-1 A series of escapades demonstrating the adage that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander, some of which occasionally amuses but none of which amounts to much of a story.
2  This quiet, introspective and entertaining independent is worth seeking.
-1 Even fans of Ismail Merchant's work, I suspect, would have a hard time sitting through this one.
1  A positively thrilling combination of ethnography and all the intrigue, betrayal, deceit and murder of a Shakespearean tragedy or a juicy soap opera.
-1 Aggressive self-glorification and a manipulative whitewash.
2  A comedy-drama of nearly epic proportions rooted in a sincere performance by the title character undergoing midlife crisis.
-1 Narratively, Trouble Every Day is a plodding mess.
1  The Importance of Being Earnest, so thick with wit it plays like a reading from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
-1 But it doesn't leave you with much.
-1 You could hate it for the same reason.
-1 There's little to recommend Snow Dogs, unless one considers cliched dialogue and perverse escapism a source of high hilarity.
-1 Kung Pow is Oedekerk's realization of his childhood dream to be in a martial-arts flick, and proves that sometimes the dreams of youth should remain just that.
2  The performances are an absolute joy.
1  Fresnadillo has something serious to say about the ways in which extravagant chance can distort our perspective and throw us off the path of good sense.
1  I still like Moonlight Mile, better judgment be damned.
1  A welcome relief from baseball movies that try too hard to be mythic, this one is a sweet and modest and ultimately winning story.
1  a bilingual charmer, just like the woman who inspired it
0  Like a less dizzily gorgeous companion to Mr. Wong's In the Mood for Love -- very much a Hong Kong movie despite its mainland setting.
-1 As inept as big-screen remakes of The Avengers and The Wild Wild West.
0  It's everything you'd expect -- but nothing more.
2  Best indie of the year, so far.
1  Hatfield and Hicks make the oddest of couples, and in this sense the movie becomes a study of the gambles of the publishing world, offering a case study that exists apart from all the movie's political ramifications.
-1 It's like going to a house party and watching the host defend himself against a frothing ex-girlfriend.
0  That the Chuck Norris ``grenade gag'' occurs about 7 times during Windtalkers is a good indication of how serious-minded the film is.
0  The plot is romantic comedy boilerplate from start to finish.
0  It arrives with an impeccable pedigree, mongrel pep, and almost indecipherable plot complications.
0  A film that clearly means to preach exclusively to the converted.
-1 While The Importance of Being Earnest offers opportunities for occasional smiles and chuckles, it doesn't give us a reason to be in the theater beyond Wilde's wit and the actors' performances.
-1 The latest vapid actor's exercise to appropriate the structure of Arthur Schnitzler's Reigen.
0  More vaudeville show than well-constructed narrative, but on those terms it's inoffensive and actually rather sweet.
0  Nothing more than a run-of-the-mill action flick.
-2 Hampered -- no, paralyzed -- by a self-indulgent script... that aims for poetry and ends up sounding like satire.
0  Ice Age is the first computer-generated feature cartoon to feel like other movies, and that makes for some glacial pacing early on.
0  There's very little sense to what's going on here, but the makers serve up the cliches with considerable dash.
0  Cattaneo should have followed the runaway success of his first film, The Full Monty, with something different.
-1 They're the unnamed, easily substitutable forces that serve as whatever terror the heroes of horror movies try to avoid.
-1 It almost feels as if the movie is more interested in entertaining itself than in amusing us.
-2 The movie's progression into rambling incoherence gives new meaning to the phrase `fatal script error.'
1  Don't judge this one too soon - it's a dark, gritty story but it takes off in totally unexpected directions and keeps on going.
1  So could young romantics out on a date.
-2 Tartakovsky's team has some freakish powers of visual charm, but the five writers slip into the modern rut of narrative banality.
1  Vincent Gallo is right at home in this French shocker playing his usual bad boy weirdo role.
2  If a horror movie's primary goal is to frighten and disturb, then They works spectacularly well... A shiver-inducing, nerve-rattling ride.
-1 This 100-minute movie only has about 25 minutes of decent material.
0  Fortunately, you still have that option.
1  Less the sensational true-crime hell-jaunt purists might like and more experimental in its storytelling (though no less horrifying for it).
1  As tricky and satisfying as any of David Mamet's airless cinematic shell games.
-1 I'm sure the filmmaker would disagree, but, honestly, I don't see the point.
2  Jones has tackled a meaty subject and drawn engaging characters while peppering the pages with memorable zingers.
2  Bloody Sunday has the grace to call for prevention rather than to place blame, making it one of the best war movies ever made.
-1 Takes a clunky TV-movie approach to detailing a chapter in the life of the celebrated Irish playwright, poet and drinker.
0  Finally coming down off of Miramax's deep shelves after a couple of aborted attempts, Waking Up in Reno makes a strong case for letting sleeping dogs lie.
-2 Thanks largely to Williams, all the interesting developments are processed in 60 minutes -- the rest is just an overexposed waste of film.
-2 Comes across as a relic from a bygone era, and its convolutions... feel silly rather than plausible.
2  Perhaps it's cliche to call the film `refreshing,' but it is.
2  Both lead performances are Oscar-size.
-2 Run for your lives!
1  Mark Pellington's latest pop thriller is as kooky and overeager as it is spooky and subtly in love with myth.
1  Claude Chabrol's camera has a way of gently swaying back and forth as it cradles its characters, veiling tension beneath otherwise tender movements.
1  Transforms one of (Shakespeare's) deepest tragedies into a smart new comedy.
-1 The screenplay by James Eric, James Horton and director Peter O'Fallon... is so pat it makes your teeth hurt.
1  But arriving at a particularly dark moment in history, it offers flickering reminders of the ties that bind us.
-1 Its generic villains lack any intrigue (other than their funny accents) and the action scenes are poorly delivered.
1  The characters are more deeply thought through than in most `right-thinking' films.
1  The film, despite the gratuitous cinematic distractions impressed upon it, is still good fun.
-2 Downright transparent is the script's endless assault of embarrassingly ham-fisted sex jokes that reek of a script rewrite designed to garner the film a ``cooler'' PG-13 rating.
2  A smart, provocative drama that does the nearly impossible: It gets under the skin of a man we only know as an evil, monstrous lunatic.
-1 It's like a drive-by.
1  is many things -- stoner midnight flick, sci-fi deconstruction, gay fantasia -- but above all it's a love story as sanguine as its title.
1  A very funny romantic comedy about two skittish New York middle-agers who stumble into a relationship and then struggle furiously with their fears and foibles.
-1 But it has an ambition to say something about its subjects, but not a willingness.
1  (Scherfig) has made a movie that will leave you wondering about the characters' lives after the clever credits roll.
1  (An) absorbing documentary.
0  Reeks of rot and hack work from start to finish.
-1 Plays like a series of vignettes -- clips of a film that are still looking for a common through-line.
-1 The major problem with Windtalkers is that the bulk of the movie centers on the wrong character.
0  Swimfan, like Fatal Attraction, eventually goes overboard with a loony melodramatic denouement in which a high school swimming pool substitutes for a bathtub.
-1 This is a heartfelt story... it just isn't a very involving one.
2  An unsettling, memorable cinematic experience that does its predecessors proud.
1  All in all, it's a pretty good execution of a story that's a lot richer than the ones Hollywood action screenwriters usually come up with on their own.
1  Phillip Noyce and all of his actors -- as well as his cinematographer, Christopher Doyle -- understand the delicate forcefulness of Greene's prose, and it's there on the screen in their version of The Quiet American.
0  The Pianist lacks the quick emotional connections of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List.
1  Inventive, fun, intoxicatingly sexy, violent, self-indulgent and maddening.
2  Tells a fascinating, compelling story.
-1 Written, flatly, by David Kendall and directed, barely, by There's Something About Mary co-writer Ed Decter.
2  Highly recommended viewing for its courage, ideas, technical proficiency and great acting.
2  In IMAX in short, it's just as wonderful on the big screen.
1  It shows us a slice of life that's very different from our own and yet instantly recognizable.
-1 Amid the shock and curiosity factors, the film is just a corny examination of a young actress trying to find her way.
0  It's lazy for a movie to avoid solving one problem by trying to distract us with the solution to another.
1  ... it's as comprehensible as any Dummies guide, something even non-techies can enjoy.
-1 Entertains not so much because of its music or comic antics, but through the perverse pleasure of watching Disney scrape the bottom of its own cracker barrel.
1  Writer/director Burr Steers emphasizes the Q in Quirky, with mixed results.
-2 Scarcely worth a mention apart from reporting on the number of tumbleweeds blowing through the empty theatres graced with its company.
2  Invigorating, surreal, and resonant with a rainbow of emotion.
-2 ``Analyze That'' is one of those crass, contrived sequels that not only fails on its own, but makes you second-guess your affection for the original.
-1 Report card: Doesn't live up to the exalted tagline - there's definite room for improvement.
0  It's not a particularly good film, but neither is it a monsterous one.
0  Tsai may be ploughing the same furrow once too often.
-1 (Green is) the comedy equivalent of Saddam Hussein, and I'm just about ready to go to the U.N. and ask permission for a preemptive strike.
1  A surprisingly `solid' achievement by director Malcolm D. Lee and writer John Ridley.
0  Massoud's story is an epic, but also a tragedy, the record of a tenacious, humane fighter who was also the prisoner (and ultimately the victim) of history.
1  Changing Lanes tries for more.
-1 Shyamalan should stop trying to please his mom.
1  A macabre and very stylized Swedish fillm about a modern city where all the religious and civic virtues that hold society in place are in tatters.
2  One of recent memory's most thoughtful films about art, ethics, and the cost of moral compromise.
0  The narrative is so consistently unimaginative that probably the only way to have saved the film is with the aid of those wisecracking Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys.
2  Filmmaker Tian Zhuangzhuang triumphantly returns to narrative filmmaking with a visually masterful work of quiet power.
-1 A mawkish self-parody that plays like some weird Masterpiece Theater sketch with neither a point of view nor a compelling reason for being.
0  Takes one character we don't like and another we don't believe, and puts them into a battle of wills that is impossible to care about and isn't very funny.
-1 And if you appreciate the one-sided theme to Lawrence's over-indulgent tirade, then knock yourself out and enjoy the big screen postcard that is a self-glorified Martin Lawrence lovefest.
-2 The whole film has this sneaky feel to it -- as if the director is trying to dupe the viewer into taking it all as Very Important simply because the movie is ugly to look at and not a Hollywood product.
1  Whenever it threatens to get bogged down in earnest dramaturgy, a stirring visual sequence like a surge through swirling rapids or a leap from pinnacle to pinnacle rouses us.
-1 Swinging, the film makes it seem, is not a hobby that attracts the young and fit.
0  But when it does, you're entirely unprepared.
1  Devos delivers a perfect performance that captures the innocence and budding demons within a wallflower.
2  300 years of Russian history and culture compressed into an evanescent, seamless and sumptuous stream of consciousness.
1  The filmmakers want nothing else than to show us a good time, and in their cheap, B movie way, they succeed.
1  Mr. Polanski is in his element here: alone, abandoned, but still consoled by his art, which is more than he has ever revealed before about the source of his spiritual survival.
2  ``Spider-man is better than any summer blockbuster we had to endure last summer, and hopefully, sets the tone for a summer of good stuff.
0  Absorbing character
-1 Violent, vulgar and forgettably entertaining.
0  It's the unsettling images of a war-ravaged land that prove more potent and riveting than the unlikely story of Sarah and Harrison.
1  Winds up being both revelatory and narcissistic, achieving some honest insight into relationships that most high-concept films candy-coat with pat storylines, precious circumstances and beautiful stars.
1  If Mostly Martha is mostly unsurprising, it's still a sweet, even delectable diversion.
2  A thoughtful and surprisingly affecting portrait of a screwed-up man who dared to mess with some powerful people, seen through the eyes of the idealistic kid who chooses to champion his ultimately losing cause.
1  Keenly observed and refreshingly natural, Swimming gets the details right, from its promenade of barely clad bodies in Myrtle Beach, S.C., to the adrenaline jolt of a sudden lunch rush at the diner.
0  A brilliant gag at the expense of those who paid for it and those who pay to see it.
2  A triumph, a film that hews out a world and carries us effortlessly from darkness to light.
-1 Just about everyone involved here seems to be coasting.
1  A fascinating, dark thriller that keeps you hooked on the delicious pulpiness of its lurid fiction.
-1 I suspect this is the kind of production that would have been funnier if the director had released the outtakes theatrically and used the film as a bonus feature on the DVD.
-1 It's hard to say who might enjoy this, are there Tolstoy groupies out there?
-1 Daughter From Danang reveals that efforts toward closure only open new wounds.
2  One of the year's most weirdly engaging and unpredictable character pieces.
2  Intriguing and downright intoxicating.
-1 Although fairly involving as far as it goes, the film doesn't end up having much that is fresh to say about growing up Catholic or, really, anything.
-2 The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it would still be beyond comprehension.
1  Sleek and arty.
-2 Poor editing, bad bluescreen, and ultra-cheesy dialogue highlight the radical action.
1  (Cho's face is) an amazing slapstick instrument, creating a scrapbook of living mug shots.
-1 It gets the details of its time frame right but it completely misses its emotions.
0  Initial strangeness inexorably gives way to rote sentimentality and mystical tenderness becomes narrative expedience.
1  It lets you brush up against the humanity of a psycho, without making him any less psycho.
-1 Like the world of his film, Hartley created a monster but didn't know how to handle it.
2  When cowering and begging at the feet a scruffy Giannini, Madonna gives her best performance since Abel Ferrara had her beaten to a pulp in his Dangerous Game.
-1 Too clumsy in key moments... to make a big splash.
0  Because Eight Legged Freaks is partly an homage to Them, Tarantula and other low - budget B-movie thrillers of the 1950s and '60s, the movie is a silly (but not sophomoric) romp through horror and hellish conditions.
-1 It feels like very light Errol Morris, focusing on eccentricity but failing, ultimately, to make something bigger out of its scrapbook of oddballs.
2  Spielberg's realization of a near-future America is masterful.
-2 There's a scientific law to be discerned here that producers would be well to heed: Mediocre movies start to drag as soon as the action speeds up; when the explosions start, they fall to pieces.
1  He's one of the few `cool' actors who never seems aware of his own coolness.
-1 Feels like the work of an artist who is simply tired -- of fighting the same fights, of putting the weight of the world on his shoulders, of playing with narrative form.
-1 ... stale and uninspired.
1  In the director's cut, the film is not only a love song to the movies but it also is more fully an example of the kind of lush, all-enveloping movie experience it rhapsodizes.
1  Has the rare capability to soothe and break your heart with a single stroke.
-1 Eerily accurate depiction of depression.
-1 As a feature-length film, it wears out its welcome as tryingly as the title character.
1  An uncluttered, resonant gem that relays its universal points without lectures or confrontations.'
-1 The story alone could force you to scratch a hole in your head.
1  It's the filmmakers' post-camp comprehension of what made old-time B movies good-bad that makes Eight Legged Freaks a perfectly entertaining summer diversion.
0  As any creature-feature fan knows, when you cross toxic chemicals with a bunch of exotic creatures, you get a lot of running around, screaming and death.
0  You bet there is and it's what makes this rather convoluted journey worth taking.
1  Before it takes a sudden turn and devolves into a bizarre sort of romantic comedy, Steven Shainberg's adaptation of Mary Gaitskill's harrowing short story... is a brilliantly played, deeply unsettling experience.
-1 Kim Ki-Deok seems to have in mind an (emotionally at least) adolescent audience demanding regular shocks and bouts of barely defensible sexual violence to keep it interested.
-2 Has no reason to exist, other than to employ Hollywood kids and people who owe favors to their famous parents.
0  A well-made but emotionally scattered film whose hero gives his heart only to the dog.
0  Those who love Cinema Paradiso will find the new scenes interesting, but few will find the movie improved.
1  Campanella gets the tone just right -- funny in the middle of sad in the middle of hopeful.
-2 Nothing more than an amiable but unfocused bagatelle that plays like a loosely-connected string of acting-workshop exercises.
1  It's a sharp movie about otherwise dull subjects.
0  Wallace gets a bit heavy handed with his message at times, and has a visual flair that waxes poetic far too much for our taste.
0  Charming and funny (but ultimately silly) movie.
0  ... the one thing this Wild film has that other Imax films don't: chimps, lots of chimps, all blown up to the size of a house.
-2 Starts out mediocre, spirals downward, and thuds to the bottom of the pool with an utterly incompetent conclusion.
1  This is a children's film in the truest sense.
-2 Horrendously amateurish filmmaking that is plainly dull and visually ugly when it isn't incomprehensible.
2  Beautifully crafted, engaging filmmaking that should attract upscale audiences hungry for quality and a nostalgic, twisty yarn that will keep them guessing.
-1 An awkwardly contrived exercise in magic realism.
-1 The punch lines that miss, unfortunately, outnumber the hits by three-to-one.
1  Like Smoke Signals, the film is also imbued with strong themes of familial ties and spirituality that are powerful and moving without stooping to base melodrama
1  Evokes the style and flash of the double-cross that made Mamet's ``House of Games'' and last fall's ``Heist'' so much fun.
1  The film aims to be funny, uplifting and moving, sometimes all at once.
0  At a brief 42 minutes, we need more X and less blab.
0  The Spalding Gray equivalent of a teen gross-out comedy.
-1 There's a great deal of corny dialogue and preposterous moments.
1  Uneven but a lot of fun.
0  The result might look like Vulgar.
-2 The film rehashes several old themes and is capped with pointless extremes -- it's insanely violent and very graphic.
1  The dragons are the real stars of Reign of Fire and you won't be disappointed.
-1 It never plays as dramatic even when dramatic things happen to people.
1  Manages to please its intended audience -- children -- without placing their parents in a coma-like state.
-1 The movie generates plot points with a degree of randomness usually achieved only by lottery drawing.
0  Though the film never veers from its comic course, its unintentional parallels might inadvertently evoke memories and emotions which are anything but humorous.
-1 The film can depress you about life itself.
-1 If you saw it on TV, you'd probably turn it off, convinced that you had already seen that movie.
-1 You get the impression that writer and director Burr Steers knows the territory... but his sense of humor has yet to lose the smug self-satisfaction usually associated with the better private schools.
2  This is a superior horror flick.
0  The movie's heavy-handed screenplay navigates a fast fade into pomposity and pretentiousness.
-1 A little weak -- and it isn't that funny.
-1 But they don't fit well together and neither is well told.
0  Being latently gay and liking to read are hardly enough.
1  More sophisticated and literate than such pictures usually are... an amusing little catch.
-1 Storytelling feels slight.
2  Monte Cristo smartly emphasizes the well-wrought story and omits needless chase scenes and swordfights as the revenge unfolds.
2  It's a fairy tale that comes from a renowned Indian film culture that allows Americans to finally revel in its splendor.
1  Well-done supernatural thriller with keen insights into parapsychological phenomena and the soulful nuances of the grieving process.
0  ... only Bond can save us from the latest eccentric, super-wealthy megalomaniac bent on world domination and destruction.
-2 It is depressing, ruthlessly pained and depraved, the movie equivalent of staring into an open wound.
1  Damon brings the proper conviction to his role as (Jason Bourne).
-1 Parents beware; this is downright movie penance.
1  When it's this rich and luscious, who cares?
-1 A singularly off-putting romantic comedy.
0  Director Boris von Sychowski instead opts for a routine slasher film that was probably more fun to make than it is to sit through.
-2 Would've been nice if the screenwriters had trusted audiences to understand a complex story, and left off the film's predictable denouement.
-1 A superfluous sequel... plagued by that old familiar feeling of `let's get this thing over with': Everyone has shown up at the appointed time and place, but visible enthusiasm is mighty hard to find.
1  An earnest, roughshod document, it serves as a workable primer for the region's recent history, and would make a terrific 10th-grade learning tool.
-1 Cloaks a familiar anti-feminist equation (career - kids = misery) in tiresome romantic-comedy duds.
-1 A film that plays things so nice'n safe as to often play like a milquetoast movie of the week blown up for the big screen.
1  His work transcends the boy-meets-girl posturing of typical love stories.
-1 An even more predictable, cliche-ridden endeavor than its predecessor.
-2 Plays like a bad blend of an overripe episode of TV's Dawson's Creek and a recycled and dumbed-down version of Love Story.
-1 The script covers huge, heavy topics in a bland, surfacey way that doesn't offer any insight into why, for instance, good things happen to bad people.
-2 The film is so bad it doesn't improve upon the experience of staring at a blank screen.
-1 They threw loads of money at an idea that should've been so much more even if it was only made for teenage boys and wrestling fans.
-2 It's difficult to imagine that a more confused, less interesting and more sloppily made film could possibly come down the road in 2002.
1  Though the film is well-intentioned, one could rent the original and get the same love story and parable.
0  Jolting into Charleston rhythms, the story has the sizzle of old news that has finally found the right vent (accurate?
0  Or both.
0  Williams plays Sy, another of his open-faced, smiling madmen, like the killer in Insomnia.
-1 Phoned-in business as usual.
-1 With its lackadaisical plotting and mindless action, All About the Benjamins evokes the bottom tier of blaxploitation flicks from the 1970s.
-2 Ah, yes, that would be me: fighting off the urge to doze.
-2 Thoughtless, random, superficial humour and a lot of very bad Scouse accents
1  In an era where big stars and high production values are standard procedure, Narc strikes a defiantly retro chord, and outpaces its contemporaries with daring and verve.
1  A rip-roaring comedy action fest that'll put hairs on your chest.
2  ... a thoughtful what-if for the heart as well as the mind.
2  Miyazaki is one of world cinema's most wondrously gifted artists and storytellers.
1  A chronicle not only of one man's quest to be president, but of how that man single-handedly turned a plane full of hard-bitten, cynical journalists into what was essentially, by campaign's end, an extended publicity department.
2  Provides the kind of `laugh therapy' I need from movie comedies -- offbeat humor, amusing characters, and a happy ending.
-2 Feels strangely hollow at its emotional core.
1  At a time when commercialism has squeezed the life out of whatever idealism American moviemaking ever had, Godfrey Reggio's career shines like a lonely beacon.
0  Director Roger Michell does so many of the little things right that it's difficult not to cuss him out severely for bungling the big stuff.
1  Robert Harmon's less-is-more approach delivers real bump-in - the-night chills -- his greatest triumph is keeping the creepy crawlies hidden in the film's thick shadows.
2  This movie may not have the highest production values you've ever seen, but it's the work of an artist, one whose view of America, history and the awkwardness of human life is generous and deep.
-1 Feral and uncomfortable.
2  Sillier, cuter, and shorter than the first (as best I remember), but still a very good time at the cinema.
1  It's more enjoyable than I expected, though, and that's because the laughs come from fairly basic comedic constructs.
-2 Black-and-white and unrealistic.
1  The film is predictable in the reassuring manner of a beautifully sung holiday carol.
-2 The only camouflage Carvey should now be considering is a paper bag to wear over his head when he goes out into public, to avoid being recognized as the man who bilked unsuspecting moviegoers.
1  Not about scares but a mood in which an ominous, pervasive, and unknown threat lurks just below the proceedings and adds an almost constant mindset of suspense.
-1 Some of the computer animation is handsome, and various amusing sidekicks add much-needed levity to the otherwise bleak tale, but overall the film never rises above mediocrity.
2  Offers the flash of rock videos fused with solid performances and eerie atmosphere.
1  A breezy blend of art, history, esoteric musings and philosophy.
1  Now as a former Gong Show addict, I'll admit it, my only complaint is that we didn't get more re-creations of all those famous moments from the show.
1  Genuinely unnerving.
2  The increasingly diverse French director has created a film that one can honestly describe as looking, sounding and simply feeling like no other film in recent history.
1  One of those joyous films that leaps over national boundaries and celebrates universal human nature.
0  A difficult but worthy film that bites off more than it can chew by linking the massacre of Armenians in 1915 with some difficult relationships in the present.
-1 Halfway through the movie, the humor dwindles.
2  Witty and often surprising, a dark little morality tale disguised as a romantic comedy.
-1 One senses in World Traveler and in his earlier film that Freundlich bears a grievous but obscure complaint against fathers, and circles it obsessively, without making contact.
1  In fact, even better.
0  ... a preachy parable stylized with a touch of John Woo bullet ballet.
0  Proves that some movie formulas don't need messing with -- like the big-bug movie.
0  An uplifting, largely bogus story.
2  Thanks to confident filmmaking and a pair of fascinating performances, the way to that destination is a really special walk in the woods.
2  Superbly photographed and staged by Mendes with a series of riveting set pieces the likes of which mainstream audiences have rarely seen.
2  A mesmerizing cinematic poem from the first frame to the last.
1  After the first 10 minutes, which is worth seeing
-1 It has become apparent that the franchise's best years are long past.
0  Screenwriter Chris ver Weil's directing debut is good-natured and never dull, but its virtues are small and easily overshadowed by its predictability.
-1 Too much of Storytelling moves away from Solondz's social critique, casting its audience as that of intellectual lector in contemplation of the auteur's professional injuries.
-1 Ultimately, Sarah's dedication to finding her husband seems more psychotic than romantic, and nothing in the movie makes a convincing case that one woman's broken heart outweighs all the loss we witness.
-2 The jokes are flat, and the action looks fake.
0  A mildly enjoyable if toothless adaptation of a much better book.
-2 Festers in just such a dungpile that you'd swear you were watching monkeys flinging their feces at you.
-2 In addition to the overcooked, ham-fisted direction, which has all the actors reaching for the back row, the dialogue sounds like horrible poetry.
-2 A vile, incoherent mess... a scummy ripoff of David Cronenberg's brilliant `Videodrome.'
-1 First, for a movie that tries to be smart, it's kinda dumb.
0  I was sent a copyof this film to review on DVD.
-1 ... silly humbuggery...
-1 Isn't as sharp as the original... Despite some visual virtues, `Blade II' just doesn't cut it.
1  A smart, arch and rather cold-blooded comedy.
-2 (A) rather thinly-conceived movie.
1  Its flame-like, roiling black-and-white inspires trembling and gratitude.
2  Robinson's web of suspense matches the page-turning frenzy that Clancy creates.
1  A slight but sweet film.
0  Got a David Lynch jones?
0  Earnest and tentative even when it aims to shock.
-1 Time of Favor could have given audiences the time of day by concentrating on the elements of a revealing alienation among a culture of people who sadly are at hostile odds with one another through recklessness and retaliation.
2  ``Austin Powers in Goldmember'' has the right stuff for silly summer entertainment and has enough laughs to sustain interest to the end.
0  What puzzles me is the lack of emphasis on music in Britney Spears' first movie.
0  The filmmakers might want to look it up.
2  While maintaining the appearance of clinical objectivity, this sad, occasionally horrifying but often inspiring film is among Wiseman's warmest.
2  There is simply no doubt that this film asks the right questions at the right time in the history of our country.
-2 A dreary movie.
-1 Sadly, though many of the actors throw off a spark or two when they first appear, they can't generate enough heat in this cold vacuum of a comedy to start a reaction.
-1 To the filmmakers, Ivan is a prince of a fellow, but he comes across as shallow and glib though not mean-spirited, and there's no indication that he's been responsible for putting together any movies of particular value or merit.
1  Using a stock plot, About a Boy injects just enough freshness into the proceedings to provide an enjoyable 100 minutes in a movie theater.
1  Beating the Austin Powers films at their own game, this blaxploitation spoof downplays the raunch in favor of gags that rely on the strength of their own cleverness as opposed to the extent of their outrageousness.
1  What begins as a conventional thriller evolves into a gorgeously atmospheric meditation on life-changing chance encounters.
0  Buy popcorn.
0  A late-night cable sexploitation romp masquerading as a thriller about the ruthless social order that governs college cliques.
-1 A well-intentioned effort that's still too burdened by the actor's offbeat sensibilities for the earnest emotional core to emerge with any degree of accessibility.
0  (Allen's) been making piffle for a long while, and Hollywood Ending may be his way of saying that piffle is all that the airhead movie business deserves from him right now.
1  Seeing as the film lacks momentum and its position remains mostly undeterminable, the director's experiment is a successful one.
2  Judith and Zaza's extended bedroom sequence... is so intimate and sensual and funny and psychologically self-revealing that it makes most of what passes for sex in the movies look like cheap hysterics.
-1 Uneven performances and a spotty script add up to a biting satire that has no teeth.
-2 ... irritating soul-searching garbage.
1  A solid, spooky entertainment worthy of the price of a ticket.
0  Ultimately, clarity matters, both in breaking codes and making movies.
-2 In comparison to his earlier films it seems a disappointingly thin slice of lower-class London life; despite the title... amounts to surprisingly little.
0  Proves mainly that South Korean filmmakers can make undemanding action movies with all the alacrity of their Hollywood counterparts.
2  Except it's much, much better.
2  It is a happy, heady jumble of thought and storytelling, an insane comic undertaking that ultimately coheres into a sane and breathtakingly creative film.
0  There is more than one joke about putting the toilet seat down.
0  has)
2  So original in its base concept that you can not help but get caught up.
-2 It appears to have been made by people to whom the idea of narrative logic or cohesion is an entirely foreign concept.
0  If you ignore the cliches and concentrate on City by the Sea's interpersonal drama, it ain't half-bad.
1  A dreadful day in Irish history is given passionate, if somewhat flawed, treatment.
2  See it.
-1 Nothing but an episode of Smackdown!
0  A guilty pleasure at best, and not worth seeing unless you want to laugh at it.
-1 Perhaps a better celebration of these unfairly dismissed heroes would be a film that isn't this painfully forced, false and fabricated.
-2 A relative letdown.
0  `Hey Arnold!'
1  But though he only scratches the surface, at least he provides a strong itch to explore more.
0  The band performances featured in Drumline are red hot... (but) from a mere story point of view, the film's ice cold.
-1 A non-mystery mystery.
2  Leigh is one of the rare directors who feels acting is the heart and soul of cinema.
1  The cast delivers without sham the raw-nerved story.
-1 This is a monumental achievement in practically every facet of inept filmmaking: joyless, idiotic, annoying, heavy-handed, visually atrocious, and often downright creepy.
0  The filmmaker's heart is in the right place...
-2 One of the most highly-praised disappointments I've had the misfortune to watch in quite some time.
-1 Rock's stand-up magic wanes.
-1 Roman Polanski directs The Pianist like a surgeon mends a broken heart; very meticulously but without any passion.
-1 Sadly, `Garth' hasn't progressed as nicely as `Wayne.'
0  With wit and empathy to spare, waydowntown acknowledges the silent screams of workaday inertia but stops short of indulging its characters' striving solipsism.
-1 It labours as storytelling.
-1 Remember back when thrillers actually thrilled?
1  The otherwise good-naturedness of Mr. Deeds, with its embrace of sheer goofiness and cameos of less - than-likely New York celebrities... certainly raises the film above anything Sandler's been attached to before.
-1 Fails so fundamentally on every conventional level that it achieves some kind of goofy grandeur.
0  ... a ho-hum affair, always watchable yet hardly memorable.
-1 I just saw this movie... well, it's probably not accurate to call it a movie.
0  Though uniformly well acted, especially by young Ballesta and Galan (a first-time actor), writer/director Achero Manas's film is schematic and obvious.
0  When you resurrect a dead man, Hard Copy should come a-knocking, no?
0  If the idea of the white man arriving on foreign shores to show wary natives the true light is abhorrent to you, the simplistic Heaven will quite likely be more like hell.
0  It's hard to believe that a relationship like Holly and Marina's could survive the hothouse emotions of teendom, and its longevity gets more inexplicable as the characterizations turn more crassly reductive.
0  For a movie audience, The Hours doesn't connect in a neat way, but introduces characters who illuminate mysteries of sex, duty and love.
-1 Purports to be a Hollywood satire but winds up as the kind of film that should be the target of something deeper and more engaging.
1  Too clever by about nine-tenths.
-1 This is no ``Waterboy!''
0  They're going through the motions, but the zip is gone.
0  The script's snazzy dialogue establishes a realistic atmosphere that involves us in the unfolding crisis, but the lazy plotting ensures that little of our emotional investment pays off.
0  Not as good as the original, but what is...
2  Those moviegoers who would automatically bypass a hip-hop documentary should give ``Scratch'' a second look.
1  Bigelow offers some flashy twists and turns that occasionally fortify this turgid fable.
-1 An unsophisticated sci-fi drama that takes itself all too seriously.
-2 Stupid, infantile, redundant, sloppy, over-the-top, and amateurish.
0  Resident Evil is what comes from taking John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars and eliminating the beheadings.
-2 The movie resolutely avoids all the comic possibilities of its situation, and becomes one more dumb high school comedy about sex gags and prom dates.
2  With or without the sex, a wonderful tale of love and destiny, told well by a master storyteller
1  Though it goes further than both, anyone who has seen The Hunger or Cat People will find little new here, but a tasty performance from Vincent Gallo lifts this tale of cannibal lust above the ordinary.
1  A terrific date movie, whatever your orientation.
-2 Once the expectation of laughter has been quashed by whatever obscenity is at hand, even the funniest idea isn't funny.
-1 How do you make a movie with depth about a man who lacked any?
-1 Translation: `We don't need to try very hard.'
2  ``Frailty'' offers chills much like those that you get when sitting around a campfire around midnight, telling creepy stories to give each other the willies.
0  Less front-loaded and more shapely than the two-hour version released here in 1990.
2  An ambitious movie that, like Shiner's organizing of the big fight, pulls off enough of its effects to make up for the ones that don't come off.
2  Some movies suck you in despite their flaws, and Heaven is one such beast.
2  Very well written and directed with brutal honesty and respect for its audience.
2  Twenty years after its first release, E.T. remains the most wondrous of all Hollywood fantasies -- and the apex of Steven Spielberg's misunderstood career.
-1 Gooding offers a desperately ingratiating performance.
-1 ... stumbles over every cheap trick in the book trying to make the outrage come even easier.
1  Nicely combines the enigmatic features of `Memento' with the hallucinatory drug culture of `Requiem for a Dream.'
2  Every individual will see the movie through the prism of his or her own beliefs and prejudices, but the one thing most will take away is the sense that peace is possible.
-2 Just a bunch of good actors flailing around in a caper that's neither original nor terribly funny.
-2 This ill-conceived and expensive project winds up looking like a bunch of talented thesps slumming it.
-1 Broder's screenplay is shallow, offensive and redundant, with pitifully few real laughs.
2  Leguizamo and Jones are both excellent and the rest of the cast is uniformly superb.
-1 Trying to figure out the rules of the Country Bear universe -- when are bears bears and when are they like humans, only hairier -- would tax Einstein's brain.
0  ``Feardotcom'' has the makings of an interesting meditation on the ethereal nature of the internet and the otherworldly energies it could channel, but it simply becomes a routine shocker.
2  Delia, Greta, and Paula rank as three of the most multilayered and sympathetic female characters of the year.
1  The beauty of Alexander Payne's ode to the Everyman is in the details.
-1 The town has kind of an authentic feel, but each one of these people stand out and everybody else is in the background and it just seems manufactured to me and artificial.
-1 Julie Davis is the Kathie Lee Gifford of film directors, sadly proving once again ego doesn't always go hand in hand with talent.
1  Much credit must be given to the water-camera operating team of Don King, Sonny Miller, and Michael Stewart.
0  In this film, Aussie David Caesar channels the not-quite-dead career of Guy Ritchie.
2  As averse as I usually am to feel-good, follow-your-dream Hollywood fantasies, this one got to me.
1  Maybe it is formula filmmaking, but there's nothing wrong with that if the film is well-crafted and this one is.
0  Would you laugh if a tuba-playing dwarf rolled down a hill in a trash can?
-2 Loses its sense of humor in a vat of failed jokes, twitchy acting, and general boorishness.
-1 This misty-eyed Southern nostalgia piece, in treading the line between sappy and sanguine, winds up mired in tear-drenched quicksand.
-1 To be oblivious to the existence of this film would be very sweet indeed.
1  Despite its flaws... Belinsky is still able to create an engaging story that keeps you guessing at almost every turn.
0  A porn film without the sex scenes.
0  The movie plays up the cartoon's more obvious strength of snazziness while neglecting its less conspicuous writing strength.
1  Notwithstanding my problem with the movie's final half hour, I'm going to recommend SECRETARY, based on the wonderful acting clinic put on by Spader and Gyllenhaal, and also the unique way Shainberg goes about telling what at heart is a sweet little girl -
-1 Despite slick production values and director Roger Michell's tick-tock pacing, the final effect is like having two guys yelling in your face for two hours.
1  ``Barbershop'' is a good-hearted ensemble comedy with a variety of quirky characters and an engaging story.
-1 A soulless jumble of ineptly assembled cliches and pabulum that plays like a 95-minute commercial for NBA properties.
0  An ambitious, serious film that manages to do virtually everything wrong; sitting through it is something akin to an act of cinematic penance.
2  Consistently clever and suspenseful.
1  Soderbergh skims the fat from the 1972 film.
0  Hilarious musical comedy though stymied by accents thick as mud.
-1 A movie like The Guys is why film criticism can be considered work.
-2 Anyone who suffers through this film deserves, at the very least, a big box of consolation candy.
0  Bearable.
1  Cremaster 3 is at once a tough pill to swallow and a minor miracle of self-expression.
1  But Kouyate elicits strong performances from his cast, and he delivers a powerful commentary on how governments lie, no matter who runs them.
1  See it for his performance if nothing else.
2  The asylum material is gripping, as are the scenes of Jia with his family.
2  I walked away from this new version of E.T. just as I hoped I would -- with moist eyes.
-2 Attal pushes too hard to make this a comedy or serious drama.
-1 plays like some corny television production from a bygone era
2  It's a powerful though flawed movie, guaranteed to put a lump in your throat while reaffirming Washington as possibly the best actor working in movies today.
-1 Solondz may well be the only one laughing at his own joke
-1 Here's a case of two actors who do everything humanly possible to create characters who are sweet and believable, and are defeated by a screenplay that forces them into bizarre, implausible behavior.
1  Any enjoyment will be hinge from a personal threshold of watching sad but endearing characters do extremely unconventional things.
-1 Some Body smacks of exhibitionism more than it does cathartic truth telling.
1  Though writer/director Bart Freundlich's film ultimately becomes a simplistic story about a dysfunctional parent-child relationship, it has some special qualities and the soulful gravity of Crudup's anchoring performance.
-2 (Carvey's) characters are both overplayed and exaggerated, but then again, subtlety has never been his trademark.
2  This beautifully animated epic is never dull.
1  Charming and witty, it's also somewhat clumsy.
-1 In one scene, we get a stab at soccer hooliganism, a double-barreled rip-off of Quentin Tarantino's climactic shootout -- and Meat Loaf explodes.
-2 frustratingly refuses to give Pinochet's crimes a political context
0  Paul Bettany playing Malcolm McDowell?
0  A serviceable Euro-trash action extravaganza, with a decent sense of humor and plenty of things that go boom -- handguns, BMWs and seaside chateaus.
0  Veterans of the dating wars will smirk uneasily at the film's nightmare versions of everyday sex-in-the-city misadventures.
2  It sends you away a believer again and quite cheered at just that.
-1 The rollerball sequences feel sanitised and stagey.
-1 Interview With the Assassin is structured less as a documentary and more as a found relic, and as such the film has a difficult time shaking its Blair Witch Project real-time roots.
2  It is most remarkable not because of its epic scope, but because of the startling intimacy it achieves despite that breadth.
-1 A nearly 21/2 hours, the film is way too indulgent.
-1 Seems like something American and European gay movies were doing 20 years ago.
-1 Claims to sort the bad guys from the good, which is its essential problem.
0  Mana gives us compelling, damaged characters who we want to help -- or hurt.
-1 Good-looking but relentlessly lowbrow outing plays like Clueless Does South Fork.
1  Evokes a palpable sense of disconnection, made all the more poignant by the incessant use of cell phones.
1  The concept is a hoot.
2  A straight-shooting family film which awards animals the respect they've rarely been given.
0  The directive to protect the code at all costs also begins to blur as the importance of the man and the code merge
0  What Eric Schaeffer has accomplished with Never Again may not, strictly speaking, qualify as revolutionary.
-2 Obvious, obnoxious and didactic burlesque.
0  What can one say about a balding 50-year-old actor playing an innocent boy carved from a log?
0  Can't seem to get anywhere near the story's center.
-1 Even with its $ 50-million US budget, Pinocchio never quite achieves the feel of a fanciful motion picture.
-1 A little more intensity and a little less charm would have saved this film a world of hurt.
-1 Like most of Jaglom's films, some of it is honestly affecting, but more of it seems contrived and secondhand.
0  Maelstrom is a deliberately unsteady mixture of stylistic elements.
1  Just bring on the Battle Bots, please!
1  Sweet Home Alabama isn't going to win any Academy Awards, but this date-night diversion will definitely win some hearts.
-1 Love may have been in the air onscreen, but I certainly wasn't feeling any of it.
-1 Too long, and larded with exposition, this somber cop drama ultimately feels as flat as the scruffy sands of its titular community.
-1 The young stars are too cute; the story and ensuing complications are too manipulative; the message is too blatant; the resolutions are too convenient.
0  In some ways, Lagaan is quintessential Bollywood.
-1 A characteristically engorged and sloppy coming-of-age movie.
2  A wry, affectionate delight.
1  Credit director Ramsay for taking the sometimes improbable story and making it feel realistic.
1  The auteur's ear for the way fears and slights are telegraphed in the most blithe exchanges gives the film its lingering tug.
1  Gets better after Foster leaves that little room.
1  Despite its lavish formalism and intellectual austerity, the film manages to keep you at the edge of your seat with its shape-shifting perils, political intrigue and brushes with calamity.
-1 Friday After Next is the kind of film that could only be made by African-Americans because of its broad racial insensitivity towards African-Americans.
-1 As lively an account as Seinfeld is deadpan.
0  Brings awareness to an issue often overlooked -- women's depression.
-1 Imagine a film that begins as a Seven rip-off, only to switch to a mix of The Shining, The Thing, and any naked teenagers horror flick from the 1980s.
1  Definitely funny stuff, but it's more of the `laughing at' variety than the `laughing with.'
1  A heartening tale of small victories and enduring hope.
2  An emotionally strong and politically potent piece of cinema.
-2 An extremely unpleasant film.
-1 More intellectually scary than dramatically involving.
0  A puzzling experience.
0  Jonah is only so-so... the addition of a biblical message will either improve the film for you, or it will lessen it.
2  I hope the movie is widely seen and debated with appropriate ferocity and thoughtfulness.
2  Intelligent and moving.
-1 This film is too busy hitting all of its assigned marks to take on any life of its own.
0  Mark Wahlberg... may look classy in a '60s - homage pokepie hat, but as a character he's dry, dry, dry.
1  The moral shrapnel and mental shellshock will linger long after this film has ended.
0  As Warren he stumbles in search of all the emotions and life experiences he's neglected over the years.
-1 It should have stayed there.
-2 ... in the pile of useless actioners from MTV schmucks who don't know how to tell a story for more than four minutes.
-2 It is not the first time that director Sara Sugarman stoops to having characters drop their pants for laughs and not the last time she fails to provoke them.
-1 There's no point of view, no contemporary interpretation of Joan's prefeminist plight, so we're left thinking the only reason to make the movie is because present standards allow for plenty of nudity.
1  There is a strong directorial stamp on every frame of this stylish film that is able to visualize schizophrenia but is still confident enough to step back and look at the sick character with a sane eye.
2  Romantic, riveting and handsomely animated.
-2 This overproduced piece of dreck is shockingly bad and absolutely unnecessary.
-1 As saccharine as it is disposable.
2  Captures the raw comic energy of one of our most flamboyant female comics.
0  A subtle, poignant picture of goodness that is flawed, compromised and sad.
2  An exceptionally acted, quietly affecting cop drama.
-1 Even in the summertime, the most restless young audience deserves the dignity of an action hero motivated by something more than franchise possibilities.
2  Perfectly pitched between comedy and tragedy, hope and despair, About Schmidt instead comes far closer than many movies to expressing the way many of us live -- someplace between consuming self-absorption and insistently demanding otherness.
1  She nearly glows with enthusiasm, sensuality and a conniving wit.
1  Despite modest aspirations its occasional charms are not to be dismissed.
-1 So exaggerated and broad that it comes off as annoying rather than charming.
2  Strange, funny, twisted, brilliant and macabre.
-1 The film has the thrown-together feel of a summer-camp talent show: hastily written, underrehearsed, arbitrarily plotted and filled with crude humor and vulgar innuendo.
0  The cast comes through even when the movie doesn't.
1  A rock-solid gangster movie with a fair amount of suspense, intriguing characters and bizarre bank robberies, plus a heavy dose of father-and-son dynamics.
1  It's both degrading and strangely liberating to see people working so hard at leading lives of sexy intrigue, only to be revealed by the dispassionate Gantz brothers as ordinary, pasty lumpen.
0  Innocuous enough to make even Jean-Claude Van Damme look good.
-2 But if the essence of magic is its make-believe promise of life that soars above the material realm, this is the opposite of a truly magical movie.
-1 But its storytelling prowess and special effects are both listless.
2  I stopped thinking about how good it all was, and started doing nothing but reacting to it - feeling a part of its grand locations, thinking urgently as the protagonists struggled, feeling at the mercy of its inventiveness, gasping at its visual delights.
0  Newcomer helmer Kevin Donovan is hamstrung by a badly handled screenplay of what is really an amusing concept -- a high-tech tux that transforms its wearer into a superman.
-1 One Hour Photo may seem disappointing in its generalities, but it's the little nuances that perhaps had to escape from director Mark Romanek's self-conscious scrutiny to happen, that finally get under your skin.
0  With a confrontational stance, Todd Solondz takes aim on political correctness and suburban families.
-1 A processed comedy chop suey.
1  eventually arrives at its heart, as simple self-reflection meditation.
-1 Proves a lovely trifle that, unfortunately, is a little too in love with its own cuteness.
1  So purely enjoyable that you might not even notice it's a fairly straightforward remake of Hollywood comedies such as Father of the Bride.
2  An intelligent, multi-layered and profoundly humanist (not to mention gently political) meditation on the values of knowledge, education, and the affects of cultural and geographical displacement.
-2 I'm not sure which is worse: the poor acting by the ensemble cast, the flat dialogue by Vincent R. Nebrida or the gutless direction by Laurice Guillen.
2  A sexy, peculiar and always entertaining costume drama set in Renaissance Spain, and the fact that it's based on true events somehow makes it all the more compelling.
1  The Santa Clause 2 proves itself a more streamlined and thought out encounter than the original could ever have hoped to be.
-2 Goldmember has none of the visual wit of the previous pictures, and it looks as though Jay Roach directed the film from the back of a taxicab.
1  It's a sweet, laugh-a-minute crowd pleaser that lifts your spirits as well as the corners of your mouth.
1  Highly recommended as an engrossing story about a horrifying historical event and the elements which contributed to it.
-1 Goes on and on to the point of nausea.
0  (Raimi's) matured quite a bit with Spider-Man, even though it's one of the most plain white toast comic book films you'll ever see.
-1 It's about as convincing as any other Arnie musclefest, but has a little too much resonance with real world events and ultimately comes off as insultingly simplistic.
-1 An unbelievably stupid film, though occasionally fun enough to make you forget its absurdity.
1  In between the icy stunts, the actors spout hilarious dialogue about following your dream and `just letting the mountain tell you what to do.'
1  A modestly surprising movie.
2  ... a powerful sequel and one of the best films of the year.
1  Combines improbable melodrama (gored bullfighters, comatose ballerinas) with subtly kinky bedside vigils and sensational denouements, and yet at the end, we are undeniably touched.
1  This is one of Mr. Chabrol's subtlest works, but also one of his most uncanny.
0  This one is strictly a lightweight escapist film.
0  It's actually too sincere -- the crime movie equivalent of a chick flick.
-1 If the title is a Jeopardy question, then the answer might be ``How does Steven Seagal come across these days?''
-1 Unambitious writing emerges in the movie, using a plot that could have come from an animated-movie screenwriting textbook.
-1 Not that any of us should be complaining when a film clocks in around 90 minutes these days, but the plotting here leaves a lot to be desired.
1  There is a freedom to watching stunts that are this crude, this fast-paced and this insane.
-2 `This movie sucks.'
-1 Dignified CEO's meet at a rustic retreat and pee against a tree.
-1 A sugar-coated Rocky whose valuable messages are forgotten 10 minutes after the last trombone honks.
-1 The movie is too amateurishly square to make the most of its own ironic implications.
1  What sets this romantic comedy apart from most Hollywood romantic comedies is its low-key way of tackling what seems like done-to-death material.
2  The film's constant mood of melancholy and its unhurried narrative are masterfully controlled.
0  Barry Sonnenfeld owes Frank the Pug big time
0  One gets the impression the creators of Don't Ask Don't Tell laughed a hell of a lot at their own jokes.
-1 Schrader aims to present an unflinching look at one man's downfall, brought about by his lack of self-awareness.
-2 After that it becomes long and tedious like a classroom play in a college history course.
-1 Blue Crush follows the formula, but throws in too many conflicts to keep the story compelling.
1  A small gem of a movie that defies classification and is as thought-provoking as it is funny, scary and sad.
0  Somewhere in the middle, the film compels, as Demme experiments he harvests a few movie moment gems, but the field of roughage dominates.
-2 While the story is better-focused than the incomprehensible Anne Rice novel it's based upon, Queen Of The Damned is a pointless, meandering celebration of the goth-vampire, tortured woe-is-me lifestyle.
1  The color sense of Stuart Little 2 is its most immediate and most obvious pleasure, but it would count for very little if the movie weren't as beautifully shaped and as delicately calibrated in tone as it is.
0  Parts
1  In visual fertility Treasure Planet rivals the top Japanese animations of recent vintage.
-1 This toothless Dog, already on cable, loses all bite on the big screen.
-1 Make Chan's action sequences boring.
-1 It all comes down to whether you can tolerate Leon Barlow.
1  The Wild Thornberrys Movie has all the sibling rivalry and general family chaos to which anyone can relate.
2  Peralta captures, in luminous interviews and amazingly evocative film from three decades ago, the essence of the Dogtown experience.
-2 As the movie dragged on, I thought I heard a mysterious voice, and felt myself powerfully drawn toward the light -- the light of the exit sign.
1  Will certainly appeal to Asian cult cinema fans and Asiaphiles interested to see what all the fuss is about.
-1 Green ruins every single scene he's in, and the film, while it's not completely wreaked, is seriously compromised by that.
-1 Evokes the frustration, the awkwardness and the euphoria of growing up, without relying on the usual tropes.
2  Standing in the Shadows of Motown is the best kind of documentary, one that makes a depleted yesterday feel very much like a brand-new tomorrow.
1  This is a very ambitious project for a fairly inexperienced filmmaker, but good actors, good poetry and good music help sustain it.
1  A thriller whose style, structure and rhythms are so integrated with the story, you can not separate them.
1  It's mostly a pleasure to watch.
-1 The first question to ask about Bad Company is why Anthony Hopkins is in it.
0  Nair and writer Laura Cahill dare to build a movie around some flawed but rather unexceptional women, emerging with a fine character study that's short on plot but rich in the tiny revelations of real life.
2  Goofy, nutty, consistently funny.
2  Audiard successfully maintains suspense on different levels throughout a film that is both gripping and compelling.
1  Welles groupie/scholar Peter Bogdanovich took a long time to do it, but he's finally provided his own broadside at publishing giant William Randolph Hearst.
-1 The most excruciating 86 minutes one might sit through this summer that do not involve a dentist drill.
0  Skillful as he is, Mr. Shyamalan is undone by his pretensions.
0  Fans of so-bad-they're - good cinema may find some fun in this jumbled mess.
-2 We started to wonder if... some unpaid intern had just typed `Chris Rock,' `Anthony Hopkins' and `terrorists' into some Univac-like script machine.
2  Mostly works because of the universal themes, earnest performances... and excellent use of music by India's popular Gulzar and Jagjit Singh.
1  A perceptive, good-natured movie.
1  This isn't a stand up and cheer flick; it's a sit down and ponder affair.
0  One of the pleasures in Walter's documentary... is the parade of veteran painters, confounded dealers, and miscellaneous bohos who expound upon the subject's mysterious personality without ever explaining him.
-1 Adrift, Bentley and Hudson stare and sniffle, respectively, as Ledger attempts, in vain, to prove that movie-star intensity can overcome bad hair design.
0  The real charm of this trifle is the deadpan comic face of its star, Jean Reno, who resembles Sly Stallone in a hot sake half-sleep.
1  And there's an element of heartbreak to watching it now, with older and wiser eyes, because we know what will happen after Greene's story ends.
-1 Rather than real figures
1  By no means a great movie, but it is a refreshingly forthright one.
-1 Not just unlikable.
0  Show me the mugging.
1  Hashiguchi uses the situation to evoke a Japan bustling atop an undercurrent of loneliness and isolation.
2  It's a rollicking adventure for you and all your mateys, regardless of their ages.
0  The next big thing's not-so-big (and not-so-hot) directorial debut.
1  If you're content with a clever pseudo-bio that manages to have a good time as it doles out pieces of the famous director's life, Eisenstein delivers.
-1 Overly long and worshipful bio-doc.
2  A visual spectacle full of stunning images and effects.
1  There is something that is so meditative and lyrical about Babak Payami's boldly quirky Iranian drama Secret Ballot... a charming and evoking little ditty that manages to show the gentle and humane side of Middle Eastern world politics
0  It's easy to be cynical about documentaries in which underdogs beat the odds and the human spirit triumphs, but Westbrook's foundation and Dalrymple's film earn their uplift.
1  The difference is that I truly enjoyed most of Mostly Martha while I ne
0  I can't remember the last time I saw a movie where I wanted so badly for the protagonist to fail.
-1 Falsehoods pile up, undermining the movie's reality and stifling its creator's comic voice.
2  The early and middle passages are surprising in how much they engage and even touch us.
-1 Limps along on a squirm-inducing fish-out-of-water formula that goes nowhere and goes there very, very slowly.
0  A really funny fifteen-minute short stretched beyond its limits to fill an almost feature-length film.
2  Writer and director Otar Iosseliani's pleasant tale about a factory worker who escapes for a holiday in Venice reveals how we all need a playful respite from the grind to refresh our souls.
