What they've done here goes beyond gross -- or clumsy, or dumb -- to genuine ugliness, both cutaneous and sub.

An exciting caper, though sometimes a trying one, with great dollops of self-parodying dialogue that will test your loyalty to Mr. Mamet's way with words.

Who doesn't need what this movie has to give?

An endearing film, and a fascinating one.

The script is woefully inept, with plot twists that wouldn't pass muster in a high-school drama class.

Ordinary moviegoers, on the other hand, may wonder what they're supposed to feel, apart from bored.

When Kevin Spacey takes center stage, our planet really does seem bright.

Mark Andrus's script is built on soggy sandstone, and Irwin Winkler's bulldozer direction keeps unearthing toxic epiphanies. That's not to say the movie isn't occasionally moving, as well as exasperating.

Ambitious, visually stunning and hugely accomplished.

This is an odd and ultimately dispiriting film, despite some intriguing ideas about brute force vs. moral authority, the elaborately staged uprising -- and impressive actors in the cast. That is to say, they've been impressive elsewhere.

It's as if the filmmakers, having committed themselves to the book, fled from its essence, which is wildness.

The main reason to see Bandits is celebrity actors riffing with each other. That's not a bad reason, though. These two actors are also skillful comedians.

Now the movie can be seen for what it was all along, remarkable by any standards.

Watching this surrealist silliness, I would have welcomed the sight of a geezer on a riding mower.

My First Mister, which was written by Jill Franklyn, watches Jennifer with lively interest, but rarely pierces the mysteries of her soul.

Proves to be a remarkably lean and incisive film about the fateful power of sexuality.

There's plenty of scary pleasure to be had from this clever, compact thriller.

Training Day can be simplistic, formulaic and absurdly melodramatic -- but Mr. Washington is flat-out great.

Serendipity is "Sliding Doors" with no alternate versions; it's willed enchantment all the way.

Readily accessible, slyly subversive and perfectly delightful film.

This film is extraordinary on several counts: its knowledge of an arcane trade (Mr. Cohen ran his family's diamond business after his father died); its fondness for telling good life stories; and, above all, its superb starring performance.

This noirish, sourish thriller left me unmoving as well as unmoved.

It's a diverting mess, sometimes even a delightful mess.

The movie is pleasant enough, in its studied way, and Mr. Hopkins does as well as anyone could in the role of a wise man with vaguely supernatural powers. Still, it's awfully amorphous and pokey.

A marvelous story.

How could a major studio -- in this case 20th Century Fox -- put its name on a production with a dim-bulb, tone-deaf script that piles howler on howler? Why couldn't someone save poor Ms. Carey from herself?

It may be lulling to know, almost from the outset, where the plot is going, but thrilling -- or even psychological -- it is not.

The vision of office work that's offered up by Haiku Tunnel is as chilling as it is funny.