The less time you've devoted to thinking about the nature and uses of the erotic imagination, the more challenging this will seem.

Slick and surprisingly emotional documentary is really a rare, optimistic critique of globalization.

The charismatic Mac has stepped into leading man roles with surprising ease, but Bassett -- a fine actress in all respects -- is clearly struggling with the film's broad comedy.

Bettany, previously best known as a supporting player, shoulders the burden of a Hugh Grant-style romantic lead surprisingly well, revealing an offbeat charm.

An extraordinary technical achievement.

There's never a dull moment and seldom one that isn't sublimely ridiculous.

The fact that it's based on a true story doesn't make it feel any less trite.

Pointed, unsubtle political satire.

Like the fresh-faced leads, the film is an unexpected charmer.

Less a sequel than a variation on a haunting theme -- the nature and origins of humanity.

Though the film's deliberate pace is sometimes frustrating, it casts a quietly powerful spell and the memory of its images lingers provocatively long after they've flickered into darkness.

It's actually a clever commentary on documentary filmmaking, an pretty good monster movie to boot.

Though many of the risks she takes don't pay off, Elster's film contains a number of stylishly staged set pieces.

This is sorry stuff.

That's not to say it isn't entertaining, only that the scenes which rely entirely on the fragile interplay between Jessica and Ryan suggest a more compelling movie that got lost in the welter of high-speed highway recklessness.

Offers up more of everything: more bloody zombie dogs, more crazy corporate evildoers, more Milla Jovovich unclothed and more over-the-top action scenes.

The remake is infinitely more entertaining if you haven't seen "Nine Queens" -- the details are different, but the surprises are the same and something of the first film's underlying darkness has been lost in translation.

While the film has striking moments, it feels padded with events that seem freighted with narrative weight but end up not mattering at all to the story.

Narrated by NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, the film's form is measured, but its message is incendiary.

Though ultimately the film is all smoke and mirrors, the sensibility it reflects is rich and exciting.

While butching up their hero, Moreton and cowriter Dennis Hensley left out one key ingredient: charisma -- for all his macho swagger, the guy's unbearable.

Though once capable of writing distinct characters, Toback now populates his pictures with one-dimensional conceits who all talk like undereducated hustlers, from college professors to bottom feeders and international lions of business.

No matter how deep one's affection for man's best friend, there's something undeniably fatuous about considering the emotional impact 9/11 has had on a dog named Rain.

Tries to leave the impression of Escobar as a positive force whose dirty money actually saved Colombia's economy while those of neighboring Latin American countries collapsed.

This mean-spirited revenge story would once have starred Cole Hauser's father, veteran B-movie psycho Wings Hauser, and played grindhouses and drive-ins. And it would have been a far more entertaining picture.

Rough-edged but affecting drama.

A convoluted exercise in shifting perspectives and fractured storytelling.

Thoroughly old-fashioned entertainment.