-2 A mechanical action-comedy whose seeming purpose is to market the charismatic Jackie Chan to even younger audiences.
-2 Chalk it up as the worst kind of hubristic folly.
0  Though Haynes' style apes films from the period... its message is not rooted in that decade.
0  But I do.
1  A compelling allegory about the last days of Germany's democratic Weimar Republic.
-1 Director Jay Russell stomps in hobnail boots over Natalie Babbitt's gentle, endearing 1975 children's novel.
0  It is an indelible epic American story about two families, one black and one white, facing change in both their inner and outer lives.
2  It's as raw and action-packed an experience as a ringside seat at a tough-man contest.
1  ... (the film) works, due mostly to the tongue-in-cheek attitude of the screenplay.
1  You walk out of The Good Girl with mixed emotions -- disapproval of Justine combined with a tinge of understanding for her actions.
0  The movie strains to stay on the light, comic side of the issue, despite the difficulty of doing so when dealing with the destruction of property and, potentially, of life itself.
-1 Unfortunately the story and the actors are served with a hack script.
-1 This is an insultingly inept and artificial examination of grief and its impacts upon the relationships of the survivors.
2  The immersive powers of the giant screen and its hyper-realistic images are put to perfect use in the breathtakingly beautiful outer-space documentary Space Station 3D.
-2 A tired, unnecessary retread... a stale copy of a picture that wasn't all that great to begin with.
-1 Its initial excitement settles into a warmed over pastiche.
2  Muccino, who directed from his own screenplay, is a canny crowd pleaser, and The Last Kiss... provides more than enough sentimental catharsis for a satisfying evening at the multiplex.
1  It challenges, this nervy oddity, like modern art should.
2  Read My Lips is to be viewed and treasured for its extraordinary intelligence and originality as well as its lyrical variations on the game of love.
2  An hour and a half of joyful solo performance.
1  Like its parade of predecessors, this Halloween is a gory slash-fest.
0  Better than the tepid Star Trek: Insurrection; falls short of First Contact because the villain couldn't pick the lint off Borg Queen Alice Krige's cape; and finishes half a parsec (a nose) ahead of Generations.
1  Exploits (headbanger) stereotypes in good fun, while adding a bit of heart and unsettling subject matter.
-2 It's just rather leaden and dull.
-1 Rice never clearly defines his characters or gives us a reason to care about them.
1  Although the subject matter may still be too close to recent national events, the film works - mostly due to its superior cast of characters.
1  A deeply felt and vividly detailed story about newcomers in a strange new world.
0  The film's darker moments become smoothed over by an overwhelming need to tender inspirational tidings, especially in the last few cloying moments.
1  From the opening strains of the Average White Band's ``Pick up the Pieces'', you can feel the love.
-1 Its impressive images of crematorium chimney fires and stacks of dead bodies are undermined by the movie's presentation, which is way too stagy.
1  Triple X is a double agent, and he's one bad dude.
1  There has been a string of ensemble cast romances recently... but Peter Mattei's Love in the Time of Money sets itself apart by forming a chain of relationships that come full circle to end on a positive (if tragic) note.
1  This is popcorn movie fun with equal doses of action, cheese, ham and cheek (as well as a serious debt to The Road Warrior), but it feels like unrealized potential
2  As an actress, Madonna is one helluva singer.
-1 Jaglom offers the none-too-original premise that everyone involved with moviemaking is a con artist and a liar.
1  The filmmakers' eye for detail and the high standards of performance convey a strong sense of the girls' environment.
0  It wraps up a classic mother/daughter struggle in recycled paper with a shiny new bow and while the audience can tell it's not all new, at least it looks pretty.
-2 or maybe ``How will you feel after an 88-minute rip-off of The Rock with action confined to slo-mo gun firing and random glass-shattering?''
1  Enough may pander to our basest desires for payback, but unlike many revenge fantasies, it ultimately delivers.
-1 How can such a cold movie claim to express warmth and longing?
0  Only at the prospect of Beck's next project.
2  ... a vivid, thoughtful, unapologetically raw coming-of-age tale full of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.
2  A bittersweet contemporary comedy about benevolent deception, which, while it may not rival the filmmaker's period pieces, is still very much worth seeing.
-2 Shankman... and screenwriter Karen Janszen bungle their way through the narrative as if it were a series of Bible parables and not an actual story.
1  They can and will turn on a dime from oddly humorous to tediously sentimental.
-2 It's a terrible movie in every regard, and utterly painful to watch.
-2 Why spend $ 9 on the same stuff you can get for a buck or so in that greasy little vidgame pit in the theater lobby?
1  Evokes the 19th century with a subtlety that is an object lesson in period filmmaking.
2  All three actresses are simply dazzling, particularly Balk, who's finally been given a part worthy of her considerable talents.
0  The beautiful, unusual music is this film's chief draw, but its dreaminess may lull you to sleep.
1  You may be captivated, as I was, by its moods, and by its subtly transformed star, and still wonder why Paul Thomas Anderson ever had the inclination to make the most sincere and artful movie in which Adam Sandler will probably ever appear.
-1 The only surprise is that heavyweights Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis agreed to produce this; I assume the director has pictures of them cavorting in ladies' underwear.
-1 Ver Wiel's desperate attempt at wit is lost, leaving the character of Critical Jim two-dimensional and pointless.
2  So vivid a portrait of a woman consumed by lust and love and crushed by betrayal that it conjures up the intoxicating fumes and emotional ghosts of a freshly painted Rembrandt.
-1 Cacoyannis' vision is far less mature, interpreting the play as a call for pity and sympathy for anachronistic phantasms haunting the imagined glory of their own pasts.
-2 In other words, it's badder than bad.
-2 Wedding feels a bit anachronistic.
-1 Dong never pushes for insights beyond the superficial tensions of the dynamic he's dissecting, and the film settles too easily along the contours of expectation.
-1 Little is done to support the premise other than fling gags at it to see which ones shtick.
2  Brings to a spectacular completion one of the most complex, generous and subversive artworks of the last decade.
1  With an obvious rapport with her actors and a striking style behind the camera
0  You can see where Big Bad Love is trying to go, but it never quite gets there.
-1 A sleek advert for youthful anomie that never quite equals the sum of its pretensions.
-1 Statham employs an accent that I think is supposed to be an attempt at hardass American but sometimes just lapses into unhidden British.
0  If A Few Good Men told us that we ``can't handle the truth'' than High Crimes poetically states at one point in this movie that we ``don't care about the truth.''
-2 So boring that even its target audience talked all the way through it.
0  Wiser souls would have tactfully pretended not to see it and left it lying there
-2 Rarely has sex on screen been so aggressively anti-erotic.
1  The Hours, a delicately crafted film, is an impressive achievement in spite of a river of sadness that pours into every frame.
1  Delivers roughly equal amounts of beautiful movement and inside information.
0  Showtime's starry cast could be both an asset and a detriment.
2  (Dong) makes a valiant effort to understand everyone's point of view, and he does such a good job of it that Family Fundamentals gets you riled up.
2  Light the candles, bring out the cake and don't fret about the calories because there's precious little substance in Birthday Girl -- it's simply, and surprisingly, a nice, light treat.
2  In his debut as a director, Washington has a sure hand.
2  -- but it makes for one of the most purely enjoyable and satisfying evenings at the movies I've had in a while.
0  This is not Chabrol's best, but even his lesser works outshine the best some directors can offer.
1  The heart of the film is a touching reflection on aging, suffering and the prospect of death.
2  It's a glorious spectacle like those D.W. Griffith made in the early days of silent film.
-1 The movie is undone by a filmmaking methodology that's just experimental enough to alienate the mainstream audience while ringing cliched to hardened indie-heads.
2  The year's greatest adventure, and Jackson's limited but enthusiastic adaptation has made literature literal without killing its soul -- a feat any thinking person is bound to appreciate.
0  If this movie leaves you cool, it also leaves you intriguingly contemplative.
1  When all is said and done, she loves them to pieces -- and so, I trust, will you.
1  It takes you somewhere you're not likely to have seen before, but beneath the exotic surface (and exotic dancing) it's surprisingly old-fashioned.
1  Director Claude Chabrol has become the master of innuendo.
1  Woven together handsomely, recalling sixties' rockumentary milestones from Lonely Boy to Don't Look Back.
-2 It's petty thievery like this that puts flimsy flicks like this behind bars
-1 Paul Cox needed to show it.
0  A film that will probably please people already fascinated by Behan but leave everyone else yawning with admiration.
1  The huskies are beautiful, the border collie is funny and the overall feeling is genial and decent.
-1 They ought to be a whole lot scarier than they are in this tepid genre offering.
1  moved
-2 Nearly every attempt at humor here is DOA.
0  A piquant meditation on the things that prevent people from reaching happiness.
2  This movie is to be cherished.
2  The Bard as black comedy -- Willie would have loved it.
-1 Too bland and fustily tasteful to be truly prurient.
2  While Tattoo borrows heavily from both Seven and The Silence of the Lambs, it manages to maintain both a level of sophisticated intrigue and human-scale characters that suck the audience in.
-1 Once he starts learning to compromise with reality enough to become comparatively sane and healthy, the film becomes predictably conventional.
1  The film is... determined to treat its characters, weak and strong, as fallible human beings, not caricatures, and to carefully delineate the cost of the inevitable conflicts between human urges and an institution concerned with self-preservation.
1  Even as it pays earnest homage to turntablists and beat jugglers, old schoolers and current innovators, Scratch is great fun, full of the kind of energy it's documenting.
-1 While it is interesting to witness the conflict from the Palestinian side, Longley's film lacks balance... and fails to put the struggle into meaningful historical context.
1  Producer John Penotti surveyed high school students... and came back with the astonishing revelation that ``they wanted to see something that didn't talk down to them.''
2  A real winner -- smart, funny, subtle, and resonant.
0  Ultimate X is a ride, basically the kind of greatest-hits reel that might come with a subscription to ESPN the Magazine.
0  Unfortunately, contrived plotting, stereotyped characters and Woo's over-the-top instincts as a director undermine the moral dilemma at the movie's heart.
2  Jones... makes a great impression as the writer-director of this little $ 1.8 million charmer, which may not be cutting-edge indie filmmaking but has a huge heart.
-2 Even a hardened voyeur would require the patience of Job to get through this interminable, shapeless documentary about the swinging subculture.
2  I'd watch these two together again in a New York minute.
-2 You can practically hear George Orwell turning over.
2  Ferrara's best film in years.
0  Possibly not since Grumpy Old Men have I heard a film so solidly connect with one demographic while striking out with another.
1  No doubt the star and everyone else involved had their hearts in the right place.
0  ... a visually seductive, unrepentantly trashy take on Rice's second installment of her Vampire Chronicles.
2  Poetry in motion captured on film.
-1 Pretend like your SAT scores are below 120 and you might not notice the flaws.
-1 None of Birthday Girl's calculated events take us by surprise...
-1 Twenty-three movies into a mostly magnificent directorial career, Clint Eastwood's efficiently minimalist style finally has failed him.
0  It's like a ``Big Chill'' reunion of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, only these guys are more harmless pranksters than political activists.
2  Ms. Hutchins is talented enough and charismatic enough to make us care about Zelda's ultimate fate.
1  Successfully blended satire, high camp and yet another sexual taboo into a really funny movie.
1  Really is a pan-American movie, with moments of genuine insight into the urban heart.
0  Same song, second verse, coulda been better, but it coulda been worse.
-1 The superior plotline isn't quite enough to drag along the dead (water) weight of the other.
0  Crikey indeed.
0  It's exactly what you'd expect.
-1 It's definitely not made for kids or their parents, for that matter, and I think even fans of Sandler's comic taste may find it uninteresting.
-2 You can not guess why the cast and crew didn't sign a pact to burn the negative and the script and pretend the whole thing never existed.
1  A stirring road movie.
1  If you've grown tired of going where no man has gone before, but several movies have - take heart.
1  It has more than a few moments that are insightful enough to be fondly remembered in the endlessly challenging maze of moviegoing.
-1 It just goes to show, an intelligent person isn't necessarily an admirable storyteller.
2  Perhaps the best sports movie I've ever seen.
-1 Just send it to Cranky.
-1 Steven Soderbergh doesn't remake Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris so much as distill it.
-1 Anyone who wants to start writing screenplays can just follow the same blueprint from hundreds of other films, sell it to the highest bidder and walk away without anyone truly knowing your identity.
-1 In theory, a middle-aged romance pairing Clayburgh and Tambor sounds promising, but in practice it's something else altogether -- clownish and offensive and nothing at all like real life.
-1 Works better in the conception than it does in the execution... winds up seeming just a little too clever.
0  New Yorkers always seem to find the oddest places to dwell...
-1 Vaguely interesting, but it's just too too much.
-1 With all the sympathy, empathy and pity fogging up the screen... His Secret Life enters the land of unintentional melodrama and tiresome love triangles.
-1 Van Wilder has a built-in audience, but only among those who are drying out from spring break and are still unconcerned about what they ingest.
-1 No, even that's too committed.
2  The large-frame IMAX camera lends itself beautifully to filming the teeming life on the reefs, making this gorgeous film a must for everyone from junior scientists to grown-up fish lovers.
-1 Low comedy doesn't come much lower.
-1 The characterizations and dialogue lack depth or complexity, with the ironic exception of Scooter.
1  dramatic snapshot
0  What we get... is Caddyshack crossed with the Loyal Order of Raccoons.
1  It'll keep you wide awake and... very tense.
-1 The movie is loaded with good intentions, but in his zeal to squeeze the action and our emotions into the all-too-familiar dramatic arc of the Holocaust escape story, Minac drains his movie of all individuality.
1  It may scream low budget, but this charmer has a spirit that can not be denied.
1  Less an examination of neo-Nazism than a probe into the nature of faith itself.
2  Though few will argue that it ranks with the best of Herzog's works, Invincible shows he's back in form, with an astoundingly rich film.
1  While it may not add up to the sum of its parts, Holofcener's film offers just enough insight to keep it from being simpleminded, and the ensemble cast is engaging enough to keep you from shifting in your chair too often.
1  There are no special effects, and no Hollywood endings.
-1 Despite Juliet Stevenon's attempt to bring cohesion to Pamela's emotional roller coaster life, it is not enough to give the film the substance it so desperately needs.
1  Not a schlocky creature feature but something far more stylish and cerebral -- and, hence, more chillingly effective.
2  From a deceptively simple premise, this deeply moving French drama develops a startling story that works both as a detailed personal portrait and as a rather frightening examination of modern times.
0  The movie is obviously a labour of love so Howard appears to have had free rein to be as pretentious as he wanted.
1  A stylish cast and some clever scripting solutions help Chicago make the transition from stage to screen with considerable appeal intact.
1  Fessenden's narrative is just as much about the ownership and redefinition of myth as it is about a domestic unit finding their way to joy.
1  It's a movie that accomplishes so much that one viewing can't possibly be enough.
2  You can sip your vintage wines and watch your Merchant Ivory productions; I'll settle for a nice cool glass of iced tea and a Jerry Bruckheimer flick any day of the week.
1  A quiet, disquieting triumph.
-2 A muddled limp biscuit of a movie, a vampire soap opera that doesn't make much sense even on its own terms.
0  It looks much more like a cartoon in the end than The Simpsons ever has.
1  Hugely accomplished slice of Hitchcockian suspense.
-1 A generic international version of a typical American horror film.
0  The result is good gossip, entertainingly delivered, yet with a distinctly musty odour, its expiry date long gone.
2  Just the labour involved in creating the layered richness of the imagery in this chiaroscuro of madness and light is astonishing.
1  Charlotte Sometimes is a gem.
1  Stage director Sam Mendes showcases Tom Hanks as a depression era hit-man in this dark tale of revenge.
1  Brady
-1 Upper Teens may get cynical.
1  A gift to anyone who loves both dance and cinema
1  A small movie with a big heart.
-1 Like a comedian who starts off promisingly but then proceeds to flop, Comedian runs out of steam after a half hour.
1  feeling to it, but like the 1920's, the trip there is a great deal of fun.
1  Essentially a collection of bits -- and they're all naughty.
-1 A cartoon?
0  Disney aficionados will notice distinct parallels between this story and the 1971 musical ``Bedknobs and Broomsticks,'' which also dealt with British children rediscovering the power of fantasy during wartime.
-1 These guys seem great to knock back a beer with but they're simply not funny performers.
-2 It's not a motion picture; it's an utterly static picture.
1  The Powerpuff Girls arrive on the big screen with their super-powers, their super-simple animation and their super-dooper-adorability intact.
-1 Coal isn't as easy to come by as it used to be and this would be a worthy substitute for naughty children's stockings.
1  I love the opening scenes of a wintry New York City in 1899.
1  If (Jaglom's) latest effort is not the director at his most sparkling, some of its repartee is still worth hearing.
0  It shares the first two films' loose-jointed structure, but laugh-out-loud bits are few and far between.
2  The movie is a trove of delights.
-1 With ``Ichi the Killer'', Takashi Miike, Japan's wildest filmmaker gives us a crime fighter carrying more emotional baggage than Batman...
0  Were it not for a sentimental resolution that explains way more about Cal than does the movie or the character any good, Freundlich's World Traveler might have been one of the more daring and surprising American movies of the year.
0  Thin period piece.
2  A well-executed spy-thriller.
0  The stripped-down dramatic constructs, austere imagery and abstract characters are equal parts poetry and politics, obvious at times but evocative and heartfelt.
1  ... the tale of her passionate, tumultuous affair with Musset unfolds as Sand's masculine persona, with its love of life and beauty, takes form.
-2 More of the same old garbage Hollywood has been trying to pass off as acceptable teen entertainment for some time now.
0  Strident and inelegant in its `message-movie' posturing.
1  In the affable Maid in Manhattan, Jennifer Lopez's most aggressive and most sincere attempt to take movies by storm, the diva shrewdly surrounds herself with a company of strictly A-list players.
1  Gives an intriguing twist to the French coming-of-age genre.
1  I'd be lying if I said my ribcage didn't ache by the end of Kung Pow.
1  Has the capability of effecting change and inspiring hope.
-2 Kitschy, flashy, overlong soap opera.
-1 White hasn't developed characters so much as caricatures, one-dimensional buffoons that get him a few laughs but nothing else.
-1 ... one resurrection too many.
-2 Execrable.
1  It may be a no-brainer, but at least it's a funny no-brainer.
1  I liked the movie, but I know I would have liked it more if it had just gone that one step further.
1  (Allen's) best works understand why snobbery is a better satiric target than middle-America diversions could ever be.
-1 It gives poor Dana Carvey nothing to do that is really funny, and then expects us to laugh because he acts so goofy all the time.
0  Bernal and
0  An ambitious and moving but bleak film.
1  If cinema had been around to capture the chaos of France in the 1790's, one imagines the result would look like something like this.
1  Slight but enjoyable documentary.
0  Did the film inform and educate me?
-1 If you are curious to see the darker side of what's going on with young TV actors (Dawson Leery did what?!?), or see some interesting storytelling devices, you might want to check it out, but there's nothing very attractive about this movie.
0  At the end of the movie, my 6-year-old nephew said, ``I guess I come from a broken family, and my uncles are all aliens, too.''
0  All the actors are good in Pauline & Paulette but van der Groen, described as `Belgium's national treasure,' is especially terrific as Pauline.
0  Curling may be a unique sport but Men with Brooms is distinctly ordinary.
1  `Yes, that's right: it's Forrest Gump, Angel Of Death.'
1  Metaphors abound, but it is easy to take this film at face value and enjoy its slightly humorous and tender story.
-1 Comes across as a fairly weak retooling.
-1 This Orange has some juice, but it's far from fresh-squeezed.
1  By not averting his eyes, Solondz forces us to consider the unthinkable, the unacceptable, the unmentionable.
1  A remarkably alluring film set in the constrictive Eisenhower era about one suburban woman's yearning in the face of a loss that shatters her cheery and tranquil suburban life.
-1 Ultimately this is a frustrating patchwork: an uneasy marriage of Louis Begley's source novel (About Schmidt) and an old Payne screenplay.
-1 The movie is like a year late for tapping into our reality tv obsession, and even tardier for exploiting the novelty of the ``webcast.''
-1 Chai's structure and pacing are disconcertingly slack.
0  Or else a doggie winks.
1  You needn't be steeped in '50s sociology, pop culture or movie lore to appreciate the emotional depth of Haynes' work.
0  Decasia is what has happened already to so many silent movies, newsreels and the like.
2  More than anything else, Kissing Jessica Stein injects freshness and spirit into the romantic comedy genre, which has been held hostage by generic scripts that seek to remake Sleepless in Seattle again and again.
1  Fast and funny, an action cartoon that's suspenseful enough for older kids but not too scary for the school-age crowd.
0  After all the big build-up, the payoff for the audience, as well as the characters, is messy, murky, unsatisfying.
2  Not only better than its predecessor, it may rate as the most magical and most fun family fare of this or any recent holiday season.
0  Once again, the intelligence of gay audiences has been grossly underestimated, and a meaty plot and well-developed characters have been sacrificed for skin and flash that barely fizzle.
-1 A film without surprise geared toward maximum comfort and familiarity.
1  Definitely a crowd-pleaser, but then, so was the Roman Colosseum.
1  Here is a VH1 Behind the Music special that has something a little more special behind it: music that didn't sell many records but helped change a nation.
2  Kids will love its fantasy and adventure, and grownups should appreciate its whimsical humor.
-1 After all, he took three minutes of dialogue, 30 seconds of plot and turned them into a 90-minute movie that feels five hours long.
-2 Interminably bleak, to say nothing of boring.
2  A naturally funny film, Home Movie makes you crave Chris Smith's next movie.
2  The Bai brothers have taken an small slice of history and opened it up for all of us to understand, and they've told a nice little story in the process.
0  A Meatballs for the bare-midriff generation.
-2 This movie is about the worst thing Chan has done in the United States.
1  Maintains your interest until the end and even leaves you with a few lingering animated thoughts.
1  From blushing to gushing -- Imamura squirts the screen in `Warm Water Under a Red Bridge'
0  Entertainment more disposable than Hanna-Barbera's half-hour cartoons ever were.
-1 The beautiful images and solemn words can not disguise the slack complacency of (Godard's) vision, any more than the gorgeous piano and strings on the soundtrack can drown out the tinny self-righteousness of his voice.
-1 Were Dylan Thomas alive to witness first-time director Ethan Hawke's strained Chelsea Walls, he might have been tempted to change his landmark poem to, `Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Theatre.'
1  Affirms the gifts of all involved, starting with Spielberg and going right through the ranks of the players -- on-camera and off -- that he brings together.
0  A somewhat disappointing and meandering saga.
-1 It's in the action scenes that things fall apart.
-2 There's no palpable chemistry between Lopez and male lead Ralph Fiennes, plus the script by Working Girl scribe Kevin Wade is workmanlike in the extreme.
-1 A cleverly crafted but ultimately hollow mockumentary.
-1 The uneven movie does have its charms and its funny moments but not quite enough of them.
-1 An unintentionally surreal kid's picture... in which actors in bad bear suits enact a sort of inter-species parody of a VH1 Behind the Music episode.
0  It will break your heart many times over.
-1 This is as lax and limp a comedy as I've seen in a while, a meander through worn-out material.
-1 It's both sitcomishly predictable and cloying in its attempts to be poignant.
-1 Though this rude and crude film does deliver a few gut-busting laughs, its digs at modern society are all things we've seen before.
-1 (A) mess.
-2 A work that lacks both a purpose and a strong pulse.
1  The sword fighting is well done and Auteuil is a goofy pleasure.
-1 a stereotype
2  The IMAX screen enhances the personal touch of manual animation.
0  Kaufman and Jonze take huge risks to ponder the whole notion of passion -- our desire as human beings for passion in our lives and the emptiness one feels when it is missing.
1  God bless Crudup and his aversion to taking the easy Hollywood road and cashing in on his movie-star gorgeousness.
-1 Is it a comedy?
1  Unlike most surf movies, Blue Crush thrillingly uses modern technology to take the viewer inside the wave.
1  The best part about ``Gangs'' was Daniel Day-Lewis.
1  Waiting for Godard can be fruitful: `In Praise of Love' is the director's epitaph for himself.
1  An edgy thriller that delivers a surprising punch.
-1 The movie would seem less of a trifle if Ms. Sugarman followed through on her defiance of the saccharine.
-2 `The War of the Roses,' trailer-trash style.
2  The result is a powerful, naturally dramatic piece of low-budget filmmaking.
-2 A fifty car pileup of cliches.
-1 Whole stretches of the film may be incomprehensible to moviegoers not already clad in basic black.
-2 ... pitiful, slapdash disaster.
2  Charlotte Sometimes is a brilliant movie.
0  You end up simply admiring this bit or that, this performance or that.
2  Godard has never made a more sheerly beautiful film than this unexpectedly moving meditation on love, history, memory, resistance and artistic transcendence.
-2 An erotic thriller that's neither too erotic nor very thrilling, either.
1  Carrying off a spot-on Scottish burr, Duvall (also a producer) peels layers from this character that may well not have existed on paper.
0  A solid piece of journalistic work that draws a picture of a man for whom political expedience became a deadly foreign policy.
2  Hopkins, squarely fills the screen.
-2 Irwin and his director never come up with an adequate reason why we should pay money for what we can get on television for free.
0  Everything its title implies, a standard-issue crime drama spat out from the Tinseltown assembly line.
1  Unfolds as one of the most politically audacious films of recent decades from any country, but especially from France.
-2 ``Abandon'' will leave you wanting to abandon the theater.
1  Probably the best case for Christianity since Chesterton and Lewis.
-2 Before long, you're desperate for the evening to end.
0  It's all a rather shapeless good time...
-2 Feels more like a rejected X-Files episode than a credible account of a puzzling real-life happening.
-2 No amount of good intentions is able to overcome the triviality of the story.
2  (Ramsay) visually transforms the dreary expanse of dead-end distaste the characters inhabit into a poem of art, music and metaphor.
-1 The film has (its) moments, but they are few and far between.
1  ... a sweetly affecting story about four sisters who are coping, in one way or another, with life's endgame.
0  A disturbing examination of what appears to be the definition of a `bad' police shooting.
-2 Distances you by throwing out so many red herrings, so many false scares, that the genuine ones barely register.
0  Almost.
-2 Every sequel you skip will be two hours gained.
-1 Been there done that.
0  They exist for hushed lines like ``They're back!''
1  Somehow Ms. Griffiths and Mr. Pryce bring off this wild Welsh whimsy.
-1 The densest distillation of Roberts' movies ever made.
-2 Lots of effort and intelligence are on display but in execution it is all awkward, static, and lifeless rumblings.
2  This is one of the outstanding thrillers of recent years.
-1 Consider the film a celluloid litmus test for the intellectual and emotional pedigree of your date and a giant step backward for a director I admire.
1  The subtitled costume drama is set in a remote African empire before cell phones, guns, and the internal combustion engine, but the politics that thump through it are as timely as tomorrow.
0  Opening with some contrived banter, cliches and some loose ends, the screenplay only comes into its own in the second half.
2  A captivating new film.
0  If you adored The Full Monty so resoundingly that you're dying to see the same old thing in a tired old setting, then this should keep you reasonably entertained.
1  Worth catching for Griffiths' warm and winning central performance.
-1 Sorvino makes the princess seem smug and cartoonish, and the film only really comes alive when poor Hermocrates and Leontine pathetically compare notes about their budding amours.
0  While this has the making of melodrama, the filmmaker cuts against this natural grain, producing a work that's more interested in asking questions than in answering them.
1  Davis is funny, charming and quirky in her feature film acting debut as Amy.
-2 An uncomfortable movie, suffocating and sometimes almost senseless, The Grey Zone does have a center, though a morbid one.
-1 The lousy John Q all but spits out Denzel Washington's fine performance in the title role.
-2 So devoid of pleasure or sensuality that it can not even be dubbed hedonistic.
1  Satin Rouge is not a new, or inventive, journey, but it's encouraging to see a three-dimensional, average, middle-aged woman's experience of self-discovery handled with such sensitivity.
1  A pointed, often tender, examination of the pros and cons of unconditional love and familial duties.
1  Another trumpet blast that there may be a New Mexican Cinema a-bornin'.'
-1 Gorgeous to look at but insufferably tedious and turgid... a curiously constricted epic.
-1 Only about as sexy and dangerous as an actress in a role that reminds at every turn of Elizabeth Berkley's flopping dolphin-gasm.
-1 Their contrast is neither dramatic nor comic -- it's just a weird fizzle.
-2 Collateral Damage is trash, but it earns extra points by acting as if it weren't.
0  When you think you've figured out Bielinsky's great game, that's when you're in the most trouble: He's the con, and you're just the mark.
2  Swimming is above all about a young woman's face, and by casting an actress whose face projects that woman's doubts and yearnings, it succeeds.
0  It's packed to bursting with incident, and with scores of characters, some fictional, some from history.
0  You want to call Domino's.
0  The umpteenth summer skinny dip in Jerry Bruckheimer's putrid pond of retread action twaddle.
1  ``the road paved with good intentions leads to the video store''
1  Chris Columbus' sequel is faster, livelier and a good deal funnier than his original.
-1 Full of flatulence jokes and mild sexual references, Kung Pow!
0  The whole affair is as predictable as can be.
1  The film is a very good viewing alternative for young women.
1  To those who have not read the book, the film is a much better mother-daughter tale than last summer's `Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,' but that's not saying much.
1  But it also has many of the things that made the first one charming.
0  Sheridan
1  This slight premise... works because of the ideal casting of the masterful British actor Ian Holm as the aged Napoleon.
1  But never mind all that; the boobs are fantasti
1  About Schmidt is Nicholson's goofy, heartfelt, mesmerizing King Lear.
-1 It is most of the things Costner movies are known for; it's sanctimonious, self-righteous and so eager to earn our love that you want to slap it.
2  This is a very funny, heartwarming film.
1  It's a piece of handiwork that shows its indie tatters and self-conscious seams in places, but has some quietly moving moments and an intelligent subtlety.
2  I was amused and entertained by the unfolding of Bielinsky's cleverly constructed scenario, and greatly impressed by the skill of the actors involved in the enterprise.
1  For most of the distance the picture provides a satisfyingly unsettling ride into the dark places of our national psyche.
-1 With very little to add beyond the dark visions already relayed by superb recent predecessors like Swimming With Sharks and The Player, this latest skewering... may put off insiders and outsiders alike.
-1 Being unique doesn't necessarily equate to being good, no matter how admirably the filmmakers have gone for broke.
0  The respective charms of Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant have worn threadbare.
-1 Like the Hanks character, he's a slow study: The action is stilted and the tabloid energy embalmed.
1  ... enthusiastically invokes the percussion rhythm, the brass soul and the sense of fierce competition that helps make great marching bands half the fun of college football games.
1  What's invigorating about it is that it doesn't give a damn.
0  Cacoyannis is perhaps too effective in creating an atmosphere of dust-caked stagnation and labored gentility.
1  An entertaining, if ultimately minor, thriller.
1  The real star of this movie is the score, as in the songs translate well to film, and it's really well directed.
0  Punitively affirmational parable.
-1 Demme finally succeeds in diminishing his stature from Oscar-winning master to lowly studio hack.
1  Horrid little propaganda film with fascinating connections not only to the Serbs themselves but also to a network of American right-wing extremists.
1  Star/producer Salma Hayek and director Julie Taymor have infused Frida with a visual style unique and inherent to the titular character's paintings and in the process created a masterful work of art of their own.
1  This one is not nearly as dreadful as expected.
-1 But... in trying to capture the novel's deeper intimate resonances, the film has -- ironically - distanced us from the characters.
1  Real Women Have Curves wears its empowerment on its sleeve but even its worst harangues are easy to swallow thanks to remarkable performances by Ferrera and Ontiveros.
-1 There's a whole heap of nothing at the core of this slight coming-of-age/coming-out tale.
2  A sensitive, moving, brilliantly constructed work.
0  It pulls the rug out from under you, just when you're ready to hate one character, or really sympathize with another character, something happens to send you off in different direction.
2  The art direction is often exquisite, and the anthropomorphic animal characters are beautifully realized through clever makeup design, leaving one to hope that the eventual DVD release will offer subtitles and the original Italian-language soundtrack.
-2 It's probably not easy to make such a worthless film...
1  The creative animation work may not look as fully `rendered' as Pixar's industry standard, but it uses lighting effects and innovative backgrounds to an equally impressive degree.
0  An often unfunny romp.
0  It makes sense that he went back to school to check out the girls -- his film is a frat boy's idea of a good time.
0  Clever but not especially compelling.
-1 An EXIT sign, that is.
0  It's an actor's showcase that accomplishes its primary goal without the use of special effects, but rather by emphasizing the characters -- including the supporting ones.
2  The Emperor's Club, ruthless in its own placid way, finds one of our most conservative and hidebound movie-making traditions and gives it new texture, new relevance, new reality.
-1 ... if it had been only half-an-hour long or a TV special, the humor would have been fast and furious -- at ninety minutes, it drags.
1  Its compelling mix of trial movie, escape movie and unexpected fable ensures the film never feels draggy.
-1 It drowns in sap.
0  `Rare Birds' tries to force its quirkiness upon the audience.
2  A solid and refined piece of moviemaking imbued with passion and attitude.
1  ``Red Dragon'' never cuts corners.
0  modeled
-1 Alternative medicine obviously has its merits... but Ayurveda does the field no favors.
-1 Bland but harmless.
-1 Viewers are asked so often to suspend belief that were it not for Holm's performance, the film would be a total washout.
-1 A small fortune in salaries and stunt cars might have been saved if the director, Tom Dey, had spliced together bits and pieces of Midnight Run and 48 Hours (and, for that matter, Shrek).
1  It's good to see Michael Caine whipping out the dirty words and punching people in the stomach again.
-1 No Such Thing breaks no new ground and treads old turf like a hippopotamus ballerina.
1  The film exudes the urbane sweetness that Woody Allen seems to have bitterly forsaken.
-1 The script is a dim-witted pairing of teen-speak and animal gibberish.
1  Cedar somewhat defuses this provocative theme by submerging it in a hoary love triangle.
-2 What might have emerged as hilarious lunacy in the hands of Woody Allen or Mel Brooks (at least during their '70s heyday) comes across as lame and sophomoric in this debut indie feature.
-2 I have not been this disappointed by a movie in a long time.
-2 There's not a comedic moment in this romantic comedy.
-1 I admire it and yet can not recommend it, because it overstays its natural running time.
1  There's plenty to enjoy -- in no small part thanks to Lau.
-1 Action - mechanical.
-1 None of this is half as moving as the filmmakers seem to think.
-2 An incredibly irritating comedy about thoroughly vacuous people... manages to embody the worst excesses of nouvelle vague without any of its sense of fun or energy.
-1 Wait to see it then.
-2 None of this is very original, and it isn't particularly funny.
0  -- was a fad that had long since vanished.
-1 An uneasy mix of run-of-the-mill raunchy humor and seemingly sincere personal reflection.
-1 Should have been worth cheering as a breakthrough but is devoid of wit and humor.
0  I found myself more appreciative of what the director was trying to do than of what he had actually done.
0  is clever enough, though thin writing proves its undoing.
-1 Stone seems to have a knack for wrapping the theater in a cold blanket of urban desperation.
-2 Done in mostly by a weak script that can't support the epic treatment.
-1 The whole thing plays like a tired Tyco ad.
-1 That's muy loco, but no more ridiculous than most of the rest of ``Dragonfly.''
0  Solondz creates some effective moments of discomfort for character and viewer alike.
-1 Includes too much obvious padding.
0  Well, they're `they'.
-1 Any attempts at nuance given by the capable cast is drowned out by director Jon Purdy's sledgehammer sap.
2  (A) wonderfully loopy tale of love, longing, and voting.
-1 The characters, cast in impossibly contrived situations, are totally estranged from reality.
1  For every cheesy scene, though, there is a really cool bit -- the movie's conception of a future-world holographic librarian (Orlando Jones) who knows everything and answers all questions, is visually smart, cleverly written, and nicely realized.
2  The mark of a respectable summer blockbuster is one of two things: unadulterated thrills or genuine laughs.
0  As a hybrid teen thriller and murder mystery, Murder by Numbers fits the profile too closely.
1  Alternately frustrating and rewarding.
0  I highly recommend Irwin, but not in the way this film showcases him.
-1 It's hard to believe that something so short could be so flabby.
2  Anyone who welcomes a dash of the avant-garde fused with their humor should take pleasure in this crazed, joyous romp of a film.
-1 It merely indulges in the worst elements of all of them.
-1 -- that the `true story' by which All the Queen's Men is allegedly ``inspired'' was a lot funnier and more deftly enacted than what's been cobbled together onscreen.
0  Interesting, but not compelling.
1  ``Catch Me'' feels capable of charming the masses with star power, a pop-induced score and sentimental moments that have become a Spielberg trademark.
0  An enigmatic film that's too clever for its own good, it's a conundrum not worth solving.
1  The fascination comes in the power of the Huston performance, which seems so larger than life and yet so fragile, and in the way the Ivan character accepts the news of his illness so quickly but still finds himself unable to react.
0  Eh.
-2 Highly uneven and inconsistent... Margarita Happy Hour kinda resembles the el cheapo margaritas served within.
0  The film tries to touch on spousal abuse but veers off course and becomes just another revenge film.
1  (Stephen) Earnhart's film is more about the optimism of a group of people who are struggling to give themselves a better lot in life than the ones they currently have.
-1 Glizty but formulaic and silly... Cagney's `top of the world' has been replaced by the bottom of the barrel.
-1 Queen of the Damned as you might have guessed, makes sorry use of Aaliyah in her one and only starring role -- she does little here but point at things that explode into flame.
2  The modern master of the chase sequence returns with a chase to end all chases
0  into Scrooge.
-1 A sub-formulaic slap in the face to seasonal cheer.
-1 A baffling mixed platter of gritty realism and magic realism with a hard-to-swallow premise.
-1 (I) t's certainly laudable that the movie deals with hot-button issues in a comedic context, but Barbershop isn't as funny as it should be.
1  But once the falcon arrives in the skies above Manhattan, the adventure is on red alert.
0  All the filmmakers are asking of us, is to believe in something that is improbable.
2  A fascinating literary mystery story with multiple strands about the controversy of who really wrote Shakespeare's plays.
-2 My own minority report is that it stinks.
-1 Unless there are zoning ordinances to protect your community from the dullest science fiction, Impostor is opening today at a theater near you.
-1 A handsome but unfulfilling suspense drama more suited to a quiet evening on PBS than a night out at an AMC.
-2 Not only are the film's Sopranos gags incredibly dated and unfunny, they also demonstrate how desperate the makers of this `we're - doing-it-for - the-cash' sequel were.
-1 To the vast majority of more casual filmgoers, it will probably be a talky bore.
2  finely crafted, finely written, exquisitely performed
0  There's no real reason to see it, and no real reason not to.
0  (Crystal and De Niro) manage to squeeze out some good laughs but not enough to make this silly con job sing.
-2 Master of Disguise runs for only 71 minutes and feels like three hours.
2  ... a delightfully unpredictable, hilarious comedy with wonderful performances that tug at your heart in ways that utterly transcend gender labels.
1  It doesn't matter that the film is less than 90 minutes.
0  Don't hate El Crimen del Padre Amaro because it's anti-Catholic.
1  The new Insomnia is a surprisingly faithful remake of its chilly predecessor, and when it does elect to head off in its own direction, it employs changes that fit it well rather than ones that were imposed for the sake of commercial sensibilities.
1  Its sheer dynamism is infectious.
0  Troll the cult section of your local video store for the real deal.
-2 Bears is even worse than I imagined a movie ever could be.
-2 Crush could be the worst film a man has made about women since Valley of the Dolls.
-1 With McConaughey in an entirely irony-free zone and Bale reduced mainly to batting his sensitive eyelids, there's not enough intelligence, wit or innovation on the screen to attract and sustain an older crowd.
-1 A light, engaging comedy that fumbles away almost all of its accumulated enjoyment with a crucial third act miscalculation.
-1 They presume their audience won't sit still for a sociology lesson, however entertainingly presented, so they trot out the conventional science-fiction elements of bug-eyed monsters and futuristic women in skimpy clothes.
-1 It doesn't offer audiences any way of gripping what its point is, or even its attitude toward its subject.
-1 A loquacious and dreary piece of business.
-1 Blue Crush is as predictable as the tides.
1  waydowntown manages to nail the spirit-crushing ennui of denuded urban living without giving in to it.
-1 Disturbing.
1  But it's defiantly and delightfully against the grain.
1  A compelling coming-of-age drama about the arduous journey of a sensitive young girl through a series of foster homes and a fierce struggle to pull free from her dangerous and domineering mother's hold over her.
1  Strange it is, but delightfully so.
-1 A clash between the artificial structure of the story and the more contemporary, naturalistic tone of the film...
2  Jagger, Stoppard and director Michael Apted... deliver a riveting and surprisingly romantic ride.
1  If the material is slight and admittedly manipulative, Jacquot preserves Tosca's intoxicating ardor through his use of the camera.
-1 (A) slummer.
-1 Ultimately, in the history of the Academy, people may be wondering what all that jazz was about ``Chicago'' in 2002.
-1 The direction occasionally rises to the level of marginal competence, but for most of the film it is hard to tell who is chasing who or why.
-2 For a story set at sea, Ghost Ship is pretty landbound, with its leaden acting, dull exposition and telegraphed `surprises.'
-2 On its icy face, the new film is a subzero version of Monsters, Inc., without the latter's imagination, visual charm or texture.
0  The 1960s rebellion was misdirected: you can't fight your culture.
-1 Millions of dollars heaped upon a project of such vast proportions need to reap more rewards than spiffy bluescreen technique and stylish weaponry.
1  Family portrait of need, neurosis and nervy negativity is a rare treat that shows the promise of digital filmmaking.
2  A poignant and gently humorous parable that loves its characters and communicates something rather beautiful about human nature.
0  Smug, artificial, ill-constructed and fatally overlong... it never finds a consistent tone and lacks bite, degenerating into a pious, preachy soap opera.
2  Charlie Hunnam has the twinkling eyes, repressed smile and determined face needed to carry out a Dickensian hero.
2  Measured against practically any like-themed film other than its Oscar-sweeping franchise predecessor The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon rates as an exceptional thriller.
-1 Watching a Brian DePalma movie is like watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie after drinking twelve beers.
-2 Guy gets girl, guy loses girl, audience falls asleep.
-1 ... this story gets sillier, not scarier, as it goes along...
0  You can thank me for this.
-1 Despite its Hawaiian setting, the science-fiction trimmings and some moments of rowdy slapstick, the basic plot of ``Lilo'' could have been pulled from a tear-stained vintage Shirley Temple script.
2  Reassuring, retro uplifter.
-1 An alternately raucous and sappy ethnic sitcom... you'd be wise to send your regrets.
1  The sheer joy and pride they took in their work -- and in each other -- shines through every frame.
1  Filmmaker Stacy Peralta has a flashy editing style that doesn't always jell with Sean Penn's monotone narration, but he respects the material without sentimentalizing it.
-2 The nonstop artifice ultimately proves tiresome, with the surface histrionics failing to compensate for the paper-thin characterizations and facile situations.
-1 TV skit-com material fervently deposited on the big screen.
-2 Is there a group of more self-absorbed women than the mother and daughters featured in this film?
0  Lohman adapts to the changes required of her, but the actress and director Peter Kosminsky never get the audience to break through the wall her character erects
0  The wonderful combination of the sweetness and the extraordinary technical accomplishments of the first film are maintained, but its overall impact falls a little flat with a storyline that never quite delivers the original magic.
1  Although commentary on Nachtwey is provided... it's the image that really tells the tale.
-1 Everyone's to blame here.
1  Instead, she sees it as a chance to revitalize what is and always has been remarkable about clung-to traditions.
1  the film belongs to the marvelous Verdu, a sexy slip of an earth mother who mourns her tragedies in private and embraces life in public
1  Assured, glossy and shot through with brittle desperation.
-1 Those who are only mildly curious, I fear, will be put to sleep or bewildered by the artsy and often pointless visuals.
-2 What ultimately makes Windtalkers a disappointment is the superficial way it deals with its story.
2  At least it's a fairly impressive debut from the director, Charles Stone III.
-2 Instead, it'll only put you to sleep.
1  The evocative imagery and gentle, lapping rhythms of this film are infectious -- it gets under our skin and draws us in long before the plot kicks into gear.
2  Not only is it a charming, funny and beautifully crafted import, it uses very little dialogue, making it relatively effortless to read and follow the action at the same time.
-2 Truly terrible.
2  LaBute masterfully balances both Traditional or Modern stories together in a manner that one never overwhelms the other.
-1 Perry's good and his is an interesting character, but ``Serving Sara'' hasn't much more to serve than silly fluff.
-1 Anemic, pretentious.
0  If the very concept makes you nervous... you'll have an idea of the film's creepy, scary effectiveness.
-1 Watchable up until the point where the situations and the dialogue spin hopelessly out of control -- that is to say, when Carol Kane appears on the screen.
-1 There might be some sort of credible gender-provoking philosophy submerged here, but who the hell cares?
-1 ``(Hopkins) doesn't so much phone in his performance as fax it.
-1 The film is a confusing melange of tones and styles, one moment a romantic trifle and the next a turgid drama.
2  The film is one of the year's best.
1  A buoyant romantic comedy about friendship, love, and the truth that we're all in this together.
2  Davis... gets vivid performances from her cast and pulls off some deft Ally McBeal-style fantasy sequences.
0  The Sundance Film Festival has become so buzz-obsessed that fans and producers descend upon Utah each January to ferret out The Next Great Thing.
2  One of the most slyly exquisite anti-adult movies ever made.
2  What a bewilderingly brilliant and entertaining movie this is.
0  The film will appeal to Discovery Channel fans and will surely widen the perspective of those of us who see the continent through rose-colored glasses.
2  Matthew Lillard is born to play Shaggy!
2  Light, silly, photographed with colour and depth, and rather a good time.
2  ... is funny in the way that makes you ache with sadness (the way Chekhov is funny), profound without ever being self-important, warm without ever succumbing to sentimentality.
-1 Ultimately too repellent to fully endear itself to American art house audiences, but it is notable for its stylistic austerity and forcefulness.
-1 In between all the emotional seesawing, it's hard to figure the depth of these two literary figures, and even the times in which they lived.
0  The combination of lightness and strictness in this instance gives Italian for Beginners an amiable aimlessness that keeps it from seeming predictably formulaic.
1  Continually challenges perceptions of guilt and innocence, of good guys and bad, and asks us whether a noble end can justify evil means.
1  Good-naturedly cornball sequel.
1  Moonlight Mile doesn't quite go the distance but the cast is impressive and they all give life to these broken characters who are trying to make their way through this tragedy.
-1 And that is where Ararat went astray.
-2 The documentary is much too conventional -- lots of boring talking heads, etc. -- to do the subject matter justice.
1  Discursive but oddly riveting documentary.
-1 This feature is about as necessary as a hole in the head
1  This movie got me grinning.
0  The film virtually chokes on its own self-consciousness.
-1 One of the most plain, unimaginative romantic comedies I've ever seen.
1  The rare Imax movie that you'll wish was longer than an hour.
-1 `Matrix' - style massacres erupt throughout... but the movie has a tougher time balancing its violence with Kafka-inspired philosophy.
2  Elegantly produced and expressively performed, the six musical numbers crystallize key plot moments into minutely detailed wonders of dreamlike ecstasy.
1  This filmed Tosca -- not the first, by the way -- is a pretty good job, if it's filmed Tosca that you want.
0  Lavishly, exhilaratingly tasteless.
1  Would be an unendurable viewing experience for this ultra-provincial New Yorker if 26-year-old Reese Witherspoon were not on hand to inject her pure fantasy character, Melanie Carmichael, with a massive infusion of old-fashioned Hollywood magic.
-1 Richard Pryor mined his personal horrors and came up with a treasure chest of material, but Lawrence gives us mostly fool's gold.
0  The thing looks like a made-for-home-video quickie.
-1 This slender plot feels especially thin stretched over the nearly 80-minute running time.
1  Reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, most of the scary parts in `Signs' occur while waiting for things to happen.
-1 The Merchant-Ivory team continues to systematically destroy everything we hold dear about cinema, only now it's begun to split up so that it can do even more damage.
-1 It's a bad sign in a thriller when you instantly know whodunit.
1  As a thoughtful and unflinching examination of an alternative lifestyle, Sex with Strangers is a success.
-1 A cockeyed shot all the way.
-1 Befuddled in its characterizations as it begins to seem as long as the two year affair which is its subject
-2 Press the delete key.
-2 The plot is paper-thin and the characters aren't interesting enough to watch them go about their daily activities for two whole hours.
1  The best movie in many a moon about the passions that sometimes fuel our best achievements and other times leave us stranded with nothing more than our lesser appetites.
1  I like that Smith, he's not making fun of these people, he's not laughing at them.
0  At its best when the guarded, resentful Betty and the manipulative yet needy Margot are front and center.
1  Director Tom Dey demonstrated a knack for mixing action and idiosyncratic humor in his charming 2000 debut Shanghai Noon, but Showtime's uninspired send-up of TV cop show cliches mostly leaves him shooting blanks.
0  I won't argue with anyone who calls `Slackers' dumb, insulting, or childish... but I laughed so much that I didn't mind.
2  Sparkling, often hilarious romantic jealousy comedy... Attal looks so much like a young Robert DeNiro that it seems the film should instead be called `My Husband Is Travis Bickle'.
1  It throws quirky characters, odd situations, and off-kilter dialogue at us, all as if to say, ``Look at this!
-2 A surprisingly flat retread, hobbled by half-baked setups and sluggish pacing.
-2 It's hard to understand why anyone in his right mind would even think to make the attraction a movie.
0  aside from showing us in explicit detail how difficult it is to win over the two-drink-minimum crowd, there's little to be learned from watching `Comedian'
2  One of the best, most understated performances of (Jack Nicholson's) career.
1  An intense and effective film about loneliness and the chilly anonymity of the environments where so many of us spend so much of our time.
1  It's still a comic book, but Maguire makes it a comic book with soul.
-1 Where the film falters is in its tone.
2  Amazing!
0  A modestly comic, modestly action-oriented World War II adventure that, in terms of authenticity, is one of those films that requires the enemy to never shoot straight.
1  Wow, so who knew Charles Dickens could be so light-hearted?
1  Hey, Happy!
-1 But here's a movie about it anyway.
-1 Doesn't get the job done, running off the limited chemistry created by Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez.
0  More than simply a portrait of early extreme sports, this peek into the 1970s skateboard revolution is a skateboard film as social anthropology...
2  A live-wire film that never loses its ability to shock and amaze.
0  (Kirshner wins, but it's close.)
-2 Like Rudy Yellow Lodge, Eyre needs to take a good sweat to clarify his cinematic vision before his next creation and remember the lessons of the trickster spider.
2  The large-format film is well suited to capture these musicians in full regalia and the incredible IMAX sound system lets you feel the beat down to your toes.
-1 Even bigger and more ambitious than the first installment, Spy Kids 2 looks as if it were made by a highly gifted 12-year-old instead of a grown man.
-2 The leads are so unmemorable, despite several attempts at lengthy dialogue scenes, that one eventually resents having to inhale this gutter romancer's secondhand material.
0  None of this has the suavity or classical familiarity of Bond, but much of it is good for a laugh.
1  The heat of the moment prevails.
0  Wait for it to hit cable.
-1 Bigelow handles the nuclear crisis sequences evenly but milks drama when she should be building suspense, and drags out too many scenes toward the end that should move quickly.
1  (A) satisfying niblet.
1  But they fascinate in their recklessness.
1  If you haven't seen the film lately, you may be surprised at the variety of tones in Spielberg's work.
1  Me no lika da accents so good, but I thoroughly enjoyed the love story.
-1 The movie's biggest shocks come from seeing former nymphette Juliette Lewis playing a salt-of-the-earth mommy named Minnie and watching Slim travel incognito in a ridiculous wig no respectable Halloween costume shop would ever try to sell.
-1 A timid, soggy near miss.
-1 hard as this may be to believe, Here on Earth, a surprisingly similar teen drama, was a better film.
1  It's far from a frothy piece, and the characters are complex, laden with plenty of baggage and tinged with tragic undertones.
0  The execution is so pedestrian that the most positive comment we can make is that Rob Schneider actually turns in a pretty convincing performance as a prissy teenage girl.
0  Watching E.T now, in an era dominated by cold, loud special-effects-laden extravaganzas, one is struck less by its lavish grandeur than by its intimacy and precision.
-1 If you're looking for a story, don't bother.
1  The cast is spot on and the mood is laid back.
0  Absurdities and
-1 A party-hearty teen flick that scalds like acid.
2  A moving and stark reminder that the casualties of war reach much further than we imagine.
-2 A so-so, made-for-TV something posing as a real movie.
2  Astonishing... (frames) profound ethical and philosophical questions in the form of dazzling pop entertainment.
-1 Fans of Plympton's shorts may marginally enjoy the film, but it is doubtful this listless feature will win him any new viewers.
-1 The problem with The Bread, My Sweet is that it's far too sentimental.
0  If you can tolerate the redneck-versus-blueblood cliches that the film trades in, Sweet Home Alabama is diverting in the manner of Jeff Foxworthy's stand-up act.
1  Oh, look at that clever angle!
-2 A crass and insulting homage to great films like Some Like It Hot and the John Wayne classics.
0  This version moves beyond the original's nostalgia for the communal film experiences of yesteryear to a deeper realization of cinema's inability to stand in for true, lived experience.
0  Since Lee is a sentimentalist, the film is more worshipful than your random E!
1  I don't know if Frailty will turn Bill Paxton into an A-list director, but he can rest contentedly with the knowledge that he's made at least one damn fine horror movie.
-2 This movie, a certain scene in particular, brought me uncomfortably close to losing my lunch.
-1 There's a heavy stench of `been there, done that' hanging over the film.
0  Only those most addicted to film violence in all its forms will find anything here to appreciate.
-1 The Santa Clause 2's plot may sound like it was co-written by Mattel executives and lobbyists for the tinsel industry.
