable coda.

With very little dialogue and lingering shots of the landscape -- always a very important visual trope in Dumont's deep-psyche explorations -- the film is nevertheless tighter and, clocking in at under 90 minutes, relatively brief.

The Unbelievable Truth captivates with its committedly off-center vision of suburban angst.

Crowder and Dower's film is a refreshing reminder that without Ross and the Erteguns, pundits would have had to coin an entirely different term to describe "soccer moms," since without the Cosmos' brief and shining moment in the sun, suburban soccer leagues would be as rare as collegiate boccie tournaments.

And while Ivy League-educated psychologist Green considers himself a natural teacher, his teaching technique involves pitting students against each other and haranguing them with rants that run from gentle, good-natured ribbing to flat-out verbal abuse, delivered at an ego-crushing volume.

This smashing science-fiction adaptation of H.G. Wells's famous novel has more creativity in every frame than most latter-day rip-offs have in their entirety.

The harder you try to follow the narrative the more frustrating the film becomes, but its sleekly menacing images work their way into your brain like slivers of dry ice.

What could have been a brilliant film experience, expanding on the stage version as only film can, ends up instead as a series of wonderful bits and pieces.

The film rests entirely on Poupaud's shoulders, and he rises to the demands of a complex, deeply unsympathetic role.

The irony is that Shakur's speaking voice is the film's greatest asset: His transformation from eager-to-please teenager to gangsta icon is vividly apparent in the sound bites.