A Prairie Home Companion tries to embrace the spirit of that longtime radio series but suffocates the very qualities that make the original show so special in the first place.

An infectious (in a good way) documentary.

Combines nonstop action with an absorbing story to become a classic on par with "Hoosiers" and "Hoop Dreams."

The film is visually mannered and full of posing and longueurs. But it is stylish, very French (despite its American origins) and diverting if well short of brilliant.

The remake is directed by another slickster, the Irishman John Moore, who is no deep thinker (as his "Behind Enemy Lines" confirmed) but, like Donner, he's an able hack -- smooth, stylish, clever, soulless and a hoot. And so's his damned movie. And it is damned.

Nobody likes a fixed fight, except the backroom boys making the deal. Which is why The Break-Up may have its share of laughs, but isn't much fun.

Its hackneyed themes prevent the sci-fi flick from feeling like anything more than well-directed mediocrity.

Make no mistake: The War Tapes is not an overtly political film. It appears to grind no partisan ax nor score either red or blue points. Whether viewers support the war or not -- or find themselves somewhere in the mushy middle -- this documentary won't fit comfortably into the pigeonholes of their preconceptions.

A charming, if limited, romantic comedy that examines post-collegiate angst with easy, unself-conscious humor.

A few others have compared this to a James Bond movie, but it's more of a piece with a Tom Clancy movie; it never leaves the real world that far behind, it has a fair sense of documentary reality, and the action sequences -- from shootout to car chase to a commando takedown of a tanker on the high seas to a final knife fight -- are extremely well managed.

All this stuff is probably right. It's just that the director, Victor Salva, underscores his points with thunderous obviousness and manipulates us through ham-handed plot gambits.

Ratner makes a hash of the story and characters his predecessor brought to such complex, sympathetic life, delivering a pumped-up exercise in mayhem, carnage and blunt-force trauma.

Though the movie, made for $7,000, can claim the romantic mantle of "guerrilla filmmaking," its herky-jerky camcorder style, jump-cut editing and sustained takes soon wear out their welcome. And dramatically, it's not always convincing.

Surprisingly absorbing film.

An enigma inside a conundrum inside an escargot shell, the French puzzler La Moustache will delight some people even as it annoys others.

The most controversial thriller of the year turns out to be about as exciting as watching your parents play Sudoku.

Hedge is built for laughter rather than artistry; jokes are packed into every pixel. But despite the movie's entertaining qualities, there is something a little unsettling.

Director and co-writer James Marsh clearly thinks he has made a grim and telling satire about fundamentalist hypocrisy. But he and co-writer Milo Addica display such contempt for their characters and religious conviction in general, they reduce everything to one-note banality.

Follows the youngsters over the course of a tumultuous year, during which time Cuesta and screenwriter Anthony Cipriano succeed in making the audience care desperately whether they're okay and whether the adults in their lives do the right thing. The lingering question is why that should be so improbable.

Petersen leaves out, largely, character, back story, anecdote and warm personal relations. Poseidon isn't cute, funny, warm, nice, inspirational or uplifting. It's about the incredible labor of survival in a world turned totally sociopathic in an instant.

In the end, I can't think of a movie that matters less than Just My Luck. It's just negligible.

The trouble with Goal!, which -- horror of horrors -- is the first of a trilogy, is that it's neither a persuasive story nor a satisfying display of soccer.

It drags a bit and suffers from not enough Rudy.

The biggest disappointment in the film, however, is Piven's Adam. This film idealizes his character too much and thereby jettisons any case for serious respect.

Grant's unblinking but sympathetic depiction of this emotionally unhinged world makes the viewer feel like an illicit, enlightened gawker, and it has the enormous fringe benefit of fine performers, including Richardson, who puts endearing vigor into the adulterous Lauren, and Julie Walters, Ralph's aunt, who tells the boy her frequent tipsiness is a recurring case of "sunstroke."

Just when Sydney Pollack's new film about super-architect Frank Gehry, Sketches of Frank Gehry, threatens to get really interesting, Pollack, perhaps unconsciously channeling about 100 years' worth of bad movies about great artists, reverts to fall-back mode.

Fluffily enjoyable.

Mary McDonnell, as Nat's patient wife, provides too-brief clarity as Nat goes off the rails, finally taking the movie with him.