2  An energizing, intoxicating documentary charting the rise of hip-hop culture in general and the art of scratching (or turntablism) in particular.
-1 ... for all its social and political potential, State Property doesn't end up being very inspiring or insightful.
1  Instead of hitting the audience over the head with a moral, Schrader relies on subtle ironies and visual devices to convey point of view.
2  Compellingly watchable.
1  Other than the slightly flawed (and fairly unbelievable) finale, everything else is top shelf.
0  This heist flick about young Brooklyn hoods is off the shelf after two years to capitalize on the popularity of Vin Diesel, Seth Green and Barry Pepper.
-1 The movie spends more time with Schneider than with newcomer McAdams, even though her performance is more interesting (and funnier) than his.
-1 Certainly not a good movie, but it wasn't horrible either.
2  Blisteringly rude, scarily funny, sorrowfully sympathetic to the damage it surveys, the film has in Kieran Culkin a pitch-perfect Holden.
-1 It isn't scary.
1  And it sees those relationships, including that between the son and his wife, and the wife and the father, and between the two brothers, with incredible subtlety and acumen.
-1 Like a fish that's lived too long, Austin Powers in Goldmember has some unnecessary parts and is kinda wrong in places.
-1 Grant isn't Cary and Bullock isn't Katherine.
1  A seriocomic debut of extravagant promise by Georgian-Israeli director Dover Kosashvili.
1  (It's) a clever thriller with enough unexpected twists to keep our interest.
-1 If you're not a fan, it might be like trying to eat Brussels sprouts.
-1 The movie eventually snaps under the strain of its plot contrivances and its need to reassure.
2  Maelstrom is strange and compelling, engrossing and different, a moral tale with a twisted sense of humor.
1  A touching, small-scale story of family responsibility and care in the community.
-1 Boasts eye-catching art direction but has a forcefully quirky tone that quickly wears out its limited welcome.
1  This is a smart movie that knows its classical music, knows its Freud and knows its Sade.
2  Kinnear... gives his best screen performance with an oddly winning portrayal of one of life's ultimate losers.
2  Their work is fantastic.
0  As a movie, it never seems fresh and vital.
-2 Plodding, poorly written, murky and weakly acted, the picture feels as if everyone making it lost their movie mojo.
1  With Notorious C.H.O. Cho proves she has the stuff to stand tall with Pryor, Carlin and Murphy.
0  near the end takes on a whole other meaning.
-2 the script assumes that not only would subtlety be lost on the target audience, but that it's also too stupid to realize that they've already seen this exact same movie a hundred times
-1 `Linklater fans, or pretentious types who want to appear avant-garde will suck up to this project...'
0  There is one surefire way to get a nomination for a best-foreign-film Oscar: Make a movie about whimsical folk who learn a nonchallenging, life-affirming lesson while walking around a foreign city with stunning architecture.
-1 It plods along methodically, somehow under the assumption that its ``dead wife communicating from beyond the grave'' framework is even remotely new or interesting.
0  LaBute can't avoid a fatal mistake in the modern era: He's changed the male academic from a lower-class Brit to an American, a choice that upsets the novel's exquisite balance and shreds the fabric of the film.
0  A virtual roller-coaster ride of glamour and sleaze.
0  Mostly the film is just hectic and homiletic: two parts exhausting Men in Black mayhem to one part family values.
-1 You might want to take a reality check before you pay the full ticket price to see ``Simone,'' and consider a DVD rental instead.
0  About a Boy vividly recalls the Cary Grant of Room for One More, Houseboat and Father Goose in its affectionate depiction of the gentle war between a reluctant, irresponsible man and the kid who latches onto him.
1  ... a light, yet engrossing piece.
-2 The problem is that it is one that allows him to churn out one mediocre movie after another.
2  unpretentious, charming, quirky, original
1  Where Janice Beard falters in its recycled aspects, implausibility, and sags in pace, it rises in its courageousness, and comedic employment.
-1 The movie is as padded as Allen's jelly belly.
2  A dazzling dream of a documentary.
2  An intelligently made (and beautifully edited) picture that at the very least has a spark of life to it -- more than you can say for plenty of movies that flow through the Hollywood pipeline without a hitch.
1  The unexplored story opportunities of ``Punch-Drunk Love'' may have worked against the maker's minimalist intent but it is an interesting exercise by talented writer/director Anderson.
-1 Aspires to the cracked lunacy of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, but thanks to an astonishingly witless script ends up more like The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
1  Mariah Carey gives us another peek at some of the magic we saw in Glitter here in Wisegirls.
1  Rock solid family fun out of the gates, extremely imaginative through out, but wanes in the middle
2  Clever and unflinching in its comic barbs, Slap Her is a small but rewarding comedy that takes aim at contemporary southern adolescence and never lets up.
1  The Scorpion King is more fun than Conan the Barbarian.
0  Pedro Rodrigues'
1  A college story that works even without vulgarity, sex scenes, and cussing!
-2 There are cheesy backdrops, ridiculous action sequences, and many tired jokes about men in heels.
-1 All the more disquieting for its relatively gore-free allusions to the serial murders, but it falls down in its attempts to humanize its subject.
-2 A lame romantic comedy about an unsympathetic character and someone who would not likely be so stupid as to get involved with her.
-1 Once the downward spiral comes to pass, Auto Focus bears out as your typical junkie opera...
-1 In the book-on-tape market, the film of ``The Kid Stays in the Picture'' would be an abridged edition
0  I wish Windtalkers had had more faith in the dramatic potential of this true story.
-1 After an hour and a half of wondering -- sometimes amusedly, sometimes impatiently -- just what this strenuously unconventional movie is supposed to be, you discover that the answer is as conventional as can be.
-1 We hate (Madonna) within the film's first five minutes, and she lacks the skill or presence to regain any ground.
1  An ebullient Tunisian film about the startling transformation of a tradition-bound widow who is drawn into the exotic world of belly dancing.
0  A Frankenstein mishmash that careens from dark satire to cartoonish slapstick, Bartleby performs neither one very well.
0  There's something not entirely convincing about The Quiet American.
-1 Chelsea Walls is a case of too many chefs fussing over too weak a recipe.
1  Though filmed partly in Canada, Paid in Full has clever ways of capturing inner-city life during the Reagan years.
-1 It still feels like a prison stretch.
0  As home movie gone haywire, it's pretty enjoyable, but as sexual manifesto, I'd rather listen to old Tori Amos records.
-1 Ah-nuld's action hero days might be over.
0  In gleefully, thumpingly hyperbolic terms, it covers just about every cliche in the compendium about crass, jaded movie types and the phony baloney movie biz.
-2 The Sweetest Thing leaves a bitter taste.
0  After the setup, the air leaks out of the movie, flattening its momentum with about an hour to go.
2  Because the film deliberately lacks irony, it has a genuine dramatic impact; it plays like a powerful 1957 drama we've somehow never seen before.
1  In an ART FILM!
-1 The satire is just too easy to be genuinely satisfying.
0  A gem, captured in the unhurried, low-key style favored by many directors of the Iranian new wave.
2  (A) real pleasure in its laid-back way.
-2 Aloof and lacks any real raw emotion, which is fatal for a film that relies on personal relationships.
-1 This is cruel, misanthropic stuff with only weak claims to surrealism and black comedy.
1  there is truth here
0  The symbols float like butterflies and the spinning styx sting like bees.
1  I'm going to give it a marginal thumbs up.
0  Otherwise, maybe.
1  While the path may be familiar, first-time director Denzel Washington and a top-notch cast manage to keep things interesting.
1  If you answered yes, by all means enjoy The New Guy.
2  Throws in enough clever and unexpected twists to make the formula feel fresh.
2  He does this so well you don't have the slightest difficulty accepting him in the role.
1  The premise of Jason X is silly but strangely believable.
1  Ya-Yas everywhere will forgive the flaws and love the film.
1  I will be.
2  (Washington's) strong hand, keen eye, sweet spirit and good taste are reflected in almost every scene.
1  What a dumb, fun, curiously adolescent movie this is.
0  Cold and scattered, Minority Report commands interest almost solely as an exercise in gorgeous visuals.
0  National Lampoon's Van Wilder may aim to be the next Animal House, but it more closely resembles this year's version of Tomcats.
1  A well made indieflick in need of some trims and a more chemistry between its stars.
0  The film truly does rescue (the Funk Brothers) from Motown's shadows.
1  Director Chris Wedge and screenwriters Michael Berg, Michael J. Wilson and Peter Ackerman create some episodes that rival vintage Looney Tunes for the most creative mayhem in a brief amount of time.
-1 The star who helped give a spark to ``Chasing Amy'' and ``Changing Lanes'' falls flat as thinking man CIA agent Jack Ryan in this summer's new action film, ``The Sum of All Fears.''
1  A playful Iranian parable about openness, particularly the need for people of diverse political perspectives to get along despite their ideological differences.
0  If only there were one for this kind of movie.
-1 You can taste it, but there's no fizz.
-2 Control-Alt-Delete Simone as quickly as possible
-2 Strong filmmaking requires a clear sense of purpose, and in that oh-so-important category, The Four Feathers comes up short.
2  Enriched by a strong and unforced supporting cast.
1  Nothing overly original, mind you, but solidly entertaining.
2  At its best, this is grand-scale moviemaking for a larger-than-life figure, an artist who has been awarded mythic status in contemporary culture.
1  Funny in a sick, twisted sort of way.
1  It's fun, but it's a real howler.
-1 A manipulative feminist empowerment tale thinly posing as a serious drama about spousal abuse.
-2 A semi-autobiographical film that's so sloppily written and cast that you can not believe anyone more central to the creation of Bugsy than the caterer had anything to do with it.
0  Renner?
-1 For all its violence, the movie is remarkably dull with only Caine making much of an impression.
0  Trades run-of-the-mill revulsion for extreme unease.
1  She's all-powerful, a voice for a pop-cyber culture that feeds on her Bjorkness.
1  Like many Western action films, this thriller is too loud and thoroughly overbearing, but its heartfelt concern about North Korea's recent past and South Korea's future adds a much needed moral weight.
2  The actors are fantastic.
1  It's got all the familiar Bruckheimer elements, and Schumacher does probably as good a job as anyone at bringing off the Hopkins/Rock collision of acting styles and onscreen personas.
0  The Trinity Assembly approaches the endeavor with a shocking lack of irony, and George Ratliff's documentary, Hell House, reflects their earnestness -- which makes for a terrifying film.
-1 Becomes the last thing you would expect from a film with this title or indeed from any Plympton film: boring.
0  But it is set in a world that is very, very far from the one most of us inhabit.
-1 Call me a cynic, but there's something awfully deadly about any movie with a life-affirming message.
0  I have no problem with ``difficult'' movies, or movies that ask the audience to meet them halfway and connect the dots instead of having things all spelled out.
1  By surrounding us with hyper-artificiality, Haynes makes us see familiar issues, like racism and homophobia, in a fresh way.
-1 Though Frida is easier to swallow than Julie Taymor's preposterous Titus, the eye candy here lacks considerable brio.
-1 Full Frontal, which opens today nationwide, could almost be classified as a movie-industry satire, but it lacks the generous inclusiveness that is the genre's definitive, if disingenuous, feature.
1  While the humor is recognizably Plympton, he has actually bothered to construct a real story this time.
2  `Drumline' shows a level of young, Black manhood that is funny, touching, smart and complicated.
-2 This is a movie filled with unlikable, spiteful idiots; whether or not their friendship is salvaged makes no difference in the least.
-1 This insufferable movie is meant to make you think about existential suffering.
2  This sensitive, smart, savvy, compelling coming-of-age drama delves into the passive-aggressive psychology of co-dependence and the struggle for self-esteem.
-1 All the small moments and flashbacks don't add up to much more than trite observations on the human condition.
2  A beautifully observed character piece.
0  Though it inspires some (out-of-field) creative thought, the film is -- to its own detriment -- much more a cinematic collage than a polemical tract.
-2 Perhaps the grossest movie ever made.
1  Does a good job of establishing a time and place, and of telling a fascinating character's story.
-2 In fact, it doesn't even seem like she tried.
0  Spare yet audacious...
0  With three excellent principal singers, a youthful and good-looking diva and tenor and richly handsome locations, it's enough to make you wish Jacquot had left well enough alone and just filmed the opera without all these distortions of perspective.
-2 After several scenes of this tacky nonsense, you'll be wistful for the testosterone-charged wizardry of Jerry Bruckheimer productions, especially because Half Past Dead is like The Rock on a Wal-Mart budget.
-1 Couldn't someone take Rob Schneider and have him switch bodies with a funny person?
1  Formuliac, but fun.
-2 What might have been acceptable on the printed page of Iles' book does not translate well to the screen.
1  The sight of the spaceship on the launching pad is duly impressive in IMAX dimensions, as are shots of the astronauts floating in their cabins.
1  As Hannibal would say, yes, `It's like having an old friend for dinner'.
1  Williams absolutely nails Sy's queasy infatuation and overall strangeness.
-1 Paul Bettany is good at being the ultra-violent gangster wannabe, but the movie is certainly not number 1.
-2 This is the kind of movie that you only need to watch for about thirty seconds before you say to yourself, `Ah, yes, here we have a bad, bad, bad movie.'
-2 Personally, I'd rather watch them on the Animal Planet.
2  The lively appeal of The Last Kiss lies in the ease with which it integrates thoughtfulness and pasta-fagioli comedy.
-2 An annoying orgy of excess and exploitation that has no point and goes nowhere.
1  This deeply spiritual film taps into the meaning and consolation in afterlife communications.
-2 There are now two signs that M. Night Shyamalan's debut feature sucked up all he has to give to the mystic genres of cinema: Unbreakable and Signs.
1  The filmmakers try to balance pointed, often incisive satire and unabashed sweetness, with results that are sometimes bracing, sometimes baffling and quite often, and in unexpected ways, touching.
0  Does little to elaborate the conceit of setting this blood-soaked tragedy of murderous ambition in the era of Richard Nixon.
-1 Go, girls, right down the reality drain.
1  The power of Shanghai Ghetto, a documentary by Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann, rests in the voices of men and women, now in their 70s, who lived there in the 1940s.
1  Funny and touching.
-2 There is nothing redeeming about this movie.
1  It's a spectacular performance - ahem, we hope it's only acting.
-2 The waterlogged script plumbs uncharted depths of stupidity, incoherence and sub-sophomoric sexual banter.
-1 It concentrates far too much on the awkward interplay and utter lack of chemistry between Chan and Hewitt.
2  A stirring tribute to the bravery and dedication of the world's reporters who willingly walk into the nightmare of war not only to record the events for posterity, but to help us clearly see the world of our making.
-1 A lot like the imaginary sport it projects onto the screen -- loud, violent and mindless.
1  If you like an extreme action-packed film with a hint of humor, then Triple X marks the spot.
0  The simplicity of The Way Home has few equals this side of Aesop
-1 The only reason you should see this movie is if you have a case of masochism and an hour and a half to blow.
1  The film is saved from aren't - kids-cute sentimentality by a warmth that isn't faked and a stately sense of composition.
-1 A few pieces of the film buzz and whir; very little of it actually clicks.
1  Like any good romance, Son of the Bride, proves it's never too late to learn.
1  One of the funniest motion pictures of the year, but... also one of the most curiously depressing.
1  A film that's flawed and brilliant in equal measure.
-1 An imponderably stilted and self-consciously arty movie.
1  ... the story, like Ravel's Bolero, builds to a crescendo that encompasses many more paths than we started with.
-2 This thing is virtually unwatchable.
1  The movie does its best to work us over, with second helpings of love, romance, tragedy, false dawns, real dawns, comic relief, two separate crises during marriage ceremonies, and the lush scenery of the Cotswolds.
2  What a concept, what an idea, what a thrill ride.
1  And, thanks to the presence of `the King,' it also rocks.
1  I don't feel the least bit ashamed in admitting that my enjoyment came at the expense of seeing justice served, even if it's a dish that's best served cold.
1  Everybody loves a David and Goliath story, and this one is told almost entirely from David's point of view.
1  The performances are strong, though the subject matter demands acting that borders on hammy at times.
-1 An inexperienced director, Mehta has much to learn.
0  Ryosuke has created a wry, winning, if languidly paced, meditation on the meaning and value of family.
1  It has a caffeinated, sloppy brilliance, sparkling with ideas you wish had been developed with more care, but animated by an energy that puts the dutiful efforts of more disciplined grade-grubbers to shame.
-1 It's just not very smart.
-1 It wears its heart on the sleeve of its gaudy Hawaiian shirt.
2  Like a skillful fisher, the director uses the last act to reel in the audience since its poignancy hooks us completely.
2  A wild ride with eight boarders from Venice Beach that was a deserved co-winner of the Audience Award for documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival.
-2 But the 2002 film doesn't really believe in it, and breaks the mood with absurdly inappropriate `comedy' scenes.
1  Birot creates a drama with such a well-defined sense of place and age -- as in, 15 years old -- that the torments and angst become almost as operatic to us as they are to her characters.
-1 Toward the end Sum of All Fears morphs into a mundane '70s disaster flick.
1  Your 20th outing shows off a lot of stamina and vitality, and get this, Madonna's cameo doesn't suck!
2  The production design, score and choreography are simply intoxicating.
1  For almost the first two-thirds of Martin Scorsese's 168-minute Gangs of New York, I was entranced.
-1 A brutally dry satire of Middle American numbness.
0  A perfectly acceptable, perfectly bland, competently acted but by no means scary horror movie.
1  The tasteful little revision works wonders, enhancing the cultural and economic subtext, bringing richer meaning to the story's morals.
-1 And Diesel isn't the actor to save it.
-2 Wendigo wants to be a monster movie for the art-house crowd, but it falls into the trap of pretention almost every time.
2  Nothing short of wonderful with its ten-year-old female protagonist and its steadfast refusal to set up a dualistic battle between good and evil.
1  Drumline is -- the mere suggestion, albeit a visually compelling one, of a fully realized story.
0  With lesser talents, High Crimes would be entertaining, but forgettable.
2  The history is fascinating; the action is dazzling.
-1 I couldn't help but feel the wasted potential of this slapstick comedy.
1  All in all, Road to Perdition is more in love with strangeness than excellence.
0  DeMeo is not without talent; he just needs better material.
-1 Puportedly ``Based on True Events,'' a convolution of language that suggests it's impossible to claim that it is ``Based on a True Story'' with a straight face.
0  ... gripping and handsome execution, (but) there isn't much about K-19 that's unique or memorable.
-2 I liked the original short story but this movie, even at an hour and twenty-some minutes, it's too long and it goes nowhere.
-2 An artsploitation movie with too much exploitation and too little art.
-2 ... a sour little movie at its core; an exploration of the emptiness that underlay the relentless gaiety of the 1920's... The film's ending has a ``What was it all for?''
-1 Check your brain and your secret agent decoder ring at the door because you don't want to think too much about what's going on.
-1 Talkiness isn't necessarily bad, but the dialogue frequently misses the mark.
1  The Pianist is the film Roman Polanski may have been born to make.
1  It's funny and human and really pretty damned wonderful, all at once.
2  The first Tunisian film I have ever seen, and it's also probably the most good-hearted yet sensual entertainment I'm likely to see all year.
0  There are more shots of children smiling for the camera than typical documentary footage which hurts the overall impact of the film.
-1 Like a pack of dynamite sticks, built for controversy.
0  Alas, another breathless movie about same!
1  (Reaches) wholly believable and heart-wrenching depths of despair.
0  If you don't... well, skip to another review.
0  In my opinion, Analyze That is not as funny or entertaining as Analyze This, but it is a respectable sequel.
-2 A generic bloodbath that often becomes laughably unbearable when it isn't merely offensive.
-1 Can be classified as one of those `alternate reality' movies... except that it would have worked so much better dealing in only one reality.
-1 This wretchedly unfunny wannabe comedy is inane and awful - no doubt, it's the worst movie I've seen this summer.
2  Entirely suspenseful, extremely well-paced and ultimately... dare I say, entertaining!
2  ``Red Dragon'' is entertaining.
1  Quitting offers piercing domestic drama with spikes of sly humor.
-1 It winds up moving in many directions as it searches (vainly, I think) for something fresh to say.
1  An improvement on the feeble examples of big-screen Poke-mania that have preceded it.
1  Fear permeates the whole of Stortelling, Todd Solondz' oftentimes funny, yet ultimately cowardly autocritique.
1  As a film director, LaBute continues to improve.
-2 Dull, a road-trip movie that's surprisingly short of both adventure and song.
1  You won't have any trouble getting kids to eat up these Veggies.
0  Some may choose to interpret the film's end as hopeful or optimistic but I think Payne is after something darker.
2  Scott delivers a terrific performance in this fascinating portrait of a modern Lothario.
-1 Overwrought, melodramatic bodice-ripper.
0  Steers has an unexpectedly adamant streak of warm-blooded empathy for all his disparate Manhattan denizens -- especially the a \*\* holes.
0  These two are generating about as much chemistry as an Iraqi factory poised to receive a UN inspector.
2  Jeffrey Tambor's performance as the intelligent jazz-playing exterminator is Oscar-worthy.
1  This familiar rise-and-fall tale is long on glamour and short on larger moralistic consequences, though it's told with sharp ears and eyes for the tenor of the times.
-2 Even the hastily and amateurishly drawn animation can not engage.
-1 Plodding, peevish and gimmicky.
0  Insomnia does not become one of those rare remakes to eclipse the original, but it doesn't disgrace it, either.
-1 No..
-2 To say that this vapid vehicle is downright doltish and uneventful is just as obvious as telling a country skunk that he has severe body odor.
-2 It's crap on a leash -- far too polite to scale the lunatic heights of Joe Dante's similarly styled Gremlins.
2  At 78 minutes it just zings along with vibrance and warmth.
2  You have to see it.
-2 If ever such a dependable concept was botched in execution, this is it.
0  A tasty slice of droll whimsy.
-1 ... while the humor aspects of `Jason X' were far more entertaining than I had expected, everything else about the film tanks.
-1 Rice is too pedestrian a filmmaker to bring any edge or personality to The Rising Place that would set it apart from other Deep South stories.
0  Broomfield reveals an ironic manifestation of institutionalized slavery that ties a black-owned record label with a white-empowered police force.
-1 Ritchie's film is easier to swallow than Wertmuller's polemical allegory, but it's self-defeatingly decorous.
-1 The film is ultimately about as inspiring as a Hallmark card.
-2 With little visible talent and no energy, Colin Hanks is in bad need of major acting lessons and maybe a little coffee.
1  The film oozes craft.
1  Stevens' vibrant creative instincts are the difference between this and countless other flicks about guys and dolls.
1  Weighty and ponderous but every bit as filling as the treat of the title.
-1 There's an excellent 90-minute film here; unfortunately, it runs for 170.
1  But it does somehow manage to get you under its spell.
2  Brian Tufano's handsome widescreen photography and Paul Grabowsky's excellent music turn this fairly parochial melodrama into something really rather special.
1  Uplifting, funny and wise.
0  Old people will love this movie, and I mean that in the nicest possible way: Last Orders will touch the heart of anyone old enough to have earned a 50-year friendship.
-2 A poky and pseudo-serious exercise in sham actor workshops and an affected malaise.
1  These characters are so well established that the gang feels comfortable with taking insane liberties and doing the goofiest stuff out of left field, and I'm all for that.
2  Just about the surest bet for an all-around good time at the movies this summer.
2  It's all about Anakin... and the lustrous polished visuals rich in color and creativity and, of course, special effect.
-1 ... the efforts of its star, Kline, to lend some dignity to a dumb story are for naught.
-1 A sometimes incisive and sensitive portrait that is undercut by its awkward structure and a final veering toward melodrama.
1  That `Alabama' manages to be pleasant in spite of its predictability and occasional slowness is due primarily to the perkiness of Witherspoon (who is always a joy to watch, even when her material is not first-rate)...
-2 Starts out strongly before quickly losing its focus, point and purpose in a mess of mixed messages, over-blown drama and Bruce Willis with a scar.
1  World Traveler might not go anywhere new, or arrive anyplace special, but it's certainly an honest attempt to get at something.
1  You wouldn't want to live waydowntown, but it is a hilarious place to visit.
-1 Too intensely focused on the travails of being Hal Hartley to function as pastiche, No Such Thing is Hartley's least accessible screed yet.
2  A simple tale of an unlikely friendship, but thanks to the gorgeous locales and exceptional lead performances, it has considerable charm.
1  Those who don't entirely `get' Godard's distinctive discourse will still come away with a sense of his reserved but existential poignancy.
1  Yes, soar.
2  A genuinely funny ensemble comedy that also asks its audience -- in a heartwarming, nonjudgmental kind of way -- to consider what we value in our daily lives.
-2 Kirshner and Monroe seem to be in a contest to see who can out-bad-act the other.
0  Qutting may be a flawed film, but it is nothing if not sincere.
1  has far more energy, wit and warmth than should be expected from any movie with a ``2'' at the end of its title.
1  Throughout, Mr. Audiard's direction is fluid and quick.
-1 A painfully slow cliche-ridden film filled with more holes than Clyde Barrow's car.
-2 A wishy-washy melodramatic movie that shows us plenty of sturm und drung, but explains its characters' decisions only unsatisfactorily.
2  One of the best looking and stylish animated movies in quite a while...
1  Nicole Kidman evolved from star to superstar some time over the past year, which means that Birthday Girl is the kind of quirkily appealing minor movie she might not make for a while.
0  It seems Grant doesn't need the floppy hair and the self-deprecating stammers after all.
0  Oops, she's really done it this time.
2  The characters are complex and quirky, but entirely believable as the remarkable ensemble cast brings them to life.
1  Jackson is always watchable.
2  Deep intelligence and a warm, enveloping affection breathe out of every frame.
1  Terry is a sort of geriatric Dirty Harry, which will please Eastwood's loyal fans -- and suits the story, wherein our hero must ride roughshod over incompetent cops to get his man.
-1 (Soderbergh) tends to place most of the psychological and philosophical material in italics rather than trust an audience's intelligence, and he creates an overall sense of brusqueness.
1  It's fairly solid -- not to mention well edited so that it certainly doesn't feel like a film that strays past the two and a half mark.
-1 Predecessors The Mummy and The Mummy Returns stand as intellectual masterpieces next to The Scorpion King.
-1 A really good premise is frittered away in middle-of-the-road blandness.
-1 Yet another entry in the sentimental oh-those-wacky-Brits genre that was ushered in by The Full Monty and is still straining to produce another smash hit.
2  Time is a beautiful film to watch, an interesting and at times captivating take on loss and loneliness.
-1 In his role of observer of the scene, Lawrence sounds whiny and defensive, as if his life-altering experiences made him bitter and less mature.
1  While Insomnia is in many ways a conventional, even predictable remake, Nolan's penetrating undercurrent of cerebral and cinemantic flair lends (it) stimulating depth.
2  The Pianist (is) a supremely hopeful cautionary tale of war's madness remembered that we, today, can prevent its tragic waste of life.
1  It doesn't reach them, but the effort is gratefully received.
0  Jam-packed with literally bruising jokes.
-1 Seems like someone going through the motions.
1  While I can't say it's on par with the first one, Stuart Little 2 is a light, fun cheese puff of a movie.
1  And he allows a gawky actor like Spall -- who could too easily become comic relief in any other film -- to reveal his impressively delicate range.
1  The Chateau belongs to Rudd, whose portrait of a therapy-dependent flakeball spouting French malapropisms... is a nonstop hoot.
-2 The film doesn't have enough innovation or pizazz to attract teenagers, and it lacks the novel charm that made Spy Kids a surprising winner with both adults and younger audiences.
-1 At once overly old-fashioned in its sudsy plotting and heavy-handed in its effort to modernize it with encomia to diversity and tolerance.
0  What is the filmmakers' point?
-2 Maid in Manhattan proves that it's easier to change the sheets than to change hackneyed concepts when it comes to dreaming up romantic comedies.
1  Wonderful fencing scenes and an exciting plot make this an eminently engrossing film.
0  Another in a long line of ultra-violent war movies, this one is not quite what it could have been as a film, but the story and theme make up for it.
1  The concert footage is stirring, the recording sessions are intriguing, and -- on the way to striking a blow for artistic integrity -- this quality band may pick up new admirers.
0  Many of Benjamins' elements feel like they've been patched in from an episode of Miami Vice.
1  There are a couple of things that elevate ``Glory'' above most of its ilk, most notably the mere presence of Duvall.
1  The Way Home is an ode to unconditional love and compassion garnered from years of seeing it all, a condition only the old are privy to, and... often misconstrued as weakness.
-1 An ugly, revolting movie.
1  It never quite makes it to the boiling point, but manages to sustain a good simmer for most of its running time.
1  Like Kissing Jessica Stein, Amy's Orgasm has a key strength in its willingness to explore its principal characters with honesty, insight and humor.
0  The main problem being that it's only a peek.
-2 As predictable as the outcome of a Globetrotters-Generals game, Juwanna Mann is even more ludicrous than you'd expect from the guy-in-a-dress genre, and a personal low for everyone involved.
-2 But it's hard to imagine a more generic effort in the genre.
2  Jason Patric and Ray Liotta make for one splendidly cast pair.
2  This often-hilarious farce manages to generate the belly laughs of lowbrow comedy without sacrificing its high-minded appeal.
-2 It's simply stupid, irrelevant and deeply, truly, bottomlessly cynical.
1  The actresses find their own rhythm and protect each other from the script's bad ideas and awkwardness.
-1 It's just hard to believe that a life like this can sound so dull.
-1 If you're not fans of the adventues of Steve and Terri, you should avoid this like the dreaded King Brown snake.
0  Wait for pay per view or rental but don't dismiss BarberShop out of hand.
0  All very stylish and beautifully photographed, but far more trouble than it's worth, with fantasy mixing with reality and actors playing more than one role just to add to the confusion.
1  ``The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys'' has flaws, but it also has humor and heart and very talented young actors
-1 This is not a classical dramatic animated feature, nor a hip, contemporary, in-jokey one.
0  A technically well-made suspenser... but its abrupt drop in IQ points as it races to the finish line proves simply too discouraging to let slide.
2  A funny and well-contructed black comedy where the old adage ``be careful what you wish for'' is given a full workout.
0  Ram Dass Fierce Grace moulds itself as an example to up-and-coming documentarians, of the overlooked pitfalls of such an endeavour.
2  A sun-drenched masterpiece, part parlor game, part psychological case study, part droll social satire.
-2 So bland and utterly forgettable that it might as well have been titled Generic Jennifer Lopez Romantic Comedy.
-1 Cal is an unpleasantly shallow and immature character with whom to spend 110 claustrophobic minutes.
-1 It lacks the compassion, good-natured humor and the level of insight that made (Eyre's) first film something of a sleeper success.
2  And thanks to Kline's superbly nuanced performance, that pondering is highly pleasurable.
0  The film wasn't preachy, but it was feminism by the book.
1  A lot more dimensional and complex than its sunny disposition would lead you to believe.
2  Miller comes at film with bracing intelligence and a vision both painterly and literary.
2  Grenier is terrific, bringing an unforced, rapid-fire delivery to Toback's Heidegger - and Nietzsche-referencing dialogue.
1  Rubbo runs through a remarkable amount of material in the film's short 90 minutes.
-2 Deep down, I realized the harsh reality of my situation: I would leave the theater with a lower I.Q. than when I had entered.
-2 A story which fails to rise above its disgusting source material.
-1 To Blandly Go Where We Went 8 Movies Ago...
-1 ... Liotta is put in an impossible spot because his character's deceptions ultimately undo him and the believability of the entire scenario.
2  Vividly demonstrates that the director of such Hollywood blockbusters as Patriot Games can still turn out a small, personal film with an emotional wallop.
1  An overly familiar scenario is made fresh by an intelligent screenplay and gripping performances in this low-budget, video-shot, debut indie effort.
-2 It's still terrible!
0  Represents something very close to the nadir of the thriller/horror genre.
2  Beautifully shot against the frozen winter landscapes of Grenoble and Geneva, the film unfolds with all the mounting tension of an expert thriller, until the tragedy beneath it all gradually reveals itself.
2  A man leaving the screening said the film was better than Saving Private Ryan.
1  Oddly compelling.
2  A soul-stirring documentary about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as revealed through the eyes of some children who remain curious about each other against all odds.
1  Certainly the performances are worthwhile.
-1 Apparently designed as a reverie about memory and regret, but the only thing you'll regret is remembering the experience of sitting through it.
2  It trusts the story it sets out to tell.
-1 Bad company.
2  An engrossing and infectiously enthusiastic documentary.
1  A memorable experience that, like many of his works, presents weighty issues colorfully wrapped up in his own idiosyncratic strain of kitschy goodwill.
2  Its gentle, touching story creeps into your heart.
-2 ... has about 3/4th the fun of its spry 2001 predecessor -- but it's a rushed, slapdash, sequel-for-the-sake - of-a-sequel with less than half the plot and ingenuity.
0  Alain Choquart's camera barely stops moving, portraying both the turmoil of the time and giving Conduct a perpetual sense of urgency, which, for a film that takes nearly three hours to unspool, is both funny and irritating.
0  The kind of sense of humor that derives from a workman's grasp of pun and entendre and its attendant need to constantly draw attention to itself.
-2 A cellophane-pop remake of the punk classic Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains... Crossroads is never much worse than bland or better than inconsequential.
0  The Fast Runner' transports the viewer into an unusual space
-1 Every joke is repeated at least four times.
0  What you end up getting is the Vertical Limit of surfing movies - memorable stunts with lots of downtime in between.
1  Should be required viewing for civics classes and would-be public servants alike.
2  Noyce has worked wonders with the material.
-1 Wes Craven's presence is felt; not the Craven of' A Nightmare on Elm Street' or `The Hills Have Eyes,' but the sad schlock merchant of `Deadly Friend.'
1  , is a temporal inquiry that shoulders its philosophical burden lightly.
1  You may feel compelled to watch the film twice or pick up a book on the subject.
-2 Loosely speaking, we're in All of Me territory again, and, strictly speaking, Schneider is no Steve Martin.
0  On a certain base level, Blue Crush delivers what it promises, just not well enough to recommend it.
-1 Gussied up with so many distracting special effects and visual party tricks that it's not clear whether we're supposed to shriek or laugh.
-1 The screenplay, co-written by director Imogen Kimmel, lacks the wit necessary to fully exploit the comic elements of the premise, making the proceedings more bizarre than actually amusing.
-1 That's because relatively nothing happens.
0  `Snow Dogs' has both.
1  A decent-enough nail-biter that stands a good chance of being the big hit Franklin needs to stay afloat in Hollywood.
-2 The movie is concocted and carried out by folks worthy of scorn, and the nicest thing I can say is that I can't remember a single name responsible for it.
0  The impulses that produced this project... are commendable, but the results are uneven.
0  Watching Harris ham it up while physically and emotionally disintegrating over the course of the movie has a certain poignancy in light of his recent death, but Boyd's film offers little else of consequence.
2  As quiet, patient and tenacious as Mr. Lopez himself, who approaches his difficult, endless work with remarkable serenity and discipline.
2  Hugely entertaining from start to finish, featuring a fall from grace that still leaves shockwaves, it will gratify anyone who has ever suspected Hollywood of being overrun by corrupt and hedonistic weasels.
-1 Squandering his opportunity to make absurdist observations, Burns gets caught up in the rush of slapstick thoroughfare.
2  Topics that could make a sailor blush - but lots of laughs.
0  It's so laddish and juvenile, only teenage boys could possibly find it funny.
1  One of those movies that make us pause and think of what we have given up to acquire the fast-paced contemporary society.
-2 A loud, brash and mainly unfunny high school comedy.
2  ... one of the most entertaining monster movies in ages...
-1 The movie's something-borrowed construction feels less the product of loving, well integrated homage and more like a mere excuse for the wan, thinly sketched story.
-1 With tiny little jokes and nary an original idea, this sappy ethnic sleeper proves that not only blockbusters pollute the summer movie pool.
-1 The movie keeps coming back to the achingly unfunny Phonce and his several silly subplots.
0  ... a mostly boring affair with a confusing sudden finale that's likely to irk viewers.
-1 A reality-snubbing hodgepodge.
-2 ... grows decidedly flimsier with its many out-sized, out of character and logically porous action set pieces.
1  The humor and humanity of Monsoon Wedding are in perfect balance.
0  There are things to like about Murder By Numbers -- but, in the end, the disparate elements don't gel.
1  Quaid is utterly fearless as the tortured husband living a painful lie, and Moore wonderfully underplays the long-suffering heroine with an unflappable'50s dignity somewhere between Jane Wyman and June Cleaver.
0  What begins as a film in the tradition of The Graduate quickly switches into something more recyclable than significant.
-1 Apparently reassembled from the cutting-room floor of any given daytime soap.
2  A brisk, reverent, and subtly different sequel.
2  The story, once it gets rolling, is nothing short of a great one.
0  It's not the worst comedy of the year, but it certainly won't win any honors.
0  Some people want the ol' ball-and-chain and then there are those who just want the Ball and Chain.
2  One of the funnier movies in town.
2  The universal theme of becoming a better person through love has never been filmed more irresistibly than in `Baran.'
-1 American and European cinema has amassed a vast Holocaust literature, but it is impossible to think of any film more challenging or depressing than The Grey Zone.
0  An elegant film
2  An example of quiet, confident craftsmanship that tells a sweet, charming tale of intergalactic friendship.
-2 A plodding teen remake that's so mechanical you can smell the grease on the plot twists.
2  A stylistic romp that's always fun to watch.
1  Like its title character, this Nicholas Nickleby finds itself in reduced circumstances -- and, also like its hero, it remains brightly optimistic, coming through in the end.
1  Although mainstream American movies tend to exploit the familiar, every once in a while a film arrives from the margin that gives viewers a chance to learn, to grow, to travel.
0  Film can't quite maintain its initial momentum, but remains sporadically funny throughout.
1  It seems impossible that an epic four-hour Indian musical about a cricket game could be this good, but it is.
2  A zinger-filled crowd-pleaser that open-minded Elvis fans (but by no means all) will have fun with.
-1 Kicks off with an inauspicious premise, mopes through a dreary tract of virtually plotless meanderings and then ends with a whimper.
-2 Most of the problems with the film don't derive from the screenplay, but rather the mediocre performances by most of the actors involved
1  There's no conversion effort, much of the writing is genuinely witty and both stars are appealing enough to probably have a good shot at a Hollywood career, if they want one.
-1 The movie turns out to be (Assayas') homage to the Gallic `tradition of quality,' in all its fusty squareness.
-1 Mattei so completely loses himself to the film's circular structure to ever offer any insightful discourse on, well, Love in the Time of Money.
2  Returning director Rob Minkoff... and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin... have done a fine job of updating White's dry wit to a new age.
1  The film has a laundry list of minor shortcomings, but the numerous scenes of gory mayhem are worth the price of admission... if ``gory mayhem'' is your idea of a good time.
0  That is because - damn it!
-2 It would be great to see this turd squashed under a truck, preferably a semi.
0  What a vast enterprise has been marshaled in the service of such a minute idea.
2  This may be Burns's strongest film since The Brothers McMullen.
-1 No better or worse than `Truth or Consequences, N.M.' or any other interchangeable actioner with imbecilic Mafia toolbags botching a routine assignment in a Western backwater.
1  Deliciously mean-spirited and wryly observant.
1  When twentysomething hotsies make movies about their lives, hard-driving narcissism is a given, but what a world we'd live in if Argento's Hollywood counterparts... had this much imagination and nerve.
1  But it's worth the concentration.
-1 Despite its promising cast of characters, Big Trouble remains a loosely tied series of vignettes which only prove that `zany' doesn't necessarily mean `funny.'
-2 But the second half of the movie really goes downhill.
-2 It is supremely unfunny and unentertaining to watch middle-age and older men drink to excess, piss on trees, b.s. one another and put on a show in drag.
-1 The big finish is a bit like getting all excited about a chocolate eclair and then biting into it and finding the filling missing.
2  A good music documentary, probably one of the best since The Last Waltz.
0  It is a movie about passion.
0  Certainly.
2  But what's nice is that there's a casual intelligence that permeates the script.
-1 Lush and beautifully photographed (somebody suggested the stills might make a nice coffee table book), but ultimately you'll leave the theater wondering why these people mattered.
-1 ... another example of how Sandler is losing his touch.
2  This is an undeniably intriguing film from an adventurous young talent who finds his inspiration on the fringes of the American underground.
1  A fleet-footed and pleasingly upbeat family diversion.
1  Efficient, suitably anonymous chiller.
0  This follow-up seems so similar to the 1953 Disney classic that it makes one long for a geriatric Peter.
-2 The movie's plot is almost entirely witless and inane, carrying every gag two or three times beyond its limit to sustain a laugh.
-1 This movie is so bad, that it's almost worth seeing because it's so bad.
1  Gently humorous and touching.
0  At its worst, the movie is pretty diverting; the pity is that it rarely achieves its best.
2  It cuts to the core of what it actually means to face your fears, to be a girl in a world of boys, to be a boy truly in love with a girl, and to ride the big metaphorical wave that is life -- wherever it takes you.
0  Spider-Man is in the same category as X-Men - occasionally brilliant but mostly average, showing signs of potential for the sequels, but not giving us much this time around.
0  When the twist endings were actually surprising?
-1 Much of the cast is stiff or just plain bad.
0  The last three narcissists left on earth compete for each others' affections.
1  Represents a worthy departure from the culture clash comedies that have marked an emerging Indian American cinema.
2  A compelling film.
-1 The movie is well done, but slow.
0  It is up to you to decide if you need to see it.
1  Yet in its own aloof, unreachable way it's so fascinating you won't be able to look away for a second.
-2 ``Bad'' is the operative word for ``Bad Company,'' and I don't mean that in a good way.
1  I'm not a fan of the phrase `life affirming' because it usually means `schmaltzy,' but Real Women Have Curves truly is life affirming.
-1 No one can doubt the filmmakers' motives, but The Guys still feels counterproductive.
2  Offers a clear-eyed chronicle of a female friendship that is more complex and honest than anything represented in a Hollywood film.
-2 The worst film of the year.
-1 `Christian Bale's Quinn (is) a leather clad grunge-pirate with a hairdo like Gandalf in a wind-tunnel and a simply astounding cor-blimey-luv-a-duck cockney accent.'
-2 The only thing scary about feardotcom is that the filmmakers and studio are brazen enough to attempt to pass this stinker off as a scary movie.
0  Throwing it all away for the fleeting joys of love's brief moment.
-2 Take away the controversy, and it's not much more watchable than a Mexican soap opera.
1  A raunchy and frequently hilarious follow-up to the gifted Korean American stand-up's I'm the One That I Want.
2  Painful, horrifying and oppressively tragic, this film should not be missed.
2  The most brilliant and brutal UK crime film since Jack Carter went back to Newcastle, the first half of Gangster No. 1 drips with style and, at times, blood.
-2 Yes, I suppose it's lovely that Cal works out his issues with his dad and comes to terms with his picture-perfect life -- but World Traveler gave me no reason to care, so I didn't.
2  Broomfield is energized by Volletta Wallace's maternal fury, her fearlessness, and because of that, his film crackles.
1  Yet the act is still charming here.
-1 The plot's contrivances are uncomfortably strained.
2  It has that rare quality of being able to creep the living hell out of you...
1  He drags it back, single-handed.
0  It may not be ``Last Tango in Paris'' but...
-1 A ``Home Alone'' film that is staged like ``Rosemary's Baby,'' but is not as well-conceived as either of those films.
0  A rather average action film that benefits from several funny moments supplied by Epps.
1  of whimsicality, narrative discipline and serious improvisation
1  Often hilarious.
-1 I'm convinced I could keep a family of five blind, crippled, Amish people alive in this situation better than these British soldiers do at keeping themselves kicking.
1  An elegant work, Food of Love is as consistently engaging as it is revealing.
-1 The jokes are telegraphed so far in advance they must have been lost in the mail.
-1 Give Shapiro, Goldman, and Bolado credit for good intentions, but there's nothing here that they couldn't have done in half an hour.
-2 ... this isn't even a movie we can enjoy as mild escapism; it is one in which fear and frustration are provoked to intolerable levels.
1  It's good, hard-edged stuff, violent and a bit exploitative but also nicely done, morally alert and street-smart.
1  I like it.
1  On its own, Big Trouble could be considered a funny little film.
1  It's not nearly as fresh or enjoyable as its predecessor, but there are enough high points to keep this from being a complete waste of time.
-1 This tale has been told and retold; the races and rackets change, but the song remains the same.
-2 Worthless, from its pseudo-rock-video opening to the idiocy of its last frames.
-2 Makes a joke out of car chases for an hour and then gives us half an hour of car chases.
2  A knowing sense of humor and a lot of warmth ignite Son of the Bride.
-1 Though there are entertaining and audacious moments, the movie's wildly careening tone and an extremely flat lead performance do little to salvage this filmmaker's flailing reputation.
2  The Son Of The Bride's humour is born out of an engaging storyline, which also isn't embarrassed to make you reach for the tissues.
2  Even if the Naipaul original remains the real masterpiece, the movie possesses its own languorous charm.
1  Ambitious, unsettling psychodrama that takes full, chilling advantage of its rough-around-the-edges, low-budget constraints.
1  Most of the things that made the original Men in Black such a pleasure are still there.
1  At times a bit melodramatic and even a little dated (depending upon where you live), Ignorant Fairies is still quite good-natured and not a bad way to spend an hour or two.
0  Or for the year, for that matter.
2  I had more fun watching Spy than I had with most of the big summer movies.
-2 It's just merely very bad.
0  the shackles
1  Watching this gentle, mesmerizing portrait of a man coming to terms with time, you barely realize your mind is being blown.
1  You can watch, giggle and get an adrenaline boost without feeling like you've completely lowered your entertainment standards.
0  Some movies blend together as they become distant memories.
-2 Nair just doesn't have the necessary self-control to guide a loose, poorly structured film through the pitfalls of incoherence and redundancy.
1  Chouraqui brings documentary-like credibility to the horrors of the killing field and the barbarism of `ethnic cleansing.'
-1 Woody Allen used to ridicule movies like Hollywood Ending.
-1 It's mildly amusing, but I certainly can't recommend it.
-2 And it's not that funny -- which is just generally insulting.
-2 As David Letterman and The Onion have proven, the worst of tragedies can be fertile sources of humor, but Lawrence has only a fleeting grasp of how to develop them.
-1 They just have problems, which are neither original nor are presented in convincing way.
1  For all the dolorous trim, Secretary is a genial romance that maintains a surprisingly buoyant tone throughout, notwithstanding some of the writers' sporadic dips into pop Freudianism.
1  Like the original, this version is raised a few notches above kiddie fantasy pablum by Allen's astringent wit.
2  A taut, sobering film.
0  Far-fetched premise, convoluted plot, and thematic mumbo jumbo about destiny and redemptive love.
1  A muddle splashed with bloody beauty as vivid as any Scorsese has ever given us.
2  The way the roundelay of partners functions, and the interplay within partnerships and among partnerships and the general air of Gator-bashing are consistently delightful.
2  But while the highly predictable narrative falls short, Treasure Planet is truly gorgeous to behold.
2  Directed with purpose and finesse by England's Roger Mitchell, who handily makes the move from pleasing, relatively lightweight commercial fare such as Notting Hill to commercial fare with real thematic heft.
-1 One of these days Hollywood will come up with an original idea for a teen movie, but until then there's always these rehashes to feed to the younger generations.
1  A wild ride juiced with enough energy and excitement for at least three films.
-1 Nemesis suffers from a paunchy midsection, several plodding action sequences and a wickedly undramatic central theme.
0  Lucky Break is perfectly inoffensive and harmless, but it's also drab and inert.
2  Elvira fans could hardly ask for more.
0  Exactly what you'd expect from a guy named Kaos.
2  Like all great films about a life you never knew existed, it offers much to absorb and even more to think about after the final frame.
-2 It's pretentious in a way that verges on the amateurish.
-2 ... unlike (Scorsese's Mean Streets), Ash Wednesday is essentially devoid of interesting characters or even a halfway intriguing plot.
0  Only two-fifths of a satisfying movie experience.
-1 ... the good and different idea (of middle-aged romance) is not handled well and, except for the fine star performances, there is little else to recommend ``Never Again.''
0  Murder by Numbers' isn't a great movie, but it's a perfectly acceptable widget.
-2 It may as well be called ``Jar-Jar Binks: The Movie.''
-1 But it would be better to wait for the video.
2  Delirious fun.
-1 There are some fairly unsettling scenes, but they never succeed in really rattling the viewer.
2  Special P.O.V. camera mounts on bikes, skateboards, and motorcycles provide an intense experience when splashed across the immense IMAX screen.
2  There are scenes of cinematic perfection that steal your heart away.
0  A fantastic premise anchors this movie, but what it needs is either a more rigid, Blair Witch-style commitment to its mockumentary format, or a more straightforward, dramatic treatment, with all the grandiosity that that implies.
-2 ``Interview'' loses its overall sense of mystery and becomes a TV episode rather than a documentary that you actually buy into.
2  ... the first 2/3 of the film are incredibly captivating and insanely funny, thanks in part to interesting cinematic devices (cool visual backmasking), a solid cast, and some wickedly sick and twisted humor...
2  This is the best Star Trek movie in a long time.
0  Auto Focus is not your standard Hollywood bio-pic.
0  ``Not really as bad as you might think!''
1  Beautifully filmed and well acted... but admittedly problematic in its narrative specifics.
-1 Brainless, but enjoyably over-the-top, the retro gang melodrama, Deuces Wild represents fifties teen-gang machismo in a way that borders on rough-trade homo-eroticism.
2  One of the best films of the year with its exquisite acting, inventive screenplay, mesmerizing music, and many inimitable scenes of tenderness, loss, discontent, and yearning.
0  I saw Juwanna Mann so you don't have to.
-2 Why anyone who is not a character in this movie should care is beyond me.
-1 What starts off as a potentially incredibly twisting mystery becomes simply a monster chase film.
0  ... they missed the boat.
-2 Characterisation has been sacrificed for the sake of spectacle.
1  As an introduction to the man's theories and influence, Derrida is all but useless; as a portrait of the artist as an endlessly inquisitive old man, however, it's invaluable.
2  A delightful, if minor, pastry of a movie.
1  ... Despite lagging near the finish line, the movie runs a good race, one that will have you at the edge of your seat for long stretches.'
-1 Clockstoppers is one of those crazy, mixed-up films that doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up.
-1 Fear Dot Com is more frustrating than a modem that disconnects every 10 seconds.
1  And Vin Diesel is the man.
-1 Nights feels more like a quickie TV special than a feature film... It's not even a TV special you'd bother watching past the second commercial break.
1  While there are times when the film's reach exceeds its grasp, the production works more often than it doesn't.
2  Richly entertaining and suggestive of any number of metaphorical readings.
1  It's a day at the beach -- with air conditioning and popcorn.
-1 ... a bland, pretentious mess.
-2 The actors try hard but come off too amateurish and awkward.
1  Goldbacher draws on an elegant visual sense and a talent for easy, seductive pacing... but she and writing partner Laurence Coriat don't manage an equally assured narrative coinage.
-1 The film would have been more enjoyable had the balance shifted in favor of water-bound action over the land-based `drama,' but the emphasis on the latter leaves Blue Crush waterlogged.
1  Becomes a fascinating study of isolation and frustration that successfully recreates both the physical setting and emotional tensions of the Papin sisters.
-1 Though Harris is affecting at times, he can not overcome the sense that Pumpkin is a mere plot pawn for two directors with far less endearing disabilities.
2  The overall result is an intelligent, realistic portrayal of testing boundaries.
-1 Never decides whether it wants to be a black comedy, drama, melodrama or some combination of the three.
-1 An authentically vague, but ultimately purposeless, study in total pandemonium.
0  `Tadpole' was one of the films so declared this year, but it's really more of The Next Pretty Good Thing.
1  Those prone to indignation need not apply; those susceptible to blue hilarity, step right up.
2  She's as rude and profane as ever, always hilarious and, most of the time, absolutely right in her stinging social observations.
-2 Even as I valiantly struggled to remain interested, or at least conscious, I could feel my eyelids... getting... very... heavy...
1  It may not be particularly innovative, but the film's crisp, unaffected style and air of gentle longing make it unexpectedly rewarding.
0  At its best... Festival in Cannes bubbles with the excitement of the festival in Cannes.
2  Bill Morrison's Decasia is uncompromising, difficult and unbearably beautiful.
1  (Shyamalan) turns the goose-pimple genre on its empty head and fills it with spirit, purpose and emotionally bruised characters who add up to more than body count.
-1 I'd be hard pressed to think of a film more cloyingly sappy than Evelyn this year.
1  I know that I'll never listen to Marvin Gaye or the Supremes the same way again
2  Like Shrek, Spirit's visual imagination reminds you of why animation is such a perfect medium for children, because of the way it allows the mind to enter and accept another world.
1  Saddled with an unwieldy cast of characters and angles, but the payoff is powerful and revelatory.
-1 I'll stay with the stage versions, however, which bite cleaner, and deeper.
1  Tsai convincingly paints a specifically urban sense of disassociation here.
-1 Despite the opulent lushness of every scene, the characters never seem to match the power of their surroundings.
-1 And people make fun of me for liking Showgirls.
0  You just know something terrible is going to happen.
1  Much of what we see is horrible but it's also undeniably exceedingly clever.
1  Writer / director M. Night Shyamalan's ability to pull together easily accessible stories that resonate with profundity is undeniable.
-1 Not once in the rush to save the day did I become very involved in the proceedings; to me, it was just a matter of `eh.'
-1 This 10th film in the series looks and feels tired.
-2 A long, dull procession of despair, set to cello music culled from a minimalist funeral.
-1 Cherish is a dud -- a romantic comedy that's not the least bit romantic and only mildly funny.
0  is now stretched to barely feature length, with a little more attention paid to the animation.
-2 For most movies, 84 minutes is short, but this one feels like a life sentence.
-1 The movie's major and most devastating flaw is its reliance on formula, though, and it's quite enough to lessen the overall impact the movie could have had.
-1 For a movie about the power of poetry and passion, there is precious little of either.
