The actors take a back seat to computer-generated demonic images and apocalyptic special effects.

What's most amazing is the finely nuanced performances these bits and bytes deliver.

Worth stumbling into on cable not all that far into next year.

Fans will appreciate not only that the film is predictably solid and surprisingly sharp but that parts of it are just plain bad.

This is a very bloody fantasy (reds do eke their way into the black-and-blues), but it's hard to think of another film with as many severed heads whose overall tone is so sweet.

Mothers definitely get their due here: Birth mothers, adoptive mothers and mothers-to-be - with the only men in sight (save for one young fatality and one old eccentric) being those who wear flashy makeup and sport breasts

Not since Demi Moore lived happily ever after in "The Scarlet Letter" has a filmmaker felt so free to fudge a famous plot.

Just a good time at the movies, but it's still a smarter two hours than most "good times" are.

There is a keen intellect behind this devoutly defiant fable.

A chilly oddball that's easier to admire than love.

It's terrific to see such well-matched actresses of opposing generations duke it out.

Has a three-way split personality, which happily includes an action-packed middle to ease the pain of its early protracted exposition and later action so slow that you'll be asking "Gotta match?" to the person next to you.

A tough little hostage thriller with crackling dialogue, surprising intelligence and an emotional wallop.

Plays a little like a pacifistic variation on Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon."

The conclusion is a sweet bit of frosting on an otherwise unremarkable confection.

The ending stinks.

At its best, hard-hitting grown-up cinema (rare these days) and a movie blessed with a villain (Big Tobacco) for which all gloves can be removed and heaved into the next county.

This thorough original is a wall-to-wall exercise in gallows humor, a movie whose full funny/sad effect doesn't hit until you reflect upon the subject and the cast of characters.

Yearning for an old-fashioned movie with a well-told, uplifting message? Music of the Heart is playing your song.

Fun for less than 30 of the 80-minute running time.

A must-see for animation fans.

The story keeps reinventing itself (some of the later plot twists are among the funniest), but a little goes a long way at 112 minutes - maybe 25 minutes more than this sporadically pointed conceit really needs.

Best to wait until the movie makes it to TV - where its missteps will loom less large.

Audiences everywhere will tune out long before the projector does.

Were some group to launch a rival to the Oscars called The Wackys, it could do worse than make crazed Crazy its first recipient.

Has added virtually nothing to two cinema genres with their own prodigious histories: ensemble and black.

In a role as tailor-made for him as the story is for its writer and director, Nicolas Cage anchors the movie with one of his best performances.

Really just an update of the kind of hapless grade-Z effort that once played the bottom half of a drive-in double bill.