Compared with other films Costner has directed, Range isn't a folly like "The Postman," nor is it quite as over-elaborated as "Dances With Wolves."

Sitting through the teen skateboard comedy Grind is, well, a grind.

Shaolin Soccer's infectious style has a way of lifting spirits. You don't have to be a fan of soccer or kung fu to enjoy it.

Part of the appeal is the underlying theme of the torch being passed between generations. Think how disappointing it would have been had Dana become an insurance actuary instead of a surfing filmmaker.

A tasty bonbon, initially appealing but not terribly satisfying.

By the time you've given up guessing whether S.W.A.T. wants to be a half-serious action pic or just affably jokey, its storytelling has turned so ludicrously melodramatic that it doesn't matter.

It all adds up to belly laughs aplenty and a rollicking good time.

It is an unsettling tale told simply and chillingly by director Peter Mullan, with stand-out performances, an evocative soundtrack and spare, haunting visuals.

An excellent adaptation of a wonderful work of fiction (The Age of Grief).

Spotty and uneven, Wedding shouldn't even have the embarrassed guffaws it has, and it probably wouldn't were it not for a robust cast.

An embarrassing debacle...the rare movie that never seems to take off, but also never seems to end. It tries hard to titillate, but ends up making audiences want to avert their eyes.

A quintessentially European, methodically paced and intelligent slice of life.

Amid the razzle-dazzle, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is sweetly inspiring.

Even though the special effects and action sequences are good, the monsters conjured up are rather humdrum.

Fortunately, a movie that needs some levity gets a comic boost from William H. Macy as a fictional racing handicapper from the golden days of radio. As if training a horse, Macy cues us to laugh every time he's on screen.

The situations are mighty broad, but exuberance counts for something in the movie with perhaps the year's most double-edged title.

Things will not be a big concession-stand movie because the floating heart is our introduction to a cottage industry we hope won't catch on. It is dirtier than pretty, yet Frears finds beauty in the telling.

Moore and Ford rise above the hackneyed story, infusing the proceedings with their own chemistry and appeal. If only the adults responsible for this film could learn how to deal.

Appallingly mean-spirited.

The jokes often are corny or labored, and the story is predictable. However, Atkinson raises the movie to the level of good fun by the force of his outrageous persona and skill at physical comedy.

The murkiest-looking movie since Ben Affleck's “Daredevil” and about as lacking in charm.

The cinematic equivalent of an elaborate and poetically constructed non sequitur.

Finally, there's a big-budget popcorn movie that delivers what moviegoers hunger for: humor, action, thrills and charismatic characters. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is the summer blockbuster we've been waiting for.

Good but not legendary.

With a little sex, some mystery, a little sex, an appealing title and a little sex, France's Swimming Pool has what it takes to become an art house audience magnet, especially amid the heat of summer.

The first one was silly fun, amusing and oddly inventive; the second is plodding, unfunny and almost cringe-worthy.

Begins promisingly and entertains for a stretch because you think it's leading to something more than one of the movie year's flattest conclusions.

The look of the film, shot on digital video, is haunting and gritty. The cleaner, prettier look of 35mm would have detracted from the immediacy and sense of foreboding created in this artful blend of sci-fi and pseudo-realism.

There are only so many times you can see a slow-motion kickboxing scene or a figure sail off a skyscraper before you want to spend a nice, cozy evening with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Though it has some mildly amusing moments (mostly in the visuals accompanying the novel's narration), Alex & Emma is disappointing, neither very romantic nor very comic.

There's a fine line between darkness and glumness, one that "Spider-Man" bounced off buildings to avoid. The Hulk lumbers across it.

In "There's Something About Mary," the gross gags were hilarious. Here, they're just vile.

Last year's "TheWild Thornberrys Movie" and previous Rugrats films were more imaginative. And this one also suffers by coming on the heels of the exceptional "Finding Nemo."

Somewhere within all of this there really is a homicide -- a hip-hop industry rub-out that may someday make this movie half of a passable DVD double feature with Nick Broomfield's documentary Biggie and Tupac.

At least 2 Fast is self-aware enough to know that it's trash, which is worth half a bonus point. Lack of pretension helps the viewer get over the fact that this is just another retread.

Caro gives the fablesque story -- based on a 1,000-year-old Maori legend -- both a contemporary and timeless quality, anchored by newcomer Castle-Hughes' powerful and haunting performance.

Not since "Memento" has a movie served up such a provocative mind-bender, and the Sundance winner by first-time filmmaker Andrew Jarecki has the advantage of being true.

Do yourself a favor and resist The Italian Job, a lazy and in-name-only remake of 1969's G-rated Michael Caine heist pic.

The most gorgeous of all the Pixar films — which include "Toy Story" 1 and 2, "A Bug's Life" and "Monsters, Inc." —Nemo treats family audiences to a sweet, resonant story and breathtaking visuals.

Tolerably tepid.

Everyone is well cast and no one more perfectly than Freeman, who is far more God-like than George Burns ever was. Freeman's God is wise, humble, wry, patient and funny but never mean-spirited.

It energetically captures the frenzied pace of contemporary existence, the complexities of life in a multicultural world, the rootless joys of living in a foreign city and the heady world of possibilities one envisions while in college.

Salvaged by its rally, Reloaded seems less tired than "X2," its current sequel rival. But since its creators have said it's only half of a movie, we won't really know until The Matrix Revolutions arrives Nov. 5 whether this chunk is fizzle or sizzle.

You know something is wrong when a preschooler's unwitting ad-libs are funnier than anything seasoned comedy writers can come up with. Kids say the darnedest things. Too bad the grown-ups don't.

Though the writing is often sharp, one is reminded repeatedly by the actors' theatrical delivery of some lines and by the confined settings that the movie's origins were on stage.