0  Not to mention a sharper, cleaner camera lens.
0  would have been benefited from a sharper, cleaner script before it went in front of the camera.
-2 This Tuxedo... should have been sent back to the tailor for some major alterations.
1  If you're as happy listening to movies as you are watching them, and the slow parade of human frailty fascinates you, then you're at the right film.
1  Poignant and delicately complex.
2  Intriguing and stylish.
0  It was filled with shootings, beatings, and more cussing than you could shake a stick at.
-1 It's a mindless action flick with a twist -- far better suited to video-viewing than the multiplex.
1  The trick when watching Godard is to catch the pitch of his poetics, savor the pleasure of his sounds and images, and ponder the historical, philosophical, and ethical issues that intersect with them.
0  A biopic about Crane's life in the classic tradition but evolves into what has become of us all in the era of video.
1  With exquisite craftsmanship... Olivier Assayas has fashioned an absorbing look at provincial bourgeois French society.
-1 However sincere it may be, The Rising Place never quite justifies its own existence.
0  The central character isn't complex enough to hold our interest.
-1 What could have been right at home as a nifty plot line in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic fails to arrive at any satisfying destination.
-2 Tykwer's surface flash isn't just a poor fit with Kieslowski's lyrical pessimism; it completely contradicts everything Kieslowski's work aspired to, including the condition of art.
-2 Skip this turd and pick your nose instead because you're sure to get more out of the latter experience.
0  You get the idea, though, that Kapur intended the film to be more than that.
0  O.K., not really.
-1 Both deserve better.
2  Parents may even find that it goes by quickly, because it has some of the funniest jokes of any movie this year, including those intended for adults.
1  A tasty appetizer that leaves you wanting more.
0  The film has too many spots where it's on slippery footing, but is acceptable entertainment for the entire family and one that's especially fit for the kiddies.
0  Two hours of sepia-tinted heavy metal images and surround sound effects of people moaning.
-1 Even kids deserve better.
2  That the real Antwone Fisher was able to overcome his personal obstacles and become a good man is a wonderful thing; that he has been able to share his story so compellingly with us is a minor miracle.
1  Meticulously mounted, exasperatingly well-behaved film, which ticks off Kahlo's lifetime milestones with the dutiful precision of a tax accountant.
-2 Men in Black II achieves ultimate insignificance -- it's the sci-fi comedy spectacle as Whiffle-Ball epic.
0  Those unfamiliar with Mormon traditions may find The Singles Ward occasionally bewildering.
-2 Stiff and schmaltzy and clumsily directed.
-1 If The Last Man were the last movie left on earth, there would be a toss-up between presiding over the end of cinema as we know it and another night of delightful hand shadows.
0  ``I blame all men for war,'' (the warden's daughter) tells her father.
0  If you don't laugh, flee.
1  that it'll probably be the best and most mature comedy of the 2002 summer season speaks more of the season than the picture
-1 On its own, it's not very interesting.
1  Leigh isn't breaking new ground, but he knows how a daily grind can kill love.
1  The rich performances by Friel -- and especially Williams, an American actress who becomes fully English -- round out the square edges.
-2 The appeal of the vulgar, sexist, racist humour went over my head or -- considering just how low brow it is -- perhaps it snuck under my feet.
1  The movie itself is far from disappointing, offering an original take on courtroom movies, a few nifty twists that are so crucial to the genre and another first-rate performance by top-billed star Bruce Willis.
0  Five screenwriters
-1 About half of them are funny, a few are sexy and none are useful in telling the story, which is paper-thin and decidedly unoriginal.
-1 Its one-sidedness... flirts with propaganda.
-2 Final verdict: You've seen it all before.
1  Nicole Holofcenter, the insightful writer/director responsible for this illuminating comedy doesn't wrap the proceedings up neatly but the ideas tie together beautifully.
0  One of those staggeringly well-produced, joylessly extravagant pictures that keep whooshing you from one visual marvel to the next, hastily, emptily.
-1 Even as the hero of the story rediscovers his passion in life, the mood remains oddly detached.
-2 Boring and meandering.
-1 No matter how much he runs around and acts like a doofus, accepting a 50-year-old in the role is creepy in a Michael Jackson sort of way.
2  The emotion is impressively true for being so hot-blooded, and both leads are up to the task.
-1 Gooding and Coburn are both Oscar winners, a fact which, as you watch them clumsily mugging their way through Snow Dogs, seems inconceivable.
-1 Why?
-1 Brosnan's finest non-Bondish performance yet fails to overcome the film's manipulative sentimentality and annoying stereotypes.
-1 It leers, offering next to little insight into its intriguing subject.
-2 A 75-minute sample of puerile rubbish that is listless, witless, and devoid of anything resembling humor.
-1 Throwing in everything except someone pulling the pin from a grenade with his teeth, Windtalkers seems to have ransacked every old World War II movie for overly familiar material.
-1 A reworking of Die Hard and Cliffhanger but it's nowhere near as exciting as either.
-1 (The kid's) just too bratty for sympathy, and as the film grows to its finale, his little changes ring hollow.
2  Texan director George Ratliff had unlimited access to families and church meetings, and he delivers fascinating psychological fare.
-1 The trouble with making this queen a thoroughly modern maiden is that it also makes her appear foolish and shallow rather than, as was more likely, a victim of mental illness.
-1 Star Trek was kind of terrific once, but now it is a copy of a copy of a copy.
-2 Ms. Phoenix is completely lacking in charm and charisma, and is unable to project either Esther's initial anomie or her eventual awakening.
1  The Wild Thornberrys Movie is pleasant enough and the message of our close ties with animals can certainly not be emphasized enough.
-1 The audacity to view one of Shakespeare's better known tragedies as a dark comedy is, by itself, deserving of discussion.
-1 Throw Smoochy from the train!
2  If you're looking for something new and hoping for something entertaining, you're in luck.
0  De Ayala is required to supply too much of the energy in a film that is, overall, far too staid for its subject matter.
-2 Cold, Sterile And Lacking Any Color Or Warmth.
-1 Mindless and boring martial arts and gunplay with too little excitement and zero compelling storyline.
-1 A puppy dog so desperate for attention it nearly breaks its little neck trying to perform entertaining tricks.
1  In the end there is one word that best describes this film: honest.
2  It's the funniest American comedy since Graffiti Bridge.
0  Secretary is not a movie about fetishism.
1  `Film aficionados can not help but love Cinema Paradiso, whether the original version or new Director's Cut.'
-2 A rip-off twice removed, modeled after (Seagal's) earlier copycat Under Siege, sometimes referred to as Die Hard on a boat.
-1 More dutiful than enchanting... terribly episodic and lacking the spark of imagination that might have made it an exhilarating treat.
0  The only upside to all of this unpleasantness is, given its Labor Day weekend upload, FearDotCom should log a minimal number of hits.
1  What the movie lacks in action it more than makes up for in drama, suspense, revenge, and romance.
-1 The type of dumbed-down exercise in stereotypes that gives the (teen comedy) genre a bad name.
0  an ``O Bruin, Where Art Thou?''
-2 ... no charm, no laughs, no fun, no reason to watch.
1  A deft, delightful mix of sulky teen drama and overcoming-obstacles sports-movie triumph.
-1 ... there's a choppy, surface-effect feeling to the whole enterprise.
1  Predictable storyline and by-the-book scripting is all but washed away by sumptuous ocean visuals and the cinematic stylings of director John Stockwell.
2  At times, the movie looks genuinely pretty.
0  Warmed-over hash.
0  It was a dark and stormy night...
-1 Drowning's too good for this sucker.
1  A full experience, a love story and a murder mystery that expands into a meditation on the deep deceptions of innocence.
-1 At times Auto Focus feels so distant you might as well be watching it through a telescope.
1  Rarely does such high-profile talent serve such literate material.
-1 For all its shoot-outs, fistfights, and car chases, this movie is a phlegmatic bore, so tedious it makes the silly spy vs. spy film The Sum of All Fears, starring Ben Affleck, seem downright Hitchcockian.
2  A true-blue delight.
2  Kinnear's performance is a career-defining revelation.
0  Less about Shakespeare than the spawn of fools who saw Quentin Tarantino's handful of raucous gangster films and branched out into their own pseudo-witty copycat interpretations.
-1 Leaves us wondering less about its ideas and more about its characterization of Hitler and the contrived nature of its provocative conclusion.
2  Far more enjoyable than its predecessor.
0  It's hard to fairly judge a film like RINGU when you've seen the remake first.
0  It's not hateful.
2  The delicious trimmings... arrive early and stay late, filling nearly every minute... with a lighthearted glow, some impudent snickers, and a glorious dose of humankind's liberating ability to triumph over a Scrooge or two.
-1 Needs more impressionistic cinematography and exhilarating point-of-view shots and fewer slow-motion `grandeur' shots and quick-cut edits that often detract from the athleticism.
1  With a large cast representing a broad cross-section, Tavernier's film bounds along with the rat-a-tat energy of ``His Girl Friday,'' maintaining a light touch while tackling serious themes.
1  One of the most gloriously unsubtle and adrenalized extreme shockers since The Evil Dead.
-1 Lisa Rinzler's cinematography may be lovely, but Love Liza's tale itself virtually collapses into an inhalant blackout, maintaining consciousness just long enough to achieve callow pretension.
-1 It's provocative stuff, but the speculative effort is hampered by Taylor's cartoonish performance and the film's ill-considered notion that Hitler's destiny was shaped by the most random of chances.
1  The Bourne Identity shouldn't be half as entertaining as it is, but director Doug Liman and his colleagues have managed to pack it with enough action to satisfy the boom-bam crowd without a huge sacrifice of character and mood.
0  In (screenwriter) Charlie Kaufman's world, truth and fiction are equally strange, and his for the taking.
-2 ... a pretentious mess...
1  (Gulpilil) is a commanding screen presence, and his character's abundant humanism makes him the film's moral compass.
-1 The modern-day characters are nowhere near as vivid as the 19th-century ones.
1  (At least) Moore is a real charmer.
1  ... there's enough cool fun here to warm the hearts of animation enthusiasts of all ages.
0  All Analyze That proves is that there is really only one movie's worth of decent gags to be gleaned from the premise.
-2 A thriller without a lot of thrills.
2  Adaptation's success in engaging the audience in the travails of creating a screenplay is extraordinary.
1  You never know where Changing Lanes is going to take you but it's a heck of a ride.
2  It is sentimental but feels free to offend, is analytical and then surrenders to the illogic of its characters, is about grief and yet permits laughter.
1  As Antonia is assimilated into this newfangled community, the film settles in and becomes compulsively watchable in a guilty-pleasure, daytime-drama sort of fashion.
-1 Enigma lacks it.
1  Poetic, heartbreaking.
2  Real Women may have many agendas, but it also will win you over, in a big way.
1  And it is.
0  In his determination to lighten the heavy subject matter, Silberling also, to a certain extent, trivializes the movie with too many nervous gags and pratfalls.
-2 Astonishing isn't the word -- neither is incompetent, incoherent or just plain crap.
-1 The film didn't convince me that Calvin Jr.'s Barbershop represents some sort of beacon of hope in the middle of Chicago's South Side.
-1 Anyone else who may, for whatever reason, be thinking about going to see this movie is hereby given fair warning.
1  An edifying glimpse into the wit and revolutionary spirit of these performers and their era.
-2 ... about as exciting to watch as two last-place basketball teams playing one another on the final day of the season.
1  Both Grant and Hoult carry the movie because they are believable as people -- flawed, assured of the wrong things, and scared to admit how much they may really need the company of others.
-1 Busy urban comedy is clearly not Zhang's forte, his directorial touch is neither light nor magical enough to bring off this kind of whimsy.
0  Famuyiwa's feature
0  Ruh-roh!
-1 A beyond-lame satire, Teddy Bears' Picnic ranks among the most pitiful directing debuts by an esteemed writer-actor.
0  directed in a flashy, empty sub-music video style by a director so self-possessed he actually adds a period to his first name
0  A dreary indulgence.
-1 A gushy episode of ``M \* A \* S \* H'' only this time from an Asian perspective.
1  As literary desecrations go, this makes for perfectly acceptable, occasionally very enjoyable children's entertainment.
-1 I can't remember the last time I saw worse stunt editing or cheaper action movie production values than in Extreme Ops.
2  It's a lovely, sad dance highlighted by Kwan's unique directing style.
0  Though it never rises to its full potential as a film, still offers a great deal of insight into the female condition and the timeless danger of emotions repressed.
0  When the precise nature of Matthew's predicament finally comes into sharp focus, the revelation fails to justify the build-up.
-1 Unless you're a fanatic, the best advice is: `Scooby' don't.
2  The search for redemption makes for a touching love story, mainly because Blanchett and Ribisi compellingly tap into a spiritual aspect of their characters' suffering.
-1 One suspects that Craven endorses They simply because this movie makes his own look much better by comparison.
-1 Hill looks to be going through the motions, beginning with the pale script.
-2 is significantly less charming than listening to a four-year-old with a taste for exaggeration recount his Halloween trip to the Haunted House.
1  It's nice to see Piscopo again after all these years, and Chaykin and Headly are priceless.
1  For a long time the film succeeds with its dark, delicate treatment of these characters and its unerring respect for them.
1  Enigma looks great, has solid acting and a neat premise.
1  Manages to be wholesome and subversive at the same time.
-1 Sweet gentle Jesus, did the screenwriters just do a cut-and-paste of every bad action-movie line in history?
1  The touch is generally light enough and the performances, for the most part, credible.
1  An enjoyable above average summer diversion.
-2 So muddled, repetitive and ragged that it says far less about the horrifying historical reality than about the filmmaker's characteristic style.
0  The pace of the film is very slow (for obvious reasons) and that too becomes off-putting.
-2 It's an 88-minute highlight reel that's 86 minutes too long.
-2 Laughably, irredeemably awful.
1  Twohy's a good yarn-spinner, and ultimately the story compels.
-1 Steve Oedekerk is, alas, no Woody Allen.
-1 The whole thing comes off like a particularly amateurish episode of Bewitched that takes place during Spring Break.
1  Clooney directs this film always keeping the balance between the fantastic and the believable...
2  Handled correctly, Wilde's play is a masterpiece of elegant wit and artifice.
1  I liked About Schmidt a lot, but I have a feeling that I would have liked it much more if Harry & Tonto never existed.
1  What's not to like about a movie with a `children's' song that includes the line `My stepdad's not mean, he's just adjusting'?
1  A quaint, romanticized rendering.
0  The dominant feeling is something like nostalgia.'
-2 A loud, witless mess that has none of the charm and little of the intrigue from the TV series.
-2 An empty, purposeless exercise.
-1 Offers big, fat, dumb laughs that may make you hate yourself for giving in.
1  A lot smarter than your average Bond.
-1 Deadly dull, pointless meditation on losers in a gone-to-seed hotel.
1  A French film with a more down-home flavor.
2  The kind of movie that comes along only occasionally, one so unconventional, gutsy and perfectly executed it takes your breath away.
-2 It's just too bad the screenwriters eventually shoot themselves in the feet with cop flick cliches like an oily arms dealer, squad car pile-ups and the requisite screaming captain.
-1 Is it really an advantage to invest such subtlety and warmth in an animatronic bear when the humans are acting like puppets?
0  His best film remains his shortest, The Hole, which makes many of the points that this film does but feels less repetitive.
0  Director David Jacobson gives Dahmer a consideration that the murderer never game his victims.
1  Captures all the longing, anguish and ache, the confusing sexual messages and the wish to be a part of that elusive adult world.
-1 Empire can't make up its mind whether it wants to be a gangster flick or an art film.
0  The sequel is everything the original was not: contrived, overblown and tie-in ready.
-1 What happens when something goes bump in the night and nobody cares?
-2 Slack and uninspired, and peopled mainly by characters so unsympathetic that you're left with a sour taste in your mouth.
0  underventilated
1  Smith examines the intimate, unguarded moments of folks who live in unusual homes -- which pop up in nearly every corner of the country.
1  For 95 often hilarious minutes
2  It picked me up, swung me around, and dropped me back in my seat with more emotional force than any other recent film.
-1 The script by Vincent R. Nebrida... tries to cram too many ingredients into one small pot.
1  Birthday Girl lucks out with Chaplin and Kidman, who are capable of anteing up some movie star charisma when they need it to sell us on this twisted love story, but who can also negotiate the movie's darker turns.
-1 Suffers from its timid parsing of the barn-side target of sons trying to breach gaps in their relationships with their fathers.
-2 ... you can be forgiven for realizing that you've spent the past 20 minutes looking at your watch and waiting for Frida to just die already.
1  Although devoid of objectivity and full of nostalgic comments from the now middle-aged participants, Dogtown and Z-Boys has a compelling story to tell.
0  fast, frantic and fun, but also soon forgotten
1  Deliciously slow.
-2 To build a feel-good fantasy around a vain dictator-madman is off-putting, to say the least, not to mention inappropriate and wildly undeserved.
-1 Suffice to say its total promise is left slightly unfulfilled.
1  Those who want to be jolted out of their gourd should drop everything and run to Ichi.
1  An energetic and engaging film that never pretends to be something it isn't.
2  An enormously entertaining movie, like nothing we've ever seen before, and yet completely familiar.
2  An odd drama set in the world of lingerie models and bar dancers in the Midwest that held my interest precisely because it didn't try to.
1  Australian actor/director John Polson and award-winning English cinematographer Giles Nuttgens make a terrific effort at disguising the obvious with energy and innovation.
-1 Belongs in the too-hot-for-TV direct-to-video/DVD category, and this is why I have given it a one-star rating.
0  Ultimately feels like just one more in the long line of films this year about the business of making movies.
0  A wordy wisp of a comedy.
0  A punch line without a premise, a joke built entirely from musty memories of half-dimensional characters.
0  Nachtwey clears the cynicism right out of you.
1  she of the impossibly long limbs and sweetly conspiratorial smile
1  The film delivers what it promises: A look at the ``wild ride'' that ensues when brash young men set out to conquer the online world with laptops, cell phones and sketchy business plans.
1  Bring on the sequel.
0  (It) highlights not so much the crime lord's messianic bent, but Spacey's.
0  The date movie that Franz Kafka would have made.
2  This charming, thought-provoking New York fest of life and love has its rewards.
0  Frida is certainly no disaster, but neither is it the Kahlo movie Frida fans have been looking for.
1  We've seen the hippie-turned-yuppie plot before, but there's an enthusiastic charm in Fire that makes the formula fresh again.
1  Neither the funniest film that Eddie Murphy nor Robert De Niro has ever made, Showtime is nevertheless efficiently amusing for a good while.
0  Mild, meandering teen flick.
0  Viewed as a comedy, a romance, a fairy tale, or a drama, there's nothing remotely triumphant about this motion picture.
1  An intriguing look at the French film industry during the German occupation; its most delightful moments come when various characters express their quirky inner selves.
2  A special kind of movie, this melancholic film noir reminded me a lot of Memento...
0  ... hopefully it'll be at the dollar theatres by the time Christmas rolls around.
0  Exposing the ways we fool ourselves is One Hour Photo's real strength.
-2 Just another combination of bad animation and mindless violence... lacking the slightest bit of wit or charm.
2  Proof once again that if the filmmakers just follow the books, they can't go wrong.
2  A strong script, powerful direction and splendid production design allows us to be transported into the life of Wladyslaw Szpilman, who is not only a pianist, but a good human being.
0  Basically, it's pretty but dumb.
-2 (A) soulless, stupid sequel...
1  The low-key direction is pleasingly emphatic in this properly intense, claustrophobic tale of obsessive love.
2  The art direction and costumes are gorgeous and finely detailed, and Kurys' direction is clever and insightful.
-1 It sticks rigidly to the paradigm, rarely permitting its characters more than two obvious dimensions and repeatedly placing them in contrived, well-worn situations.
-1 They crush each other under cars, throw each other out windows, electrocute and dismember their victims in full consciousness.
-1 He seems to want both, but succeeds in making neither.
1  Full of surprises.
-1 Forgettable, if good-hearted, movie.
-1 Just as the lousy Tarantino imitations have subsided, here comes the first lousy Guy Ritchie imitation.
-2 Not even Felinni would know what to make of this Italian freakshow.
0  About Amy's cuteness, Amy's career success (she's a best-selling writer of self-help books who can't help herself), and Amy's neuroses when it comes to men.
-2 Fails as a dystopian movie, as a retooling of Fahrenheit 451, and even as a rip-off of The Matrix.
2  Tunney, brimming with coltish, neurotic energy, holds the screen like a true star.
1  Beautiful, cold, oddly colorful and just plain otherworldly, a freaky bit of art that's there to scare while we delight in the images.
2  A wild, endearing, masterful documentary.
2  Cool gadgets and creatures keep this fresh.
0  LaBute was more fun when his characters were torturing each other psychologically and talking about their genitals in public.
1  A charmer from Belgium.
1  I've never bought from telemarketers, but I bought this movie.
2  Executed with such gentle but insistent sincerity, with such good humor and appreciation of the daily grind that only the most hardhearted Scrooge could fail to respond.
-1 Appropriately cynical social commentary aside, # 9 never quite ignites.
0  Gorgeous scenes, masterful performances, but the sickly sweet gender normative narrative left an acrid test in this gourmet's mouth.
1  Stuffed to the brim with ideas, American instigator Michael Moore's film is a rambling examination of American gun culture that uses his usual modus operandi of crucifixion through juxtaposition.
1  At its best, it's Black Hawk Down with more heart.
0  Although Barbershop boasts some of today's hottest and hippest acts from the world of television, music and stand-up comedy, this movie strangely enough has the outdated swagger of a shameless `70s blaxploitation shuck-and-jive sitcom.
1  If you're looking for a smart, nuanced look at de Sade and what might have happened at Picpus, Sade is your film.
-1 To me, it sounds like a cruel deception carried out by men of marginal intelligence, with reactionary ideas about women and a total lack of empathy.
0  Arnold!
1  Far more successful, if considerably less ambitious, than last year's Kubrick-meets-Spielberg exercise.
1  There are plenty of scenes in Frida that do work, but rarely do they involve the title character herself.
1  Elling builds gradually until you feel fully embraced by this gentle comedy.
0  It bites hard.
1  If the film has a problem, its shortness disappoints: You want the story to go on and on.
1  Cut through the layers of soap-opera emotion and you find a scathing portrayal of a powerful entity strangling the life out of the people who want to believe in it the most.
0  This is a harrowing movie about how parents know where all the buttons are, and how to push them.
0  It understands, in a way that speaks forcefully enough about the mechanisms of poverty to transcend the rather simplistic filmmaking.
2  It's a smartly directed, grown-up film of ideas.
1  ... strips Bible stores of the potential for sanctimoniousness, making them meaningful for both kids and church-wary adults.
-1 Spider-Man is about growing strange hairs, getting a more mature body, and finding it necessary to hide new secretions from the parental units.
0  while (Roman Coppola) scores points for style, he staggers in terms of story.
2  is one of this year's very best pictures.
1  Too daft by half... but supremely good natured.
1  Mostly, (Goldbacher) just lets her complicated characters be unruly, confusing and, through it all, human.
-1 jumps around with little logic or continuity,
0  A static and sugary little half-hour, after-school special about interfaith understanding, stretched out to 90 minutes.
1  Visually striking and viscerally repellent.
-1 Too slow for a younger crowd, too shallow for an older one.
-1 The fact that the `best part' of the movie comes from a 60-second homage to one of Demme's good films doesn't bode well for the rest of it.
0  The tone errs on the shrill side, tempered by a soft southern gentility that speaks of beauty, grace and a closet full of skeletons.
0  But even with the two-wrongs-make-a-right chemistry between Jolie and Burns... this otherwise appealing picture loses its soul to Screenwriting For Dummies conformity.
0  Benigni's Pinocchio is extremely straight and mind-numbingly stilted, its episodic pacing keeping the film from developing any storytelling flow.
-1 A pale Xerox of other, better crime movies.
-2 It's a visual Rorschach test and I must have failed.
1  Great dragons!
2  A small movie with a big impact.
1  Daughter From Danang sticks with its subjects a little longer and tells a deeper story
-1 Sodden and glum, even in those moments where it's supposed to feel funny and light.
1  -- but certainly hard to hate.
1  In the disturbingly involving family dysfunctional drama How I Killed My Father, French director Anne Fontaine delivers an inspired portrait of male-ridden angst and the emotional blockage that accompanies this human condition
1  The film feels uncomfortably real, its language and locations bearing the unmistakable stamp of authority.
2  Good performances and a realistic, non-exploitive approach make Paid in Full worth seeing.
2  An honest, sensitive story from a Vietnamese point of view.
0  Who knew...
2  Beautifully produced.
1  Those eternally devoted to the insanity of Black will have an intermittently good time.
2  A film with almost as many delights for adults as there are for children and dog lovers.
1  It's rare to find a film to which the adjective `gentle' applies, but the word perfectly describes Pauline & Paulette.
0  Grainy photography mars an otherwise delightful comedy of errors.
-2 Guilty of the worst sin of attributable to a movie like this: it's not scary in the slightest.
-1 One of those films where the characters inhabit that special annex of hell where adults behave like kids, children behave like adults and everyone screams at the top of their lungs no matter what the situation.
-1 A sloppy slapstick throwback to long gone bottom-of-the-bill fare like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.
-1 The script is a tired one, with few moments of joy rising above the stale material.
1  (City) reminds us how realistically nuanced a Robert De Niro performance can be when he is not more lucratively engaged in the shameless self-caricature of `Analyze This' (1999) and `Analyze That,' promised (or threatened) for later this year.
1  would make an excellent companion piece to the similarly themed `The French Lieutenant's Woman.'
1  Harmless fun.
2  Infidelity drama is nicely shot, well-edited and features a standout performance by Diane Lane.
-1 The filmmakers needed more emphasis on the storytelling and less on the glamorous machine that thrusts the audience into a future they won't much care about.
-1 ... a fascinating curiosity piece -- fascinating, that is, for about ten minutes.
2  The strength of the film comes not from any cinematic razzle-dazzle but from its recovery of an historical episode that, in the simple telling, proves simultaneously harrowing and uplifting.
2  Spielberg's first real masterpiece, it deserved all the hearts it won -- and wins still, 20 years later.
1  Bielinsky is a filmmaker of impressive talent.
2  Fathers and sons, and the uneasy bonds between them, rarely have received such a sophisticated and unsentimental treatment on the big screen as they do in this marvelous film.
1  Criminal conspiracies and true romances move so easily across racial and cultural lines in the film that it makes My Big Fat Greek Wedding look like an apartheid drama.
-1 With more character development this might have been an eerie thriller; with better payoffs, it could have been a thinking man's monster movie.
-1 Tries too hard to be funny in a way that's too loud, too goofy and too short of an attention span.
1  It's the sweet Cinderella story that ``Pretty Woman'' wanted to be.
-2 Doesn't deserve a passing grade (even on a curve).
-1 First-timer John McKay is never able to pull it back on course.
2  A return to pure Disney magic and is enjoyable family fare.
-1 This Sade is hardly a perverse, dangerous libertine and agitator -- which would have made for better drama.
0  `All in all, Reign of Fire will be a good (successful) rental.'
0  Sunshine State surveys the landscape and assesses the issues with a clear passion for sociology.
2  With the same sort of good-natured fun found in films like Tremors, Eight Legged Freaks is prime escapist fare.
1  An ambitiously naturalistic, albeit half-baked, drama about an abused, inner-city autistic teen.
-1 It's just a movie that happens to have Jackie Chan in it.
-1 You don't need to know your Ice-T's from your Cool-J's to realize that as far as these shootings are concerned, something is rotten in the state of California.
1  The movie should jolt you out of your seat a couple of times, give you a few laughs, and leave you feeling like it was worth your seven bucks, even though it does turn out to be a bit of a cheat in the end.
-2 You can fire a torpedo through some of Clancy's holes, and the scripters don't deserve any Oscars.
-1 A non-Britney person might survive a screening with little harm done, except maybe for the last 15 minutes, which are as maudlin as any after-school special you can imagine.
-1 Obviously, a lot of people wasted a lot of their time (including mine) on something very inconsequential.
-1 A moving picture that does not move.
-1 Just about all of the film is confusing on one level or another, making Ararat far more demanding than it needs to be.
2  Daily struggles and simple pleasures usurp the preaching message so that, by the time the credits roll across the pat ending, a warm, fuzzy feeling prevails.
1  Hatosy... portrays young Brendan with his usual intelligence and subtlety, not to mention a convincing brogue.
1  A uniquely sensual metaphorical dramatization of sexual obsession that spends a bit too much time on its fairly ludicrous plot.
0  ... Jones, despite a definitely distinctive screen presence, just isn't able to muster for a movie that, its title notwithstanding, should have been a lot nastier if it wanted to fully capitalize on its lead's specific gifts.
2  Fudges fact and fancy with such confidence that we feel as if we're seeing something purer than the real thing.
1  Could have been crisper and punchier, but it's likely to please audiences who like movies that demand four hankies.
-1 Naipaul fans may be disappointed.
-1 The screenplay is hugely overwritten, with tons and tons of dialogue -- most of it given to children.
2  A beautiful, entertaining two hours.
-2 Enough said, except: Film overboard!
1  Writer/director Walter Hill is in his hypermasculine element here, once again able to inject some real vitality and even art into a pulpy concept that, in many other hands would be completely forgettable.
-1 For all the time we spend with these people, we never really get inside of them.
-1 Eisenstein lacks considerable brio for a film about one of cinema's directorial giants.
1  Naomi Watts is terrific as Rachel; her petite frame and vulnerable persona emphasising her plight and isolation.
1  A giddy and provocative sexual romp that has something to say.
-2 With a completely predictable plot, you'll swear that you've seen it all before, even if you've never come within a mile of The Longest Yard.
0  Life on the rez is no picnic: this picture shows you why.
0  As Allen's execution date closes in, the documentary gives an especially poignant portrait of her friendship with the never flagging legal investigator David Presson.
0  It is there to give them a good time.
1  Sly, sophisticated and surprising.
1  All the pieces fall together without much surprise, but little moments give it a boost.
0  Aimed squarely at the least demanding of demographic groups: very small children who will be delighted simply to spend more time with familiar cartoon characters.
-1 Like coming into a long-running, well-written television series where you've missed the first half-dozen episodes and probably won't see the next six.
-2 This is the case of a pregnant premise being wasted by a script that takes few chances and manages to insult the intelligence of everyone in the audience.
1  In its understanding, often funny way, it tells a story whose restatement is validated by the changing composition of the nation.
0  The movie does has some entertainment value - how much depends on how well you like Chris Rock.
2  Speaks eloquently about the symbiotic relationship between art and life.
1  Not everything in this ambitious comic escapade works, but Coppola, along with his sister, Sofia, is a real filmmaker.
-1 Nothing more than a stifling morality tale dressed up in peekaboo clothing.
-1 A series of immaculately composed shots of Patch Adams quietly freaking out does not make for much of a movie.
-1 The movie doesn't add anything fresh to the myth.
-1 Upper West Sidey exercise in narcissism and self-congratulation disguised as a tribute.
2  The entire cast is extraordinarily good.
0  Like shave ice without the topping, this cinematic snow cone is as innocuous as it is flavorless.
-1 Um... isn't that the basis for the entire plot?
2  Cho's timing is priceless.
1  Meyjes... has done his homework and soaked up some jazzy new revisionist theories about the origins of Nazi politics and aesthetics.
0  It's a drawling, slobbering, lovable run-on sentence of a film, a Southern Gothic with the emotional arc of its raw blues soundtrack.
-2 ... a weak and ineffective ghost story without a conclusion or pay off.
0  Rabbit-Proof Fence will probably make you angry.
-1 Time stands still in more ways that one in Clockstoppers, a sci-fi thriller as lazy as it is interminable.
1  It cooks Conduct in a low, smoky and inviting sizzle.
0  This is the first film I've ever seen that had no obvious directing involved.
0  ... Ice Age treads predictably along familiar territory, making it a passable family film that won't win many fans over the age of 12.
2  One of the very best movies ever made about the life of moviemaking.
1  A perfectly pleasant if slightly pokey comedy.
1  A flawed but engrossing thriller.
1  Both damning and damned compelling.
0  The film sometimes flags... but there is enough secondary action to keep things moving along at a brisk, amusing pace.
0  ... creates a visceral sense of its characters' lives and conflicted emotions that carries it far above... what could have been a melodramatic, Lifetime Channel-style anthology.
-1 To honestly address the flaws inherent in how medical aid is made available to American workers, a more balanced or fair portrayal of both sides will be needed.
1  A charming, banter-filled comedy... one of those airy cinematic bon bons whose aims -- and by extension, accomplishments -- seem deceptively slight on the surface.
1  A delightful little film that revels in its own simplicity, Mostly Martha will leave you with a smile on your face and a grumble in your stomach.
-2 It just didn't mean much to me and played too skewed to ever get a hold on (or be entertained by).
1  The Four Feathers has rewards, from the exoticism of its seas of sand to the fierce grandeur of its sweeping battle scenes.
1  A comedy that swings and jostles to the rhythms of life.
2  It's never dull and always looks good.
-2 Unfunny and lacking any sense of commitment to or affection for its characters, the Reginald Hudlin comedy relies on toilet humor, ethnic slurs.
2  Rich in shadowy metaphor and as sharp as a samurai sword, Jiang Wen's Devils on the Doorstep is a wartime farce in the alternately comic and gut-wrenching style of Joseph Heller or Kurt Vonnegut.
1  Reggio and Glass put on an intoxicating show.
2  likeable thanks to its cast, its cuisine and its quirky tunes.
-1 What with all the blanket statements and dime-store ruminations on vanity, the worries of the rich and sudden wisdom, the film becomes a sermon for most of its running time.
-1 Breen's script is sketchy with actorish notations on the margin of acting.
0  Has its moments, but it's pretty far from a treasure.
-2 This loud and thoroughly obnoxious comedy about a pair of squabbling working-class spouses is a deeply unpleasant experience.
-2 Not counting a few gross-out comedies I've been trying to forget, this is the first film in a long time that made me want to bolt the theater in the first 10 minutes.
1  Witty, vibrant, and intelligent.
2  The best thing I can say about this film is that I can't wait to see what the director does next.
-1 May puzzle his most ardent fans.
2  You can take the grandkids or the grandparents and never worry about anyone being bored... audience is a sea of constant smiles and frequent laughter.
-1 Try this obscenely bad dark comedy, so crass that it makes Edward Burns' Sidewalks of New York look like Oscar Wilde.
-1 The Tuxedo wasn't just bad; it was, as my friend David Cross would call it, `Hungry-Man portions of bad'.
-1 Human Nature, in short, isn't nearly as funny as it thinks it is; neither is it as smart.
1  It's fun, splashy and entertainingly nasty.
0  A little objectivity could have gone a long way.
1  The film boasts at least a few good ideas and features some decent performances, but the result is disappointing.
-2 Boll uses a lot of quick cutting and blurry step-printing to goose things up, but dopey dialogue and sometimes inadequate performances kill the effect.
-2 ... unlikable, uninteresting, unfunny, and completely, utterly inept.
1  A creepy, intermittently powerful study of a self-destructive man... about as unsettling to watch as an exploratory medical procedure or an autopsy.
-1 The crassness of this reactionary thriller is matched only by the ridiculousness of its premise.
0  The Porky's Revenge: Ultimate Edition?
1  None of this is meaningful or memorable, but frosting isn't, either, and you wouldn't turn down a big bowl of that, would you?
1  Bogdanovich puts history in perspective and, via Kirsten Dunst's remarkable performance, he showcases Davies as a young woman of great charm, generosity and diplomacy.
-1 In its chicken heart, Crush goes to absurd lengths to duck the very issues it raises.
0  I'm all for the mentally challenged getting their fair shot in the movie business, but surely it doesn't have to be as a collection of keening and self-mutilating sideshow geeks.
0  Worth seeing once, but its charm quickly fades.
1  If The Man from Elysian Fields is doomed by its smallness, it is also elevated by it -- the kind of movie that you enjoy more because you're one of the lucky few who sought it out.
-2 There's nothing interesting in Unfaithful whatsoever.
-2 There's already been too many of these films...
-1 Almost peerlessly unsettling.
1  Maybe he was reading the minds of the audience.
1  A sly female empowerment movie, although not in a way anyone would expect.
0  Go for La Salle's performance, and make do as best you can with a stuttering script.
-1 ... The movie feels stitched together from stock situations and characters from other movies.
0  It remains to be seen whether Statham can move beyond the crime-land action genre, but then again, who says he has to?
2  Though in some ways similar to Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl, Rain is the far superior film.
-2 It shows that some studios firmly believe that people have lost the ability to think and will forgive any shoddy product as long as there's a little girl-on-girl action.
-1 Potty-mouthed enough for PG-13, yet not as hilariously raunchy as South Park, this strangely schizo cartoon seems suited neither to kids or adults.
0  A poorly scripted, preachy fable that forgets about unfolding a coherent, believable story in its zeal to spread propaganda.
0  (A) rare movie that makes us re-assess the basis for our lives and evaluate what is truly ours in a world of meaningless activity.
1  If a big musical number like `Praise the Lord, He's the God of Second Chances' doesn't put you off, this will be an enjoyable choice for younger kids.
2  As a director, Paxton is surprisingly brilliant, deftly sewing together what could have been a confusing and horrifying vision into an intense and engrossing head-trip.
1  But Toback's deranged immediacy makes it seem fresh again.
2  Stanley Kwan has directed not only one of the best gay love stories ever made, but one of the best love stories of any stripe.
0  There's a neat twist, subtly rendered, that could have wrapped things up at 80 minutes, but Kang tacks on three or four more endings.
-2 Godard's ode to tackling life's wonderment is a rambling and incoherent manifesto about the vagueness of topical excess... In Praise of Love remains a ponderous and pretentious endeavor that's unfocused and tediously exasperating.
1  Amazingly dopey.
-2 It's hard to imagine that even very small children will be impressed by this tired retread.
-1 A beautifully shot but dull and ankle-deep `epic.'
1  The performances of the four main actresses bring their characters to life.
-2 The emotional overload of female angst irreparably drags the film down.
1  Comedian, like its subjects, delivers the goods and audiences will have a fun, no-frills ride.
1  (Woo's) most resonant film since The Killer.
1  Muccino seems to be exploring the idea of why human beings long for what they don't have, and how this gets us in trouble.
2  Even when there are lulls, the emotions seem authentic, and the picture is so lovely toward the end... you almost don't notice the 129-minute running time.
1  In a movie full of surprises, the biggest is that Secret Ballot is a comedy, both gentle and biting.
2  A fascinating case study of flower-power liberation -- and the price that was paid for it.
-2 The pacing is deadly, the narration helps little and Naipaul, a juicy writer, is negated.
1  The director, Mark Pellington, does a terrific job conjuring up a sinister, menacing atmosphere though unfortunately all the story gives us is flashing red lights, a rattling noise, and a bump on the head.
-1 -- is a crime that should be punishable by chainsaw.
1  Delivers more than its fair share of saucy hilarity.
0  While the mystery unravels, the characters respond by hitting on each other.
1  Now here's a sadistic bike flick that would have made Vittorio De Sica proud.
1  Meticulously uncovers a trail of outrageous force and craven concealment.
2  A pretty funny movie, with most of the humor coming, as before, from the incongruous but chemically perfect teaming of Crystal and De Niro.
1  From both a great and a terrible story, Mr. Nelson has made a film that is an undeniably worthy and devastating experience.
0  ... will always be remembered for the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
-2 For the rest of us, sitting through Dahmer's two hours amounts to little more than punishment.
-1 More tiring than anything.
1  If you're not, you'll still have a good time.''
0  Occasionally funny, sometimes inspiring, often boring.
1  On the surface a silly comedy, Scotland, PA would be forgettable if it weren't such a clever adaptation of the bard's tragic play.
-1 Cassavetes thinks he's making Dog Day Afternoon with a cause, but all he's done is to reduce everything he touches to a shrill, didactic cartoon.
0  ... delivers few moments of inspiration amid the bland animation and simplistic story.
-1 When not wallowing in its characters' frustrations, the movie is busy contriving false, sitcom-worthy solutions to their problems.
1  Fans of critics' darling band Wilco will marvel at the sometimes murky, always brooding look of I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.
2  A truly wonderful tale combined with stunning animation.
-1 Just when you think you are making sense of it, something happens that tells you there is no sense.
2  Easily one of the best and most exciting movies of the year.
2  Daring and beautifully made.
-1 An impenetrable and insufferable ball of pseudo-philosophic twaddle.
-2 Was that movie nothing more than a tepid exercise in trotting out a formula that worked five years ago but has since lost its fizz?
0  At no point during K-19: The Widowmaker did this viewer feel enveloped in a story that, though meant to be universal in its themes of loyalty, courage and dedication to a common goal, never seems to leave the lot.
-1 A lightweight, uneven action comedy that freely mingles French, Japanese and Hollywood cultures.
1  The leaping story line, shaped by director Peter Kosminsky into sharp slivers and cutting impressions, shows all the signs of rich detail condensed into a few evocative images and striking character traits.
-1 When a movie asks you to feel sorry for Mick Jagger's sex life, it already has one strike against it.
0  The movie's gloomy atmosphere is fascinating, though, even if the movie itself doesn't stand a ghost of a chance.
-2 There's surely something wrong with a comedy where the only belly laughs come from the selection of outtakes tacked onto the end credits.
2  a confident, richly acted, emotionally devastating piece of work and 2002's first great film
1  Starts slowly, but Adrien Brody -- in the title role -- helps make the film's conclusion powerful and satisfying.
2  Jeffs has created a breathtakingly assured and stylish work of spare dialogue and acute expressiveness.
-1 Those who are not acquainted with the author's work, on the other hand, may fall fast asleep.
0  in period costume and with a bigger budget.
1  But it could be, by its art and heart, a necessary one.
2  A generous, inspiring film that unfolds with grace and humor and gradually becomes a testament to faith.
-2 The project's filmmakers forgot to include anything even halfway scary as they poorly rejigger Fatal Attraction into a high school setting.
1  Murderous Maids pulls no punches in its depiction of the lives of the Papin sister and the events that led to their notorious rise to infamy...
0  When Seagal appeared in an orange prison jumpsuit, I wanted to stand up in the theater and shout, `Hey, Kool-Aid!'
-1 For this sort of thing to work, we need agile performers, but the proficient, dull Sorvino has no light touch, and Rodan is out of his league.
2  The film is impressive for the sights and sounds of the wondrous beats the world has to offer.
2  Mr. Deeds is sure to give you a lot of laughs in this simple, sweet and romantic comedy.
1  Pretty good little movie.
-1 The story is also as unoriginal as they come, already having been recycled more times than I'd care to count.
1  Passionate, irrational, long-suffering but cruel as a tarantula, Helga figures prominently in this movie, and helps keep the proceedings as funny for grown-ups as for rugrats.
1  Initially gripping, eventually cloying POW drama.
2  Methodical, measured, and gently tedious in its comedy, Secret Ballot is a purposefully reductive movie -- which may be why it's so successful at lodging itself in the brain.
1  Offers an interesting look at the rapidly changing face of Beijing.
1  Gaunt, silver-haired and leonine, (Harris) brings a tragic dimension and savage full-bodied wit and cunning to the aging Sandeman.
0  Just plain silly.
1  When it's not wallowing in hormonal melodrama, ``Real Women Have Curves'' is a sweet, honest, and enjoyable comedy-drama about a young woman who wants many things in life, but fears she'll become her mother before she gets to fulfill her dreams.
1  There's just something about watching a squad of psychopathic underdogs whale the tar out of unsuspecting lawmen that reaches across time and distance.
-2 This flat run at a hip-hop Tootsie is so poorly paced you could fit all of Pootie Tang in between its punchlines.
2  A triumph of pure craft and passionate heart.
1  imagine a scenario where Bergman approaches Swedish fatalism using Gary Larson's Far Side humor
0  It's really just another silly Hollywood action film, one among a multitude of simple-minded, yahoo-ing death shows.
-2 This is a fudged opportunity of gigantic proportions -- a lunar mission with no signs of life.
1  Deliberately and skillfully uses ambiguity to suggest possibilities which imbue the theme with added depth and resonance.
2  All of it works smoothly under the direction of Spielberg, who does a convincing impersonation here of a director enjoying himself immensely.
-1 The whole thing's fairly lame, making it par for the course for Disney sequels.
1  Even at its worst, it's not half-bad.
-1 A visionary marvel, but it's lacking a depth in storytelling usually found in anime like this.
1  Graced with the kind of social texture and realism that would be foreign in American teen comedies.
-2 Like a bad improvisation exercise, the superficially written characters ramble on tediously about their lives, loves and the art they're struggling to create.
1  A three-hour cinema master class.
1  Beresford nicely mixes in as much humor as pathos to take us on his sentimental journey of the heart.
2  If you can get past the taboo subject matter, it will be well worth your time.
1  While the now 72-year-old Robert Evans been slowed down by a stroke, he has at least one more story to tell: his own.
-1 More busy than exciting, more frantic than involving, more chaotic than entertaining.
1  Precocious smarter-than-thou wayward teen struggles to rebel against his oppressive, right-wing, propriety-obsessed family.
0  Any Chekhov is better than no Chekhov, but it would be a shame if this was your introduction to one of the greatest plays of the last 100 years.
1  Its adult themes of familial separation and societal betrayal are head and shoulders above much of the director's previous popcorn work.
-2 You may be galled that you've wasted nearly two hours of your own precious life with this silly little puddle of a movie.
-1 I didn't smile.
-1 While some will object to the idea of a Vietnam picture with such a rah-rah, patriotic tone, Soldiers ultimately achieves its main strategic objective: dramatizing the human cost of the conflict that came to define a generation.
-1 Return to Neverland manages to straddle the line between another classic for the company and just another run-of-the-mill Disney sequel intended for the home video market.
-1 Shafer's feature doesn't offer much in terms of plot or acting.
0  Was I scared?
-1 But Windtalkers doesn't beat that one, either.
1  It's funny.
0  A case in point: Doug Pray's Scratch.
-1 Contains a few big laughs but many more that graze the funny bone or miss it altogether, in part because the consciously dumbed-down approach wears thin.
2  MacDowell... gives give a solid, anguished performance that eclipses nearly everything else she's ever done.
-1 This is a poster movie, a mediocre tribute to films like Them!
1  Peppering this urban study with references to Norwegian folktales, Villeneuve creates in Maelstrom a world where the bizarre is credible and the real turns magical.
-1 No, I don't know why Steven Seagal is considered a star, nor why he keeps being cast in action films when none of them are ever any good or make any money.
-1 In the era of The Sopranos, it feels painfully redundant and inauthentic.
-2 You can't believe anyone would really buy this stuff.
-1 Long on twinkly-eyed close-ups and short on shame.
-1 It's plotless, shapeless -- and yet, it must be admitted, not entirely humorless.
-1 Each scene drags, underscoring the obvious, and sentiment is slathered on top.
-1 Outside of Burger's desire to make some kind of film, it's really unclear why this project was undertaken
-2 I'd rather watch a rerun of The Powerpuff Girls
1  It's a talking head documentary, but a great one.
0  C'mon!
-1 Director Shekhar Kapur and screenwriters Michael Schiffer and Hossein Amini have tried hard to modernize and reconceptualize things, but the barriers finally prove to be too great.
2  This is DiCaprio's best performance in anything ever, and easily the most watchable film of the year.
-1 Everything about it from the bland songs to the colorful but flat drawings is completely serviceable and quickly forgettable.
1  Cineasts will revel in those visual in-jokes, as in the film's verbal pokes at everything from the likes of Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein's bluff personal style to the stylistic rigors of Denmark's Dogma movement.
-1 An uneven look into a grim future that doesn't come close to the level of intelligence and visual splendour that can be seen in other films based on Philip K. Dick stories.
0  You have enough finely tuned acting to compensate for the movie's failings.
-2 All of the filmmakers' calculations can't rescue Brown Sugar from the curse of blandness.
0  The dramatic crisis doesn't always succeed in its quest to be taken seriously, but Huppert's volatile performance makes for a riveting movie experience.
-1 Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson have a cute partnership in I Spy, but the movie around them is so often nearly nothing that their charm doesn't do a load of good.
-2 There's only one way to kill Michael Myers for good: stop buying tickets to these movies.
2  It makes compelling, provocative and prescient viewing.
-2 The Country Bears wastes an exceptionally good idea.
-1 Conforms itself with creating a game of `who's who'... where the characters' moves are often more predictable than their consequences.
1  A different and emotionally reserved type of survival story -- a film less about refracting all of World War II through the specific conditions of one man, and more about that man lost in its midst.
-1 Sure, I hated myself in the morning.
2  A rollicking ride, with jaw-dropping action sequences, striking villains, a gorgeous color palette, astounding technology, stirring music and a boffo last hour that leads up to a strangely sinister happy ending.
-2 Swims in mediocrity, sticking its head up for a breath of fresh air now and then.
1  Happily, some things are immune to the folly of changing taste and attitude.
2  Great over-the-top moviemaking if you're in a slap-happy mood.
-2 Swiftly deteriorates into a terribly obvious melodrama and rough-hewn vanity project for lead actress Andie MacDowell.
-2 As gamely as the movie tries to make sense of its title character, there remains a huge gap between the film's creepy, clean-cut Dahmer (Jeremy Renner) and fiendish acts that no amount of earnest textbook psychologizing can bridge.
0  foreshadowing
1  This film is so different from The Apple and so striking that it can only encourage us to see Samira Makhmalbaf as a very distinctive sensibility, working to develop her own film language with conspicuous success.
-1 Sometimes makes less sense than the Bruckheimeresque American action flicks it emulates.
-2 Terrible.
-2 Tiresomely derivative and hammily acted.
-1 The film's final hour, where nearly all the previous unseen material resides, is unconvincing soap opera that Tornatore was right to cut.
0  Witherspoon puts to rest her valley-girl image, but it's Dench who really steals the show.
-1 Lookin' for sin, American-style?
0  Dolman confines himself to shtick and sentimentality -- the one bald and the other sloppy.
1  An intelligent romantic thriller of a very old-school kind of quality.
1  Even if The Ring has a familiar ring, it's still unusually crafty and intelligent for Hollywood horror.
1  The usual movie rah-rah, pleasantly and predictably delivered in low-key style by director Michael Apted and writer Tom Stoppard.
2  An intelligent and deeply felt work about impossible, irrevocable choices and the price of making them.
1  A diverse and astonishingly articulate cast of Palestinian and Israeli children.
-2 ... what a banal bore the preachy Circuit turns out to be
0  It would be disingenuous to call Reno a great film, but you can say that about most of the flicks moving in and out of the multiplex.
-1 By-the-numbers yarn.
1  Part of the charm of Satin Rouge is that it avoids the obvious with humour and lightness.
2  A movie of technical skill and rare depth of intellect and feeling.
-2 Cruel and inhuman cinematic punishment... simultaneously degrades its characters, its stars and its audience.
-1 The only fun part of the movie is playing the obvious game.
0  Photographed with melancholy richness and eloquently performed yet also decidedly uncinematic.
-1 Kapur fails to give his audience a single character worth rooting for (or worth rooting against, for that matter).
-1 Has lost some of the dramatic conviction that underlies the best of comedies...
0  Seeing Seinfeld at home as he watches his own appearance on Letterman with a clinical eye reminds you that the key to stand-up is to always make it look easy, even though the reality is anything but.
2  An engrossing story that combines psychological drama, sociological reflection, and high-octane thriller.
1  A movie in which laughter and self-exploitation merge into jolly soft-porn'em powerment.'
-2 If you really want to understand what this story is really all about, you're far better served by the source material.
1  Lightweight but appealing.
-1 Well, this movie proves you wrong on both counts.
0  A very familiar tale, one that's been told by countless filmmakers about Italian -, Chinese -, Irish -, Latin -, Indian -, Russian - and other hyphenate American young men struggling to balance conflicting cultural messages.
2  That's fun for kids of any age.
-1 Why would anyone cast the magnificent Jackie Chan in a movie full of stunt doubles and special effects?
1  Koury frighteningly and honestly exposes one teenager's uncomfortable class resentment and, in turn, his self-inflicted retaliation.
2  Terrific performances, great to look at, and funny.
1  An unorthodox little film noir organized crime story that includes one of the strangest love stories you will ever see.
1  Neatly constructed thriller.
2  One of the best silly horror movies of recent memory, with some real shocks in store for unwary viewers.
2  The most brilliant work in this genre since the 1984 uncut version of Sergio Leone's flawed but staggering Once Upon a Time in America.
1  The beautifully choreographed kitchen ballet is simple but absorbing.
1  Cool.
0  ``Me Without You'' is a probing examination of a female friendship set against a few dynamic decades.
0  This sort of cute and cloying material is far from Zhang's forte and it shows.
0  The first half bursts with a goofy energy previous Disney films only used for a few minutes here and there.
-2 A peculiar misfire that even Tunney can't save.
1  Coppola has made a film of intoxicating atmosphere and little else.
0  The film has a childlike quality about it.
-1 There's some good material in their story about a retail clerk wanting more out of life, but the movie too often spins its wheels with familiar situations and repetitive scenes.
1  Broomfield has a rather unique approach to documentary.
1  (There's) quite a bit of heart, as you would expect from the directors of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.
-1 Never inspires more than an interested detachment.
1  Combines a comically dismal social realism with a farcically bawdy fantasy of redemption and regeneration.
2  If ``Lilo & Stitch'' isn't the most edgy piece of Disney animation to hit the silver screen, then this first film to use a watercolor background since ``Dumbo'' certainly ranks as the most original in years.
1  Indeed, the more outrageous bits achieve a shock-you-into-laughter intensity of almost Dadaist proportions.
-1 A grating, emaciated flick.
0  Dense and thoughtful and brimming with ideas that are too complex to be rapidly absorbed.
1  It ain't art, by a long shot, but unlike last year's lame Musketeer, this Dumas adaptation entertains.
-2 What's missing in Murder by Numbers is any real psychological grounding for the teens' deviant behaviour.
-2 The Master of Disguise is awful.
-1 Nelson's intentions are good, but the end result does no justice to the story itself.
