Its minutely detailed revelations work their way under the skin like slivers of glass.

But there's a vaguely self-congratulatory tone to the screenplay that's a bit off-putting.

While Edward Norton convincingly portrays both the good and bad side of his conflicted man, a great deal of the insight into his character comes from the strong supporting cast.

Jiang draws a great deal of humor from the situation, but the film inevitably explodes in terrible violence.

This second installment is heavy on battle sequences, which will thrill some viewers more than others.

A sober, earnest drama about child abuse.

Simply and eloquently articulates the tangled feelings of particular New Yorkers deeply touched by an unprecedented tragedy.

To say that the film is unenjoyable would be an overstatement; a good time can be had counting the number of reassuringly stock characters it offers up.

If you pitch your expectations at an all time low, you could do worse than this oddly cheerful -- but not particularly funny -- body-switching farce.

While Brosnan, an Irishman by birth, lays it on bit thick, his performance is surprisingly effective.

The writing is sharp and often blithely cynical, although not above using a shooting star to put a lump in the throat. The tone, however, is at times dangerously uncertain.

Whaley's determination to immerse you in sheer, unrelenting wretchedness is exhausting.

Who knew marching bands could be so sexy?

Fresnadillo's film is little more than a gloomy and attenuated Twilight Zone episode, reminiscent of Alex Cox's portentous "The Winner" (1997) without the truly breathtaking conclusion.

Collapsed into the black hole of its own mythology.

A fascinating allegory of life in Iranian Kurdistan, a remote borderland still deeply scarred by years of war with Iraq.

This tale has been told and retold; the races and rackets change, but the song remains the same.

The annoying Reg Rogers, on the other hand, who plays Little Caesar creator Raoul Berman, delivers his lines like a stoned Pee-wee Herman, and the scene in which Billy Crystal mutters and drools in a restaurant is just disturbing for anyone who admired his work in the past.

One of the best movies Hollywood has ever made about itself, a extraordinary meta-narrative that continually questions its own ability to capture human experience, disappointment and uneventful loneliness. It's hilariously funny.

Flashy, "MATRIX"-style action sequences trump ideas; it's hard not to feel you've just watched a feature-length video game with some really heavy back story.

History has since overtaken Ponfilly's film, which now more than ever seems like but one chapter in a much larger story -- the ongoing tragedy of Afghanistan -- and a tragic tribute to all that might have been.

The final effect, particularly the climactic ballroom sequence, is astonishing -- a haunting impression of the vast synchronicity of unbroken time that must surely stand as one of the great achievements in the development of the movie medium.

Compulsively watchable.

Thrilling, heart-wrenching tale of the real-life incredible journey.

The dramatic scenes are frequently unintentionally funny, and the action sequences -- clearly the main event -- are surprisingly uninvolving, especially given that director Christian Duguay is an extreme skiing buff who habitually shoots dangerous stunts himself.

An offbeat, sometimes gross and surprisingly appealing animated film about the true meaning of the holidays.

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.

Though the story eventually runs out of steam and it's never clear why the night-crawlers torment certain children and then come back to get them, fledgling screenwriter Brendan William Hood and director Robert Harmon -- whip up some effective suspense sequences.