For all the "touched by an angel" sentimentality, the movie's eerie, slightly menacing vision of black-clad angels lurking in the shadowy corners of unsuspecting lives is genuinely haunting.

Though there's some trashy fun to be had in the film's first half, this cynical sequel -- devolves into space junk even faster than the unfortunate Ross.

The best you can say is that it's all pretty harmless and pretty stupid.

The picture's uneasy but perfectly calibrated mix of brutal violence and goofy humor is pure Kitano -- the scenes in which Murakawa and his henchmen play a variation on "Rock'em Sock'em Robots" with paper sumo wrestlers is just too bizarre -- and its convulsively nihilistic ending is unforgettable.

The story works, in that everything fits together, but the film feels hollow and unfinished, like a run-through for a movie rather than the movie itself.

The whole thing is fun for 11-year-olds of all ages.

Contrived, slapdash and utterly false, this action thriller with a cynically soft center exemplifies the worst end-product of contemporary Hollywood formulas.

The kids are fine, the original songs range from OK to wretched, and Barney is annoying as ever -- even more so, given his big-screen size and Dolby-enhanced guffaw.

Inoffensive and designed to cater to some sort of middle-of-the-road constituency (it's not entirely clear who wants period gangster Westerns to be jolly instead of dark), this film is a huge leap forward for director and cowriter Richard Linklater, and he tackles the genre conventions and period set pieces with eminent grace.

An intelligent and very funny satire about the bloody game of American politics.

A sleazy, seamy, flashy, steamy, vulgar exploitation thriller that revels in every minute of its own trashiness and delivers some pretty solid -- if prurient -- entertainment before strangling in a one-twist-too-many ending.

Rosie O'Donnell's bracing freshness and genuine likability cut through the cloying stuff every time, but there's nowhere near enough of her to balance things out.

This dopey swashbuckler offers little action but lashings of DiCaprio's soft, hairless flesh.

If it's all supposed to be in fun, why does it feel so much like an insult?

The interactions between the raspy-voiced Hurt and various shallowly cheerful Americans are genuinely charming and dynamic.

To make the package look fresh, there's a pile of complications.

This trashy, overwrought thriller gets itself worked up into a fine, sleazy lather that recalls the matricidal glories "Die! Die! My Darling!" and "You'll Like My Mother", then wimps out at the end.

Under the veneer of hip lies a bland romantic comedy wrapped in a layer of less-than-biting lifestyle satire, whose single most authentic moment involves an old woman and her scruffy mutt Buddy. Not cool.

It's all about the amazing look, cobbled together from an astonishingly evocative range of sources: "Nosferatu" and "Mad Love," "Brazil" and "Metropolis," a haunted mosaic of bits and pieces of movie memories.

There's a surprising sweetness under its crude exterior.

This neo-noir pastiche is so preposterously overwrought that you keep figuring it must be some kind of joke, except that it's not funny.

Yes, it's sappy. It's also silly, utterly unironic, a sketch stretched out to feature length, and, if you're in the right mood, pretty darned cute.

The game cast does what it can -- it's a good thing Schreiber is naturally funny -- but the situation is hopeless. This is one wreck better left unexplored.

This melodramatic action opera is a lurid love letter to the guns and poses aesthetic of Hong Kong action cinema.

There's nothing hugely wrong with this picture, if you allow for the fact that it's derivative, predictable and crude. There just isn't anything especially right with it, except for a pretty creepy black-and-white nightmare sequence and a scene that reveals more than most people want to know about vampires' urinary peculiarities, but is certainly something you haven't seen before. Unfortunately, both occur within the last 20 minutes of the film, and there's a formulaic lot of nonsense to huff and puff through first.

It's about as subtle as a steel-toed boot to the groin, but actor Gary Oldman's gut-wrenching directing debut aches with grim honesty.

In the tradition of misbegotten sequels that stagger into theaters long after the original movie's release, this follow-up to 1980's BLUES BROTHERS may find a sympathetic berth with ardent fans. But newbies are warned to stay away, unless they feel compelled to experience endless scenes of pointless buffoonery and crashing cars.

No doubt about it: Unlike David Lean's much-loved classic, Cuaron's film is loosely based on Dickens. And that's just fine.