1  A hypnotic portrait of this sad, compulsive life.
1  (The film) tackles the topic of relationships in such a straightforward, emotionally honest manner that by the end, it's impossible to ascertain whether the film is, at its core, deeply pessimistic or quietly hopeful.
1  Troubling and powerful.
-2 Director Douglas McGrath takes on Nickleby with all the halfhearted zeal of an 8th grade boy delving into required reading.
-1 What's infuriating about Full Frontal is that it's too close to real life to make sense.
2  Piccoli gives a superb performance full of deep feeling.
-1 (Stevens is) so stoked to make an important film about human infidelity and happenstance that he tosses a kitchen sink onto a story already overladen with plot conceits.
1  Funny and also heartwarming without stooping to gooeyness.
-2 Most of the dialogue made me want to pack raw dough in my ears.
0  A sincere but dramatically conflicted gay coming-of-age tale.
1  A wild ride of a movie that keeps throwing fastballs.
-2 It's a bad action movie because there's no rooting interest and the spectacle is grotesque and boring.
-1 A very slow, uneventful ride around a pretty tattered old carousel.
1  Although Olivier Assayas' elegantly appointed period drama seems, at times, padded with incident in the way of a too-conscientious adaptation... its three-hour running time plays closer to two.
-2 Like life on the island, the movie grows boring despite the scenery.
2  Jones has delivered a solidly entertaining and moving family drama.
0  An intriguing near-miss.
-1 Scooby-Doo doesn't know if it wants to be a retro-refitting exercise in campy recall for older fans or a silly, Nickelodeon-esque kiddie flick.
-1 ... del Toro maintains a dark mood that makes the film seem like something to endure instead of enjoy.
0  Sometimes shorter is better.
2  Peter Jackson and company once again dazzle and delight us, fulfilling practically every expectation either a longtime Tolkien fan or a movie-going neophyte could want.
-1 David Spade as Citizen Kane?
2  It's a great American adventure and a wonderful film to bring to IMAX.
0  A glorious mess.
-2 Never having seen the first two films in the series, I can't compare Friday After Next to them, but nothing would change the fact that what we have here is a load of clams left in the broiling sun for a good three days.
1  ... standard guns versus martial arts cliche with little new added.
1  Pratfalls aside, Barbershop gets its greatest play from the timeless spectacle of people really talking to each other.
-1 tale will be all too familiar for anyone who's seen George Roy Hill's 1973 film, ``The Sting.''
-1 Showtime isn't particularly assaultive, but it can still make you feel that you never want to see another car chase, explosion or gunfight again.
0  A savage John Waters-like humor that dances on the edge of tastelessness without ever quite falling over.
2  Victor Rosa is Leguizamo's best movie work so far, a subtle and richly internalized performance.
-1 But it's also disappointing to a certain degree.
2  Pete's screenplay manages to find that real natural, even-flowing tone that few movies are able to accomplish.
-1 This is a third-person story now, told by Hollywood, and much more ordinary for it.
-1 Fails to convince the audience that these brats will ever be anything more than losers.
1  It's a smart, funny look at an arcane area of popular culture, and if it isn't entirely persuasive, it does give exposure to some talented performers.
0  Does what should seem impossible: it makes serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer boring.
-1 ``One look at a girl in tight pants and big tits and you turn stupid?''
2  This Chicago has hugely imaginative and successful casting to its great credit, as well as one terrific score and attitude to spare.
2  Pacino and Williams seem to keep upping the ante on each other, just as their characters do in the film.
2  A fiercely clever and subtle film, capturing the precarious balance between the extravagant confidence of the exiled aristocracy and the cruel earnestness of the victorious revolutionaries.
2  The best didacticism is one carried by a strong sense of humanism, and Bertrand Tavernier's oft-brilliant Safe Conduct (``Laissez-passer'') wears its heart on its sleeve.
0  The movie is a little tired; maybe the original inspiration has run its course.
1  Schrader examines Crane's decline with unblinking candor.
2  Like Edward Norton in American History X, Ryan Gosling (Murder By Numbers) delivers a magnetic performance.
2  If you love the music, and I do, its hard to imagine having more fun watching a documentary...
-1 But first, you have to give the audience a reason to want to put for that effort
1  As relationships shift, director Robert J. Siegel allows the characters to inhabit their world without cleaving to a narrative arc.
-1 Contains all the substance of a Twinkie -- easy to swallow, but scarcely nourishing.
0  A minor work yet there's no denying the potency of Miller's strange, fleeting brew of hopeful perseverance and hopeless closure.
1  Harks back to a time when movies had more to do with imagination than market research.
1  Like a Tarantino movie with heart, Alias Betty is richly detailed, deftly executed and utterly absorbing.
1  The Four Feathers is definitely horse feathers, but if you go in knowing that, you might have fun in this cinematic sandbox.
0  Is truth stranger than fiction?
1  Although it lacks the detail of the book, the film does pack some serious suspense.
2  It's a masterpeice.
0  Diverting French comedy in which a husband has to cope with the pesky moods of jealousy.
-1 A little too ponderous to work as shallow entertainment, not remotely incisive enough to qualify as drama, Monsoon Wedding serves mostly to whet one's appetite for the Bollywood films.
0  Feels untidily honest.
-2 No big whoop, nothing new to see, zero thrills, too many flashbacks and a choppy ending make for a bad film.
0  Feels slight, as if it were an extended short, albeit one made by the smartest kids in class.
1  A chilling tale of one of the great crimes of 20th Century France: the murder of two rich women by their servants in 1933.
-1 The kind of movie that leaves vague impressions and a nasty aftertaste but little clear memory of its operational mechanics.
1  S1M0NE's satire is not subtle, but it is effective.
0  It's all gratuitous before long, as if Schwentke were fulfilling a gross-out quota for an anticipated audience demographic instead of shaping the material to fit the story.
-1 (Toback's) fondness for fancy split-screen, stuttering editing and pompous references to Wittgenstein and Kirkegaard... blends uneasily with the titillating material.
1  The Cat's Meow marks a return to form for director Peter Bogdanovich...
-1 The director mostly plays it straight, turning Leys' fable into a listless climb down the social ladder.
0  The limited sets and small confined and dark spaces also are homages to a classic low-budget film noir movie.
0  Has not so much been written as assembled, Frankenstein-like, out of other, marginally better shoot-em-ups.
-1 But this time, the old MIB label stands for Milder Isn't Better.
1  Art-house to the core, Read My Lips is a genre-curling crime story that revives the free-wheeling noir spirit of old French cinema.
1  Based on Dave Barry's popular book of the same name, the movie benefits from having a real writer plot out all of the characters' moves and overlapping story.
-1 Despite some charm and heart, this quirky soccer import is forgettable
-1 The weird thing about The Santa Clause 2, purportedly a children's movie, is that there is nothing in it to engage children emotionally.
0  This sci-fi techno-sex thriller starts out bizarre and just keeps getting weirder.
-1 Hip-hop rarely comes alive as its own fire-breathing entity in this picture.
0  The origin story is well told, and the characters will not disappoint anyone who values the original comic books.
-1 Inconsequential road-and-buddy pic.
-1 If Disney's Cinderella proved that' a dream is a wish your heart makes,' then Cinderella II proves that a nightmare is a wish a studio's wallet makes.
-2 This strenuously unfunny Showtime deserves the hook.
1  Jonathan Parker's Bartleby should have been the be-all-end-all of the modern-office anomie films.
2  He has a great cast and a great idea.
-2 Ozpetek offers an AIDS subtext, skims over the realities of gay sex, and presents yet another tired old vision of the gay community as an all-inclusive world where uptight, middle class bores like Antonia can feel good about themselves.
-2 The movie fails to portray its literarily talented and notorious subject as anything much more than a dirty old man.
2  Hailed as a clever exercise in neo-Hitchcockianism, this clever and very satisfying picture is more accurately Chabrolian.
-1 `Synthetic' is the best description of this well-meaning, beautifully produced film that sacrifices its promise for a high-powered star pedigree.
2  A no-holds-barred cinematic treat.
-1 The Quiet American isn't a bad film, it's just one that could easily wait for your pay per view dollar.
0  The animation and backdrops are lush and inventive, yet Return to Neverland never manages to take us to that elusive, lovely place where we suspend our disbelief.
-1 The fetid underbelly of fame has never looked uglier.
0  Witless but watchable.
1  A sensitive and astute first feature by Anne-Sophie Birot.
1  The charms of the lead performances allow us to forget most of the film's problems.
-1 A dark comedy that goes for sick and demented humor simply to do so.
1  Together, Miller, Kuras and the actresses make Personal Velocity into an intricate, intimate and intelligent journey.
1  A very well-meaning movie, and it will stand in future years as an eloquent memorial to the World Trade Center tragedy.
-1 Though clearly well-intentioned, this cross-cultural soap opera is painfully formulaic and stilted.
1  With so many bad romances out there, this is the kind of movie that deserves a chance to shine.
1  (Shyamalan) continues to cut a swathe through mainstream Hollywood, while retaining an integrity and refusing to compromise his vision.
1  What redeems the film is the cast, particularly the Ya-Yas themselves.
-2 The only way to tolerate this insipid, brutally clueless film might be with a large dose of painkillers.
0  One thing is for sure: This movie does not tell you a whole lot about Lily Chou-Chou.
1  ``Birthday Girl'' is an actor's movie first and foremost.
2  Despite its floating narrative, this is a remarkably accessible and haunting film.
2  One of those movies that catches you up in something bigger than yourself, namely, an archetypal desire to enjoy good trash every now and then.
0  Now I can see why people thought I was too hard on ``The Mothman Prophecies''.
0  The most anti-human big studio picture since 3000 Miles to Graceland.
-2 The only thing ``swept away'' is the one hour and thirty-three minutes spent watching this waste of time.
0  A preposterously melodramatic paean to gang-member teens in Brooklyn circa 1958.
1  Jacquot's strategy allows his cast the benefit of being able to give full performances... while demonstrating vividly that the beauty and power of the opera reside primarily in the music itself.
2  Visually captivating.
-1 Unfortunately, that's precisely what Arthur Dong's Family Fundamentals does.
-1 While Hollywood Ending has its share of belly laughs (including a knockout of a closing line), the movie winds up feeling like a great missed opportunity.
-1 The film itself is about something very interesting and odd that would probably work better as a real documentary without the insinuation of mediocre acting or a fairly trite narrative.
-2 Our culture is headed down the toilet with the ferocity of a frozen burrito after an all-night tequila bender -- and I know this because I've seen `jackass: the movie.'
2  Nothing short of a masterpiece -- and a challenging one.
-2 Frankly, it's kind of insulting, both to men and women.
0  A respectable but uninspired thriller that's intelligent and considered in its details, but ultimately weak in its impact.
-2 One of the worst movies of the year.
-1 Ignore the reputation, and ignore the film.
-2 Predictably soulless techno-tripe.
0  This English-language version... does full honor to Miyazaki's teeming and often unsettling landscape, and to the conflicted complexity of his characters.
-1 The skills of a calculus major at M.I.T. are required to balance all the formulaic equations in the long-winded heist comedy Who Is Cletis Tout?
1  Expect no major discoveries, nor any stylish sizzle, but the film sits with square conviction and touching good sense on the experience of its women.
2  Nicholson's understated performance is wonderful.
-1 It's just that it's so not-at-all-good.
-1 I suspect that there are more interesting ways of dealing with the subject.
1  It's a quirky, off-beat project.
-1 We have poignancy jostling against farce, thoughtful dialogue elbowed aside by one-liners, and a visual style that incorporates rotoscope animation for no apparent reason except, maybe, that it looks neat.
-1 Stuffy, full of itself, morally ambiguous and nothing to shout about.
1  As the dominant Christine, Sylvie Testud is icily brilliant.
-2 The effort is sincere and the results are honest, but the film is so bleak that it's hardly watchable.
1  Viva le Resistance!
0  Every child's story is what matters.
0  Spend your Benjamins on a matinee.
0  ... a lesson in prehistoric hilarity.
1  A tone of rueful compassion... reverberates throughout this film, whose meaning and impact is sadly heightened by current world events.
2  The overall fabric is hypnotic, and Mr. Mattei fosters moments of spontaneous intimacy.
-2 If there was any doubt that Peter O'Fallon didn't have an original bone in his body, A Rumor of Angels should dispel it.
2  The animated sequences are well done and perfectly constructed to convey a sense of childhood imagination and creating adventure out of angst.
-1 Choppy, overlong documentary about `The Lifestyle.'
-2 Due to stodgy, soap opera-ish dialogue, the rest of the cast comes across as stick figures reading lines from a TelePrompTer.
2  I haven't laughed that hard in years!
2  With a cast of A-list Brit actors, it is worth searching out.
-1 The new film of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard puts the `ick' in `classic.'
2  The movie is well crafted, and well executed.
2  It's anchored by splendid performances from an honored screen veteran and a sparkling newcomer who instantly transform themselves into a believable mother/daughter pair.
-2 Would Benigni's Italian Pinocchio have been any easier to sit through than this hastily dubbed disaster?
1  Despite an overwrought ending, the film works as well as it does because of the performances.
-1 Cinematic pyrotechnics aside, the only thing Avary seems to care about are mean giggles and pulchritude.
0  The good is very, very good... The rest runs from mildly unimpressive to despairingly awful.
1  Watching these two actors play against each other so intensely, but with restraint, is a treat.
0  What's the most positive thing that can be said about the new Rob Schneider vehicle?
-1 Too infuriatingly quirky and taken with its own style.
-1 Watching Queen of the Damned is like reading a research paper, with special effects tossed in.
-2 Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights grows on you -- like a rash.
0  The actresses may have worked up a back story for the women they portray so convincingly, but viewers don't get enough of that background for the characters to be involving as individuals rather than types.
1  A complex psychological drama about a father who returns to his son's home after decades away.
-2 The movie is so contrived, nonsensical and formulaic that, come to think of it, the day-old shelf would be a more appropriate location to store it.
2  A minor film with major pleasures from Portuguese master Manoel de Oliviera...
2  For VeggieTales fans, this is more appetizing than a side dish of asparagus.
2  If the real-life story is genuinely inspirational, the movie stirs us as well.
1  (Gayton's script) telegraphs every discovery and layers on the gloss of convenience.
1  No, it's not as single-minded as John Carpenter's original, but it's sure a lot smarter and more unnerving than the sequels.
-1 This starts off with a 1950's Doris Day feel and it gets very ugly, very fast.
1  Blessed with two fine, nuanced lead performances.
1  What's next?
0  If you're paying attention, the ``big twists'' are pretty easy to guess - but that doesn't make the movie any less entertaining.
2  If you're a comic fan, you can't miss it.
1  Earnest and heartfelt but undernourished and plodding.
2  Fairy-tale formula, serves as a paper skeleton for some very good acting, dialogue, comedy, direction and especially charm.
1  Pipe Dream does have its charms.
0  What could have been a pointed little chiller about the frightening seductiveness of new technology loses faith in its own viability and succumbs to joyless special-effects excess.
1  Brosnan is more feral in this film than I've seen him before and Halle Berry does her best to keep up with him.
1  Director Carl Franklin, so crisp and economical in One False Move, bogs down in genre cliches here.
2  A thoughtful, reverent portrait of what is essentially a subculture, with its own rules regarding love and family, governance and hierarchy.
-2 But ticket-buyers with great expectations will wind up as glum as Mr. De Niro.
-1 From its nauseating spinning credits sequence to a very talented but underutilized supporting cast, Bartleby squanders as much as it gives out.
-1 (Davis) wants to cause his audience an epiphany, yet he refuses to give us real situations and characters.
2  But darned if it doesn't also keep us riveted to our seats.
-2 Rashomon-for-dipsticks tale.
1  Good actors have a radar for juicy roles -- there's a plethora of characters in this picture, and not one of them is flat.
1  A genuine mind-bender.
1  This bracingly truthful antidote to Hollywood teenage movies that slather Clearasil over the blemishes of youth captures the combustible mixture of a chafing inner loneliness and desperate grandiosity that tend to characterize puberty.
1  An unexpectedly sweet story of sisterhood.
0  Ultimately, Jane learns her place as a girl, softens up and loses some of the intensity that made her an interesting character to begin with.
2  It's a beautiful film, full of elaborate and twisted characters - and it's also pretty funny.
1  It's an ambitious film, and as with all ambitious films, it has some problems.
-1 Nothing too deep or substantial.
-1 Disney again ransacks its archives for a quick-buck sequel.
1  A vivid, spicy footnote to history, and a movie that grips and holds you in rapt attention from start to finish.
-1 Without a fresh infusion of creativity, 4Ever is neither a promise nor a threat so much as wishful thinking.
1  Despite its flaws, Crazy as Hell marks an encouraging new direction for La Salle.
1  A low-key labor of love that strikes a very resonant chord.
-1 The movie attempts to mine laughs from a genre -- the gangster/crime comedy -- that wore out its welcome with audiences several years ago, and its cutesy reliance on movie-specific cliches isn't exactly endearing.
2  The urban landscapes are detailed down to the signs on the kiosks, and the color palette, with lots of somber blues and pinks, is dreamy and evocative.
1  Cho's latest comic set isn't as sharp or as fresh as I'm the One That I Want... but it's still damn funny stuff.
-1 While it is welcome to see a Chinese film depict a homosexual relationship in a mature and frank fashion, Lan Yu never catches dramatic fire.
1  The real triumphs in Igby come from Philippe, who makes Oliver far more interesting than the character's lines would suggest, and Sarandon, who couldn't be better as a cruel but weirdly likable WASP matron.
1  A plethora of engaging diatribes on the meaning of `home,' delivered in grand passion by the members of the various households.
0  A coming-of-age film
2  Ourside the theatre Roger might be intolerable company, but inside it he's well worth spending some time with.
-1 Despite its visual virtuosity, `Naqoyqatsi' is banal in its message and the choice of material to convey it.
-2 Stealing Harvard doesn't care about cleverness, wit or any other kind of intelligent humor.
2  What I saw, I enjoyed.
-2 The Sum of All Fears pretends to be a serious exploration of nuclear terrorism, but it's really nothing more than warmed-over Cold War paranoia.
2  Morton deserves an Oscar nomination.
-2 A sentimental mess that never rings true.
-1 Some episodes work, some don't.
1  For those of an indulgent, slightly sunbaked and summery mind, Sex and Lucia may well prove diverting enough.
-1 Represents the depths to which the girls-behaving-badly film has fallen.
-2 Pompous and garbled.
-2 A depressingly retrograde, `post-feminist' romantic comedy that takes an astonishingly condescending attitude toward women.
-1 Although sensitive to a fault, it's often overwritten, with a surfeit of weighty revelations, flowery dialogue, and nostalgia for the past and roads not taken.
1  Its almost too-spectacular coastal setting distracts slightly from an eccentric and good-naturedly aimless story.
-1 But it wasn't.
1  Horns and Halos benefits from serendipity but also reminds us of our own responsibility to question what is told as the truth.
2  This is one of those war movies that focuses on human interaction rather than battle and action sequences... and it's all the stronger because of it.
2  Writer-director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo makes a feature debut that is fully formed and remarkably assured.
-2 But this new jangle of noise, mayhem and stupidity must be a serious contender for the title.
1  A quiet family drama with a little bit of romance and a dose of darkness.
0  Children of the Century, though well dressed and well made, ultimately falls prey to the contradiction that afflicts so many movies about writers.
-1 If Festival in Cannes nails hard - boiled Hollywood argot with a bracingly nasty accuracy, much about the film, including some of its casting, is frustratingly unconvincing.
-2 A woefully dull, redundant concept that bears more than a whiff of exploitation, despite Iwai's vaunted empathy.
1  My Wife Is an Actress works as well as it does because (the leads) are such a companionable couple.
1  It asks nothing of the audience other than to sit back and enjoy a couple of great actors hamming it up.
0  Martyr gets royally screwed and comes back for more.
-1 Scotland, PA is entirely too straight-faced to transcend its clever concept.
1  Miller has crafted an intriguing story of maternal instincts and misguided acts of affection.
-1 Often silly -- and gross -- but it's rarely as moronic as some campus gross-out films.
-1 The gags, and the script, are a mixed bag.
0  A crisply made movie that is no more than mildly amusing.
1  Terrific casting and solid execution give all three stories life.
1  Promises is a compelling piece that demonstrates just how well children can be trained to live out and carry on their parents' anguish.
-2 The characters... are paper-thin, and their personalities undergo radical changes when it suits the script.
1  What makes Barbershop so likable, with all its flaws, is that it has none of the pushiness and decibel volume of most contemporary comedies.
-1 Nothing more than four or five mild chuckles surrounded by 86 minutes of overly-familiar and poorly-constructed comedy.
1  Sure, it's contrived and predictable, but its performances are so well tuned that the film comes off winningly, even though it's never as solid as you want it to be.
-1 I never thought I'd say this, but I'd much rather watch teens poking their genitals into fruit pies!
2  Informative, intriguing, observant, often touching... gives a human face to what's often discussed in purely abstract terms.
2  Whatever heartwarming scene the impressively discreet filmmakers may have expected to record with their mini DV, they show a remarkable ability to document both sides of this emotional car-wreck.
-2 A humorless journey into a philosophical void.
0  The movie is essentially a series of fleetingly interesting actors' moments.
1  The plot twists give I Am Trying to Break Your Heart an attraction it desperately needed.
2  An action/thriller of the finest kind, evoking memories of Day of the Jackal, The French Connection, and Heat.
-1 The drama discloses almost nothing.
0  It's time to let your hair down -- Greek style.
1  Wilco fans will have a great time, and the movie should win the band a few new converts, too.
-2 The jokes are sophomoric, stereotypes are sprinkled everywhere and the acting ranges from bad to bodacious.
1  A well-crafted film that is all the more remarkable because it achieves its emotional power and moments of revelation with restraint and a delicate ambiguity.
0  Unspools like a highbrow, low-key, 102-minute infomercial, blending entrepreneurial zeal with the testimony of satisfied customers.
0  A relatively effective little potboiler until its absurd, contrived, overblown, and entirely implausible finale.
2  Half Past Dead is just such an achievement.
1  The re-release of Ron Howard's Apollo 13 in the IMAX format proves absolutely that really, really, really good things can come in enormous packages.
-2 This long and relentlessly saccharine film is a clear case of preaching to the converted.
1  Short and sweet, but also more than anything else slight... Tadpole pulls back from the consequences of its own actions and revelations.
2  My Wife is an Actress has its moments in looking at the comic effects of jealousy.
-1 In the end, Tuck Everlasting falls victim to that everlasting conundrum experienced by every human who ever lived: too much to do, too little time to do it in.
-2 You'll find yourself wishing that you and they were in another movie.
1  Visually fascinating... an often intense character study about fathers and sons, loyalty and duty.
0  Leading a double life in an American film only comes to no good, but not here.
1  She allows each character to confront their problems openly and honestly.
1  Compulsively watchable, no matter how degraded things get.
1  If you can push on through the slow spots, you'll be rewarded with some fine acting.
0  The comedy makes social commentary more palatable.
-1 A film that loses sight of its own story.
2  Fontaine's direction, especially her agreeably startling use of close-ups and her grace with a moving camera, creates sheerly cinematic appeal.
0  Funny, though.
1  Take any 12-year-old boy to see this picture, and he'll be your slave for a year.
1  A solidly constructed, entertaining thriller that stops short of true inspiration.
-1 Snow Dogs finds its humour in a black man getting humiliated by a pack of dogs who are smarter than him
-2 I'm not sure which will take longer to heal: the welt on Johnny Knoxville's stomach from a riot-control projectile or my own tortured psyche.
-2 We don't get paid enough to sit through crap like this.
-1 Too bad.
1  But tongue-in-cheek preposterousness has always been part of For the most part Wilde's droll whimsy helps ``Being Earnest'' overcome its weaknesses and Parker's creative interference...
1  By applying definition to both sides of the man, the picture realizes a fullness that does not negate the subject.
1  Many insightful moments.
1  Zhuangzhuang creates delicate balance of style, text, and subtext that's so simple and precise that anything discordant would topple the balance, but against all odds, nothing does.
0  It never is, not fully.
-1 ... while certainly clever in spots, this too-long, spoofy update of Shakespeare's Macbeth doesn't sustain a high enough level of invention.
0  There's an epic here, but you have to put it together yourself.
0  But fans of the show should not consider this a diss.
0  Lillard and Cardellini earn their Scooby Snacks, but not anyone else.
1  Filmmakers Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann area headed east, Far East, in retelling a historically significant, and personal, episode detailing how one international city welcomed tens of thousands of German Jewish refugees while the world's democracie
0  Really dumb but occasionally really funny.
-1 Doesn't really add up to much.
0  Shadyac, who belongs with the damned for perpetrating Patch Adams, trots out every ghost trick from The Sixth Sense to The Mothman Prophecies.
-1 Zellweger's whiny pouty-lipped poof faced and spindly attempt at playing an ingenue makes her nomination as best actress even more of a an a
1  Has a solid emotional impact.
1  One of those unassuming films that sneaks up on you and stays with you long after you have left the theatre.
1  Let's issue a moratorium, effective immediately, on treacly films about inspirational prep-school professors and the children they so heartwarmingly motivate.
0  The same should go for movie theaters.
-2 Where's the movie here?
1  You come away from his film overwhelmed, hopeful and, perhaps paradoxically, illuminated.
0  Pull (s) off the rare trick of recreating not only the look of a certain era, but also the feel.
-2 ... unspeakably, unbearably dull, featuring reams of flatly delivered dialogue and a heroine who comes across as both shallow and dim-witted.
1  Good performances keep it from being a total rehash.
0  What with the incessant lounge music playing in the film's background, you may mistake Love Liza for an Adam Sandler Chanukah song.
-1 The modern-day royals have nothing on these guys when it comes to scandals.
1  A disoriented but occasionally disarming saga packed with moments out of an Alice in Wonderland adventure, a stalker thriller, and a condensed season of TV's Big Brother.
1  Not as well-written as Sexy Beast, not as gloriously flippant as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but stylish and moody and exceptionally well-acted.
-2 Killing time, that's all that's going on here.
-1 Puts on airs of a Hal Hartley wannabe film -- without the vital comic ingredient of the hilarious writer-director himself.
2  At once subtle and visceral, the film never succumbs to the trap of the maudlin or tearful, offering instead with its unflinching gaze a measure of faith in the future.
1  He watches them as they float within the seas of their personalities.
-1 I didn't laugh.
0  In this film we at least see a study in contrasts; the wide range of one actor, and the limited range of a comedian.
-1 There is simply not enough of interest onscreen to sustain its seventy-minute running time.
-1 The Master of Disguise represents Adam Sandler's latest attempt to dumb down the universe.
0  (A) stuporously solemn film.
0  It's sweet... but just a little bit too precious at the start and a little too familiar at the end.
-1 This is a truly, truly bad movie.
0  Is Red Dragon worthy of a place alongside the other Hannibal movies?
1  The fact is that the screen is most alive when it seems most likely that Broomfield's interviewees, or even himself, will not be for much longer.
1  Despite its old-hat set-up and predictable plot, Empire still has enough moments to keep it entertaining.
-2 Poor Ben Bratt couldn't find stardom if MapQuest emailed him point-to-point driving directions.
0  It won't harm anyone, but neither can I think of a very good reason to rush right out and see it.
-2 At times, it actually hurts to watch.
1  Shyamalan takes a potentially trite and overused concept (aliens come to Earth) and infuses it into a rustic, realistic, and altogether creepy tale of hidden invasion.
0  Y
1  The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys' take on adolescence feels painfully true.
0  Would I see it again?
-2 Why sit through a crummy, wannabe-hip crime comedy that refers incessantly to old movies, when you could just rent those movies instead, let alone seek out a respectable new one?
2  The entire movie establishes a wonderfully creepy mood.
-1 Taken outside the context of the current political climate (see: terrorists are more evil than ever!)
-2 A particularly joyless, and exceedingly dull, period coming-of-age tale.
1  It's at once laughable and compulsively watchable, in its committed dumbness.
-1 Lacks depth.
2  A tremendous piece of work.
1  What's surprising is how well it holds up in an era in which computer-generated images are the norm.
-1 I don't think so.
-2 Koepp's screenplay isn't nearly surprising or clever enough to sustain a reasonable degree of suspense on its own.
2  Better effects, better acting and a hilarious Kenneth Branagh.
-2 A derivative collection of horror and sci-fi cliches.
1  Moonlight Mile gives itself the freedom to feel contradictory things.
-2 What little atmosphere is generated by the shadowy lighting, macabre sets, and endless rain is offset by the sheer ugliness of everything else.
-1 Curiously, Super Troopers suffers because it doesn't have enough vices to merit its 103-minute length.
0  ``What John does is heroic, but we don't condone it,'' one of the film's stars recently said, a tortuous comment that perfectly illustrates the picture's moral schizophrenia.
-2 ... hypnotically dull.
2  A graceful, moving tribute to the courage of New York's finest and a nicely understated expression of the grief shared by the nation at their sacrifice.
1  She is a lioness, protecting her cub, and he a reluctant villain, incapable of controlling his crew.
1  It's a film that's destined to win a wide summer audience through word-of-mouth reviews and, not far down the line, to find a place among the studio's animated classics.
1  Even though many of these guys are less than adorable (their lamentations are pretty much self-centered), there's something vital about the movie.
0  As it stands it's an opera movie for the buffs.
-1 Sex is one of those films that aims to confuse.
0  ``Secretary'' is owned by its costars, Spader and Gyllenhaal.
-2 It's Pauly Shore awful.
-1 Shunji Iwai's All About Lily Chou Chou is a beautifully shot, but ultimately flawed film about growing up in Japan.
1  Sheds light on a subject few are familiar with, and makes you care about music you may not have heard before.
-1 The high-concept scenario soon proves preposterous, the acting is robotically italicized, and truth-in-advertising hounds take note: There's very little hustling on view.
-1 Surprisingly, considering that Baird is a former film editor, the movie is rather choppy.
0  Overall, interesting as a documentary -- but not very Imaxy.
0  Whether Quitting will prove absorbing to American audiences is debatable.
-1 The comedy Death to Smoochy is a rancorous curiosity: a movie without an apparent audience.
-1 Odd and weird.
-1 This is not an easy film.
0  Simply doesn't have sufficient heft to justify its two-hour running time.
-2 ... overly melodramatic...
-1 A potentially good comic premise and excellent cast are terribly wasted.
-1 In any case, I would recommend Big Bad Love only to Winger fans who have missed her since 1995's Forget Paris.
1  You watch for that sense of openness, the little surprises.
0  Jaunty fun, with its celeb-strewn backdrop well used.
-1 Simply a re-hash of the other seven films.
-2 Far too clever by half, Howard's film is really a series of strung-together moments, with all the spaces in between filled with fantasies, daydreams, memories and one fantastic visual trope after another.
-2 The latest Adam Sandler assault and possibly the worst film of the year.
0  Samuel Beckett applied to the Iranian voting process.
-1 There is only so much baked cardboard I need to chew.
-2 A full-frontal attack on audience patience.
1  This is one of those rare docs that paints a grand picture of an era and makes the journey feel like a party.
-2 When you find yourself rooting for the monsters in a horror movie, you know the picture is in trouble.
2  A stylish but steady, and ultimately very satisfying, piece of character-driven storytelling.
-2 A word of advice to the makers of The Singles Ward: Celebrity cameos do not automatically equal laughs.
0  , with cheapo animation (like Saturday morning TV in the '60s), a complex sword-and-sorcery plot and characters who all have big round eyes and Japanese names.
-1 This is a film living far too much in its own head.
1  The bottom line with Nemesis is the same as it has been with all the films in the series: Fans will undoubtedly enjoy it, and the uncommitted needn't waste their time on it.
-1 An obvious copy of one of the best films ever made, how could it not be?
-2 Mr. Goyer's loose, unaccountable direction is technically sophisticated in the worst way.
1  Mordantly funny and intimately knowing...
0  ending.
-1 Fairly run-of-the-mill.
0  Dark and disturbing, yet compelling to watch.
-1 Whether this is art imitating life or life imitating art, it's an unhappy situation all around.
1  Like a veteran head cutter, Barbershop is tuned in to its community.
-1 The story is predictable, the jokes are typical Sandler fare, and the romance with Ryder is puzzling.
-1 Tends to plod.
-1 Formulaic to the 51st power, more like.
0  Here Polanski looks back on those places he saw at childhood, and captures them by freeing them from artefact, and by showing them heartbreakingly drably.
-2 The three leads produce adequate performances, but what's missing from this material is any depth of feeling.
0  For all its plot twists, and some of them verge on the bizarre as the film winds down, Blood Work is a strong, character-oriented piece.
1  The lightest, most breezy movie Steven Spielberg has made in more than a decade.
-1 In The New Guy, even the bull gets recycled.
1  Originality ain't on the menu, but there's never a dull moment in the giant spider invasion comic chiller.
1  It's a ripper of a yarn and I for one enjoyed the thrill of the chill.
1  The script is smart, not cloying.
-1 Spectators will indeed sit open-mouthed before the screen, not screaming but yawning.
0  ... the picture's cleverness is ironically muted by the very people who are intended to make it shine.
-1 You'd be hard put to find a movie character more unattractive or odorous (than Leon).
-2 Dismally dull sci-fi comedy.
-2 Never capitalizes on this concept and opts for the breezy and amateurish feel of an after school special on the subject of tolerance.
-1 PC stability notwithstanding, the film suffers from a simplistic narrative and a pat, fairy-tale conclusion.
1  A story about intelligent high school students that deals with first love sweetly but also seriously.
2  Assured, vital and well wrought, the film is, arguably, the most accomplished work to date from Hong Kong's versatile Stanley Kwan.
-1 The most opaque, self-indulgent and just plain goofy an excuse for a movie as you can imagine.
1  Who needs mind-bending drugs when they can see this, the final part of the `qatsi' trilogy, directed by Godfrey Reggio, with music by Philip Glass?
0  True Hollywood Story.
1  The movie is amateurish, but it's a minor treat.
0  `You'll laugh for not quite and hour and a half, but come out feeling strangely unsatisfied.
2  I can easily imagine Benigni's Pinocchio becoming a Christmas perennial.
1  That's why Sex and Lucia is so alluring.
1  Any movie that makes hard work seem heroic deserves a look.
0  A lot of its gags and observations reflect a woman's point-of-view.
-2 In my own very humble opinion, In Praise of Love lacks even the most fragmented charms I have found in almost all of his previous works.
-1 There's more repetition than creativity throughout the movie.
-1 (A) boldly stroked, luridly coloured, uni-dimensional nonsense machine that strokes the eyeballs while it evaporates like so much crypt mist in the brain.
0  ... one big laugh, three or four mild giggles, and a whole lot of not much else.
1  Affable if not timeless, Like Mike raises some worthwhile themes while delivering a wholesome fantasy for kids.
0  Perhaps the film should be seen as a conversation starter.
0  It does give you a peek.
-1 Feels shrill, simple and soapy.
1  A wild comedy that could only spring from the demented mind of the writer of Being John Malkovich.
1  The film is old-fashioned, occasionally charming and as subtle as boldface.
1  Pure cinematic intoxication, a wildly inventive mixture of comedy and melodrama, tastelessness and swooning elegance.
-1 A minor-league soccer remake of The Longest Yard.
-2 Everything was as superficial as the forced New Jersey lowbrow accent Uma had.
-1 Godard uses his characters -- if that's not too glorified a term -- as art things, mouthpieces, visual motifs, blanks.
-1 Take Care is nicely performed by a quintet of actresses, but nonetheless it drags during its 112-minute length.
-1 The bottom line, at least in my opinion, is Imposter makes a better short story than it does a film.
-1 Formula 51 promises a new kind of high but delivers the same old bad trip.
0  With lines that feel like long soliloquies -- even as they are being framed in conversation -- Max is static, stilted.
-1 Directed without the expected flair or imagination by Hong Kong master John Woo, Windtalkers airs just about every cliche in the war movie compendium across its indulgent two-hour-and-fifteen-minute length.
-2 Aggravating and tedious.
1  An undeniably moving film to experience, and ultimately that's what makes it worth a recommendation.
1  Frank Capra played this story straight.
-2 Starts as an intense political and psychological thriller but is sabotaged by ticking time bombs and other Hollywood-action cliches.
-1 Cattaneo reworks the formula that made The Full Monty a smashing success... but neglects to add the magic that made it all work.
-1 Obvious.
1  Though overall an overwhelmingly positive portrayal, the film doesn't ignore the more problematic aspects of Brown's life.
1  Paid in Full is remarkably engaging despite being noticeably derivative of Goodfellas and at least a half dozen other trouble-in-the-ghetto flicks.
1  The big ending surprise almost saves the movie.
-1 Problem is, we have no idea what in creation is going on.
-2 It's as if a bored Cage spent the duration of the film's shooting schedule waiting to scream: ``Got AIDS yet?''
1  4Ever has the same sledgehammer appeal as Pokemon videos, but it breathes more on the big screen and induces headaches more slowly.
1  A smart, steamy mix of road movie, coming-of-age story and political satire.
1  Warm and exotic.
2  Steers, in his feature film debut, has created a brilliant motion picture.
0  From beginning to end, this overheated melodrama plays like a student film.
1  The off-center humor is a constant, and the ensemble gives it a buoyant delivery.
-1 overburdened with complicated plotting and banal dialogue
0  Sometimes we feel as if the film careens from one colorful event to another without respite, but sometimes it must have seemed to Frida Kahlo as if her life did, too.
1  Yet this one makes up for in heart what it lacks in outright newness.
1  (Fincher's) camera sense and assured pacing make it an above-average thriller.
0  The Pinochet Case is a searing album of remembrance from those who, having survived, suffered most.
0  However stale the material, Lawrence's delivery remains perfect; his great gift is that he can actually trick you into thinking some of this worn-out, pandering palaver is actually funny.
-1 Whatever the movie's sentimental, hypocritical lessons about sexism, its true colors come out in various wet T-shirt and shower scenes.
1  All right, so it's not a brilliant piece of filmmaking, but it is a funny (sometimes hilarious) comedy with a deft sense of humor about itself, a playful spirit and a game cast.
2  Over the years, Hollywood has crafted a solid formula for successful animated movies, and Ice Age only improves on it, with terrific computer graphics, inventive action sequences and a droll sense of humor.
0  He's worked too hard on this movie.
-1 If Welles was unhappy at the prospect of the human race splitting in two, he probably wouldn't be too crazy with his great-grandson's movie splitting up in pretty much the same way.
0  The philosophical musings of the dialogue jar against the tawdry soap opera antics of the film's action in a way that is surprisingly enjoyable.
1  Some people march to the beat of a different drum, and if you ever wondered what kind of houses those people live in, this documentary takes a look at 5 alternative housing options.
1  It's up to (Watts) to lend credibility to this strange scenario, and her presence succeeds in making us believe.
-1 Noyce's greatest mistake is thinking that we needed sweeping, dramatic, Hollywood moments to keep us
0  it somehow managed to make its way past my crappola radar and find a small place in my heart
2  Diggs and Lathan are among the chief reasons Brown Sugar is such a sweet and sexy film.
1  a wonderfully warm human drama that remains vividly in memory long after viewing
0  about the hard-partying
0  But the execution is a flop with the exception of about six gags that really work.
1  A sharp, amusing study of the cult of celebrity.
1  This humbling little film, fueled by the light comedic work of Zhao Benshan and the delicate ways of Dong Jie, is just the sort for those moviegoers who complain that `they don't make movies like they used to anymore.'
2  More than their unique residences, Home Movie is about the people who live in them, who have carved their own comfortable niche in the world and have been kind enough to share it.
-1 No surprises.
0  It is so earnest, so overwrought and so wildly implausible that it begs to be parodied.
2  The film is enriched by an imaginatively mixed cast of antic spirits, headed by Christopher Plummer as the subtlest and most complexly evil Uncle Ralph I've ever seen in the many film and stage adaptations of the work.
-2 The problem is the needlessly poor quality of its archival prints and film footage.
0  Fulfills the minimum requirement of Disney animation.
-2 With jump cuts, fast editing and lots of pyrotechnics, Yu clearly hopes to camouflage how bad his movie is.
1  (While The Last Metro) was more melodramatic, confined to a single theater company and its strategies and deceptions, while Tavernier is more concerned with the entire period of history.
0  Both the crime story and the love story are unusual.
0  Every five minutes or so, someone gets clocked.
0  Well, it's not as pathetic as The Animal.
2  Combines sharp comedy, old-fashioned monster movie atmospherics, and genuine heart to create a film that's not merely about kicking undead \*\*\*, but also about dealing with regret and, ultimately, finding redemption.
1  Moretti... is the rare common-man artist who's wise enough to recognize that there are few things in this world more complex -- and, as it turns out, more fragile -- than happiness.
0  Routine and rather silly.
-1 `God help us, but Capra and Cooper are rolling over in their graves.'
0  He gets his secretary to fax it.''
2  Begins like a docu-drama but builds its multi-character story with a flourish.
1  Playing a role of almost Bergmanesque intensity... Bisset is both convincing and radiant.
-1 If there was ever a movie where the upbeat ending feels like a copout, this is the one.
2  There's none of the happily-ever - after spangle of Monsoon Wedding in Late Marriage -- and that's part of what makes Dover Kosashvili's outstanding feature debut so potent.
-2 As pure over-the-top trash, any John Waters movie has it beat by a country mile.
2  (Reynolds) takes a classic story, casts attractive and talented actors and uses a magnificent landscape to create a feature film that is wickedly fun to watch.
2  A time machine, a journey back to your childhood, when cares melted away in the dark theater, and films had the ability to mesmerize, astonish and entertain.
-2 I hate the feeling of having been slimed in the name of High Art.
-2 The catch is that they're stuck with a script that prevents them from firing on all cylinders.
0  The images are usually abbreviated in favor of mushy obviousness and telegraphed pathos, particularly where Whitaker's misfit artist is concerned.
0  Just entertaining enough not to hate, too mediocre to love.
-2 A movie more to be prescribed than recommended -- as visually bland as a dentist's waiting room, complete with soothing Muzak and a cushion of predictable narrative rhythms.
1  Takes a fresh and absorbing look at a figure whose legacy had begun to bronze.
1  The film does give a pretty good overall picture of the situation in Laramie following the murder of Matthew Shepard.
0  At times THE GUYS taps into some powerful emotions, but this kind of material is more effective on stage.
0  It's a documentary that says that the alternate sexuality meant to set you free may require so much relationship maintenance that celibacy can start looking good.
1  For those in search of something different, Wendigo is a genuinely bone-chilling tale.
1  A riveting profile of law enforcement, and a visceral, nasty journey into an urban Hades.
-2 The movie slides downhill as soon as macho action conventions assert themselves.
1  Peter Jackson has done the nearly impossible.
0  With its jerky hand-held camera and documentary feel, Bloody Sunday is a sobering recount of a very bleak day in Derry.
-1 These characters become wearisome.
0  Earnest but heavy-handed.
1  Until it goes off the rails in its final 10 or 15 minutes, Wendigo, Larry Fessenden's spooky new thriller, is a refreshingly smart and newfangled variation on several themes derived from far less sophisticated and knowing horror films.
-1 (Moore's) better at fingering problems than finding solutions.
-1 But for the most part, The Weight of Water comes off as a two-way time-switching myopic mystery that stalls in its lackluster gear of emotional blandness.
1  Heartwarming and gently comic even as the film breaks your heart.
2  The fluid motion is astounding on any number of levels
-2 Despite terrific special effects and funnier gags, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets finds a way to make J.K. Rowling's marvelous series into a deadly bore.
1  May be more genial than ingenious, but it gets the job done.
-2 is a mess.
-1 The only type of lives this glossy comedy-drama resembles are ones in formulaic mainstream movies.
1  Surprisingly, the film is a hilarious adventure and I shamelessly enjoyed it.
-1 A clumsily manufactured exploitation flick, a style-free exercise in manipulation and mayhem.
1  Never lets go your emotions, taking them to surprising highs, sorrowful lows and hidden impulsive niches... gorgeous, passionate, and at times uncommonly moving.
1  Tsai has a well-deserved reputation as one of the cinema world's great visual stylists, and in this film, every shot enhances the excellent performances.
-1 Just consider what New Best Friend does not have, beginning with the minor omission of a screenplay.
1  Munch's screenplay is tenderly observant of his characters.
0  In the long, dishonorable history of quickie teen-pop exploitation, Like Mike stands out for its only partly synthetic decency.
-2 There's no energy.
-1 Lacking substance and soul, Crossroads comes up shorter than Britney's cutoffs.
0  So unique and stubborn and charismatic that you want it to be better and more successful than it is.
0  I'm not saying that Ice Age doesn't have some fairly pretty pictures, but there's not enough substance in the story to actually give them life.
-1 You don't know whether to admire the film's stately nature and call it classicism or be exasperated by a noticeable lack of pace.
2  Without resorting to camp or parody, Haynes (like Sirk, but differently) has transformed the rhetoric of Hollywood melodrama into something provocative, rich, and strange.
1  There's a lot to recommend Read My Lips.
0  It says a lot about a filmmaker when he can be wacky without clobbering the audience over the head and still maintain a sense of urgency and suspense.
0  This Scarlet's letter is A...
0  I prefer Soderbergh's concentration on his two lovers over Tarkovsky's mostly male, mostly patriarchal debating societies.
2  A compassionate, moving portrait of an American (and an America) always reaching for something just outside his grasp.
0  Bella is the picture of health with boundless energy until a few days before she dies.
1  A charming but slight comedy.
-2 ... post-September 11, ``The Sum Of All Fears'' seems more tacky and reprehensible, manipulating our collective fear without bestowing the subject with the intelligence or sincerity it unequivocally deserves.
-1 A hit - and-miss affair, consistently amusing but not as outrageous or funny as Cho may have intended or as imaginative as one might have hoped.
0  The setting is so cool that it chills the characters, reducing our emotional stake in the outcome of ``Intacto's'' dangerous and seductively stylish game.
1  If you think it's a riot to see Rob Schneider in a young woman's clothes, then you'll enjoy The Hot Chick.
1  Ice Age won't drop your jaw, but it will warm your heart, and I'm giving it a strong thumbs up.
-2 Beneath the uncanny, inevitable and seemingly shrewd facade of movie-biz farce... lies a plot cobbled together from largely flat and uncreative moments.
0  Slow, silly and unintentionally hilarious.
1  Imamura has said that Warm Water Under a Red Bridge is a poem to the enduring strengths of women.
2  Thanks to a small star with big heart, this family film sequel is plenty of fun for all.
1  What makes the film special is the refreshingly unhibited enthusiasm that the people, in spite of clearly evident poverty and hardship, bring to their music.
-1 The story the movie tells is of Brian De Palma's addiction to the junk-calorie suspense tropes that have all but ruined his career.
2  But the nerve-raked acting, the crackle of lines, the impressive stagings of hardware, make for some robust and scary entertainment.
-2 a terrible adaptation of a play that only ever walked the delicate tightrope between farcical and loathsome.
-1 Even accepting this in the right frame of mind can only provide it with so much leniency.
1  A hypnotic cyber hymn and a cruel story of youth culture.
-2 What soured me on The Santa Clause 2 was that Santa bumps up against 21st century reality so hard, it's icky.
-1 Often lingers just as long on the irrelevant as on the engaging, which gradually turns What Time Is It There?
1  Superb production values & Christian Bale's charisma make up for a derivative plot.
1  Happy Times maintains an appealing veneer without becoming too cute about it.
-1 As a story of dramatic enlightenment, the screenplay by Billy Ray and Terry George leaves something to be desired.
-2 A bad movie that happened to good actors.
-2 It's a bad sign when you're rooting for the film to hurry up and get to its subjects' deaths just so the documentary will be over, but it's indicative of how uncompelling the movie is unless it happens to cover your particular area of interest.
1  Confessions may not be a straightforward bio, nor does it offer much in the way of Barris' motivations, but the film is an oddly fascinating depiction of an architect of pop culture.
-2 The acting is amateurish, the cinematography is atrocious, the direction is clumsy, the writing is insipid and the violence is at once luridly graphic and laughably unconvincing.
0  Sean Penn, you owe Nicolas Cage an apology.
2  There is a real subject here, and it is handled with intelligence and care.
-2 Sade achieves the near-impossible: It turns the Marquis de Sade into a dullard.
-1 My advice is to skip the film and pick up the soundtrack.
2  So beautifully acted and directed, it's clear that Washington most certainly has a new career ahead of him if he so chooses.
2  Lovingly photographed in the manner of a Golden Book sprung to life, Stuart Little 2 manages sweetness largely without stickiness.
-1 is the kind of movie that's critic-proof, simply because it aims so low.
-1 If I want music, I'll buy the soundtrack.
2  A delightful entree in the tradition of food movies.
1  Spare but quietly effective retelling.
0  Despite a performance of sustained intelligence from Stanford and another of subtle humour from Bebe Neuwirth, as an older woman who seduces Oscar, the film founders on its lack of empathy for the social milieu - rich New York intelligentsia - and its off
0  Though it flirts with bathos and pathos and the further Oprahfication of the world as we know it, it still cuts all the way down to broken bone.
-2 This is one baaaaaaaaad movie.
1  a delightful romantic comedy with plenty of bite.
1  It must be the end of the world: the best film so far this year is a franchise sequel starring Wesley Snipes.
1  What (Denis) accomplishes in his chilling, unnerving film is a double portrait of two young women whose lives were as claustrophic, suffocating and chilly as the attics to which they were inevitably consigned.
1  It is about irrational, unexplainable life and it seems so real because it does not attempt to filter out the complexity.
2  The writing is clever and the cast is appealing.
0  Davis the performer is plenty fetching enough, but she needs to shake up the mix, and work in something that doesn't feel like a half-baked stand-up routine.
1  Certainly the big finish wasn't something Galinsky and Hawley could have planned for... but part of being a good documentarian is being there when the rope snaps.
-1 While easier to sit through than most of Jaglom's self-conscious and gratingly irritating films, it's still tainted by cliches, painful improbability and murky points.
1  Poignant if familiar story of a young person suspended between two cultures.
-1 Despite some comic sparks, Welcome to Collinwood never catches fire.
0  Even more baffling is that it's funny.
1  An old-fashioned but emotionally stirring adventure tale of the kind they rarely make anymore.
2  Not many movies have that kind of impact on me these days.
1  There's a spontaneity to The Chateau, a sense of light-heartedness, that makes it attractive throughout.
1  A very capable nailbiter.
1  It's not just a feel-good movie, it's a feel movie.
0  The sound of GUNFIRE and cell phones RINGING.
-2 But one thing's for sure: It never comes close to being either funny or scary.
0  Soderbergh seems capable only of delivering artfully lighted, earnest inquiries that lack the kind of genuine depth that would make them redeemable.
-1 It has more in common with a fireworks display than a movie, which normally is expected to have characters and a storyline.
-2 Co-writer/director Jonathan Parker's attempts to fashion a Brazil-like, hyper-real satire fall dreadfully short.
-1 Novak contemplates a heartland so overwhelmed by its lack of purpose that it seeks excitement in manufactured high drama.
-1 Blue Crush is so prolonged and boring it isn't even close to being the barn-burningly bad movie it promised it would be.
-2 Viewers will need all the luck they can muster just figuring out who's who in this pretentious mess.
-1 Like an Afterschool Special with costumes by Gianni Versace, Mad Love looks better than it feels.
-1 The basic premise is intriguing but quickly becomes distasteful and downright creepy.
-1 The mystery of Enigma is how a rich historical subject, combined with so much first-rate talent... could have yielded such a flat, plodding picture.
-2 It could have been something special, but two things drag it down to mediocrity -- director Clare Peploe's misunderstanding of Marivaux's rhythms, and Mira Sorvino's limitations as a classical actress.
1  Steadfastly uncinematic but powerfully dramatic.
0  At once emotional and richly analytical, the Cosby-Seinfeld encounter alone confirms the serious weight behind this superficially loose, larky documentary.
-2 A summary of the plot doesn't quite do justice to the awfulness of the movie, for that comes through all too painfully in the execution.
-2 Big Fat Liar is little more than Home Alone raised to a new, self-deprecating level.
2  Young Everlyn Sampi, as the courageous Molly Craig, simply radiates star-power potential in this remarkable and memorable film.
-1 ... the story simply putters along looking for astute observations and coming up blank.
2  It is also beautifully acted.
-1 Incoherence reigns.
2  The wanton slipperiness of \* Corpus and its amiable jerking and reshaping of physical time and space would make it a great piece to watch with kids and use to introduce video as art.
-1 77 minutes of Pokemon may not last 4ever, it just seems like it does.
2  a joyous occasion
1  more precious than perspicacious
-1 (T) he script isn't up to the level of the direction, nor are the uneven performances by the cast members, who seem bound and determined to duplicate Bela Lugosi's now-cliched vampire accent.
1  Its cast full of caffeinated comedy performances more than make up for its logical loopholes, which fly by so fast there's no time to think about them anyway.
-1 A sluggish pace and lack of genuine narrative hem the movie in every bit as much as life hems in the spirits of these young women.
-1 The Chateau has one very funny joke and a few other decent ones, but all it amounts to is a mildly funny, sometimes tedious, ultimately insignificant film.
0  This harrowing journey into combat hell vividly captures the chaotic insanity and personal tragedies that are all too abundant when human hatred spews forth unchecked.
0  While Holm is terrific as both men and Hjejle quite appealing, the film fails to make the most out of the intriguing premise.
2  That rare documentary that incorporates so much of human experience -- drama, conflict, tears and surprise -- that it transcends the normal divisions between fiction and nonfiction film.
2  A refreshing change from the usual whoopee-cushion effort aimed at the youth market.
2  A compelling motion picture that illustrates an American tragedy.
2  At once disarmingly straightforward and strikingly devious.
-2 Much like its easily dismissive take on the upscale lifestyle, there isn't much there here.
0  Robin Williams departs from his fun friendly demeanor in exchange for a darker unnerving role.
-1 This may be the first cartoon ever to look as if it were being shown on the projection television screen of a sports bar.
0  For a film that celebrates radical, nonconformist values, What to Do in Case of Fire?
1  The film grows on you.
-1 Imperfect?
-1 Allegiance to Chekhov, which director Michael Cacoyannis displays with somber earnestness in the new adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, is a particularly vexing handicap.