The No. 1 thing Only the Strong Survive will have to survive is being overshadowed by "Standing in the Shadows of Motown." Less focused than last fall's slam-dunk Funk remembrance, Survive is a more modest soul review.

Dragging on too long is a more serious flaw in a romantic comedy than it might be in a complex drama. We don't ask much of a movie like this, but we do require it to be snappy, clever and quick.

It has an elusive, haunting quality, but it's too long at 133 minutes, and there aren't many movies these days that get more involving as they progress.

There are some effectively suspenseful moments in the movie, particularly during the gambling sequences, but one longs for more context and probing into the psyche of an ordinary man with an extraordinary compulsion.

The longer the movie goes, the more its 133 minutes prove wearing. The story tries to develop a love angle between Jackman and Janssen, but it doesn't begin to take. And the finale is particularly weak.

The movie is sure to appeal to fans of the show. But when quality family films, such as "Holes" and "Bend It Like Beckham," are also in theaters, why waste your time on this drivel? The answer, of course, is the kids will insist on it.

Blue Car is like an unpolished sapphire, at once harshly realistic and resplendent.

Casts a potent spell.

With moments of mind-bending creepiness, the film has potential, but eventually it devolves into merely a head-scratcher.

Even with Burns' smoothest performance yet as a lead, Confidence is on a level with Steven Soderbergh's blah remake of "Ocean's Eleven." But because no one is expecting much, it seems a little better.

Father and son Kirk and Michael Douglas' moments together are among the movie's best.

It won't be a waste of time to watch these people — on cable, and probably not too far in the future.

Those who sit through this mindlessness get the booby prize.

Think of a B-grade "Bulworth" with lesser talents than A-listers Warren Beatty and Halle Berry.

It's great to see an action-adventure family film with heart as well as humor, whimsy alongside wisdom, and a compelling narrative.

Action star Chow Yun-Fat's latest is as thin as the buzz cut he sports in Bulletproof Monk.

Imagine a movie so broadly conceived that it was written, directed and all parts were played by Charo — billed in her '70s heyday of Love Boat gigs as the "Cuchi-Cuchi Girl." That's what you get here.

Like the first half of "Best in Show," the movie is so deadpan that sometimes you have to pinch yourself to realize how potently satirical it is.

Only a smattering of the potential is realized in this tolerable disappointment, which is so unworthy of getting angry about that it will still become a knee-jerk hit.

Some moments in XX/XY ring true, and the honesty exposed is revelatory. But, like some relationships, this drama can be tough to endure.

Well-crafted, Tarantino-esque story.

This film highlights some of the best, and raunchiest, of his humor.

It's an intriguing movie, and Thornton's performance is both fascinating and maddening.

There's nothing wrong with fairy tales, but they don't have to be formulaic. A movie like this would have benefited from a blending of the fanciful and the inventive.

Superficially gritty yet soullessly slick melodrama.

It's all fast and furious up to its draggy finale, and yes, it could spark a sequel. Prepare yourself for coming dread in 18 months: "A Man Together."

For a movie that earns its R-rating for drug content and violence atop language and sexuality, it leaves you with the next thing to a mellow smile.

In dashing Indiana Jones style, Eckhart gets to be a hero.

Landed exactly the right actors for a script that already gets points for respecting its teenage characters.

It's hard to recall the last movie that has left such an emotionally searing question dangling in the mind: "What if ... ?"

There isn't any kind of dance you can compare to Robert Duvall's latest as an actor/director, though a slo-mo minuet might come close.

The tepid result is like "Courage Under Fire" without the compelling Meg Ryan angle, or Travolta's 1999 "The General's Daughter" without the sexual squalor. It all feels a little moldy.

Chris Rock was busy directing, producing, co-writing and starring in this light comedy. Given his hilarious stand-up routines, one wishes he had spent a little more time on the script.

Hollywood's oddest movie in a while, which means that however insignificant this primer in flight-attendant training is, causing boredom isn't one of its transgressions.

A moviegoer's nightmare. The story is incoherent, inane and interminable.

The only thing a movie this unrefined needs is a vaudevillian in baggy pants and someone hawking peanuts in the aisle.

The movie feels more like a slightly longer episode of Disney's old "Winnie the Pooh" television series.

The movie isn't without style, but the material can't remotely sustain 100 minutes.

You keep waiting for there to be more, but there never is -- other than the fact that it all gets gorier and uglier as the dyspeptic look on Jones' face progresses from a four- to a six-a-day scotch-and-peppermint schnapps hangover.

As thrilling as the adventure sequences might be for kids, the better scenes take place on the high school campus.

The juxtaposition between the fast-paced plays on the soccer field and the color-drenched, music-infused wedding party is a highlight of this captivating film.

The interwoven stories are haunting, but also darkly funny.

Unfortunately, it's not one-tenth as interesting as what you can see at home during a nightly cable surf as U.S. war policy is debated.

It's also as good as "Out of Africa."

Compelling tale of a free-spirited record producer, played with perfect pitch by Frances McDormand.

Feels like a bad sitcom.

To cut Noe a break, it does become evident that he has a viable narrative concept. Told backward, á la "Memento."

Each actor does his own thing for his own audience demographic.

There's at least one plot element too many here; let your own taste determine which one. Yet until it dissolves into conventional melodrama during a climactic fracas, this fast-paced story is never less than watchable.

In lieu of a toga party, one scene treats us to an octogenarian fraternity member wrestling two topless townie lookers slathered in KY Gel. Hey, there's no stopping progress.

Soon, the audience feels its own sense of despair -- for a movie that might have worked but didn't.

You don't envy the three soldiers who get shot for desertion, but you do identify with their desire to flee.

Girls isn't fabulous, but you do feel its characters really have connected.