Because snowboarding is younger than skateboarding and surfing, Descent lacks the poignancy of past surfer/skateboarder portraits that have shown participants reaching middle age.

Ice Harvest's plot sounds like an antidote to the season's holiday sweetness. And it's being touted as this year's Bad Santa. But the only similarities are the holiday season, the criminal milieu and Thornton.

Still, there are some funny surprises, from skewering overdone Christmas decorations to casting Chris Klein as a creep.

With heavy HIV subtext and a couple of actors who have scored in other films, this La Bohème spinoff about fatal illness, drug addiction and eviction ought to be less of a slog than it is.

As an artsy but minimally bohemian type, Russo maintains her dignity, an extraordinary accomplishment.

If your idea of a good time is watching a disjointed period piece featuring a scrawny dog defecating, dozens of dissipated people fornicating and a syphilitic Johnny Depp with oozing pustules on his face, The Libertine may be just the movie for you.

A gripping and fascinating tale of political intrigue that spans three continents, its focus trained on the volatile Middle East. It's a global portrait of danger, deception and disillusionment, with no dearth of human casualties.

It's hard to beat the last movie, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," and this film is not better, but it has much to recommend it.

A Johnny Cash biopic equally packed with music and frustrated love, Walk the Line goes from compelling to enthralling.

Murphy's breathy, high voice as Kitten feels forced, but not nearly as much as the film's efforts to be both whimsical and weighty.

Clumsy, miscast thriller.

Tim Robbins plays the working dad, and the movie misses him once he bails out early.

This Pride & Prejudice is a stellar adaptation, bewitching the viewer completely and incandescently with an exquisite blend of emotion and wit.

Based on the captivating novel by Myla Goldberg, Bee Season is evocative and superbly acted.

She has been compared to Lenny Bruce because of her incendiary topics, but Silverman's style, capitalizing on her innocent smile and good looks, is her own.

Movie stardom is seductive, but 50 Cent and his fans will be best served if he sticks to to his day job.

With one of the year's busiest scripts, Little launches 76 zippy minutes.

What we're left with is solid if not exceptional, though it's good to see Mendes expanding as a filmmaker.

Of all things, this movie has the same problem "Ghostbusters 2" had, which is this: You can't take bigger-than-life screen types and toss them into everyday, regular-folk situations.

Despite its title, Prime is not a cut above. This romantic comedy's predictability and rather dull love story make it the cinematic equivalent of a slightly stale hamburger.

Whether we're talking this go-round, the original or the second sequel the finale seems to promise, I'd rather try standing drunk on a see-saw (though maybe not over dirty syringes) than see Saw.

This is one glum outing, with occasional pings of wry wit and hearty chuckles.

For a big-screen disposable, Doom has a few jolts, a few good laughs and an attractive female lead to whom you want to say, "What's a nice girl like you doing on a Mars like this?"

Fanning and Russell make this watchable family entertainment, if not necessarily at today's prices.

The film ultimately lets Mirabelle down and leaves the viewer dissatisfied. A "Lost in Translation" drained of its wryly observed humor, Shopgirl is worth a browse. But it isn't always easy to buy.

All three actors give it their all, but Monaghan stands out with a sexy yet oddly down-to-earth variation on the Midwest girl gone wrong, thanks partly to a dark dysfunctional family secret.

You can't accuse this film of bogging down in cheap psychology, yet you come out dissatisfied and without a clue about what made this person tick.

Though it's no fiasco -- there's nothing mythic about its disjointed story -- it is a failure.