2  On that score, the film certainly doesn't disappoint.
1  Angela Gheorghiu as famous prima donna Floria Tosca, Roberto Alagna as her lover Mario Cavaradossi, and Ruggero as the villainous, lecherous police chief Scarpia, all sing beautifully and act adequately.
-1 Has a customarily jovial air but a deficit of flim-flam inventiveness.
1  Fessenden continues to do interesting work, and it would be nice to see what he could make with a decent budget.
1  Elegant, mannered and teasing.
2  Foster and Whitaker are especially fine.
-2 I don't blame Eddie Murphy but shouldn't Owen Wilson know a movie must have a story and a script?
1  It's a boring movie about a boring man, made watchable by a bravura performance from a consummate actor incapable of being boring.
2  ... a gleefully grungy, hilariously wicked black comedy...
1  ... manages to deliver a fair bit of vampire fun.
-1 Nothing wrong with performances here, but the whiney characters bugged me.
1  This kind of hands-on storytelling is ultimately what makes Shanghai Ghetto move beyond a good, dry, reliable textbook and what allows it to rank with its worthy predecessors.
1  If villainous vampires are your cup of blood, Blade 2 is definitely a cut above the rest.
0  It provides a grim, upsetting glimpse at the lives of some of the 1.2 million Palestinians who live in the crowded cities and refugee camps of Gaza.
1  Still, the updated Dickensian sensibility of writer Craig Bartlett's story is appealing.
1  You'd have to be a most hard-hearted person not to be moved by this drama.
-1 The re - enactments, however fascinating they may be as history, are too crude to serve the work especially well.
1  It also shows how deeply felt emotions can draw people together across the walls that might otherwise separate them.
0  The entire movie has a truncated feeling, but what's available is lovely and lovable.
-2 It's also curious to note that this film, like the similarly ill-timed Antitrust, is easily as bad at a fraction the budget.
-1 Shows moments of promise but ultimately succumbs to cliches and pat storytelling.
1  It might be `easier' to watch on video at home, but that shouldn't stop die-hard French film connoisseurs from going out and enjoying the big-screen experience.
0  With its paint fights, motorized scooter chases and dewy-eyed sentiment
2  Enticing and often funny documentary.
1  Though its story is only surface deep, the visuals and enveloping sounds of Blue Crush make this surprisingly decent flick worth a summertime look-see.
0  Here's my advice, Kev.
1  Like all of Egoyan's work, Ararat is fiercely intelligent and uncommonly ambitious.
2  The 3-D vistas from orbit, with the space station suspended like a huge set of wind chimes over the great blue globe, are stanzas of breathtaking, awe-inspiring visual poetry.
-2 turns a potentially interesting idea into an excruciating film school experience that plays better only for the film's publicists or for people who take as many drugs as the film's characters
2  Arliss Howard's ambitious, moving, and adventurous directorial debut, Big Bad Love, meets so many of the challenges it poses for itself that one can forgive the film its flaws.
0  But, no, we get another scene, and then another.
-2 Seagal ran out of movies years ago, and this is just the proof.
2  There is no substitute for on-screen chemistry, and when Friel pulls the strings that make Williams sink into melancholia, the reaction in Williams is as visceral as a gut punch.
0  (Javier Bardem is) one of the few reasons to watch the film, which director Gerardo Vera has drenched in swoony music and fever-pitched melodrama.
0  Occasionally interesting but essentially unpersuasive, a footnote to a still evolving story.
-1 The script?
-1 No cliche escapes the perfervid treatment of gang warfare called ces Wild.
-2 The movie is so resolutely cobbled together out of older movies that it even uses a totally unnecessary prologue, just because it seems obligatory.
-1 A few hours after you've seen it, you forget you've been to the movies.
2  ... with the gifted Pearce on hand to keep things on semi-stable ground dramatically, this retooled Machine is ultimately effective enough at achieving the modest, crowd-pleasing goals it sets for itself.
1  Oh, James!
-1 The picture seems uncertain whether it wants to be an acidic all-male All About Eve or a lush, swooning melodrama in the Intermezzo strain.
2  The cast is phenomenal, especially the women.
0  The movie is our story as much as it is Schmidt's, no matter if it's viewed as a self-reflection or cautionary tale.
-1 The movie weighs no more than a glass of flat champagne.
-1 Too silly to take seriously.
1  It is also a testament to the integrity and vision of the band.
1  Frequent flurries of creative belly laughs and genuinely enthusiastic performances... keep the movie slaloming through its hackneyed elements with enjoyable ease.
-2 It's also not smart or barbed enough for older viewers -- not everyone thinks poo-poo jokes are `edgy.'
-2 There are many definitions of `time waster' but this movie must surely be one of them.
-2 once she lets her love depraved leads meet, (Denis') story becomes a hopeless, unsatisfying muddle
-1 It's like an all-star salute to Disney's cheesy commercialism.
1  Gooding is the energetic frontman, and it's hard to resist his enthusiasm, even if the filmmakers come up with nothing original in the way of slapstick sequences.
0  The path Ice Age follows most closely, though, is the one established by Warner Bros. giant Chuck Jones, who died a matter of weeks before the movie's release.
-1 It's sweet and fluffy at the time, but it may leave you feeling a little sticky and unsatisfied.
2  With few respites, Marshall keeps the energy humming, and his edits, unlike those in Moulin Rouge, are crisp and purposeful without overdoing it.
0  ... is there a deeper, more direct connection between these women, one that spans time and reveals meaning?
2  The most ingenious film comedy since Being John Malkovich.
-1 The setting turns out to be more interesting than any of the character dramas, which never reach satisfying conclusions.
1  An engrossing portrait of uncompromising artists trying to create something original against the backdrop of a corporate music industry that only seems to care about the bottom line.
1  A smart and funny, albeit sometimes superficial, cautionary tale of a technology in search of an artist.
2  (Fiji diver Rusi Vulakoro and the married couple Howard and Michelle Hall) show us the world they love and make us love it, too.
-2 This would-be `James Bond for the Extreme Generation' pic is one big, dumb action movie.
0  We have an actor who is great fun to watch performing in a film that is only mildly diverting.
-2 The directing and story are disjointed, flaws that have to be laid squarely on Taylor's doorstep.
0  If you're not totally weirded - out by the notion of cinema as community-therapy spectacle, Quitting hits home with disorienting force.
-2 Imagine (if possible) a Pasolini film without passion or politics, or an Almodovar movie without beauty or humor, and you have some idea of the glum, numb experience of watching O Fantasma.
-1 Did we really need a remake of ``Charade?''
2  Exciting documentary.
1  As comedic spotlights go, Notorious C.H.O. hits all the verbal marks it should.
0  Blade II is as estrogen-free as movies get, so you might want to leave your date behind for this one, or she's gonna make you feel like you owe her big-time.
0  What makes the movie work -- to an admittedly limited extent -- is the commitment of two genuinely engaging performers.
-1 And neither do cliches, no matter how `inside' they are.
0  In its own way
-2 The movie is virtually without context -- journalistic or historical.
1  If it's not entirely memorable, the movie is certainly easy to watch.
-1 An odd, haphazard, and inconsequential romantic comedy.
-1 Too much of Nemesis has a tired, talky feel.
-1 How many more times will indie filmmakers subject us to boring, self-important stories of how horrible we are to ourselves and each other?
-1 While the transgressive trappings (especially the frank sex scenes) ensure that the film is never dull, Rodrigues's beast-within metaphor is ultimately rather silly and overwrought, making the ambiguous ending seem goofy rather than provocative.
-1 An awkward hybrid of genres that just doesn't work.
2  Beautifully crafted and brutally honest, Promises offers an unexpected window into the complexities of the Middle East struggle and into the humanity of its people.
1  In Auteil's less dramatic but equally incisive performance, he's a charismatic charmer likely to seduce and conquer.
2  Marvelously entertaining and deliriously joyous documentary.
1  It's a square, sentimental drama that satisfies, as comfort food often can.
0  If Sinise's character had a brain his ordeal would be over in five minutes but instead the plot goes out of its way to introduce obstacles for him to stumble over.
-2 Sluggish, tonally uneven.
0  The film affords us intriguing glimpses of the insights gleaned from a lifetime of spiritual inquiry, but Ram Dass: Fierce Grace doesn't organize it with any particular insight.
1  The story is a rather simplistic one: grief drives her, love drives him, and a second chance to find love in the most unlikely place - it struck a chord in me.
1  A bit of a downer and a little over-dramatic at times, but this is a beautiful film for people who like their romances to have that French realism.
-1 A big meal of cliches that the talented cast generally chokes on.
-1 entertaining enough, but nothing new
2  Beautifully shot, delicately scored and powered by a set of heartfelt performances, it's a lyrical endeavour.
2  Hartley adds enough quirky and satirical touches in the screenplay to keep the film entertaining.
1  Something for everyone.
-2 The problem is that for the most part, the film is deadly dull.
2  A fine, rousing, G-rated family film, aimed mainly at little kids but with plenty of entertainment value to keep grown-ups from squirming in their seats.
2  Fifty years after the fact, the world's political situation seems little different, and (director Phillip) Noyce brings out the allegory with remarkable skill.
2  Australian filmmaker David Flatman uses the huge-screen format to make an old-fashioned nature film that educates viewers with words and pictures while entertaining them.
-1 Thoroughly engrossing and ultimately tragic.
2  ... a spoof comedy that carries its share of laughs -- sometimes a chuckle, sometimes a guffaw and, to my great pleasure, the occasional belly laugh.
-1 Has all the complexity and realistic human behavior of an episode of General Hospital.
1  Eight Legged Freaks is clever and funny, is amused by its special effects, and leaves you feeling like you've seen a movie instead of an endless trailer.
0  Sitting through the last reel (spoiler alert!)
2  A small gem from Belgium.
2  Hugh Grant, who has a good line in charm, has never been more charming than in About a Boy.
-2 In addition to sporting one of the worst titles in recent cinematic history, Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever also features terrible, banal dialogue; convenient, hole-ridden plotting; superficial characters and a rather dull, unimaginative car chase.
1  For proof of that on the cinematic front, look no further than this 20th anniversary edition of the film that Spielberg calls, retrospectively, his most personal work yet.
-1 Carrying this wafer-thin movie on his nimble shoulders, Chan wades through putrid writing, direction and timing with a smile that says, `If I stay positive, maybe I can channel one of my greatest pictures, Drunken Master.'
1  Skins has a desolate air, but Eyre, a Native American raised by white parents, manages to infuse the rocky path to sibling reconciliation with flashes of warmth and gentle humor.
0  The bland outweighs the nifty, and Cletis Tout never becomes the clever crime comedy it thinks it is.
0  While Hoffman's performance is great, the subject matter goes nowhere.
-1 It's impossible to indulge the fanciful daydreams of Janice Beard (Eileen Walsh) when her real-life persona is so charmless and vacant.
1  Otto-Sallies has a real filmmaker's eye.
1  An incredibly thoughtful, deeply meditative picture that neatly and effectively captures the debilitating grief felt in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
2  A jaw-droppingly beautiful work
-1 A supernatural mystery that doesn't know whether it wants to be a suspenseful horror movie or a weepy melodrama.
2  There's no denying that Burns is a filmmaker with a bright future ahead of him.
-2 A movie version of a paint-by-numbers picture.
2  An effortlessly accomplished and richly resonant work.
2  This is a movie you can trust.
1  Trapped won't score points for political correctness, but it may cause parents a few sleepless hours -- a sign of its effectiveness.
1  `Blue Crush' swims away with the Sleeper Movie of the Summer award.
1  (``Safe Conduct'') is a long movie at 163 minutes but it fills the time with drama, romance, tragedy, bravery, political intrigue, partisans and sabotage.
0  Not bad, but not all that good.
1  Expands the limits of what a film can be, taking us into the lives of women to whom we might not give a second look if we passed them on the street.
0  Triumph of Love is a very silly movie, but the silliness has a pedigree.
1  For all its problems... The Lady and the Duke surprisingly manages never to grow boring... which proves that Rohmer still has a sense of his audience.
1  The campy results make Mel Brooks' Borscht Belt schtick look sophisticated.
1  Clint Eastwood's Blood Work is a lot like a well-made PB & J sandwich: familiar, fairly uneventful and boasting no real surprises -- but still quite tasty and inviting all the same.
1  Bravado Kathy!
2  About Schmidt is undoubtedly one of the finest films of the year.
2  A powerful, chilling, and affecting study of one man's dying fall.
1  There is no denying the power of Polanski's film...
0  Except for Paymer as the boss who ultimately expresses empathy for Bartleby's pain, the performances are so stylized as to be drained of human emotion.
-1 Absolutely not.
-1 The film is an earnest try at beachcombing verismo, but it would be even more indistinct than it is were it not for the striking, quietly vulnerable personality of Ms. Ambrose.
-1 The movie, like Bartleby, is something of a stiff -- an extra-dry office comedy that seems twice as long as its 83 minutes.
0  In the end, though, it is only mildly amusing when it could have been so much more.
1  It's a very tasteful rock and roll movie.
1  Spielberg has managed to marry science fiction with film noir and action flicks with philosophical inquiry.
2  Although What Time offers Tsai's usual style and themes, it has a more colorful, more playful tone than his other films.
1  It's a diverting enough hour-and-a-half for the family audience.
-1 High Crimes carries almost no organic intrigue as a government / Marine/legal mystery, and that's because the movie serves up all of that stuff, nearly subliminally, as the old-hat province of male intrigue.
1  Anybody who enjoys quirky, fun, popcorn movies with a touch of silliness and a little bloodshed.
-1 A waste of fearless purity in the acting craft.
-1 The ethos of the Chelsea Hotel may shape Hawke's artistic aspirations, but he hasn't yet coordinated his own DV poetry with the Beat he hears in his soul.
-1 With a tighter editorial process and firmer direction this material could work, especially since the actresses in the lead roles are all more than competent, but as is, Personal Velocity seems to be idling in neutral.
1  A bold (and lovely) experiment that will almost certainly bore most audiences into their own brightly colored dreams.
0  As spent screen series go, Star Trek: Nemesis is even more suggestive of a 65th class reunion mixer where only eight surviving members show up -- and there's nothing to drink.
0  Not a bad premise, but the execution is lackluster at best.
0  ... the same tired old gags, modernized for the extreme sports generation.
0  Abderrahmane Sissako's Heremakono (Waiting for Happiness) is an elegiac portrait of a transit city on the West African coast struggling against foreign influences.
0  There are far worse messages to teach a young audience, which will probably be perfectly happy with the sloppy slapstick comedy.
0  It may sound like a mere disease-of - the-week TV movie, but A Song For Martin is made infinitely more wrenching by the performances of real-life spouses Seldahl and Wollter.
-1 Resurrection has the dubious distinction of being a really bad imitation of the really bad Blair Witch Project.
-2 A very depressing movie of many missed opportunities.
-2 This is a fragmented film, once a good idea that was followed by the bad idea to turn it into a movie.
-2 A stupid, derivative horror film that substitutes extreme gore for suspense.
2  In X X X, Diesel is that rare creature -- an action hero with table manners, and one who proves that elegance is more than tattoo deep.
0  The funny thing is, I didn't mind all this contrived nonsense a bit.
1  The charm of Revolution OS is rather the way it introduces you to new, fervently held ideas and fanciful thinkers.
-1 With or without ballast tanks, K-19 sinks to a Harrison Ford low.
0  (Screenwriter) Pimental took the Farrelly Brothers comedy and feminized it, but it is a rather poor imitation.
1  A surprisingly sweet and gentle comedy.
0  While kids will probably eat the whole thing up, most adults will be way ahead of the plot.
1  Predictable and cloying, though Brown Sugar is so earnest in its yearning for the days before rap went nihilistic that it summons more spirit and bite than your average formulaic romantic quadrangle.
2  It's about individual moments of mood, and an aimlessness that's actually sort of amazing.
0  Hollywood's answer to an air ball.
2  It's a smart, solid, kinetically-charged spy flick worthy of a couple hours of summertime and a bucket of popcorn.
2  A sensitive, cultivated treatment of Greene's work as well as a remarkably faithful one.
2  A stylish thriller.
2  For those who pride themselves on sophisticated, discerning taste, this might not seem like the proper cup of tea, however it is almost guaranteed that even the stuffiest cinema goers will laugh their \*\*\* off for an hour-and-a-half.
1  As refreshing as a drink from a woodland stream.
-2 But the movie that doesn't really deliver for country music fans or for family audiences
1  Alternates between deadpan comedy and heartbreaking loneliness and isn't afraid to provoke introspection in both its characters and its audience.
1  Unfolds in a low-key, organic way that encourages you to accept it as life and go with its flow.
0  Brown's saga, like many before his, makes for snappy prose but a stumblebum of a movie.
0  A perfectly competent and often imaginative film that lacks what little Lilo & Stitch had in spades -- charisma.
2  The one-liners are snappy, the situations volatile and the comic opportunities richly rewarded.
0  This is a picture that Maik, the firebrand turned savvy ad man, would be envious of: it hijacks the heat of revolution and turns it into a sales tool.
1  The charm of the first movie is still there, and the story feels like the logical, unforced continuation of the careers of a pair of spy kids.
0  Whatever about warning kids about the dangers of ouija boards, someone should dispense the same advice to film directors.
-1 (Siegel) and co-writers Lisa Bazadona and Grace Woodard have relied too much on convention in creating the characters who surround Frankie.
0  What Bloody Sunday lacks in clarity, it makes up for with a great, fiery passion.
-1 Supposedly, Pokemon can't be killed, but Pokemon 4Ever practically assures that the pocket monster movie franchise is nearly ready to keel over.
1  Allen's underestimated charm delivers more goodies than lumps of coal.
1  The hook is the drama within the drama, as an unsolved murder and an unresolved moral conflict jockey for the spotlight.
2  I thought the relationships were wonderful, the comedy was funny, and the love `real'.
1  There are moments of hilarity to be had.
-1 One problem with the movie, directed by Joel Schumacher, is that it jams too many prefabricated story elements into the running time.
-1 It's one long bore.
-1 In spite of featuring a script credited to no fewer than five writers, apparently nobody here bothered to check it twice.
-1 The scriptwriters are no less a menace to society than the film's characters.
-1 Like Mike is a slight and uninventive movie: Like the exalted Michael Jordan referred to in the title, many can aspire but none can equal.
2  The most wondrous love story in years, it is a great film.
-1 A prison comedy that never really busts out of its comfy little cell.
-1 Writer-director Randall Wallace has bitten off more than he or anyone else could chew, and his movie veers like a drunken driver through heavy traffic.
1  Contrived as this may sound, Mr. Rose's updating works surprisingly well.
-2 If it were any more of a turkey, it would gobble in Dolby Digital stereo.
1  A culture-clash comedy that, in addition to being very funny, captures some of the discomfort and embarrassment of being a bumbling American in Europe.
-1 Even if it is generally amusing from time to time, I Spy has all the same problems the majority of action comedies have.
-1 What the audience feels is exhaustion, from watching a movie that is dark (dark green, to be exact), sour, bloody and mean.
-2 On a cutting room floor somewhere lies... footage that might have made No Such Thing a trenchant, ironic cultural satire instead of a frustrating misfire.
0  Colorful and deceptively buoyant until it suddenly pulls the rug out from under you, Burkinabe filmmaker Dani Kouyate's reworking of a folk story whose roots go back to 7th-century oral traditions is also a pointed political allegory.
2  Arteta directs one of the best ensemble casts of the year
-1 Nothing happens, and it happens to flat characters.
1  Lee's achievement extends to his supple understanding of the role that Brown played in American culture as an athlete, a movie star, and an image of black indomitability.
1  This rush to profits has created a predictably efficient piece of business notable largely for its overwhelming creepiness, for an eagerness to create images you wish you hadn't seen, which, in this day and age, is of course the point.
1  It is an unstinting look at a collaboration between damaged people that may or may not qual
-1 The milieu is wholly unconvincing... and the histrionics reach a truly annoying pitch.
0  Every potential twist is telegraphed well in advance, every performance respectably muted; the movie itself seems to have been made under the influence of Rohypnol.
0  `Men in Black II creates a new threat for the MIB, but recycles the same premise.
1  A bracing, unblinking work that serves as a painful elegy and sobering cautionary tale.
2  Pacino is the best he's been in years and Keener is marvelous.
-2 An awkwardly garish showcase that diverges from anything remotely probing or penetrating.
2  His work with actors is particularly impressive.
-1 ... while Dark Water isn't a complete wash (no pun intended), watched side-by-side with Ringu, it ultimately comes off as a pale successor.
-2 ... bibbidy-bobbidi-bland.
1  It's light on the chills and heavy on the atmospheric weirdness, and there are moments of jaw-droppingly odd behavior -- yet I found it weirdly appealing.
-1 They kept much of the plot but jettisoned the stuff that would make this a moving experience for people who haven't read the book.
1  Oh, and more entertaining, too.
-2 This little film is so slovenly done, so primitive in technique, that it can't really be called animation.
-1 the film never rises above a conventional, two dimension tale
-1 The audience when I saw this one was chuckling at all the wrong times, and that's a bad sign when they're supposed to be having a collective heart attack.
1  This is historical filmmaking without the balm of right-thinking ideology, either liberal or conservative.
0  Sayles is making a statement about the inability of dreams and aspirations to carry forward into the next generation.
-2 Extremely bad.
-2 The somber pacing and lack of dramatic fireworks make Green Dragon seem more like medicine than entertainment.
1  Handsome and sophisticated approach to the workplace romantic comedy.
2  A moving and solidly entertaining comedy/drama that should bolster director and co-writer
0  More of a career curio than a major work.
-1 A rude black comedy about the catalytic effect a holy fool has upon those around him in the cutthroat world of children's television.
0  It's obvious (Je-Gyu is) trying for poetry; what he gets instead has all the lyricism of a limerick scrawled in a public restroom.
-2 The movie's ultimate point -- that everyone should be themselves -- is trite, but the screenwriter and director Michel Gondry restate it to the point of ridiculousness.
-2 Ringu is a disaster of a story, full of holes and completely lacking in chills.
-2 Hopelessly inane, humorless and under-inspired.
1  A high-spirited buddy movie about the reunion of Berlin anarchists who face arrest 15 years after their crime.
-1 The thing about guys like Evans is this: You're never quite sure where self-promotion ends and the truth begins.
0  They were right.
-2 a huge disappointment coming, as it does, from filmmakers and performers of this calibre
-2 A banal, virulently unpleasant excuse for a romantic comedy.
-2 Humorless, self-conscious art drivel, made without a glimmer of intelligence or invention.
-1 It's rare that a movie can be as intelligent as this one is in every regard except its storyline; everything that's good is ultimately scuttled by a plot that's just too boring and obvious.
0  Peralta's mythmaking could have used some informed, adult hindsight.
-1 Meyjes's movie, like Max Rothman's future, does not work.
-2 All comedy is subversive, but this unrelenting bleak insistence on opting out of any opportunity for finding meaning in relationships or work just becomes sad.
-1 Technically and artistically inept.
-1 An average B-movie with no aspirations to be anything more.
2  If you ever wanted to be an astronaut, this is the ultimate movie experience - it's informative and breathtakingly spectacular.
-2 It's a loathsome movie, it really is and it makes absolutely no sense.
2  The movie's captivating details are all in the performances, from Foreman's barking-mad Taylor to Thewlis's smoothly sinister Freddie and Bettany/McDowell's hard-eyed gangster.
0  This is mild-mannered, been-there material given a pedestrian spin by a director who needed a touch of the flamboyant, the outrageous.
2  Smart and taut.
1  Matters play out realistically if not always fairly.
1  Giggling at the absurdities and inconsistencies is part of the fun.
0  Hope keeps arising that the movie will live up to the apparent skills of its makers and the talents of its actors, but it doesn't.
1  Symbolically, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge is a celebration of feminine energy, a tribute to the power of women to heal.
1  It uses some of the figures from the real-life story to portray themselves in the film.
-1 What might have been readily dismissed as the tiresome rant of an aging filmmaker still thumbing his nose at convention takes a surprising, subtle turn at the midway point.
2  Cusack's just brilliant in this.
-1 It's an odd show, pregnant with moods, stillborn except as a harsh conceptual exercise.
-1 A dark-as-pitch comedy that frequently veers into corny sentimentality, probably would not improve much after a therapeutic zap of shock treatment.
1  Even the digressions are funny.
1  This submarine drama earns the right to be favorably compared to Das Boot.
2  What's so fun about this silly, outrageous, ingenious thriller is the director's talent.
-1 ... the cast portrays their cartoon counterparts well... but quite frankly, Scoob and Shag don't eat enough during the film.'
1  There is a subversive element to this Disney cartoon, providing unexpected fizzability.
0  I know we're not supposed to take it seriously, but I can't shake the thought that Undercover Brother missed an opportunity to strongly present some profound social commentary.
1  As a good old-fashioned adventure for kids, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is a winner.
-2 Even if you're an Elvis person, you won't find anything to get excited about on this DVD.
1  A journey spanning nearly three decades of bittersweet camaraderie and history, in which we feel that we truly know what makes Holly and Marina tick, and our hearts go out to them as both continue to negotiate their imperfect, love-hate relationship.
-2 Lacks the spirit of the previous two, and makes all those jokes about hos and even more unmentionable subjects seem like mere splashing around in the muck.
1  The work of an artist tormented by his heritage, using his storytelling ability to honor the many faceless victims.
-1 Resident Evil isn't a product of its cinematic predecessors so much as an MTV, sugar hysteria, and PlayStation cocktail.
-1 Too stagey, talky -- and long -- for its own good.
2  The gorgeously elaborate continuation of ``The Lord of the Rings'' trilogy is so huge that a column of words can not adequately describe co-writer/director Peter Jackson's expanded vision of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.
-1 No thanks.
-1 This off-putting French romantic comedy
1  It's never laugh-out-loud funny, but it is frequently amusing.
2  Amari has dressed up this little parable in a fairly irresistible package full of privileged moments and memorable performances.
1  As banal as the telling may be -- and at times, All My Loved Ones more than flirts with kitsch -- the tale commands attention.
-1 An acceptable way to pass a little over an hour with moviegoers ages 8-10, but it's unlikely to inspire anything more than a visit to McDonald's, let alone some savvy street activism.
-2 The thing just never gets off the ground.
0  Who is this movie for?
2  I've never seen or heard anything quite like this film, and I recommend it for its originality alone.
2  It's a feel-good movie about which you can actually feel good.
2  One of the best inside-show-biz yarns ever.
-2 There must be an audience that enjoys the Friday series, but I wouldn't be interested in knowing any of them personally.
0  Formula 51 has dulled your senses faster and deeper than any recreational drug on the market.
0  Is ``Ballistic'' worth the price of admission?
-1 McTiernan's remake may be lighter on its feet -- the sober-minded original was as graceful as a tap-dancing rhino -- but it is just as boring and as obvious.
0  Gives us a lot to chew on, but not all of it has been properly digested.
-1 Klein, charming in comedies like American Pie and dead-on in Election, delivers one of the saddest action hero performances ever witnessed.
0  Brainy, artistic and muted, almost to the point of suffocation.
-1 The self-serious Equilibrium makes its point too well; a movie, like life, isn't much fun without the highs and lows.
-1 Equlibrium could pass for a thirteen-year-old's book report on the totalitarian themes of 1984 and Farenheit 451.
-2 And it's harder still to believe that anyone in his right mind would want to see the it.
-2 Loud, silly, stupid and pointless.
0  Calculated swill.
-2 Merely (and literally) tosses around sex toys and offers half-hearted paeans to empowerment that are repeatedly undercut by the brutality of the jokes, most at women's expense.
-1 Jackson shamefully strolls through this mess with a smug grin, inexplicably wearing a kilt and carrying a bag of golf clubs over one shoulder.
-2 Unspeakable, of course, barely begins to describe the plot and its complications.
-1 As the sulking, moody male hustler in the title role, (Franco) has all of Dean's mannerisms and self-indulgence, but none of his sweetness and vulnerability.
2  Driven by a fantastic dual performance from Ian Holm... the film is funny, insightfully human and a delightful lark for history buffs.
1  While the film is not entirely successful, it still manages to string together enough charming moments to work.
-1 But the problem with Wendigo, for all its effective moments, isn't really one of resources.
-2 If we're to slap protagonist Genevieve LePlouff because she's French, do we have that same option to slap her creators because they're clueless and inept?
2  This is an exercise in chilling style, and Twohy films the sub, inside and out, with an eye on preserving a sense of mystery.
1  A sobering and powerful documentary about the most severe kind of personal loss: rejection by one's mother.
1  Contradicts everything we've come to expect from movies nowadays.
-2 By that measure, it is a failure.
0  Feels like nothing quite so much as a middle-aged moviemaker's attempt to surround himself with beautiful, half-naked women.
2  Enjoyably fast-moving, hard-hitting documentary.
0  I'm happy to have seen it -- not as an alternate version, but as the ultimate exercise in viewing deleted scenes.
0  If Borstal Boy isn't especially realistic, it is an engaging nostalgia piece.
0  Stirs potentially enticing ingredients into an uneasy blend of Ghost and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
2  I loved this film.
-1 Weirdly, Broomfield has compelling new material but he doesn't unveil it until the end, after endless scenes of him wheedling reluctant witnesses and pointing his camera through the smeared windshield of his rental car.
-2 Like the Tuck family themselves, this movie just goes on and on and on and on
-2 Once one experiences Mr. Haneke's own sadistic tendencies toward his audience, one is left with a sour taste in one's mouth, and little else.
1  Nettelbeck has crafted an engaging fantasy of flavours and emotions, one part romance novel, one part recipe book.
-1 Return to Never Land is much more P.C. than the original version (no more racist portraits of Indians, for instance), but the excitement is missing.
0  ... manages to fall closer in quality to Silence than to the abysmal Hannibal.
-1 The Transporter bombards the viewer with so many explosions and side snap kicks that it ends up being surprisingly dull.
-1 (Janey) forgets about her other obligations, leading to a tragedy which is somehow guessable from the first few minutes, maybe because it echoes the by now intolerable morbidity of so many recent movies.
-1 He's just a sad aristocrat in tattered finery, and the film seems as deflated as he does.
1  Reign of Fire is hardly the most original fantasy film ever made -- beyond Road Warrior, it owes enormous debts to Aliens and every previous dragon drama -- but that barely makes it any less entertaining.
0  One just waits grimly for the next shock without developing much attachment to the characters.
1  While the story does seem pretty unbelievable at times, it's awfully entertaining to watch.
-2 90 punitive minutes of eardrum-dicing gunplay, screeching-metal smashups, and flaccid odd-couple sniping.
-1 Pleasant but not more than recycled jock piffle.
1  Despite the surface attractions -- Conrad L. Hall's cinematography will likely be nominated for an Oscar next year -- there's something impressive and yet lacking about everything.
1  By its modest, straight-ahead standards, Undisputed scores a direct hit.
2  The most compelling performance of the year adds substantial depth to this shocking testament to anti-Semitism and neo-fascism.
-1 It's clear why Deuces Wild, which was shot two years ago, has been gathering dust on MGM's shelf.
0  Teens only.
-1 If The Full Monty was a freshman fluke, Lucky Break is (Cattaneo) sophomore slump.
-1 Hard-core slasher aficionados will find things to like... but overall the Halloween series has lost its edge.
-2 Derailed by bad writing and possibly also by some of that extensive post-production reworking to aim the film at young males in the throes of their first full flush of testosterone.
1  I liked it just enough.
1  Garcia and the other actors help make the wobbly premise work.
0  Gloriously straight from the vagina.
-2 The only entertainment you'll derive from this choppy and sloppy affair will be from unintentional giggles -- several of them.
1  A movie that sends you out of the theater feeling like you've actually spent time living in another community.
0  ... a story, an old and scary one, about the monsters we make, and the vengeance they take.
1  It has a dashing and resourceful hero; a lisping, reptilian villain; big fights; big hair; lavish period scenery; and a story just complicated enough to let you bask in your own cleverness as you figure it out.
-1 Those 24-and-unders looking for their own Caddyshack to adopt as a generational signpost may have to keep on looking.
-2 There isn't one moment in the film that surprises or delights.
1  What a great way to spend 4 units of your day.
2  ... very funny, very enjoyable...
1  Despite the film's shortcomings, the stories are quietly moving.
-1 I don't think most of the people who loved the 1989 Paradiso will prefer this new version.
2  Whether or not you're enlightened by any of Derrida's lectures on ``the other'' and ``the self,'' Derrida is an undeniably fascinating and playful fellow.
-1 Adam Sandler's heart may be in the right place, but he needs to pull his head out of his butt
-1 Suffers from all the excesses of the genre.
1  This amiable picture talks tough, but it's all bluster -- in the end it's as sweet as Greenfingers...
-1 Shows that Jackie Chan is getting older, and that's something I would rather live in denial about
-1 There's no point in extracting the bare bones of Byatt's plot for purposes of bland Hollywood romance.
-1 Whenever you think you've seen the end of the movie, we cut to a new scene, which also appears to be the end.
1  The film occasionally tries the viewer's patience with slow pacing and a main character who sometimes defies sympathy, but it ultimately satisfies with its moving story.
2  P.T. Anderson understands the grandness of romance and how love is the great equalizer that can calm us of our daily ills and bring out joys in our lives that we never knew were possible.
0  Absolutely (and unintentionally) terrifying.
-1 Like a grinning Jack O' Lantern, its apparent glee is derived from a lobotomy, having had all its vital essence scooped out and discarded.
1  A movie that will thrill you, touch you and make you laugh as well.
1  George Lucas returns as a visionary with a tale full of nuance and character dimension.
-1 A sad and rote exercise in milking a played-out idea -- a straight guy has to dress up in drag -- that shockingly manages to be even worse than its title would imply.
-1 One of the most depressing movie-going experiences I can think of is to sit through about 90 minutes of a so-called `comedy' and not laugh once.
-1 This remake of Lina Wertmuller's 1975 eroti-comedy might just be the biggest husband-and-wife disaster since John and Bo Derek made the ridiculous Bolero.
2  Others, more attuned to the anarchist maxim that `the urge to destroy is also a creative urge', or more willing to see with their own eyes, will find Morrison's iconoclastic uses of technology to be liberating.
1  Norton is magnetic as Graham.
-1 Some Body often looks like an episode of the TV show Blind Date, only less technically proficient and without the pop-up comments.
-2 A dull, inconsistent, dishonest female bonding picture.
2  Happily stays close to the ground in a spare and simple manner and doesn't pummel us with phony imagery or music.
-1 I found myself growing more and more frustrated and detached as Vincent became more and more abhorrent.
-1 A rehash of every gangster movie from the past decade.
-1 Impostor is a step down for director Gary Fleder.
-1 Just because A Walk to Remember is shrewd enough to activate girlish tear ducts doesn't mean it's good enough for our girls.
-1 The fact that it isn't very good is almost beside the point.
1  He has improved upon the first and taken it a step further, richer and deeper.
0  While this gentle and affecting melodrama will have luvvies in raptures, it's far too slight and introspective to appeal to anything wider than a niche audience.
-1 Where Tom Green stages his gags as assaults on America's knee-jerk moral sanctimony, Jackass lacks aspirations of social upheaval.
0  A crude teen-oriented variation on a theme that the playwright Craig Lucas explored with infinitely more grace and eloquence in his Prelude to a Kiss.
1  In Death to Smoochy, we don't get Williams' usual tear and a smile, just sneers and bile, and the spectacle is nothing short of refreshing.
0  Like being trapped inside a huge video game, where exciting, inane images keep popping past your head and the same illogical things keep happening over and over again.
1  A journey that is as difficult for the audience to take as it is for the protagonist -- yet it's potentially just as rewarding.
1  A mature, deeply felt fantasy of a director's travel through 300 years of Russian history.
2  The genius of the work speaks volumes, offering up a hallucinatory dreamscape that frustrates and captivates.
0  Even these tales of just seven children seem at times too many, although in reality they are not enough.
-1 Adroit but finally a trifle flat, Mad Love doesn't galvanize its outrage the way, say, Jane Campion might have done, but at least it possesses some.
0  (The digital effects) reminded me of Terry Gilliam's rudimentary old Monty Python cartoons, in which he would cut out figures from drawings and photographs and paste them together.
0  A thought-provoking look at how Western foreign policy - however well intentioned - can wreak havoc in other cultures.
2  Sensual, funny and, in the end, very touching.
2  Overall, it's a very entertaining, thought-provoking film with a simple message: God is love.
0  Arnie blows things up.
-2 Rarely does a film so graceless and devoid of merit as this one come along.
2  Gangster No. 1 is solid, satisfying fare for adults.
1  As each of them searches for their place in the world, Miller digs into their very minds to find an unblinking, flawed humanity.
1  Lovely and Amazing is Holofcener's deep, uncompromising curtsy to women she knows, and very likely is.
2  Insomnia is one of the year's best films and Pacino gives one of his most daring, and complicated, performances.
1  A metaphor for a modern-day urban China searching for its identity.
-1 Enigma is well-made, but it's just too dry and too placid.
2  It's that good.
-1 Well-meant but unoriginal.
1  If you like peace, you'll like Promises.
0  Do you say ``hi'' to your lover when you wake up in the morning?
-1 Despite an impressive roster of stars and direction from Kathryn Bigelow, The Weight of Water is oppressively heavy.
-1 For a film that's being advertised as a comedy, Sweet Home Alabama isn't as funny as you'd hoped.
-1 Behan's memoir is great material for a film -- rowdy, brawny and lyrical in the best Irish sense -- but Sheridan has settled for a lugubrious romance.
0  It would work much better as a one-hour TV documentary.
1  It's usually a bad sign when directors abandon their scripts and go where the moment takes them, but Olympia, Wash., based filmmakers Anne de Marcken and Marilyn Freeman did just that and it's what makes their project so interesting.
-1 Although God Is Great addresses interesting matters of identity and heritage, it's hard to shake the feeling that it was intended to be a different kind of film.
1  Close enough in spirit to its freewheeling trash-cinema roots to be a breath of fresh air.
2  Captivates and shows how a skillful filmmaker can impart a message without bludgeoning the audience over the head.
2  It will guarantee to have you leaving the theater with a smile on your face.
-1 ``Freaky Friday,'' it's not.
-1 If Damon and Affleck attempt another Project Greenlight, next time out they might try paying less attention to the miniseries and more attention to the film it is about.
1  It's a testament to De Niro and director Michael Caton-Jones that by movie's end, we accept the characters and the film, flaws and all.
-1 In the end, The Weight of Water comes to resemble the kind of soft-core twaddle you'd expect to see on Showtime's `Red Shoe Diaries.'
2  Those who aren't put off by the film's austerity will find it more than capable of rewarding them.
1  Despite Besson's high-profile name being Wasabi's big selling point, there is no doubt that Krawczyk deserves a huge amount of the credit for the film's thoroughly winning tone.
1  A chilling movie without oppressive gore.
-1 What a pity... that the material is so second-rate.
-1 Such a premise is ripe for all manner of lunacy, but Kaufman and Gondry rarely seem sure of where it should go.
2  Not since Ghostbusters has a film used Manhattan's architecture in such a gloriously goofy way.
1  It's... worth the extra effort to see an artist, still committed to growth in his ninth decade, change while remaining true to his principles with a film whose very subject is, quite pointedly, about the peril of such efforts.
-2 Pair that with really poor comedic writing... and you've got a huge mess.
2  Even better than the first one!
0  Let's hope not.
1  As immaculate as Stuart Little 2 is, it could be a lot better if it were, well, more adventurous.
2  She may not be real, but the laughs are.
-1 Putting the primitive murderer inside a high-tech space station unleashes a Pandora's Box of special effects that run the gamut from cheesy to cheesier to cheesiest.
-2 The sinister inspiration that fuelled DeVito's early work is confused in Death to Smoochy into something both ugly and mindless.
-1 The leads we are given here are simply too bland to be interesting.
2  As giddy and whimsical and relevant today as it was 270 years ago.
-1 The skirmishes for power waged among victims and predators settle into an undistinguished rhythm of artificial suspense.
-1 It's hard to believe these jokers are supposed to have pulled off four similar kidnappings before.
1  There's a sheer unbridled delight in the way the story unfurls...
0  Igby Goes Down is one of those movies.
-2 An awful snooze.
-1 Sandra Bullock, despite downplaying her good looks, carries a little too much ain't - she-cute baggage into her lead role as a troubled and determined homicide cop to quite pull off the heavy stuff.
2  A thoroughly engaging, surprisingly touching British comedy.
-1 In the name of an allegedly inspiring and easily marketable flick, The Emperor's Club turns a blind eye to the very history it pretends to teach.
2  The film has a terrific look and Salma Hayek has a feel for the character at all stages of her life.
2  ... an eerily suspenseful, deeply absorbing piece that works as a treatise on spirituality as well as a solid sci-fi thriller.
1  Caine makes us watch as his character awakens to the notion that to be human is eventually to have to choose.
1  This in-depth study of important developments of the computer industry should make it required viewing in university computer science departments for years to come.
0  The film is about the relationships rather than about the outcome.
-1 Adam Sandler's 8 Crazy Nights is 75 wasted minutes of Sandler as the voice-over hero in Columbia Pictures' perverse idea of an animated holiday movie.
0  Has an uppity musical beat that you can dance to, but its energy can't compare to the wit, humor and snappy dialogue of the original.
2  Better still, he does all of this, and more, while remaining one of the most savagely hilarious social critics this side of Jonathan Swift.
0  Helps to remind the First World that HIV/AIDS is far from being yesterday's news.
1  Mr. Spielberg and his company just want you to enjoy yourselves without feeling conned.
0  Flawed, but worth seeing for Ambrose's performance.
1  Kiarostami has crafted a deceptively casual ode to children and managed to convey a tiny sense of hope.
-1 Nevertheless, it still seems endless.
2  This is an elegantly balanced movie -- every member of the ensemble has something fascinating to do -- that doesn't reveal even a hint of artifice.
-1 The film is weighed down by supporting characters who are either too goodly, wise and knowing or downright comically evil.
1  An enjoyable feel-good family comedy regardless of race.
-1 Patchy combination of soap opera, low-tech magic realism and, at times, ploddingly sociological commentary.
-1 Trailer trash cinema so uncool the only thing missing is the ``Gadzooks!''
1  An impeccable study in perversity.
0  Open-ended and composed of layer upon layer, Talk to Her is a cinephile's feast, an invitation to countless interpretations.
0  Going to this movie is a little like chewing whale blubber - it's an acquired taste that takes time to enjoy, but it's worth it, even if it does take 3 hours to get through.
-2 Both shrill and soporific, and because everything is repeated five or six times, it can seem tiresomely simpleminded.
1  Ian Holm conquers France as an earthy Napoleon
0  By the time it ends in a rush of sequins, flashbulbs, blaring brass and back-stabbing babes, it has said plenty about how show business has infiltrated every corner of society -- and not always for the better.
0  Holds limited appeal to those who like explosions, sadism and seeing people beat each other to a pulp.
0  What's left is a rich stew of longing.
-1 Despite suffering a sense-of-humour failure, The Man Who Wrote Rocky does not deserve to go down with a ship as leaky as this.
-1 More a gunfest than a Rock concert.
1  On its own staggeringly unoriginal terms, this gender-bending comedy is generally quite funny.
-2 An already thin story boils down to surviving invaders seeking an existent anti-virus.
0  Best described as I Know What You Did Last Winter.
-2 This thing is just garbage.
-1 What makes Esther Kahn so demanding is that it progresses in such a low-key manner that it risks monotony.
0  There's a thin line between likably old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy, and The Count of Monte Cristo... never quite settles on either side.
1  Surprisingly insightful
-1 Its premise is smart, but the execution is pretty weary.
1  While the plot follows a predictable connect-the-dots course... director John Schultz colors the picture in some evocative shades.
-1 Too slick and manufactured to claim street credibility.
0  has some visual wit... but little imagination elsewhere.
1  I found The Ring moderately absorbing, largely for its elegantly colorful look and sound.
1  Ramsay succeeds primarily with her typical blend of unsettling atmospherics, delivering a series of abrasive, stylized sequences that burn themselves upon the viewer's memory.
1  Satisfyingly scarifying, fresh and old-fashioned at the same time.
-1 Stinks from start to finish, like a wet burlap sack of gloom.
-1 At best, Cletis Tout might inspire a trip to the video store -- in search of a better movie experience.
0  An estrogen opera so intensely feminine that it serves as the antidote (and cannier doppelganger) to Diesel's X X X flex-a-thon.
-1 I was feeling this movie until it veered off too far into the Exxon zone, and left me behind at the station looking for a return ticket to realism.
-1 What we have here isn't a disaster, exactly, but a very handsomely produced let-down.
0  A movie that seems motivated more by a desire to match mortarboards with Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting than by its own story.
-2 It's super - violent, super-serious and super-stupid.
-2 (N) o matter how much good will the actors generate, Showtime eventually folds under its own thinness.
-2 I can't begin to tell you how tedious, how resolutely unamusing, how thoroughly unrewarding all of this is, and what a reckless squandering of four fine acting talents...
0  But, for that, why not watch a documentary?
1  Leigh succeeds in delivering a dramatic slap in the face that's simultaneously painful and refreshing.
2  At just over an hour, Home Movie will leave you wanting more, not to mention leaving you with some laughs and a smile on your face.
0  Eckstraordinarily lame and Severely boring.
-2 Dramatically lackluster.
0  ``The Quiet American'' begins in Saigon in 1952.
-1 They cheapen the overall effect.
1  You don't need to be a hip-hop fan to appreciate Scratch, and that's the mark of a documentary that works.
1  Gets the look and the period trappings right
1  Functions as both a revealing look at the collaborative process and a timely, tongue-in-cheek profile of the corporate circus that is the recording industry in the current climate of mergers and downsizing.
1  A solid, psychological action film from Hong Kong.
-1 See Clockstoppers if you have nothing better to do with 94 minutes.
2  A lot of fun, with an undeniable energy sparked by two actresses in their 50s working at the peak of their powers.
-1 A relentless, bombastic and ultimately empty World War II action flick.
0  A well-acted, but one-note film.
-1 An empty shell of an epic rather than the real deal.
2  Works as pretty contagious fun.
-1 Starts out with tremendous promise, introducing an intriguing and alluring premise, only to fall prey to a boatload of screenwriting cliches that sink it faster than a leaky freighter.
1  Watching this film, one is left with the inescapable conclusion that Hitchens' obsession with Kissinger is, at bottom, a sophisticated flower child's desire to purge the world of the tooth and claw of human power.
1  Juliette Binoche's Sand is vivacious, but it's hard to sense that powerhouse of 19th-century prose behind her childlike smile.
0  While Howard's appreciation of Brown and his writing is clearly well-meaning and sincere, the movie would be impossible to sit through were it not for the supporting cast.
2  Knows how to make our imagination wonder.
-1 The colorful Masseur wastes its time on mood rather than riding with the inherent absurdity of Ganesh's rise up the social ladder.
0  A thunderous ride at first, quiet cadences of pure finesse are few and far between; their shortage dilutes the potency of otherwise respectable action.
2  (Westbrook) makes a wonderful subject for the camera.
2  The overall effect is awe and affection -- and a strange urge to get on a board and, uh, shred, dude.
2  Stevens has a flair for dialogue comedy, the film operates nicely off the element of surprise, and the large cast is solid.
0  You come away wishing, though, that the movie spent a lot less time trying to make a credible case for reports from the afterlife and a lot more time on the romantic urgency that's at the center of the story.
2  Birthday Girl walks a tricky tightrope between being wickedly funny and just plain wicked.
0  and ``They're coming!''
-2 As steamy as last week's pork dumplings.
-1 Scherfig, who has had a successful career in TV, tackles more than she can handle.
-1 Silly stuff, all mixed up together like a term paper from a kid who can't quite distinguish one sci-fi work from another.
2  Maggie Smith as the Ya-Ya member with the O2-tank will absolutely crack you up with her crass, then gasp for gas, verbal deportment.
1  A searing, epic treatment of a nationwide blight that seems to be, horrifyingly, ever on the rise.
0  The cast has a high time, but de Broca has little enthusiasm for such antique pulp.
0  Some elements of it really blow the big one, but other parts are decent.
-1 Not completely loveable -- but what underdog movie since The Bad News Bears has been?
2  Unexpected moments of authentically impulsive humor are the hallmark of this bittersweet, uncommonly sincere movie that portrays the frank humanity of... emotional recovery.
1  The exploitative, clumsily staged violence overshadows everything, including most of the actors.
-1 The biggest problem with Satin Rouge is Lilia herself.
1  `Stock up on silver bullets for director Neil Marshall's intense freight train of a film.'
1  Aniston has at last decisively broken with her Friends image in an independent film of satiric fire and emotional turmoil.
2  The ensemble cast turns in a collectively stellar performance, and the writing is tight and truthful, full of funny situations and honest observations.
-1 It's not an easy one to review.
1  Her performance moves between heartbreak and rebellion as she continually tries to accommodate to fit in and gain the unconditional love she seeks.
1  An entertaining documentary that freshly considers arguments the Bard's immortal plays were written by somebody else.
1  Brave and sweetly rendered love story.
-2 A half-assed film.
2  Light-years ahead of paint-by-number American blockbusters like Pearl Harbor, at least artistically.
-2 The cumulative effect of the movie is repulsive and depressing.
1  Smart and alert, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing is a small gem.
-1 A film really has to be exceptional to justify a three hour running time, and this isn't.
1  Worth a look by those on both sides of the issues, if only for the perspective it offers, one the public rarely sees.
1  ... digs beyond the usual portrayals of good kids and bad seeds to reveal a more ambivalent set of characters and motivations.
2  Because the genre is well established, what makes the movie fresh is smart writing, skewed characters, and the title performance by Kieran Culkin.
2  As a vehicle to savour Binoche's skill, the film is well worthwhile.
-2 Most of the storylines feel like time fillers between surf shots.
-2 The most memorable moment was when Green threw medical equipment at a window; not because it was particularly funny, but because I had a serious urge to grab the old lady at the end of my aisle's walker and toss it at the screen in frustration.
0  Exploring value choices is a worthwhile topic for a film -- but here the choices are as contrived and artificial as Kerrigan's platinum-blonde hair.
-1 Chen films the resolutely downbeat Smokers Only with every indulgent, indie trick in the book.
1  A powerful, inflammatory film about religion that dares to question an ancient faith, and about hatred that offers no easy, comfortable resolution.
2  A colorful, vibrant introduction to a universal human impulse, lushly photographed and beautifully recorded.
-2 A limp Eddie Murphy vehicle that even he seems embarrassed to be part of.
-1 About one in three gags in White's intermittently wise script hits its mark; the rest are padding unashamedly appropriated from the teen-exploitation playbook.
-1 The film runs on a little longer than it needs to -- Muccino either doesn't notice when his story ends or just can't tear himself away from the characters -- but it's smooth and professional.
0  Red Dragon makes one appreciate Silence of the Lambs.
0  Made me feel uneasy, even queasy, because (Solondz's) cool compassion is on the border of bemused contempt.
1  ``Brown Sugar'' admirably aspires to be more than another ``Best Man'' clone by weaving a theme throughout this funny film.
-1 A bland, obnoxious 88-minute infomercial for Universal Studios and its ancillary products...
2  Astonishingly skillful and moving... it could become a historically significant work as well as a masterfully made one.
-1 It is too bad that this likable movie isn't more accomplished.
-1 The Importance of Being Earnest movie seems to be missing a great deal of the acerbic repartee of the play.''
-2 The lead actors share no chemistry or engaging charisma.
2  A much better documentary -- more revealing, more emotional and more surprising -- than its pedestrian English title would have you believe.
1  The most audacious, outrageous, sexually explicit, psychologically probing, pure libido film of the year has arrived from Portugal.
0  If H.G. Wells had a time machine and could take a look at his kin's reworked version, what would he say?
-2 Less funny than it should be and less funny than it thinks it is.
0  A thriller made from a completist's checklist rather than with a cultist's passion.
1  Sharp edges and a deep vein of sadness run through its otherwise comic narrative.
-1 There's something unintentionally comic in the film's drumbeat about authenticity, given the stale plot and pornographic way the film revels in swank apartments, clothes and parties.
-1 The Christ allegory doesn't work because there is no foundation for it
2  Apart from anything else, this is one of the best-sustained ideas I have ever seen on the screen.
1  Tambor and Clayburgh make an appealing couple -- he's understated and sardonic, she's appealingly manic and energetic.
1  A headline-fresh thriller set among orthodox Jews on the West Bank, Joseph Cedar's Time Of Favor manages not only to find a compelling dramatic means of addressing a complex situation, it does so without compromising that complexity.
1  The formula is familiar but enjoyable.
-2 It is dark, brooding and slow, and takes its central idea way too seriously.
-1 Seemingly disgusted with the lazy material and the finished product's unshapely look, director Fisher Stevens inexplicably dips key moments from the film in Waking Life water colors.
2  Sweet and memorable film.
-1 While not all that bad of a movie, it's nowhere near as good as the original.
0  As crimes go, writer-director Michael Kalesniko's How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog is slight but unendurable.
0  Eastwood winces, clutches his chest and gasps for breath.
1  It deserves to be seen everywhere.
1  Her film
0  An uplifting drama... What Antwone Fisher isn't, however, is original.
1  And the positive change in tone here seems to have recharged him.
-2 Shot like a postcard and overacted with all the boozy self-indulgence that brings out the worst in otherwise talented actors...
0  Please see previous answer.
2  I love the robust middle of this picture.
1  Drama of temptation, salvation and good intentions is a thoughtful examination of faith, love and power.
1  As much as I laughed throughout the movie, I can not mount a cogent defense of the film as entertainment, or even performance art, although the movie does leave you marveling at these guys' superhuman capacity to withstand pain.
-2 (Less a movie than) an appalling, odoriferous thing... so rotten in almost every single facet of production that you'll want to crawl up your own \*\*\* in embarrassment.
2  Engages us in constant fits of laughter, until we find ourselves surprised at how much we care about the story, and end up walking out not only satisfied but also somewhat touched.
1  A great companion piece to other Napoleon films.
1  The ending feels at odds with the rest of the film.
1  There's plenty to impress about E.T.
2  This film puts Wang at the forefront of China's Sixth Generation of film makers.
1  What's surprising about this traditional thriller, moderately successful but not completely satisfying, is exactly how genteel and unsurprising the execution turns out to be.
0  The actors pull out all the stops in nearly every scene, but to diminishing effect.
1  The concept behind Kung Pow: Enter the Fist is hilarious.
2  It zips along with B-movie verve while adding the rich details and go-for-broke acting that heralds something special.
1  An uncomfortable experience, but one as brave and challenging as you could possibly expect these days from American cinema.
0  displays the potential for a better movie than what Bailly manages to deliver
0  The Emperor's Club is one of those films that possesses all the good intentions in the world, but...
-1 The pretensions -- and disposable story -- sink the movie.
-2 Depressingly thin and exhaustingly contrived.
2  Showtime is a fine-looking film with a bouncy score and a clutch of lively songs for deft punctuation.
1  It's fun, wispy, wise and surprisingly inoffensive for a film about a teen in love with his stepmom.
-1 Well, Jason's gone to Manhattan and Hell, I guess a space station in the year 2455 can be crossed off the list of ideas for the inevitable future sequels (hey, don't shoot the messenger).
0  The filmmakers lack the nerve... to fully exploit the script's potential for sick humor.
1  Crammed with incident, and bristles with passion and energy.
1  This 90-minute postmodern voyage was more diverting and thought-provoking than I'd expected it to be.
-2 It makes me say the obvious: Abandon all hope of a good movie ye who enter here.
-1 Can I admit X X X is as deep as a Petri dish and as well-characterized as a telephone book but still say it was a guilty pleasure?
1  It's a testament to the film's considerable charm that it succeeds in entertaining, despite playing out like a feature-length sitcom replete with stereotypical familial quandaries.
-1 Its audacious ambitions sabotaged by pomposity, Steven Soderbergh's space opera emerges as a numbingly dull experience.
-2 A boring, pretentious muddle that uses a sensational, real-life 19th-Century crime as a metaphor for -- well, I'm not exactly sure what -- and has all the dramatic weight of a raindrop.
1  What sets Ms. Birot's film apart from others in the genre is a greater attention to the parents -- and particularly the fateful fathers -- in the emotional evolution of the two bewitched adolescents.
1  Jackie Chan movies are a guilty pleasure - he's easy to like and always leaves us laughing.
1  Thoroughly enjoyable.
2  (Leigh) has a true talent for drawing wrenching performances from his actors (improvised over many months) and for conveying the way tiny acts of kindness make ordinary life survivable.
-1 Stephen Earnhart's documentary is a decomposition of healthy eccentric inspiration and ambition -- wearing a cloak of unsentimental, straightforward text -- when it's really an exercise in gross romanticization of the delusional personality type.
1  The strength of the film lies in its two central performances by Sven Wollter as the stricken composer and Viveka Seldahl as his desperate violinist wife.
1  Smith finds amusing juxtapositions that justify his exercise.
0  Less-than-compelling documentary of a Yiddish theater clan.
-1 Everything about Girls Can't Swim, even its passages of sensitive observation, feels secondhand, familiar -- and not in a good way.
0  B picture, and I mean that as a compliment.
0  Examines its explosive subject matter as nonjudgmentally as Wiseman's previous studies of inner-city high schools, hospitals, courts and welfare centers.
0  What started out as a taut contest of wills between Bacon and Theron, deteriorates into a protracted and borderline silly chase sequence.
2  A fun family movie that's suitable for all ages -- a movie that will make you laugh, cry and realize, `It's never too late to believe in your dreams.'
2  (Kline's) utterly convincing -- and deeply appealing -- as a noble teacher who embraces a strict moral code, and as a flawed human being who can't quite live up to it.
-2 One of the most unpleasant things the studio has ever produced.
0  In the end, all you can do is admire the ensemble players and wonder what the point of it is.
0  Rodriguez... was unable to reproduce the special spark between the characters that made the first film such a delight.
2  He nonetheless appreciates the art and reveals a music scene that transcends culture and race.
2  The unique niche of self-critical, behind-the-scenes navel-gazing Kaufman has carved from Orleans' story and his own infinite insecurity is a work of outstanding originality.
0  Possession is in the end an honorable, interesting failure.
0  This isn't a terrible film by any means, but it's also far from being a realized work.
2  Will warm your heart without making you feel guilty about it.
1  (F) rom the performances and the cinematography to the outstanding soundtrack and unconventional narrative, the film is blazingly alive and admirable on many levels.
1  It's the perfect star vehicle for Grant, allowing him to finally move away from his usual bumbling, tongue-tied screen persona.
-1 It's a pedestrian, flat drama that screams out `amateur' in almost every frame.
1  Always destined to be measured against Anthony Asquith's acclaimed 1952 screen adaptation.
-2 Evelyn may be based on a true and historically significant story, but the filmmakers have made every effort to disguise it as an unimaginative screenwriter's invention.
2  There is greatness here.
-1 Although it tries to be much more, it's really just another Major League.
-1 It's a glorified sitcom, and a long, unfunny one at that.
1  Mama Africa pretty much delivers on that promise.
1  Adolescents will be adequately served by the movie's sophomoric blend of shenanigans and slapstick, although the more lascivious-minded might be disappointed in the relative modesty of a movie that sports a `topless tutorial service.'
-1 Sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a physique to match, (Ahola) has a wooden delivery and encounters a substantial arc of change that doesn't produce any real transformation.
-2 Has the disjointed feel of a bunch of strung-together TV episodes.
2  Director Nancy Savoca's no-frills record of a show forged in still-raw emotions captures the unsettled tenor of that post 9-11 period far better than a more measured or polished production ever could.
-2 As it is, it's too long and unfocused.
-1 Lyne's latest, the erotic thriller Unfaithful, further demonstrates just how far his storytelling skills have eroded.
0  When the heroes were actually under 40?
1  Another love story in 2002's remarkable procession of sweeping pictures that have reinvigorated the romance genre.
-2 A cheap scam put together by some cynical creeps at Revolution Studios and Imagine Entertainment to make the suckers out there surrender $ 9 and 93 minutes of unrecoverable life.
0  It can't escape its past, and it doesn't want to.
-2 This one aims for the toilet and scores a direct hit.
0  A picture as erratic as its central character.
1  An ideal love story for those intolerant of the more common saccharine genre.
1  A gorgeously strange movie, Heaven is deeply concerned with morality, but it refuses to spell things out for viewers.
1  Its spirit of iconoclastic abandon -- however canned -- makes for unexpectedly giddy viewing.
1  ... a great, participatory spectator sport.'
-2 It's the element of condescension, as the filmmakers look down on their working-class subjects from their lofty perch, that finally makes Sex With Strangers, which opens today in the New York metropolitan area, so distasteful.
-1 Ararat feels like a book report
2  it's refreshing to see a movie that embraces its old-fashioned themes and in the process comes out looking like something wholly original.
1  Its metaphors are opaque enough to avoid didacticism, and the film succeeds as an emotionally accessible, almost mystical work.
-1 (Evans is) a fascinating character, and deserves a better vehicle than this facetious smirk of a movie.
0  Silly, loud and goofy.
-1 As underwater ghost stories go, Below casts its spooky net out into the Atlantic Ocean and spits it back, grizzled and charred, somewhere northwest of the Bermuda Triangle.
2  A moving and important film.
0  You won't exactly know what's happening but you'll be blissfully exhausted.
0  I realized that no matter how fantastic Reign of Fire looked, its story was making no sense at all.
-1 Heavy with flabby rolls of typical Toback machinations.
2  The world needs more filmmakers with passionate enthusiasms like Martin Scorsese.
-1 Russell lacks the visual panache, the comic touch, and perhaps the budget of Sommers's title-bout features.
1  And educational!
2  It's dark but has wonderfully funny moments; you care about the characters; and the action and special effects are first-rate.
-2 It desperately wants to be a wacky, screwball comedy, but the most screwy thing here is how so many talented people were convinced to waste their time.
-1 There's nothing exactly wrong here, but there's not nearly enough that's right.
0  I don't even care that there's no plot in this Antonio Banderas-Lucy Liu faceoff.
-2 This movie feel more like a non-stop cry for attention, than an attempt at any kind of satisfying entertainment.
2  Hardly an objective documentary, but it's great cinematic polemic... love Moore or loathe him, you've got to admire... the intensity with which he's willing to express his convictions.
1  I liked this film a lot...
-2 Not only is entry number twenty the worst of the Brosnan bunch, it's one of the worst of the entire franchise.
0  Largely, this is a movie that also does it by the numbers.
-1 We never feel anything for these characters, and as a result the film is basically just a curiosity.
-1 I suspect that you'll be as bored watching Morvern Callar as the characters are in it.
-1 Stealing Harvard can't even do that much.
1  I'm sure mainstream audiences will be baffled, but, for those with at least a minimal appreciation of Woolf and Clarissa Dalloway, The Hours represents two of those well spent.
-2 We assume he had a bad run in the market or a costly divorce, because there is no earthly reason other than money why this distinguished actor would stoop so low.
2  Amid the new populist comedies that underscore the importance of family tradition and familial community, one would be hard-pressed to find a movie with a bigger, fatter heart than Barbershop.
0  There are a few modest laughs, but certainly no thrills.
2  Gay or straight, Kissing Jessica Stein is one of the greatest date movies in years.
1  It has its faults, but it is a kind, unapologetic, sweetheart of a movie, and Mandy Moore leaves a positive impression.
2  ... bright, intelligent, and humanly funny film.
2  I encourage young and old alike to go see this unique and entertaining twist on the classic whale's tale -- you won't be sorry!
-1 Quitting, however, manages just to be depressing, as the lead actor phones in his autobiographical performance.
1  A fine effort, an interesting topic, some intriguing characters and a sad ending.
0  Muddled, trashy and incompetent
1  Time Out is existential drama without any of the pretension associated with the term.
0  And a very rainy day.
1  Maintains your sympathy for this otherwise challenging soul by letting you share her one-room world for a while.
-1 The story has little wit and no surprises.
-1 Decent but dull.
2  Mr. Deeds is, as comedy goes, very silly -- and in the best way.
-2 The whole thing feels like a ruse, a tactic to cover up the fact that the picture is constructed around a core of flimsy -- or, worse yet, nonexistent -- ideas.
-1 Go back to sleep.
1  You live the mood rather than savour the story.
-1 (A) painfully flat gross-out comedy...
-1 Bean drops the ball too many times... hoping the nifty premise will create enough interest to make up for an unfocused screenplay.
-1 Grating and tedious.
-2 Utter mush... conceited pap.
-2 One of the more glaring signs of this movie's servitude to its superstar is the way it skirts around any scenes that might have required genuine acting from Ms. Spears.
-1 In the spirit of the season, I assign one bright shining star to Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio -- but I guarantee that no wise men will be following after it.
-2 This is standard crime drama fare... instantly forgettable and thoroughly dull.
-2 Other than a mildly engaging central romance, Hospital is sickly entertainment at best and mind-destroying cinematic pollution at worst.
-1 This overlong infomercial, due out on video before month's end, is tepid and tedious.
1  Fulford-Wierzbicki... deftly captures the wise-beyond-her-years teen.
1  This is lightweight filmmaking, to be sure, but it's pleasant enough -- and oozing with attractive men.
-1 The film is way too full of itself; it's stuffy and pretentious in a give-me-an-Oscar kind of way.
-1 While certainly more naturalistic than its Australian counterpart, Amari's film falls short in building the drama of Lilia's journey.
-1 The characters never change.
-1 An admitted egomaniac, Evans is no Hollywood villain, and yet this grating showcase almost makes you wish he'd gone the way of Don Simpson.
-1 Witless, pointless, tasteless and idiotic.
0  Hardly a nuanced portrait of a young woman's breakdown, the film nevertheless works up a few scares.
1  What lifts the film high above run-of-the-filth gangster flicks is its refusal to recognise any of the signposts, as if discovering a way through to the bitter end without a map.
2  Definitely worth 95 minutes of your time.
2  The ingenuity that Parker displays in freshening the play is almost in a class with that of Wilde himself.
0  While puerile men dominate the story, the women shine.
1  A beautiful paean to a time long past.
0  One of (Jaglom's) better efforts -- a wry and sometime bitter movie about love.
1  Although it includes a fair share of dumb drug jokes and predictable slapstick, ``Orange County'' is far funnier than it would seem to have any right to be.
-1 A sleep-inducing thriller with a single twist that everyone except the characters in it can see coming a mile away.
0  Expanded to 65 minutes for theatrical release, it still feels somewhat unfinished.
1  And yet, it still works.
-2 What more can be expected from a college comedy that's target audience hasn't graduated from junior high school?
2  A fresh, entertaining comedy that looks at relationships minus traditional gender roles.
-1 While some of the camera work is interesting, the film's mid-to-low budget is betrayed by the surprisingly shoddy makeup work.
-1 I think it was Plato who said,' I think, therefore I know better than to rush to the theatre for this one.'
1  Tadpole may be one of the most appealing movies ever made about an otherwise appalling, and downright creepy, subject -- a teenage boy in love with his stepmother.
0  Count on his movie to work at the back of your neck long after you leave the theater.
0  It's dark and tragic, and lets the business of the greedy talent agents get in the way of saying something meaningful about facing death
-2 Lazy filmmaking, with the director taking a hands-off approach when he should have shaped the story to show us why it's compelling.
-1 Would that Greengrass had gone a tad less for grit and a lot more for intelligibility.
1  Although some viewers will not be able to stomach so much tongue-in-cheek weirdness, those who do will have found a cult favorite to enjoy for a lifetime.
1  (Reno) delivers a monologue that manages to incorporate both the horror and the absurdity of the situation in a well-balanced fashion.
-1 The story is -- forgive me -- a little thin, and the filmmaking clumsy and rushed.
-1 Kids don't mind crappy movies as much as adults, provided there's lots of cute animals and clumsy people.
1  Has an unmistakable, easy joie de vivre.
1  The movie's thesis -- elegant technology for the masses -- is surprisingly refreshing.
0  It's deep-sixed by a compulsion to catalog every bodily fluids gag in There's Something About Mary and devise a parallel clone-gag.
-1 It's virtually impossible to like any of these despicable characters.
1  When you've got the wildly popular Vin Diesel in the equation, it adds up to big box office bucks all but guaranteed.
-1 The premise of ``Abandon'' holds promise,... but its delivery is a complete mess.
-2 The Adventures of Pluto Nash is a whole lot of nada.
0  the phone rings and a voice tells you you've got seven days left to live.
-1 The whole talking-animal thing is grisly.
-1 Adults, other than the parents... will be hard pressed to succumb to the call of the wild.
2  With Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, however, Robert Rodriguez adorns his family-film plot with an elegance and maturity that even most contemporary adult movies are lacking.
2  Scherfig's light-hearted profile of emotional desperation is achingly honest and delightfully cheeky.
2  The acting in Pauline And Paulette is good all round, but what really sets the film apart is Debrauwer's refusal to push the easy emotional buttons.
-1 A kilted Jackson is an unsettling sight, and indicative of his, if you will, out-of-kilter character, who rambles aimlessly through ill-conceived action pieces.
-1 Just the sort of lazy tearjerker that gives movies about ordinary folk a bad name.
1  It treats Ana's journey with honesty that is tragically rare in the depiction of young women in film.
1  Together writer-director Danny Verete's three tales comprise a powerful and reasonably fulfilling gestalt.
0  Though not for everyone, The Guys is a somber trip worth taking.
2  Top-notch action powers this romantic drama.
-1 (Denis') bare-bones narrative more closely resembles an outline for a '70s exploitation picture than the finished product.
-2 For its 100 minutes running time, you'll wait in vain for a movie to happen.
-1 I could have used my two hours better watching Being John Malkovich again.
-1 The movie's vision of a white American zealously spreading a Puritanical brand of Christianity to South Seas islanders is one only a true believer could relish.
2  Romanek's themes are every bit as distinctive as his visuals.
2  A comedy that is warm, inviting, and surprising.
2  It has fun with the quirks of family life, but it also treats the subject with fondness and respect.
1  Blade II merges bits and pieces from fighting games, wire fu, horror movies, mystery, James Bond, wrestling, sci-fi and anime into one big bloody stew.
-1 Despite engaging offbeat touches, Knockaround Guys rarely seems interested in kicking around a raison d'etre that's as fresh-faced as its young-guns cast.
1  Worth a salute just for trying to be more complex than your average film.
-2 Build some robots, haul'em to the theatre with you for the late show, and put on your own Mystery Science Theatre 3000 tribute to what is almost certainly going to go down as the worst -- and only -- killer website movie of this or any other year.
2  Brims with passion: for words, for its eccentric, accident-prone characters, and for the crazy things that keep people going in this crazy life.
0  No matter how firmly director John Stainton has his tongue in his cheek, the fact remains that a wacky concept does not a movie make.
-2 Seemingly a vehicle to showcase the Canadian's inane ramblings, Stealing Harvard is a smorgasbord of soliloquies about nothing delivered by the former Mr. Drew Barrymore.
2  ... a delicious crime drama on par with the slickest of Mamet.
2  A heartbreakingly thoughtful minor classic, the work of a genuine and singular artist.
0  But it doesn't need Gangs of New York.
0  This slow-moving Swedish film offers not even a hint of joy, preferring to focus on the humiliation of Martin as he defecates in bed and urinates on the plants at his own birthday party.
2  What could have easily become a cold, calculated exercise in postmodern pastiche winds up a powerful and deeply moving example of melodramatic moviemaking.
2  Return to Never Land is reliable, standard Disney animated fare, with enough creative energy and wit to entertain all ages.
1  Escapes the precious trappings of most romantic comedies, infusing into the story very real, complicated emotions.
2  Bittersweet comedy/drama full of life, hand gestures, and some really adorable Italian guys.
-2 Because the intelligence level of the characters must be low, very low, very very low, for the masquerade to work, the movie contains no wit, only labored gags.
-1 Solondz is so intent on hammering home his message that he forgets to make it entertaining.
0  Adults will certainly want to spend their time in the theater thinking up grocery lists and ways to tell their kids how not to act like Pinocchio.
0  Stuart's poor-me persona needs a whole bunch of Snowball's cynicism to cut through the sugar coating.
1  The viewer takes great pleasure in watching the resourceful Molly stay a step ahead of her pursuers.
1  What's most refreshing about Real Women Have Curves is its unforced comedy-drama and its relaxed, natural-seeming actors.
-1 If you're looking to rekindle the magic of the first film, you'll need a stronger stomach than us.
2  The wonder of Mostly Martha is the performance of Gedeck, who makes Martha enormously endearing.
-1 A selection of scenes in search of a movie.
2  The rare movie that's as crisp and to the point as the novel on which it's based.
0  Or intelligent.
1  This film can only point the way -- but thank goodness for this signpost.
2  Hawn and Sarandon form an acting bond that makes The Banger Sisters a fascinating character study with laughs to spare.
1  By the end of it all I sort of loved the people onscreen, even though I could not stand them.
-1 One big blustery movie where nothing really happens.
1  Plummer steals the show without resorting to camp as Nicholas' wounded and wounding Uncle Ralph.
1  ... Wallace is smart to vary the pitch of his movie, balancing deafening battle scenes with quieter domestic scenes of women back home receiving War Department telegrams.
1  This is a movie that is what it is: a pleasant distraction, a Friday night diversion, an excuse to eat popcorn.
-1 More trifle than triumph.
-1 This u-boat doesn't have a captain.
-1 You leave the same way you came -- a few tasty morsels under your belt, but no new friends.
1  A little better than Sorcerer's Stone.
0  With one exception, every blighter in this particular South London housing project digs into dysfunction like it's a big, comforting jar of Marmite, to be slathered on crackers and served as a feast of bleakness.
-1 I'm not exactly sure what this movie thinks it is about.
0  Most of the film feels conceived and shot on the fly -- like between lunch breaks for Shearer's radio show and his Simpson voice-overs.
-1 The main story... is compelling enough, but it's difficult to shrug off the annoyance of that chatty fish.
-1 Chan's stunts are limited and so embellished by editing that there's really not much of a sense of action or even action-comedy.
-2 The script, the gags, the characters are all direct-to-video stuff, and that's where this film should have remained.
1  With the prospect of films like Kangaroo Jack about to burst across America's winter movie screens it's a pleasure to have a film like The Hours as an alternative.
1  May not be a breakthrough in filmmaking, but it is unwavering and arresting.
2  Awesome work: ineffable, elusive, yet inexplicably powerful
1  I was impressed by how many tit-for-tat retaliatory responses the filmmakers allow before pulling the plug on the conspirators and averting an American-Russian Armageddon.
0  Just like Igby.
-2 As a director, Eastwood is off his game -- there's no real sense of suspense, and none of the plot `surprises' are really surprising.
-1 Queen of the Damned is too long with too little going on.
0  A charming and funny story of clashing cultures and a clashing mother/daughter relationship.
-1 It's loud and boring; watching it is like being trapped at a bad rock concert.
-2 A chiller resolutely without chills.
-1 We just don't really care too much about this love story.
-2 The first Fatal Attraction was vile enough.
-2 You begin to long for the end credits as the desert does for rain.
-1 ... contains very few laughs and even less surprises.
0  One of the film's most effective aspects is its Tchaikovsky soundtrack of neurasthenic regret.
0  Viewing this underdramatized but overstated film is like watching a transcript of a therapy session brought to humdrum life by some Freudian puppet.
-2 Sheridan's take on the author's schoolboy memoir... is a rather toothless take on a hard young life.
2  Great character interaction.
2  Intensely romantic, thought-provoking and even an engaging mystery.
-2 A tired, predictable, bordering on offensive, waste of time, money and celluloid.
2  A vibrant whirlwind of love, family and all that goes with it, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a non-stop funny feast of warmth, colour and cringe.
0  As it stands, there's some fine sex onscreen, and some tense arguing, but not a whole lot more.
1  Kosminsky... puts enough salt into the wounds of the tortured and self-conscious material to make it sting.
-1 A culture clash comedy only half as clever as it thinks it is.
0  This one is certainly well-meaning, but it's also simple-minded and contrived.
1  It's definitely a step in the right direction.
2  This is a gorgeous film - vivid with color, music and life.
-1 as in aimless, arduous, and arbitrary.
-1 Clare Peploe's airless movie adaptation could use a little American Pie-like irreverence.
0  The talk-heavy film plays like one of Robert Altman's lesser works.
-2 A preposterous, prurient whodunit.
2  It's been done before but never so vividly or with so much passion.
-2 (Swimfan) falls victim to sloppy plotting, an insultingly unbelievable final act and a villainess who is too crazy to be interesting.
1  May take its sweet time to get wherever it's going, but if you have the patience for it, you won't feel like it's wasted yours.
1  A compelling French psychological drama examining the encounter of an aloof father and his chilly son after 20 years apart.
1  Combine the paranoid claustrophobia of a submarine movie with the unsettling spookiness of the supernatural -- why didn't Hollywood think of this sooner?
0  The Rock has a great presence but one battle after another is not the same as one battle followed by killer CGI effects.
1  The director explores all three sides of his story with a sensitivity and an inquisitiveness reminiscent of Truffaut.
-1 Dreary tale of middle-class angst
2  ... plenty of warmth to go around, with music and laughter and the love of family.
0  As Schmidt, Nicholson walks with a slow, deliberate gait, chooses his words carefully and subdues his natural exuberance.
-2 Unfunny comedy with a lot of static set ups, not much camera movement, and most of the scenes take place indoors in formal settings with motionless characters.
1  Rewarding.
2  Try as you might to scrutinize the ethics of Kaufman's approach, somehow it all comes together to create a very compelling, sensitive, intelligent and almost cohesive piece of film entertainment.
0  She's a cipher, played by an actress who smiles and frowns but doesn't reveal an inner life.
-1 (T) he ideas of Revolution # 9 are more compelling than the execution
1  Far From Heaven is a dazzling conceptual feat, but more than that, it's a work of enthralling drama.
0  Boldly engineering a collision between tawdry B-movie flamboyance and grandiose spiritual anomie, Rose's film, true to its source material, provides a tenacious demonstration of death as the great equalizer.
0  The warnings to resist temptation in this film... are blunt and challenging and offer no easy rewards for staying clean.
-1 Sweet Home Alabama certainly won't be remembered as one of (Witherspoon's) better films.
-2 Staggers between flaccid satire and what is supposed to be madcap farce.
1  Exactly what its title implies: lusty, boisterous and utterly charming.
2  In a summer of clones, Harvard Man is something rare and riveting: a wild ride that relies on more than special effects.
-1 preachy and
1  It's a fine, old-fashioned-movie movie, which is to say it's unburdened by pretensions to great artistic significance.
2  Polanski has found the perfect material with which to address his own World War II experience in his signature style.
-1 I walked away not really know who ``they'' were, what ``they'' looked like.
-2 A film of empty, fetishistic violence in which murder is casual and fun.
-1 Friday After Next is a lot more bluster than bite.
-1 `CQ may one day be fondly remembered as Roman Coppola's brief pretentious period before going on to other films that actually tell a story worth caring about
2  Such master screenwriting comes courtesy of John Pogue, the Yale grad who previously gave us ``The Skulls'' and last year's ``Rollerball.''
-1 Some Like It Hot on the Hardwood proves once again that a man in drag is not in and of himself funny.
0  A glossy knock-off of a B-movie revenge flick.
1  The attraction between these two marginal characters is complex from the start -- and, refreshingly, stays that way.
-1 Full of bland hotels, highways, parking lots, with some glimpses of nature and family warmth, Time Out is a discreet moan of despair about entrapment in the maze of modern life.
-1 The problem with all of this: It's not really funny.
0  ``Punch-Drunk Love'' is a little like a chocolate milk moustache...
-1 Shatner is probably the funniest person in the film, which gives you an idea just how bad it was.
-2 The most horrific movie experience I've had since ``Can't Stop The Music.''
0  Yet another self-consciously overwritten story about a rag-tag bunch of would-be characters that team up for a can't - miss heist -- only to have it all go wrong.
1  Whether or not Ram Dass proves as clear and reliable an authority on that as he was about inner consciousness, Fierce Grace reassures us that he will once again be an honest and loving one.
0  Not everyone will play the dark, challenging tune taught by The Piano Teacher.
2  It's packed with adventure and a worthwhile environmental message, so it's great for the kids.
-2 The script was reportedly rewritten a dozen times -- either 11 times too many or else too few.
1  Not the Great American Comedy, but if you liked the previous movies in the series, you'll have a good time with this one too.
0  Frank McKlusky C.I. is that movie!
1  The story line may be 127 years old, but El Crimen del Padre Amaro... couldn't be more timely in its despairing vision of corruption within the Catholic establishment.
1  ... quite good at providing some good old fashioned spooks.
-1 Has none of the crackle of ``Fatal Attraction'', ``9 1/2 Weeks'', or even ``Indecent Proposal'', and feels more like Lyne's stolid remake of ``Lolita''.
0  John Carlen's script is full of unhappy, two-dimensional characters who are anything but compelling.
1  When the movie mixes the cornpone and the Cosa Nostra, it finds a nice rhythm.
-1 It doesn't make for great cinema, but it is interesting to see where one's imagination will lead when given the opportunity.
0  Your stomach for Heaven depends largely on your appetite for canned corn.
-1 Family togetherness takes a back seat to inter-family rivalry and workplace ambition... whole subplots have no explanation or even plot relevance.
-2 Equilibrium the movie, as opposed to the manifesto, is really, really stupid.
1  Payne constructs a hilarious ode to middle America and middle age with this unlikely odyssey, featuring a pathetic, endearing hero who is all too human.
1  While somewhat less than it might have been, the film is a good one, and you've got to hand it to director George Clooney for biting off such a big job the first time out.
1  All leather pants & augmented boobs, Hawn is hilarious as she tries to resuscitate the fun-loving libertine lost somewhere inside the conservative, handbag-clutching Sarandon.
1  ``Cremaster 3'' should come with the warning ``For serious film buffs only!''
1  Both exuberantly romantic and serenely melancholy, What Time Is It There?
0  This is mostly well-constructed fluff, which is all it seems intended to be.
2  It's something of the ultimate Scorsese film, with all the stomach-turning violence, colorful New York gang lore and other hallmarks of his personal cinema painted on their largest-ever historical canvas.
-1 It takes a really long, slow and dreary time to dope out what TUCK EVERLASTING is about.
-2 Call me a cold-hearted curmudgeon for not being able to enjoy a mindless action movie, but I believe a movie can be mindless without being the peak of all things insipid.
1  This is a dark, gritty, sometimes funny little gem.
-2 Shallow, noisy and pretentious.
1  Strange occurrences build in the mind of the viewer and take on extreme urgency.
1  Although largely a heavy-handed indictment of parental failings and the indifference of Spanish social workers and legal system towards child abuse, the film retains ambiguities that make it well worth watching.
2  Delight your senses and crash this wedding!
2  A thought-provoking picture.
-2 Think The Lion King redone for horses, with fewer deliberate laughs, more inadvertent ones and stunningly trite songs by Bryan Adams, the world's most generic rock star.
-2 How inept is Serving Sara?
-1 Too much power, not enough puff.
2  Narc is a no-bull throwback to 1970s action films.
2  Elegant and eloquent (meditation) on death and that most elusive of passions, love.
0  The action is reasonably well-done... yet story, character and comedy bits are too ragged to ever fit smoothly together.
-1 These are textbook lives of quiet desperation.
-2 As pedestrian as they come.
1  McGrath has deftly trimmed Dickens' wonderfully sprawling soap opera, the better to focus on the hero's odyssey from cowering poverty to courage and happiness.
1  Evelyn's strong cast and surehanded direction make for a winning, heartwarming yarn.
-1 A visually flashy but narratively opaque and emotionally vapid exercise in style and mystification.
1  It's enough to watch Huppert scheming, with her small, intelligent eyes as steady as any noir villain, and to enjoy the perfectly pitched web of tension that Chabrol spins.
0  Critics need a good laugh, too, and this too-extreme-for-TV rendition of the notorious MTV show delivers the outrageous, sickening, sidesplitting goods in steaming, visceral heaps.
0  Britney's performance can not be faulted.
-2 It's been 13 months and 295 preview screenings since I last walked out on a movie, but Resident Evil really earned my indignant, preemptive departure.
0  Not a bad choice here, assuming that... the air-conditioning in the theater is working properly.
2  As warm as it is wise, deftly setting off uproarious humor with an underlying seriousness that sneaks up on the viewer, providing an experience that is richer than anticipated.
-2 It's clotted with heavy-handed symbolism, dime-store psychology and endless scenic shots that make 105 minutes seem twice as long.
0  The characters are interesting and the relationship between Yosuke and Saeko is worth watching as it develops, but there's not enough to the story to fill two hours.
-1 Offers absolutely nothing I hadn't already seen.
0  recovers
1  The performances of the children, untrained in acting, have an honesty and dignity that breaks your heart.
0  Directors John Musker and Ron Clements, the team behind The Little Mermaid, have produced sparkling retina candy, but they aren't able to muster a lot of emotional resonance in the cold vacuum of space.
2  Like Brosnan's performance, Evelyn comes from the heart.
-1 But the movie's narrative hook is way too muddled to be an effectively chilling guilty pleasure.
0  This film was made by and for those folks who collect the serial killer cards and are fascinated by the mere suggestion of serial killers.
-1 So we got Ten Little Indians meets Friday the 13th by way of Clean and Sober, filmed on the set of Carpenter's The Thing and loaded with actors you're most likely to find on the next inevitable incarnation of The Love Boat.
1  After an uncertain start, Murder hits and generally sustains a higher plateau with Bullock's memorable first interrogation of Gosling.
-2 If I could have looked into my future and saw how bad this movie was, I would go back and choose to skip it.
1  When one hears Harry Shearer is going to make his debut as a film director, one would hope for the best
2  An intoxicating experience.
0  The movie worked for me right up to the final scene, and then it caved in.
-1 Schnieder bounces around with limp wrists, wearing tight tummy tops and hip huggers, twirling his hair on his finger and assuming that's enough to sustain laughs...
-2 The film is all over the place, really.
0  If this silly little cartoon can inspire a few kids not to grow up to be greedy bastards, more power to it.
1  Despite the film's bizarre developments, Hoffman keeps us riveted with every painful nuance, unexpected flashes of dark comedy and the character's gripping humanity.
-1 The movie doesn't think much of its characters, its protagonist, or of us.
1  The film proves unrelentingly grim -- and equally engrossing.
1  A whole lot of fun and funny in the middle, though somewhat less hard-hitting at the start and finish.
0  The dose is strong and funny, for the first 15 minutes anyway; after that, the potency wanes dramatically.
-1 A sustained fest of self-congratulation between actor and director that leaves scant place for the viewer.
-2 ... feels as if (there's) a choke leash around your neck so director Nick Cassavetes can give it a good, hard yank whenever he wants you to feel something.
1  It's bright, pristine style and bold colors make it as much fun as reading an oversized picture book before bedtime.
-1 In the process of trimming the movie to an expeditious 84 minutes, director Roger Kumble seems to have dumped a whole lot of plot in favor of... outrageous gags.
-2 Bad and baffling from the get-go.
-1 A big, loud, bang-the-drum bore.
0  So riddled with unanswered questions that it requires gargantuan leaps of faith just to watch it plod along.
-1 You leave feeling like you've endured a long workout without your pulse ever racing.
-2 An inept, tedious spoof of '70s kung fu pictures, it contains almost enough chuckles for a three-minute sketch, and no more.
2  This is a movie that refreshes the mind and spirit along with the body, so original is its content, look, and style.
0  Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right: You can't go home again.
-1 The dramatic scenes are frequently unintentionally funny, and the action sequences -- clearly the main event -- are surprisingly uninvolving.
-2 The movie has a script (by Paul Pender) made of wood, and it's relentlessly folksy, a procession of stagy set pieces stacked with binary oppositions.
-2 After seeing the film, I can tell you that there's no other reason why anyone should bother remembering it.
0  It's supposed to be a humorous, all-too-human look at how hope can breed a certain kind of madness -- and strength -- but it never quite adds up.
0  There are moments of real pleasure to be found in Sara Sugarman's whimsical comedy Very Annie-Mary but not enough to sustain the film.
1  The script is high on squaddie banter, low on shocks.
0  As directed by Dani Kouyate of Burkina Faso, Sia lacks visual flair.
2  Spinning a web of dazzling entertainment may be overstating it, but ``Spider-Man'' certainly delivers the goods.
-2 ``Solaris'' is a shapeless inconsequential move relying on the viewer to do most of the work.
0  It's fitfully funny but never really takes off.
0  If you're a Crocodile Hunter fan, you'll enjoy at least the ``real'' portions of the film.
1  A compelling story of musical passion against governmental odds.
2  A riveting story well told.
0  Um, no..
2  He makes you realize that deep inside righteousness can be found a tough beauty.
2  Features what is surely the funniest and most accurate depiction of writer's block ever.
-1 The movie is a negligible work of manipulation, an exploitation piece doing its usual worst to guilt-trip parents.
0  Well-meaning to a fault, Antwone Fisher manages the dubious feat of turning one man's triumph of will into everyman's romance comedy.
1  The bottom line is the piece works brilliantly.
2  Ramsay is clearly extraordinarily talented, and based on three short films and two features, here's betting her third feature will be something to behold.
-1 Everything -- even life on an aircraft carrier -- is sentimentalized.
2  Working from a surprisingly sensitive script co-written by Gianni Romoli... Ozpetek avoids most of the pitfalls you'd expect in such a potentially sudsy set-up.
-1 Plot, characters, drama, emotions, ideas -- all are irrelevant to the experience of seeing The Scorpion King.
-1 It's not helpful to listen to extremist name-calling, regardless of whether you think Kissinger was a calculating fiend or just a slippery self-promoter.
2  The film is visually dazzling, the depicted events dramatic, funny and poignant.
1  Both an admirable reconstruction of terrible events, and a fitting memorial to the dead of that day, and of the thousands thereafter.
1  Mindless yet impressively lean spinoff of last summer's bloated effects fest The Mummy Returns.
-1 even after 90 minutes of playing opposite each other Bullock and Grant still look ill at ease sharing the same scene.
2  Kudos to the most enchanting film of the year.
-2 I can't recommend it.
1  Russian Ark is a new treasure of the Hermitage.
1  The Rock is destined to be the 21st Century's new ``Conan'' and that he's going to make a splash even greater than Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claud Van Damme or Steven Segal.
2  The film is darkly funny in its observation of just how much more grueling and time-consuming the illusion of work is than actual work.
1  The picture's fascinating byways are littered with trenchant satirical jabs at the peculiar egocentricities of the acting breed.
0  It's Jagger's bone-dry, mournfully brittle delivery that gives the film its bittersweet bite.
-1 (Lin Chung's) voice is rather unexceptional, even irritating (at least to this Western ear), making it awfully hard to buy the impetus for the complicated love triangle that develops between the three central characters.
-1 It's coherent, well shot, and tartly acted, but it wears you down like a dinner guest showing off his doctorate.
2  An invaluable historical document thanks to the filmmaker's extraordinary access to Massoud, whose charm, cultivation and devotion to his people are readily apparent.
2  The two leads, nearly perfect in their roles, bring a heart and reality that buoy the film, and at times, elevate it to a superior crime movie.
-1 The pairing does sound promising in theory... but their lack of chemistry makes Eddie Murphy and Robert DeNiro in Showtime look like old, familiar vaudeville partners.
-1 Disjointed parody.
-2 What we have is a character faced with the possibility that her life is meaningless, vapid and devoid of substance, in a movie that is definitely meaningless, vapid and devoid of substance.
0  It's tough being a black man in America, especially when the Man has taken away your car, your work-hours and denied you health insurance.
0  The kind of trifle that date nights were invented for..
-1 The plot has a number of holes, and at times it's simply baffling.
1  Seen in that light, Moonlight Mile should strike a nerve in many.
0  Wobbly Senegalese updating of ``Carmen'' which is best for the stunning star turn by Djeinaba Diop Gai
1  Plus, like I already mentioned... it's Robert Duvall!
2  Laugh-out-loud lines, adorably ditsy but heartfelt performances, and sparkling, bittersweet dialogue that cuts to the chase of the modern girl's dilemma.
-1 - greaseballs mob action-comedy.
0  Explosions, jokes, and sexual innuendoes abound.
-1 It gets old quickly.
2  (A) thoughtful, visually graceful work.
-1 A standard police-oriented drama that, were it not for De Niro's participation, would have likely wound up a TNT Original.
0  He may have meant the Internet short Saving Ryan's Privates.
-1 It's a long way from Orwell's dark, intelligent warning cry (1984) to the empty stud knockabout of Equilibrium, and what once was conviction is now affectation.
2  Raimi crafted a complicated hero who is a welcome relief from the usual two-dimensional offerings.
1  This fascinating experiment plays as more of a poetic than a strict reality, creating an intriguing species of artifice that gives The Lady and the Duke something of a theatrical air.
0  The plot's clearly mythic structure may owe more to Disney's strong sense of formula than to the original story.
2  A poignant lyricism runs through Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress that transforms this story about love and culture into a cinematic poem.
-2 Unfortunately, One Hour Photo lives down to its title.
-1 Director Uwe Boll and writer Robert Dean Klein fail to generate any interest in an unsympathetic hero caught up in an intricate plot that while cleverly worked out, can not overcome blah characters.
0  Gere gives a good performance in a film that doesn't merit it.
1  Rarely has skin looked as beautiful, desirable, even delectable, as it does in Trouble Every Day.
-2 The pacing is often way off and there are too many bona fide groaners among too few laughs.
0  Reyes' word processor.
0  In capturing the understated comedic agony of an ever-ruminating, genteel yet decadent aristocracy that can no longer pay its bills, the film could just as well be addressing the turn of the 20th century into the 21st.
-2 In that setting, their struggle is simply too ludicrous and borderline insulting.
1  Try as you might to resist, if you've got a place in your heart for Smokey Robinson, this movie will worm its way there.
1  Robert John Burke as The Monster horns in and steals the show.
-2 The result, however well-intentioned, is ironically just the sort of disposable, kitchen-sink homage that illustrates why the whole is so often less than the sum of its parts in today's Hollywood.
0  A movie that at its best doesn't just make the most out of its characters' flaws but insists on the virtue of imperfection.
-2 An incoherent jumble of a film that's rarely as entertaining as it could have been.
2  Is not so much a work of entertainment as it is a unique, well-crafted psychological study of grief.
-1 Just isn't as weird as it ought to be.
1  With Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, the Spy Kids franchise establishes itself as a durable part of the movie landscape: a James Bond series for kids.
-1 Something must have been lost in the translation.
-2 Degenerates into hogwash.
-2 It's a shame that the storyline and its underlying themes... finally seem so impersonal or even shallow.
1  There is little question that this is a serious work by an important director who has something new to say about how, in the flip-flop of courtship, we often reel in when we should be playing out.
-1 There's some outrageously creative action in The Transporter... (b) ut by the time Frank parachutes down onto a moving truck, it's just another cartoon with an unstoppable superman.
2  ... a rich and intelligent film that uses its pulpy core conceit to probe questions of attraction and interdependence and how the heart accomodates practical needs.
-2 ... a cheap, ludicrous attempt at serious horror.
-1 I can't say this enough: This movie is about an adult male dressed in pink jammies.
-1 Every so often a film comes along that is so insanely stupid, so awful in so many ways that watching it leaves you giddy.
2  It's the kind of effectively creepy-scary thriller that has you fixating on a far corner of the screen at times because your nerves just can't take it any more.
0  Except as an acting exercise or an exceptionally dark joke, you wonder what anyone saw in this film that allowed it to get made.
1  If S&M seems like a strange route to true love, maybe it is, but it's to this film's (and its makers') credit that we believe that that's exactly what these two people need to find each other -- and themselves.
2  A dark, quirky road movie that constantly defies expectation.
1  Scott Baio is turning in some delightful work on indie projects.
0  A frustrating yet deeply watchable melodrama that makes you think it's a tougher picture than it is.
0  Enchanted with low-life tragedy and liberally seasoned with emotional outbursts... What is sorely missing, however, is the edge of wild, lunatic invention that we associate with Cage's best acting.
-1 Impostor can't think of a thing to do with these characters except have them run through dark tunnels, fight off various anonymous attackers, and evade elaborate surveillance technologies.
-2 The 50-something lovebirds are too immature and unappealing to care about.
0  A life-size reenactment of those Jack Chick cartoon tracts that always ended with some hippie getting tossed into the lake of fire.
1  Eyre is on his way to becoming the American Indian Spike Lee.
-1 Set in a 1986 Harlem that doesn't look much like anywhere in New York.
-1 A well-crafted letdown.
1  An unusually dry-eyed, even analytical approach to material that is generally played for maximum moisture.
-2 an appalling `Ace Ventura' rip-off that somehow manages to bring together Kevin Pollak, former wrestler Chyna and Dolly Parton.
1  I simply can't recommend it enough.
1  There's lots of cool stuff packed into ESPN's Ultimate X.
-1 A negligible British comedy.
-2 Don't even bother to rent this on video.
2  In addition to scoring high for originality of plot -- putting together familiar themes of family, forgiveness and love in a new way -- Lilo & Stitch has a number of other assets to commend it to movie audiences both innocent and jaded.
1  Faithful without being forceful, sad without being shrill, ``A Walk to Remember'' succeeds through sincerity.
2  A passionately inquisitive film determined to uncover the truth and hopefully inspire action.
1  We want the funk - and this movie's got it.
1  The best of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films to date.
0  A decidedly mixed bag.
-1 This is Sandler running on empty, repeating what he's already done way too often.
-2 I like my Christmas movies with more elves and snow and less pimps and ho's.
-2 Their parents would do well to cram earplugs in their ears and put pillowcases over their heads for 87 minutes.
-2 ... Blade II is still top-heavy with blazing guns, cheatfully filmed martial arts, disintegrating bloodsucker computer effects and jagged camera moves that serve no other purpose than to call attention to themselves.
1  A spiffy animated feature about an unruly adolescent boy who is yearning for adventure and a chance to prove his worth.
-1 Everything's serious, poetic, earnest and -- sadly -- dull.
-1 Nothing here seems as funny as it did in Analyze This, not even Joe Viterelli as De Niro's right-hand goombah.
-1 It's rare to see a movie that takes such a speedy swan dive from ``promising'' to ``interesting'' to ``familiar'' before landing squarely on ``stupid''.
1  A portrait of hell so shattering it's impossible to shake.
-1 The modern remake of Dumas's story is long on narrative and (too) short on action.
0  Die Another Day is only intermittently entertaining but it's hard not to be a sucker for its charms, or perhaps it's just impossible not to feel nostalgia for movies you grew up with.
1  Plunges you into a reality that is, more often then not, difficult and sad, and then, without sentimentalizing it or denying its brutality, transforms that reality into a lyrical and celebratory vision.
1  The level of acting elevates the material above pat inspirational status and gives it a sturdiness and solidity that we've long associated with Washington the actor.
2  Duvall is strong as always.
0  But his showboating wise-cracker stock persona sure is getting old.
-1 The Master of Disguise may have made a great Saturday Night Live sketch, but a great movie it is not.
1  A true pleasure.
-1 With nary a glimmer of self-knowledge, (Crane) becomes more specimen than character -- and Auto Focus remains a chilly, clinical lab report.
-1 Qualities that were once amusing are becoming irritating.
2  Moore provides an invaluable service by sparking debate and encouraging thought.
2  Exciting and well-paced.
1  Daringly perceptive, taut, piercing and feisty, Biggie and Tupac is undeniably subversive and involving in its bold presentation.
-2 They were afraid to show this movie to reviewers before its opening, afraid of the bad reviews they thought they'd earn.
1  captures that perverse element of the Kafkaesque where identity, overnight, is robbed and replaced with a persecuted ``other.''
-1 It's not only dull because we've seen (Eddie) Murphy do the genial-rogue shtick to death, but because the plot is equally hackneyed.
2  (Breheny's) lensing of the New Zealand and Cook Island locations captures both the beauty of the land and the people.
0  The movie certainly has its share of clever moments and biting dialogue, but there's just not much lurking below its abstract surface.
1  Strangely comes off as a kingdom more mild than wild.
0  In a word: No..
0  An exhausting family drama about a porcelain empire and just as hard a flick as its subject matter.
1  Dog Soldiers doesn't transcend genre -- it embraces it, energizes it and takes big bloody chomps out of it.
2  Like the best 60 Minutes
-1 This is an exercise not in biography but in hero worship.
2  It's crafty, energetic and smart -- the kid is sort of like a fourteen-year old Ferris Bueller.
0  The entire movie is filled with deja vu moments.
2  As a science fiction movie, ``Minority Report'' astounds.
1  Broomfield reminds us that beneath the hype, the celebrity, the high life, the conspiracies and the mystery there were once a couple of bright young men -- promising, talented, charismatic and tragically doomed.
-1 Right now, they're merely signposts marking the slow, lingering death of imagination.
1  Director Peter Kosminsky gives these women a forum to demonstrate their acting `chops' and they take full advantage.
-2 Despite bearing the Paramount imprint, it's a bargain-basement European pickup.
2  All in all, Brown Sugar is a satisfying well-made romantic comedy that's both charming and well acted.
-2 Stitch is a bad mannered, ugly and destructive little \*\*\*\*.
0  It's about time.
2  A beautiful, timeless and universal tale of heated passions -- jealousy, betrayal, forgiveness and murder.
0  The animation merely serves up a predictable, maudlin story that swipes heavily from Bambi and The Lion King, yet lacks the emotional resonance of either of those movies.
-2 The most offensive thing about the movie is that Hollywood expects people to pay to see it.
-1 Made me unintentionally famous -- as the queasy-stomached critic who staggered from the theater and blacked out in the lobby.
0  If you already like this sort of thing, this is that sort of thing all over again.
-2 Confusion is one of my least favourite emotions, especially when I have to put up with 146 minutes of it.
0  The movie ultimately relies a bit too heavily on grandstanding, emotional, Rocky-like moments... but it's such a warm and charming package that you'll feel too happy to argue much.
0  A hidden-agenda drama that shouts classic French nuance.
0  It is a challenging film, if not always a narratively cohesive one.
0  And how.
-1 Halfway through, however, having sucked dry the undead action flick formula, Blade II mutates into a gross-out monster movie with effects that are more silly than scary.
-1 That frenetic spectacle (on the TV show) has usually been leavened by a charm that's conspicuously missing from the Girls' big-screen blowout.
0  Many of the effective horror elements are dampened through familiarity, (yet) are worthwhile.
1  Though a touch too Arthouse 101 in its poetic symbolism, Heaven proves to be a good match of the sensibilities of two directors.
1  (Sports) admirable energy, full-bodied characterizations and narrative urgency.
-1 Even when Crush departs from the 4W formula... it feels like a glossy rehash.
0  By the end, you just don't care whether that cold-hearted snake Petrovich (that would be Reno) gets his comeuppance.
1  What sets it apart is the vision that Taymor, the avant garde director of Broadway's The Lion King and the film Titus, brings.
-1 It's easy to love Robin Tunney -- she's pretty and she can act -- but it gets harder and harder to understand her choices.
-1 A cross between Blow and Boyz N The Hood, this movie strives to be more, but doesn't quite get there.
-2 Talky, artificial and opaque... an interesting technical exercise, but a tedious picture.
1  What enlivens this film, beyond the astute direction of Cardoso and beautifully detailed performances by all of the actors, is a note of defiance over social dictates.
2  Effective in all its aspects, Margarita Happy Hour represents an auspicious feature debut for Chaiken.
-1 Meandering and confusing.
1  ``Nicholas Nickleby'' is a perfect family film to take everyone to since there's no new ``A Christmas Carol'' out in the theaters this year.
0  To the degree that ivans xtc.
0  Pure of intention and passably diverting, His Secret Life is light, innocuous and unremarkable.
0  Matches neorealism's impact by showing the humanity of a war-torn land filled with people who just want to live their lives.
1  The performances are amiable and committed, and the comedy more often than not hits the bullseye.
1  A rich tale of our times, very well told with an appropriate minimum of means.
-2 Bread, My Sweet has so many flaws it would be easy for critics to shred it.
1  While Bollywood/Hollywood will undoubtedly provide its keenest pleasures to those familiar with Bombay musicals, it also has plenty for those (like me) who aren't.
0  You could put it on a coffee table anywhere.
-1 At 90 minutes this movie is short, but it feels much longer.
1  Translating complex characters from novels to the big screen is an impossible task but they are true to the essence of what it is to be Ya-Ya.
-1 If only it were, well, funnier.
1  No, I love it... hell, I dunno.
2  It's an exhilarating place to visit, this laboratory of laughter.
1  One of the best films I have ever seen, constantly pulling the rug from underneath us, seeing things from new sides, plunging deeper, getting more intense.
0  Like these Russo guys lookin' for their Mamet instead found their Sturges.
0  Culkin turns his character into what is basically an anti-Harry Potter -- right down to the Gryffindor scarf.
1  Family fare.
-1 Beware the quirky Brit-com.
-1 But the cinematography is cloudy, the picture making becalmed.
-2 Even if the enticing prospect of a lot of nubile young actors in a film about campus depravity didn't fade amid the deliberate, tiresome ugliness, it would be rendered tedious by Avary's failure to construct a story with even a trace of dramatic interest.
-2 All the movie's narrative gymnastics can't disguise the fact that it's inauthentic at its core and that its story just isn't worth telling.
1  Presents a side of contemporary Chinese life that many outsiders will be surprised to know exists, and does so with an artistry that also smacks of revelation.
-1 Suspend your disbelief here and now, or you'll be shaking your head all the way to the credits.
1  The banter between Calvin and his fellow barbers feels like a streetwise McLaughlin Group... and never fails to entertain.
2  The film was immensely enjoyable thanks to great performances by both Steve Buscemi and Rosario Dawson...
-2 Looks more like a travel-agency video targeted at people who like to ride bikes topless and roll in the mud than a worthwhile glimpse of independent-community guiding lights.
-1 A small independent film suffering from a severe case of Hollywood-itis.
1  A much more successful translation than its most famous previous film adaptation, writer-director Anthony Friedman's similarly updated 1970 British production.
2  Writer-director David Jacobson and his star, Jeremy Renner, have made a remarkable film that explores the monster's psychology not in order to excuse him but rather to demonstrate that his pathology evolved from human impulses that grew hideously twisted.
0  A portrait of an artist.
1  A fun ride.
2  This makes Minority Report necessary viewing for sci-fi fans, as the film has some of the best special effects ever.
-1 ... while each moment of this broken character study is rich in emotional texture, the journey doesn't really go anywhere.
1  Not all of the stories work and the ones that do are thin and scattered, but the film works well enough to make it worth watching.
-2 This is one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
1  But it is entertaining on an inferior level.
0  It's sincere to a fault, but, unfortunately, not very compelling or much fun.
0  The movie has generic virtues, and despite a lot of involved talent, seems done by the numbers.
0  A road trip that will get you thinking, `Are we there yet?'
-1 Stripped almost entirely of such tools as nudity, profanity and violence, LaBute does manage to make a few points about modern man and his problematic quest for human connection.
1  Watching War Photographer, you come to believe that Nachtwey hates the wars he shows and empathizes with the victims he reveals.
-2 To paraphrase a line from another Dickens' novel, Nicholas Nickleby is too much like a fragment of an underdone potato.
1  (Rises) above its oh-so-Hollywood rejiggering and its conventional direction to give the film a soul and an unabashed sense of good old-fashioned escapism.
0  Like its predecessor, it's no classic, but it provides a reasonably attractive holiday contraption, one that families looking for a clean, kid-friendly outing should investigate.
1  The direction has a fluid, no-nonsense authority, and the performances by Harris, Phifer and Cam `ron seal the deal.
0  Self-congratulatory, misguided, and ill-informed, if nonetheless compulsively watchable.
-2 An infuriating film.
2  (Hayek) throws herself into this dream Hispanic role with a teeth-clenching gusto, she strikes a potent chemistry with Molina and she gradually makes us believe she is Kahlo.
2  Call it magic realism or surrealism, but Miss Wonton floats beyond reality with a certain degree of wit and dignity.
-1 There's an admirable rigor to Jimmy's relentless anger, and to the script's refusal of a happy ending, but as those monologues stretch on and on, you realize there's no place for this story to go but down.
-1 Rymer doesn't trust laughs -- and doesn't conjure proper respect for followers of the whole dead-undead genre, who deserve more from a vampire pic than a few shrieky special effects.
0  But here's a glimpse at his life.
-1 Shreve's graceful dual narrative gets clunky on the screen, and we keep getting torn away from the compelling historical tale to a less-compelling soap opera.
-2 To the civilized mind, a movie like Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever is more of an ordeal than an amusement.
1  Ludicrous, but director Carl Franklin adds enough flourishes and freak-outs to make it entertaining.
1  The irony is that this film's cast is uniformly superb; their performances could have -- should have -- been allowed to stand on their own.
-1 They just don't work in concert.
1  Robin Williams has thankfully ditched the saccharine sentimentality of Bicentennial Man in favour of an altogether darker side.
0  The fourth in a series that I'll bet most parents had thought -- hoped!
0  I can't.
2  A whale of a good time for both children and parents seeking Christian-themed fun.
-2 It's difficult to conceive of anyone who has reached puberty actually finding the characters in Slackers or their antics amusing, let alone funny.
-1 Terminally bland, painfully slow and needlessly confusing... The movie, shot on digital videotape rather than film, is frequently indecipherable.
-1 The movie's blatant derivativeness is one reason it's so lackluster.
1  A reasonably entertaining sequel to 1994's surprise family hit that may strain adult credibility.
-2 What a great shame that such a talented director as Chen Kaige has chosen to make his English-language debut with a film so poorly plotted and scripted.
0  Directors Harry Gantz and Joe Gantz have chosen a fascinating subject matter, but the couples exposing themselves aren't all that interesting.
-1 No amount of blood and disintegrating vampire cadavers can obscure this movie's lack of ideas.
2  A well-rounded tribute to a man whose achievements -- and complexities -- reached far beyond the end zone.
-1 Ice Cube isn't quite out of ripe screwball ideas, but Friday After Next spreads them pretty thin.
0  ... a fairly disposable yet still entertaining B picture.
1  Lawrence plumbs personal tragedy and also the human comedy.
-1 Romething's really wrong with this ricture!
1  Performances all around are tops, with the two leads delivering Oscar-caliber performances.
0  While Van Wilder may not be the worst National Lampoon film, it's far from being this generation's Animal House.
1  It's not particularly well made, but since I found myself howling more than cringing, I'd say the film works.
1  A sweet-tempered comedy that forgoes the knee-jerk misogyny that passes for humor in so many teenage comedies.
2  Smart, sassy interpretation of the Oscar Wilde play.
1  Significantly better than its 2002 children's - movie competition.
0  Though its atmosphere is intriguing... the drama is finally too predictable to leave much of an impression.
-2 The big-screen Scooby makes the silly original cartoon seem smart and well-crafted in comparison.
-2 A depraved, incoherent, instantly disposable piece of hackery.
0  You won't look at religious fanatics -- or backyard sheds -- the same way again.
1  So genial is the conceit, this is one of those rare pictures that you root for throughout, dearly hoping that the rich promise of the script will be realized on the screen.
-2 The following things are not at all entertaining: The bad sound, the lack of climax and, worst of all, watching Seinfeld (who is also one of the film's producers) do everything he can to look like a good guy.
0  Chances are you won't, either.
1  Chaiken ably balances real-time rhythms with propulsive incident.
0  An exhilarating serving of movie fluff.
-2 The obnoxious special effects, the obligatory outbursts of flatulence and the incessant, so-five-minutes-ago pop music on the soundtrack overwhelm what is left of the scruffy, dopey old Hanna-Barbera charm.
1  The movie is so thoughtlessly assembled.
1  Antwone Fisher certainly does the trick of making us care about its protagonist and celebrate his victories but, with few exceptions, it rarely stoops to cheap manipulation or corny conventions to do it.
0  Goldmember is funny enough to justify the embarrassment of bringing a barf bag to the moviehouse.
-1 ... Pray doesn't have a passion for the material.
2  It works its magic with such exuberance and passion that the film's length becomes a part of its fun.
-1 The hackneyed story about an affluent damsel in distress who decides to fight her bully of a husband is simply too overdone.
-2 All the Queen's Men is a throwback war movie that fails on so many levels, it should pay reparations to viewers.
-1 Blue Crush has all the trappings of an energetic, extreme-sports adventure, but ends up more of a creaky ``Pretty Woman'' retread, with the emphasis on self-empowering schmaltz and big-wave surfing that gives pic its title an afterthought.
0  Yes they can swim, the title is merely Anne-Sophie Birot's off-handed way of saying girls find adolescence difficult to wade through.
1  It establishes its ominous mood and tension swiftly, and if the suspense never rises to a higher level, it is nevertheless maintained throughout.
1  The script is smart and dark - hallelujah for small favors.
1  As part of Mr. Dong's continuing exploration of homosexuality in America, Family Fundamentals is an earnest study in despair.
1  Makes the case for a strong education and good teachers being more valuable in the way they help increase an average student's self-esteem, and not strictly in the knowledge imparted.
-1 Diane Lane's sophisticated performance can't rescue Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful from its sleazy moralizing.
1  A gently funny, sweetly adventurous film that makes you feel genuinely good, that is to say, entirely unconned by false sentiment or sharp, overmanipulative Hollywood practices.
0  Even with Harris's strong effort, the script gives him little to effectively probe Lear's soul-stripping breakdown.
-2 A zombie movie in every sense of the word -- mindless, lifeless, meandering, loud, painful, obnoxious.
1  Lathan and Diggs carry the film with their charisma, and both exhibit sharp comic timing that makes the more hackneyed elements of the film easier to digest.
1  Fontaine masterfully creates a portrait of two strong men in conflict, inextricably entwined through family history, each seeing himself in the other, neither liking what he sees.
1  Straightforward and old-fashioned in the best possible senses of both those words, Possession is a movie that puts itself squarely in the service of the lovers who inhabit it.
0  Performances are potent, and the women's stories are ably intercut and involving.
0  (It) has the feel of a summer popcorn movie.
1  My Big Fat Greek Wedding is that rare animal known as' a perfect family film,' because it's about family.
-1 Not good enough to pass for a litmus test of the generation gap and not bad enough to repulse any generation of its fans.
1  Like its bizarre heroine, it irrigates our souls.
0  But this is Lohman's film.
-2 If this is cinema, I pledge allegiance to Cagney and Lacey.
-2 Constantly slips from the grasp of its maker.
0  In trying to be daring and original, it comes off as only occasionally satirical and never fresh.
1  Rouge is less about a superficial midlife crisis than it is about the need to stay in touch with your own skin, at 18 or 80.
-1 A simpler, leaner treatment would have been preferable; after all, being about nothing is sometimes funnier than being about something.
-1 The April 2002 instalment of the American War for Independence, complete with loads of CGI and bushels of violence, but not a drop of human blood.
1  By the end you can't help but feel `stoked.'
2  Colorful, energetic and sweetly whimsical... the rare sequel that's better than its predecessor.
0  Eccentric enough to stave off doldrums, Caruso's self-conscious debut is also eminently forgettable.
-1 Originality is sorely lacking.
1  Polished, well-structured film.
-2 Lazy, miserable and smug.
2  It's funny, touching, dramatically forceful, and beautifully shot.
-2 Each scene immediately succumbs to gravity and plummets to earth.
2  While it's nothing we haven't seen before from Murphy, I Spy is still fun and enjoyable and so aggressively silly that it's more than a worthwhile effort.
0  This version of H.G. Wells' Time Machine was directed by H.G. Wells' great-grandson.
2  It is different from others in its genre in that it is does not rely on dumb gags, anatomical humor, or character cliches; it primarily relies on character to tell its story.
-2 An amateurish, quasi-improvised acting exercise shot on ugly digital video.
0  Anyone else seen this before?
1  A meditation on faith and madness, Frailty is blood-curdling stuff.
1  If you like blood, guts and crazy beasts stalking men with guns though... you will likely enjoy this monster.
-1 It's only in fairy tales that princesses that are married for political reason live happily ever after.
-1 After all, it'll probably be in video stores by Christmas, and it might just be better suited to a night in the living room than a night at the movies.
1  There's much tongue in cheek in the film and there's no doubt the filmmaker is having fun with it all.
-2 A listless sci-fi comedy in which Eddie Murphy deploys two guises and elaborate futuristic sets to no particularly memorable effect.
-2 It's so badly made on every level that I'm actually having a hard time believing people were paid to make it.
0  Twist open the Ouzo!
-2 Sewer rats could watch this movie and be so skeeved out that they'd need a shower.
2  A hugely rewarding experience that's every bit as enlightening, insightful and entertaining as Grant's two best films -- Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones's Diary.
1  The film jolts the laughs from the audience -- as if by cattle prod.
0  With Rare Birds, as with The Shipping News before it, an attempt is made to transplant a Hollywood star into Newfoundland's wild soil -- and The Rock once again resists the intrusion.
2  What makes this film special is Serry's ability to take what is essentially a contained family conflict and put it into a much larger historical context.
1  It's a setup so easy it borders on facile, but keeping the film from cheap-shot mediocrity is its crack cast.
-1 If swimfan does catch on, it may be because teens are looking for something to make them laugh.
1  A hard look at one man's occupational angst and its subsequent reinvention, a terrifying study of bourgeois desperation worthy of Claude Chabrol.
0  Granddad of Le Nouvelle Vague, Jean-Luc Godard continues to baffle the faithful with his games of hide-and-seek.
0  Like an episode of MTV's Undressed, with 20 times the creativity but without any more substance... indulgently entertaining but could have and should have been deeper.
-2 A grand fart coming from a director beginning to resemble someone's crazy French grandfather.
0  Jackson tries to keep the plates spinning as best he can, but all the bouncing back and forth can't help but become a bit tedious -- even with the breathtaking landscapes and villainous varmints there to distract you from the ricocheting.
-1 Like a medium-grade network sitcom -- mostly inoffensive, fitfully amusing, but ultimately so weightless that a decent draft in the auditorium might blow it off the screen.
2  A film in a class with Spike Lee's masterful Do The Right Thing.
-1 Is it possible for a documentary to be utterly entranced by its subject and still show virtually no understanding of it?
1  Scotland looks wonderful, the fans are often funny fanatics, the showdown sure beats a bad day of golf.
1  has a whip-smart sense of narrative bluffs.
1  A solidly entertaining little film.
1  Films about loss, grief and recovery are pretty valuable these days.
-2 I found it slow, predictable and not very amusing.
2  By turns touching, raucously amusing, uncomfortable, and, yes, even sexy, Never Again is a welcome and heartwarming addition to the romantic comedy genre.
1  There are deeply religious and spiritual people in this world who would argue that entering a church, synagogue or temple doesn't mean you have to check your brain at the door.
1  out ballsy and stylish
0  Hardman is a grating, mannered onscreen presence, which is especially unfortunate in light of the fine work done by most of the rest of her cast.
1  An undeniably gorgeous, terminally smitten document of a troubadour, his acolytes, and the triumph of his band.
-1 the attempt to complicate the story only defies credibility
-2 If you're over 25, have an IQ over 90, and have a driver's license, you should be able to find better entertainment.
-1 The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Joel Schumacher, and reflects the worst of their shallow styles: wildly overproduced, inadequately motivated every step of the way and demographically targeted to please every one (and no one).
1  Highlighted by a gritty style and an excellent cast, it's better than one might expect when you look at the list of movies starring Ice-T in a major role.
2  The film is moody, oozing, chilling and heart-warming all at once... a twisting, unpredictable, cat-and-mouse thriller.
-1 Believability wasn't one of the film's virtues.
2  Much of All About Lily Chou-Chou is mesmerizing: some of its plaintiveness could make you weep.
0  Mandel Holland's direction is uninspired, and his scripting unsurprising, but the performances by Phifer and Black are ultimately winning.
-1 We don't even like their characters.
-1 It is parochial, accessible to a chosen few, standoffish to everyone else, and smugly suggests a superior moral tone is more important than filmmaking skill
1  It's full of cheesy dialogue, but great trashy fun that finally returns De Palma to his pulpy thrillers of the early '80s.
-1 It's bedeviled by labored writing and slack direction.
-2 Comes off as a long, laborious whine, the bellyaching of a paranoid and unlikable man.
0  There has to be a few advantages to never growing old.
1  An often watchable, though goofy and lurid, blast of a costume drama set in the late 15th century.
1  For his first attempt at film noir, Spielberg presents a fascinating but flawed look at the near future.
2  Every moment crackles with tension, and by the end of the flick, you're on the edge of your seat.
1  K-19 will not go down in the annals of cinema as one of the great submarine stories, but it is an engaging and exciting narrative of Man confronting the Demons of his own fear and paranoia.
1  Angel presents events partly from the perspective of Aurelie and Christelle, and infuses the film with the sensibility of a particularly nightmarish fairytale.
-1 Guys say mean things and shoot a lot of bullets.
2  Like blended shades of lipstick, these components combine into one terrific story with lots of laughs.
-1 Solondz may be convinced that he has something significant to say, but he isn't talking a talk that appeals to me.
0  The obligatory break-ups and hook-ups don't seem to have much emotional impact on the characters.
1  It may... work as a jaunt down memory lane for teens and young adults who grew up on televised Scooby-Doo shows or reruns.
-1 Could as easily have been called `Under Siege 3: In Alcatraz'... a cinematic corpse that never springs to life.
2  Whatever one makes of its political edge, this is beautiful filmmaking from one of French cinema's master craftsmen.
1  Much of it is funny, but there are also some startling, surrealistic moments...
-2 Has all the scenic appeal of a cesspool.
1  works, it's thanks to Huston's revelatory performance.
-1 What's worse is that Pelosi knows it.
-1 Told in scattered fashion, the movie only intermittently lives up to the stories and faces and music of the men who are its subject.
-1 The Mothman Prophecies, which is mostly a bore, seems to exist only for its climactic setpiece.
1  The action sequences are fun and reminiscent of combat scenes from the Star Wars series.
0  An easy watch, except for the annoying demeanour of its lead character.
1  A bittersweet drama about the limbo of grief and how truth-telling can open the door to liberation.
2  Ferrara's strongest and most touching movie of recent years.
1  Crudup's screen presence is the one thing that holds interest in the midst of a mushy, existential exploration of why men leave their families.
1  Hardly a film that comes along every day.
1  By the end of the movie, you're definitely convinced that these women are spectacular.
0  Your appreciation of it will depend on what experiences you bring to it and what associations you choose to make.
-1 Here, common sense flies out the window, along with the hail of bullets, none of which ever seem to hit Sascha.
-1 To get at the root psychology of this film would require many sessions on the couch of Dr. Freud.
1  Not a film for the faint of heart or conservative of spirit, but for the rest of us -- especially San Francisco lovers -- it's a spirited film and a must-see.
1  It's hard to quibble with a flick boasting this many genuine cackles, but Notorious C.H.O. still feels like a promising work-in-progress.
-1 One-sided documentary offers simplistic explanations to a very complex situation.
1  All in all, an interesting look at the life of the campaign-trail press, especially ones that don't really care for the candidate they're forced to follow.
1  Hugh Grant's act is so consuming that sometimes it's difficult to tell who the other actors in the movie are.
1  Although Frailty fits into a classic genre, in its script and execution it is a remarkably original work.
-2 Brisk hack job.
1  Malcolm McDowell is cool.
0  Your taste for Jonah - A Veggie Tales Movie may well depend on your threshold for pop manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
2  An exhilarating experience.
0  both overstuffed and undernourished... The film can't be called a solid success, although there's plenty of evidence here to indicate Clooney might have better luck next time.
0  ... Myers has turned his franchise into the movie version of an adolescent dirty-joke book done up in post-Tarantino pop-culture riffs...
0  Especially compared with the television series that inspired the movie.
1  More of the same from Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang, which is good news to anyone who's fallen under the sweet, melancholy spell of this unique director's previous films.
1  Worth seeing just for Weaver and LaPaglia.
-2 This 90-minute dud could pass for Mike Tyson's E!
-1 But mainstream audiences will find little of interest in this film, which is often preachy and poorly acted.
0  With miscast leads, banal dialogue and an absurdly overblown climax, Killing Me Softly belongs firmly in the so-bad-it's - good camp.
1  An encouraging effort from McCrudden
2  Watching these eccentrics is both inspiring and pure joy.
-2 Suffers from a lack of clarity and audacity that a subject as monstrous and pathetic as Dahmer demands.
-1 It has the air of a surprisingly juvenile lark, a pop-influenced prank whose charms are immediately apparent and wear thin with repetition.
2  Transcends its agenda to deliver awe-inspiring, at times sublime, visuals and offer a fascinating glimpse into the subculture of extreme athletes whose derring-do puts the X into the games.
1  The people in Jessica are so recognizable and true that, as in real life, we're never sure how things will work out.
0  Thanks to Ice Cube, Benjamins feels an awful lot like Friday in Miami.
1  The work of a filmmaker who has secrets buried at the heart of his story and knows how to take time revealing them.
-1 It's a lot to ask people to sit still for two hours and change watching such a character, especially when rendered in as flat and impassive a manner as Phoenix's.
1  While Broomfield's film doesn't capture the effect of these tragic deaths on hip-hop culture, it succeeds as a powerful look at a failure of our justice system.
-1 When it comes to the battle of Hollywood vs. Woo, it looks like Woo's a P.O.W.
1  The sentimental cliches mar an otherwise excellent film.
1  An extremely funny, ultimately heartbreaking look at life in contemporary China.
1  Finally, the French-produced ``Read My Lips'' is a movie that understands characters must come first.
0  The movie just has too much on its plate to really stay afloat for its just under ninety minute running time.
0  Gaghan
0  While Glover, the irrepressible eccentric of River's Edge, Dead Man and Back to the Future, is perfect casting for the role, he represents Bartleby's main overall flaw.
-2 Long before it's over, you'll be thinking of 51 ways to leave this loser.
1  According to the script, Grant and Bullock's characters are made for each other.
-1 This low-rent -- and even lower-wit -- rip-off of the Farrelly brothers' oeuvre gets way too mushy -- and in a relatively short amount of time.
0  The real question this movie poses is not `Who?'
1  It does give a taste of the Burning Man ethos, an appealing blend of counter-cultural idealism and hedonistic creativity.
2  delightfully rendered
-1 (Seagal's) strenuous attempt at a change in expression could very well clinch him this year's Razzie.
-2 (A) crushing disappointment.
-1 Like the excruciating End of Days, Collateral Damage presents Schwarzenegger as a tragic figure, but sympathy really belongs with any viewer forced to watch him try out so many complicated facial expressions.
-1 A battle between bug-eye theatre and dead-eye matinee.
-2 No amount of burning, blasting, stabbing, and shooting can hide a weak script.
-1 Not a strike against Yang's similarly themed Yi Yi, but I found What Time?
1  Nohe's documentary about the event is sympathetic without being gullible: He isn't blind to the silliness, but also captures moments of spontaneous creativity and authentic co-operative interaction.
1  A film of ideas and wry comic mayhem.
1  There's something to be said for a studio-produced film that never bothers to hand viewers a suitcase full of easy answers.
-1 All too familiar... basically the sort of cautionary tale that was old when `Angels With Dirty Faces' appeared in 1938.
2  A gem of a romantic crime comedy that turns out to be clever, amusing and unpredictable.
-1 Austin Powers in Goldmember is a cinematic car wreck, a catastrophic collision of tastelessness and gall that nevertheless will leave fans clamoring for another ride.
-1 Even Murphy's expert comic timing and famed charisma can't rescue this effort.
1  It's incredible the number of stories the Holocaust has generated.
2  This is an interesting movie!''
-1 The dialogue is cumbersome, the simpering soundtrack and editing more so.
0  Yo, it's The Days Of Our Lives meets Electric Boogaloo.
-1 The movie is genial but never inspired, and little about it will stay with you.
1  That old adage about women being unknowable gets an exhilarating new interpretation in Morvern Callar.
1  Pray has really done his subject justice.
-1 It's a shame the marvelous first 101 minutes have to be combined with the misconceived final 5.
-1 Are we dealing with dreams, visions or being told what actually happened as if it were the third ending of Clue?
1  As dumb and cheesy as they may be, the cartoons look almost Shakespearean -- both in depth and breadth -- after watching this digital-effects-heavy, supposed family-friendly comedy.
-2 One of those strained caper movies that's hardly any fun to watch and begins to vaporize from your memory minutes after it ends.
1  A well-put-together piece of urban satire.
-1 A few zingers aside, the writing is indifferent, and Jordan Brady's direction is prosaic.
1  Deflated ending aside, there's much to recommend the film.
-2 To call this film a lump of coal would only be to flatter it.
2  A weird and wonderful comedy.
-1 Wishy-washy.
-2 Hypnotically dull, relentlessly downbeat, laughably predictable wail pitched to the cadence of a depressed fifteen-year-old's suicidal poetry.
-1 Writer-director Stephen Gaghan has made the near-fatal mistake of being what the English call `too clever by half.'
2  A compelling pre-WWII drama with vivid characters and a warm, moving message.
0  If there's one big point to Promises, it's that nothing can change while physical and psychological barriers keep the sides from speaking even one word to each other.
-2 is never quite able to overcome the cultural moat surrounding its ludicrous and contrived plot.'
1  Savvy director Robert J. Siegel and his co-writers keep the story subtle and us in suspense.
-1 The script has less spice than a rat burger and The Rock's fighting skills are more in line with Steven Seagal.
0  Sensitively examines general issues of race and justice among the poor, and specifically raises serious questions about the death penalty and asks what good the execution of a mentally challenged woman could possibly do.
1  In The Pianist, Polanski is saying what he has long wanted to say, confronting the roots of his own preoccupations and obsessions, and he allows nothing to get in the way.
-1 I felt trapped and with no obvious escape for the entire 100 minutes.
-1 The action quickly sinks into by-the-numbers territory.
1  Some Body is a shaky, uncertain film that nevertheless touches a few raw nerves.
1  At the end, when the now computerized Yoda finally reveals his martial artistry, the film ascends to a kinetic life so teeming that even cranky adults may rediscover the quivering kid inside.
1  Rarely, a movie is more than a movie.
-2 Lacks the inspiration of the original and has a bloated plot that stretches the running time about 10 minutes past a child's interest and an adult's patience.
1  A strong and confident work which works so well for the first 89 minutes, but ends so horrendously confusing in the final two
0  Merchant hasn't directed this movie so much as produced it -- like sausage.
1  Everything in Maid in Manhattan is exceedingly pleasant, designed not to offend.
1  The series' message about making the right choice in the face of tempting alternatives remains prominent, as do the girls' amusing personalities.
0  Adam SANDLER!
-1 The problem is that the movie has no idea of it is serious or not.
-1 It's just weirdness for the sake of weirdness, and where Human Nature should be ingratiating, it's just grating.
1  A touching, sophisticated film that almost seems like a documentary in the way it captures an Italian immigrant family on the brink of major changes.
2  Spectacularly beautiful, not to mention mysterious, sensual, emotionally intense, and replete with virtuoso throat-singing.
-2 Thoroughly awful.
0  Despite Hoffman's best efforts, Wilson remains a silent, lumpish cipher; his encounters reveal nothing about who he is or who he was before.
1  A summer entertainment adults can see without feeling embarrassed, but it could have been more.
1  Intimate and panoramic.
2  These people are really going to love The Piano Teacher.
2  , The Sum of All Fears is simply a well-made and satisfying thriller.
1  It is philosophy, illustrated through everyday events.
-1 Another useless recycling of a brutal mid-'70s American sports movie.
0  A plodding look at the French Revolution through the eyes of aristocrats.
0  Ali's graduation from little screen to big is far less painful than his opening scene encounter with an over-amorous terrier.
2  There is a welcome lack of pretension about the film, which very simply sets out to entertain and ends up delivering in good measure.
-1 Could this be the first major studio production shot on video tape instead of film?
0  Ice Age posits a heretofore unfathomable question: Is it possible for computer-generated characters to go through the motions?
0  Walsh can't quite negotiate the many inconsistencies in Janice's behavior or compensate for them by sheer force of charm.
1  The screenplay never lets us forget that Bourne was once an amoral assassin just like the ones who are pursuing him... There is never really a true ``us'' versus ``them''.
1  There's real visual charge to the filmmaking, and a strong erotic spark to the most crucial lip-reading sequence.
-2 Doesn't add up to much.
-2 Please, someone, stop Eric Schaeffer before he makes another film.
1  Tsai Ming-liang's witty, wistful new film, What Time Is It There?
2  A lively and engaging examination of how similar obsessions can dominate a family.
2  With each of her three protagonists, Miller eloquently captures the moment when a woman's life, out of a deep-seated, emotional need, is about to turn onto a different path.
0  I didn't think so.
2  There aren't too many films that can be as simultaneously funny, offbeat and heartwarming (without a thick shmear of the goo, at least), but ``Elling'' manages to do all three quite well, making it one of the year's most enjoyable releases.
-1 And in a sense, that's a liability.
2  Both heartbreaking and heartwarming... just a simple fable done in an artless sytle, but it's tremendously moving.
1  It's unlikely we'll see a better thriller this year.
1  Deliberately and devotedly constructed, Far from Heaven is too picture postcard perfect, too neat and new pin-like, too obviously a recreation to resonate.
-1 The trouble is, its filmmakers run out of clever ideas and visual gags about halfway through.
-1 It's just plain lurid when it isn't downright silly.
-2 director Hoffman, his writer and Kline's agent should serve detention
0  Nor is it a romantic comedy.
1  (Jeff's) gorgeous, fluid compositions, underlined by Neil Finn and Edmund McWilliams's melancholy music, are charged with metaphor, but rarely easy, obvious or self-indulgent.
1  Whereas Oliver Stone's conspiracy thriller JFK was long, intricate, star-studded and visually flashy, Interview with the Assassin draws its considerable power from simplicity.
-2 I can analyze this movie in three words: Thumbs Friggin' Down.
-1 It's all arty and jazzy and people sit and stare and turn away from one another instead of talking and it's all about the silences and if you're into that, have at it.
-1 The feature-length stretch... strains the show's concept.
-2 The most surprising thing about this film is that they are actually releasing it into theaters.
1  The film has the high-buffed gloss and high-octane jolts you expect of De Palma, but what makes it transporting is that it's also one of the smartest, most pleasurable expressions of pure movie love to come from an American director in years.
-1 A mess.
0  A dopey movie clothed in excess layers of hipness.
1  Standing by Yourself is haunting... (It's) what punk rock music used to be, and what the video medium could use more of: spirit, perception, conviction.
0  Gone are the flamboyant mannerisms that are the trademark of several of his performances.
-2 This is surely one of the most frantic, virulent and foul-natured Christmas season pics ever delivered by a Hollywood studio.
0  It's better than mid-range Steven Seagal, but not as sharp as Jet Li on rollerblades.
-1 Filled with low-brow humor, gratuitous violence and a disturbing disregard for life.
-1 It should be interesting, it should be poignant, it turns out to be affected and boring.
2  With an unflappable air of decadent urbanity, Everett remains a perfect Wildean actor, and a relaxed Firth displays impeccable comic skill.
0  Wins my vote for `The 2002 Enemy of Cinema' Award.
1  The film's messages of tolerance and diversity aren't particularly original, but one can't help but be drawn in by the sympathetic characters.
2  A serious movie with serious ideas.
1  Steers refreshingly clear of the usual cliches.
-1 Too bad Maggio couldn't come up with a better script.
-2 About the only thing to give the movie points for is bravado -- to take an entirely stale concept and push it through the audience's meat grinder one more time.
1  A fairly enjoyable mixture of Longest Yard... and the 1999 Guy Ritchie caper Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
1  Thought-provoking and stylish, if also somewhat hermetic.
-1 I also believe that Resident Evil is not it.
1  Hashiguchi vividly captures the way young Japanese live now, chafing against their culture's manic mix of millennial brusqueness and undying, traditional politesse.
-1 Though it's not very well shot or composed or edited, the score is too insistent and the dialogue is frequently overwrought and crudely literal, the film shatters you in waves.
2  A lovely film... elegant, witty and beneath a prim exterior unabashedly romantic... hugely enjoyable in its own right though not really faithful to its source's complexity.
-1 A movie that harps on media-constructed `issues' like whether compromise is the death of self... this Orgasm (won't be an) exceedingly memorable one for most people.
2  Both a successful adaptation and an enjoyable film in its own right.
-1 Mediocre fable from Burkina Faso.
1  A lot of the credit for the film's winning tone must go to Grant, who hasn't lost a bit of the dry humor that first made audiences on both sides of the Atlantic love him.
-1 little action, almost no suspense or believable tension, one-dimensional characters up the wazoo and sets that can only be described as sci-fi generic.
-1 It's exactly the kind of movie Toback's detractors always accuse him of making.
-1 This odd, distant Portuguese import more or less borrows from Bad Lieutenant and Les Vampires, and comes up with a kind of art-house gay porn film.
1  Maryam is a small film, but it offers large rewards.
2  While centered on the life experiences of a particular theatrical family, this marvelous documentary touches -- ever so gracefully -- on the entire history of the Yiddish theater, both in America and Israel.
-1 The first mistake, I suspect, is casting Shatner as a legendary professor and Kunis as a brilliant college student -- where's Pauly Shore as the rocket scientist?
1  A faster paced family flick.
2  Rifkin's references are... impeccable throughout.
2  This odd, poetic road movie, spiked by jolts of pop music, pretty much takes place in Morton's ever-watchful gaze -- and it's a tribute to the actress, and to her inventive director, that the journey is such a mesmerizing one.
-1 Contains the humor, characterization, poignancy, and intelligence of a bad sitcom.
-1 A movie that the less charitable might describe as a castrated cross between Highlander and Lolita.
-1 It stars schticky Chris Rock and stolid Anthony Hopkins, who seem barely in the same movie.
2  The film does a solid job of slowly, steadily building up to the climactic burst of violence.
0  Same guy with both hats.
1  You've already seen City by the Sea under a variety of titles, but it's worth yet another visit.
0  Unfortunately, neither Sendak nor the directors are particularly engaging or articulate.
-1 It's not as awful as some of the recent Hollywood trip tripe... but it's far from a groundbreaking endeavor.
2  Greg Kinnear gives a mesmerizing performance as a full-fledged sex addict who is in complete denial about his obsessive behavior.
0  Try Hell House, which documents the cautionary Christian spook-a-rama of the same name.
-1 Barney throws away the goodwill the first half of his movie generates by orchestrating a finale that is impenetrable and dull.
-1 I could just feel the screenwriter at every moment `Tap, tap, tap, tap, tapping away' on this screenplay.
2  Its engaging simplicity is driven by appealing leads.
2  Lan Yu is a genuine love story, full of traditional layers of awakening and ripening and separation and recovery.
-1 Enough is not a bad movie, just mediocre.
-1 We're left with a story that tries to grab us, only to keep letting go at all the wrong moments.
-2 A generic family comedy unlikely to be appreciated by anyone outside the under-10 set.
0  It's just plain boring.
-1 Plays like one of those conversations that Comic Book Guy on ``The Simpsons'' has.
2  While Parker and co-writer Catherine di Napoli are faithful to Melville's plotline, they and a fully engaged supporting cast... have made the old boy's characters more quick-witted than any English Lit major would have thought possible.
1  The result puts a human face on Derrida, and makes one of the great minds of our times interesting and accessible to people who normally couldn't care less.
-1 Memorable for a peculiar malaise that renders its tension flaccid and, by extension, its surprises limp and its resolutions ritual.
1  The bodily function jokes are about what you'd expect, but there are rich veins of funny stuff in this movie.
0  The director and her capable cast appear to be caught in a heady whirl of New Age-inspired good intentions, but the spell they cast isn't the least bit mesmerizing.
2  Road to Perdition does display greatness, and it's worth seeing.
-2 You'll cry for your money back.
1  The picture uses humor and a heartfelt conviction to tell a story about discovering your destination in life, but also acknowledging the places, and the people, from whence you came.
-1 Starts promisingly but disintegrates into a dreary, humorless soap opera.
0  Either a fascinating study of the relationship between mothers and their children or a disturbing story about sociopaths and their marks.
1  You will likely prefer to keep on watching.
0  (Garbus) discards the potential for pathological study, exhuming instead, the skewed melodrama of the circumstantial situation.
0  Even though it is infused with the sensibility of a video director, it doesn't make for completely empty entertainment
0  Only in its final surprising shots does Rabbit-Proof Fence find the authority it's looking for.
1  A certain sexiness underlines even the dullest tangents.
-1 While it's all quite tasteful to look at, the attention process tends to do a little fleeing of its own.
2  One of those rare films that seems as though it was written for no one, but somehow manages to convince almost everyone that it was put on the screen, just for them.
-1 Watch Barbershop again if you're in need of a Cube fix -- this isn't worth sitting through.
-2 You could easily mistake it for a sketchy work-in-progress that was inexplicably rushed to the megaplexes before its time.
-1 A sour attempt at making a Farrelly Brothers-style, down-and-dirty laugher for the female set.
-1 There are just too many characters saying too many clever things and getting into too many pointless situations.
0  There is so much plodding sensitivity.
0  But be warned, you too may feel time has decided to stand still.
-2 Hey everybody, wanna watch a movie in which a guy dressed as a children's party clown gets violently gang-raped?
-1 All three descriptions suit Evelyn, a besotted and obvious drama that tells us nothing new.
0  Courtney CHASES Stuart with a CELL PHONE.
1  Boasts a handful of virtuosic set pieces and offers a fair amount of trashy, kinky fun.
2  If ever a concept came handed down from the movie gods on a silver platter, this is it.
1  Wiseman is patient and uncompromising, letting his camera observe and record the lives of women torn apart by a legacy of abuse.
0  Admirably ambitious but self-indulgent.
1  Can be viewed as pure composition and form -- film as music
2  Skillfully weaves both the elements of the plot and a powerfully evocative mood combining heated sexuality with a haunting sense of malaise.
-2 The premise itself is just SOOOOO tired.
-1 As violent, profane and exploitative as the most offensive action flick you've ever seen.
2  One of the best movies of the year.
-1 Any film that doesn't even in passing mention political prisoners, poverty and the boat loads of people who try to escape the country is less a documentary and more propaganda by way of a valentine sealed with a kiss.
1  Late Marriage is an in-your-face family drama and black comedy that is filled with raw emotions conveying despair and love.
1  But it does have one saving grace.
2  A first-class, thoroughly involving B movie that effectively combines two surefire, beloved genres -- the prison flick and the fight film.
-1 Kaufman's script is never especially clever and often is rather pretentious.
1  Despite a quieter middle section, involving Aragorn's dreams of Arwen, this is even better than The Fellowship.
-1 plays like an unbalanced mixture of graphic combat footage and almost saccharine domestic interludes that are pure Hollywood.
2  Scooby Doo is surely everything its fans are hoping it will be, and in that sense is a movie that deserves recommendation.
2  Kids should have a stirring time at this beautifully drawn movie.
0  Recoing's fantastic performance doesn't exactly reveal what makes Vincent tick, but perhaps any definitive explanation for it would have felt like a cheat.
-1 It all looks and plays like a $ 40 million version of a game you're more likely to enjoy on a computer.
-1 The movie is about as deep as that sentiment.
-1 Woo has as much right to make a huge action sequence as any director, but how long will filmmakers copy the ``Saving Private Ryan'' battle scenes before realizing Steven Spielberg got it right the first time?
-1 `Unfaithful' cheats on itself and retreats to comfortable territory.
1  High drama, Disney-style - a wing and a prayer and a hunky has-been pursuing his castle in the sky.
0  Works because we're never sure if Ohlinger's on the level or merely a dying, delusional man trying to get into the history books before he croaks.
0  Bravo reveals the true intent of her film by carefully selecting interview subjects who will construct a portrait of Castro so predominantly charitable it can only be seen as propaganda.
-1 The very definition of what critics have come to term an ``ambitious failure.''
0  Ah, the travails of metropolitan life!
-2 No film could possibly be more contemptuous of the single female population.
-2 It's Splash without the jokes.
0  Despite its raucous intent, X X X is as conventional as a Nike ad and as rebellious as spring break.
2  This is a finely written, superbly acted offbeat thriller.
1  If not a home run, then at least a solid base hit.
1  I've yet to find an actual Vietnam War combat movie actually produced by either the North or South Vietnamese, but at least now we've got something pretty damn close.
-2 We never truly come to care about the main characters and whether or not they'll wind up together, and Michele's spiritual quest is neither amusing nor dramatic enough to sustain interest.
0  You'll get the enjoyable basic minimum.
2  A shimmeringly lovely coming-of-age portrait, shot in artful, watery tones of blue, green and brown.
1  The Salton Sea has moments of inspired humour, though every scrap is of the darkest variety.
-1 Bears about as much resemblance to the experiences of most battered women as Spider-Man does to the experiences of most teenagers.
-1 Has all the values of a straight-to-video movie, but because it has a bigger-name cast, it gets a full theatrical release.
2  The soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission.
1  It's very Beavis and Butthead, yet always seems to elicit a chuckle.
1  Connoisseurs of Chinese film will be pleased to discover that Tian's meticulous talent has not withered during his enforced hiatus.
2  (Taymor) utilizes the idea of making Kahlo's art a living, breathing part of the movie, often catapulting the artist into her own work.
-2 This is rote spookiness, with nary an original idea (or role, or edit, or score, or anything, really) in sight, and the whole of the proceedings beg the question `Why?'
1  Beautiful, angry and sad, with a curious sick poetry, as if the Marquis de Sade had gone in for pastel landscapes.
-1 Fluffy neo-noir hiding behind cutesy film references.
-1 ... a cinematic disaster so inadvertently sidesplitting it's worth the price of admission for the ridicule factor alone.
0  An overwrought Taiwanese soaper about three people and their mixed-up relationship.
-1 What little grace (Rifkin's) tale of precarious skid-row dignity achieves is pushed into the margins by predictable plotting and tiresome histrionics.
-1 The locale... remains far more interesting than the story at hand.
2  The story... is inspiring, ironic, and revelatory of just how ridiculous and money-oriented the record industry really is.
0  Though Frodo's quest remains unfulfilled, a hardy group of determined New Zealanders has proved its creative mettle.
2  Brutally honest and told with humor and poignancy, which makes its message resonate.
1  Human Nature is a goofball movie, in the way that Malkovich was, but it tries too hard.
1  It's rare for any movie to be as subtle and touching as The Son's Room.
-2 A low-budget affair, Tadpole was shot on digital video, and the images often look smeary and blurry, to the point of distraction.
1  The movie's seams may show... but Pellington gives ``Mothman'' an irresistibly uncanny ambience that goes a long way toward keeping the picture compelling.
-1 Stale first act, Scrooge story, blatant product placement, some very good comedic songs, strong finish, dumb fart jokes.
-2 Manipulative claptrap, a period-piece movie-of-the-week, plain old blarney... take your pick.
0  the Venezuelans say things like ``si, pretty much'' and ``por favor, go home'' when talking to Americans.
-1 It's not original enough.
1  Confessions isn't always coherent, but it's sharply comic and surprisingly touching, so hold the gong.
-1 An empty exercise, a florid but ultimately vapid crime melodrama with lots of surface flash but little emotional resonance.
1  `Possession,' based on the book by A.S. Byatt, demands that LaBute deal with the subject of love head-on; trading in his cynicism for reverence and a little wit
1  Terrific as Nadia, a Russian mail-order bride who comes to America speaking not a word of English, it's Kidman who holds the film together with a supremely kittenish performance that gradually accumulates more layers.
-1 Morrissette has performed a difficult task indeed - he's taken one of the world's most fascinating stories and made it dull, lifeless, and irritating.
1  Probes in a light-hearted way the romantic problems of individuals for whom the yearning for passion spells discontent.
-1 At some point, all this visual trickery stops being clever and devolves into flashy, vaguely silly overkill.
-1 A rambling ensemble piece with loosely connected characters and plots that never quite gel.
1  Director Alfonso Cuaron gets vivid, convincing performances from a fine cast, and generally keeps things going at a rapid pace, occasionally using an omniscient voice-over narrator in the manner of French New Wave films.
0  A movie that feels like the pilot episode of a new teen-targeted action TV series.
-1 It's replaced by some dramatic scenes that are jarring and deeply out of place in what could have (and probably should have) been a lighthearted comedy.
1  waydowntown may not be an important movie, or even a good one, but it provides a nice change of mindless pace in collision with the hot Oscar season currently underway.
2  It's a funny little movie with clever dialogue and likeable characters.
-1 A retread of material already thoroughly plumbed by Martin Scorsese.
-1 There is a difference between movies with the courage to go over the top and movies that don't care about being stupid
-1 Barney's ideas about creation and identity don't really seem all that profound, at least by way of what can be gleaned from this three-hour endurance test built around an hour's worth of actual material.
1  Holm does his sly, intricate magic, and Iben Hjelje is entirely appealing as Pumpkin.
1  Even with all its botches, Enigma offers all the pleasure of a handsome and well-made entertainment.
-1 Watching this film, what we feel isn't mainly suspense or excitement.
1  It gives devastating testimony to both people's capacity for evil and their heroic capacity for good.
2  A damn fine and a truly distinctive and a deeply pertinent film.
-2 If you're the kind of parent who enjoys intentionally introducing your kids to films which will cause loads of irreparable damage that years and years of costly analysis could never fix, I have just one word for you - -- Decasia
1  Meyjes' provocative film might be called an example of the haphazardness of evil.
0  Observant intelligence constantly vies with pretension -- and sometimes plain wacky implausibility -- throughout Maelstrom.
2  This gorgeous epic is guaranteed to lift the spirits of the whole family.
1  Land, people and narrative flow together in a stark portrait of motherhood deferred and desire explored.
-1 It collapses when Mr. Taylor tries to shift the tone to a thriller's rush.
1  A tone poem of transgression.
-2 A mean-spirited film made by someone who surely read The Catcher in the Rye but clearly suffers from dyslexia
-2 The secrets of time travel will have been discovered, indulged in and rejected as boring before I see this piece of crap again.
-1 Has all the hallmarks of a movie designed strictly for children's home video, a market so insatiable it absorbs all manner of lame entertainment, as long as 3-year-olds find it diverting.
2  One of those terrific documentaries that collect a bunch of people who are enthusiastic about something and then figures out how to make us share their enthusiasm.
0  `Sophisticated' viewers who refuse to admit that they don't like it will likely call it `challenging' to their fellow sophisticates.
1  Sometimes charming, sometimes infuriating, this Argentinean `dramedy' succeeds mainly on the shoulders of its actors.
-2 The story suffers a severe case of oversimplification, superficiality and silliness.
1  Featherweight romantic comedy has a few nice twists in a standard plot and the charisma of Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock.
-1 Flashy gadgets and whirling fight sequences may look cool, but they can't distract from the flawed support structure holding Equilibrium up.
1  Able to provide insight into a fascinating part of theater history.
-1 The movie straddles the fence between escapism and social commentary, and on both sides it falls short.
0  The story is virtually impossible to follow here, but there's a certain style and wit to the dialogue.
1  It reaffirms life as it looks in the face of death.
-1 It is a popcorn film, not a must-own, or even a must-see.
2  An emotionally and spiritually compelling journey seen through the right eyes, with the right actors and with the kind of visual flair that shows what great cinema can really do.
0  Believes so fervently in humanity that it feels almost anachronistic, and it is too cute by half.
1  With We Were Soldiers, Hollywood makes a valiant attempt to tell a story about the Vietnam War before the pathology set in.
1  Shyamalan offers copious hints along the way -- myriad signs, if you will -- that beneath the familiar, funny surface is a far bigger, far more meaningful story than one in which little green men come to Earth for harvesting purposes.
-2 Partly a schmaltzy, by-the-numbers romantic comedy, partly a shallow rumination on the emptiness of success -- and entirely soulless.
0  With this new Rollerball, sense and sensibility have been overrun by what can only be characterized as robotic sentiment.
2  A beautifully tooled action thriller about love and terrorism in Korea.
2  An escapist confection that's pure entertainment.
1  One of those rare films that come by once in a while with flawless amounts of acting, direction, story and pace.
-1 What they see in each other also is difficult to fathom.
-1 Where This was lazy but enjoyable, a formula comedy redeemed by its stars, That is even lazier and far less enjoyable.
0  I'll put it this way: If you're in the mood for a melodrama narrated by talking fish, this is the movie for you.
0  So-so entertainment.
-1 Taken as a whole, The Tuxedo doesn't add up to a whole lot.
1  The structure is simple, but in its own way, Rabbit-Proof Fence is a quest story as grand as The Lord of the Rings.
-1 If Oscar had a category called Best Bad Film You Thought Was Going To Be Really Awful But Wasn't, Guys would probably be duking it out with The Queen of the Damned for the honor.
2  You feel good, you feel sad, you feel pissed off, but in the end, you feel alive - which is what they did.
1  Takashi Miike keeps pushing the envelope: Ichi the Killer
-2 High Crimes is a cinematic misdemeanor, a routine crime thriller remarkable only for its lack of logic and misuse of two fine actors, Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd.
-2 Rob Schneider's infantile cross-dressing routines fill The Hot Chick, the latest gimmick from this unimaginative comedian.
-1 Never does ``Lilo & Stitch'' reach the emotion or timelessness of Disney's great past, or even that of more recent successes such as ``Mulan'' or ``Tarzan.''
-1 lazily and glumly settles into a most traditional, reserved kind of filmmaking.
1  Boasts enough funny dialogue and sharp characterizations to be mildly amusing.
-2 We can't accuse Kung Pow for misfiring, since it is exactly what it wants to be: an atrociously, mind-numbingly, indescribably bad movie.
0  Defies logic, the laws of physics and almost anyone's willingness to believe in it.
0  `Enigma' is the kind of engaging historical drama that Hollywood appears to have given up on in favor of sentimental war movies in the vein of `We Were Soldiers.'
2  An impressive hybrid.
-1 A movie that can't get sufficient distance from Leroy's delusions to escape their maudlin influence.
-2 Idiotic and ugly.
0  What might've been an exhilarating exploration of an odd love triangle becomes a sprawl of uncoordinated vectors.
0  It has the right approach and the right opening premise, but it lacks the zest and it goes for a plot twist instead of trusting the material.
1  Ultimately engages less for its story of actorly existential despair than for its boundary-hopping formal innovations and glimpse into another kind of Chinese `cultural revolution.'
-1 A backhanded ode to female camaraderie penned by a man who has little clue about either the nature of women or of friendship.
0  Bad in such a bizarre way that it's almost worth seeing, if only to witness the crazy confluence of purpose and taste.
2  A surprisingly funny movie.
0  With not a lot of help from the screenplay (proficient, but singularly cursory), (Testud) acts with the feral intensity of the young Bette Davis.
1  Cletis is playful but highly studied and dependent for its success on a patient viewer.
1  Rife with the rueful, wry humor springing out of Yiddish culture and language.
1  Two Weeks Notice has appeal beyond being a Sandra Bullock vehicle or a standard romantic comedy.
0  than `Magnifique'.
0  Cockettes has the glorious, gaudy benefit of much stock footage of Those Days, featuring all manner of drag queen, bearded lady and lactating hippie.
-2 It's horribly depressing and not very well done.
-1 The kids in the audience at the preview screening seemed bored, cheering the pratfalls but little else; their parents, wise folks that they are, read books.
2  Michael Moore's latest documentary about America's thirst for violence is his best film yet...
2  One of the best rock documentaries ever.
-2 A terrible movie that some people will nevertheless find moving.
0  This is more a case of `Sacre bleu!'
-1 Reggio and Glass so rhapsodize cynicism, with repetition and languorous slo-mo sequences, that Glass's dirgelike score becomes a fang-baring lullaby.
2  With Dickens' words and writer-director Douglas McGrath's even-toned direction, a ripping good yarn is told.
-1 A dramatic comedy as pleasantly dishonest and pat as any Hollywood fluff.
0  Let's face it -- there aren't many reasons anyone would want to see Crossroads if they're not big fans of teen pop kitten Britney Spears.
0  Sa da TAY!
-1 Simplistic, silly and tedious.
1  (Russell) makes good B movies (The Mask, The Blob), and The Scorpion King more than ably meets those standards.
-1 The movie wavers between Hallmark card sentimentality and goofy, life-affirming moments straight out of a cellular phone commercial.
1  Fans of the modern day Hong Kong action film finally have the worthy successor to A Better Tomorrow and The Killer which they have been patiently waiting for.
-1 The overall feel is not unlike watching a glorified episode of ``7th Heaven.''
-1 The story itself is actually quite vapid.
0  This new Time Machine is hardly perfect... yet it proves surprisingly serviceable.
-2 Even by the intentionally low standards of frat-boy humor, Sorority Boys is a bowser.
-2 Rather, pity anyone who sees this mishmash.
-1 Despite Auteuil's performance, it's a rather listless amble down the middle of the road, where the thematic ironies are too obvious and the sexual politics too smug.
0  If horses could fly, this is surely what they'd look like.
1  A big-budget/all-star movie as unblinkingly pure as The Hours is a distinct rarity, and an event.
1  A huge box-office hit in Korea, Shiri is a must for genre fans.
0  Don Michael Paul uses quick-cuts, (very) large shadows and wide-angle shots taken from a distance to hide the liberal use of a body double (for Seagal).
0  It's clear that Mehta simply wanted to update her beloved genre for the thousands of Indians who fancy themselves too sophisticated for the cheese-laced spectacles that pack'em in on the subcontinent.
1  A wonderful, ghastly film.
2  As improbable as this premise may seem, Abbass's understated, shining performance offers us the sense that on some elemental level, Lilia deeply wants to break free of her old life.
0  Instead, he focuses on the anguish that can develop when one mulls leaving the familiar to traverse uncharted ground.
1  A timely look back at civil disobedience, anti-war movements and the power of strong voices.
1  It's stylishly directed with verve...
2  I had a dream that a smart comedy would come along to rescue me from a summer of teen-driven, toilet-humor codswallop, and its name was Earnest.
1  Demonstrates a vivid imagination and an impressive style that result in some terrific setpieces.
1  It is a strength of a documentary to disregard available bias, especially as temptingly easy as it would have been with this premise.
-2 The predominantly amateur cast is painful to watch, so stilted and unconvincing are the performances.
-1 Hmmm... might I suggest that the wayward wooden one end it all by stuffing himself into an electric pencil sharpener?
1  A pretty decent kid-pleasing, tolerable-to-adults lark of a movie.
1  A tightly directed, highly professional film that's old-fashioned in all the best possible ways.
2  You're not merely watching history, you're engulfed by it.
1  White Oleander may leave you rolling your eyes in the dark, but that doesn't mean you won't like looking at it.
-1 Bad Company has one of the most moronic screenplays of the year, full of holes that will be obvious even to those who aren't looking for them.
-1 The film doesn't show enough of the creative process or even of what was created for the non-fan to figure out what makes Wilco a big deal.
0  A drama?
0  A fast-paced, glitzy but extremely silly piece.
-1 Even if it made its original release date last fall, it would've reeked of a been-there, done-that sameness.
-2 It's hard to imagine acting that could be any flatter.
0  I'm sure the filmmakers found this a remarkable and novel concept, but
-1 All the sensuality, all the eroticism of a good vampire tale has been, pardon the pun, sucked out and replaced by goth goofiness.
-1 The events of the film are just so WEIRD that I honestly never knew what the hell was coming next.
-1 The problem is that Van Wilder does little that is actually funny with the material.
-2 The Ya-Ya's have many secrets and one is - the books are better.
-1 his (Nelson's) screenplay needs some serious re-working to show more of the dilemma, rather than have his characters stage shouting matches about it.
-1 Over and over again.
-1 This is not a Jackie Chan movie.
0  It's quite another to feel physically caught up in the process.
-1 But there's plenty to offend everyone...
-1 He thinks the film is just as much a document about him as it is about the subject.
1  What emerges is an unsettling picture of childhood innocence combined with indoctrinated prejudice.
1  Not quite as miraculous as its DreamWorks makers would have you believe, but it more than adequately fills the eyes and stirs the emotions.
-1 This isn't a new idea.
1  A tour de force drama about the astonishingly pivotal role of imagination in the soulful development of two rowdy teenagers.
0  That death is merely a transition is a common tenet in the world's religions.
0  Wiseman reveals the victims of domestic abuse in all of their pity and terror.
-2 It's all surface psychodramatics.
-1 While Scorsese's bold images and generally smart casting ensure that ``Gangs'' is never lethargic, the movie is hindered by a central plot that's peppered with false starts and populated by characters who are nearly impossible to care about.
1  Amy and Matthew have a bit of a phony relationship, but the film works in spite of it.
-1 One can only assume that the jury who bestowed star Hoffman's brother Gordy with the Waldo Salt Screenwriting award at 2002's Sundance Festival were honoring an attempt to do something different over actually pulling it off
-1 An affable but undernourished romantic comedy that fails to match the freshness of the actress-producer and writer's previous collaboration, Miss Congeniality.
2  A thoroughly entertaining comedy that uses Grant's own twist of acidity to prevent itself from succumbing to its own bathos.
1  Spielberg's picture is smarter and subtler than (Total Recall and Blade Runner), although its plot may prove too convoluted for fun-seeking summer audiences.
2  Chamber of Secrets will find millions of eager fans.
-1 An instantly forgettable snow-and-stuntwork extravaganza that likely will be upstaged by an avalanche of more appealing holiday-season product.
-2 After sitting through this sloppy, made-for-movie comedy special, it makes me wonder if Lawrence hates criticism so much that he refuses to evaluate his own work.
0  A chick flick for guys.
1  If you've the patience, there are great rewards here.
1  Among the many pleasures are the lively intelligence of the artists and their perceptiveness about their own situations.
1  The film reminds me of a vastly improved Germanic version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding -- with better characters, some genuine quirkiness and at least a measure of style.
0  Harvard Man is a semi-throwback, a reminiscence without nostalgia or sentimentality.
1  Diaz, Applegate, Blair and Posey are suitably kooky which should appeal to women and they strip down often enough to keep men alert, if not amused.
-2 Plotless collection of moronic stunts is by far the worst movie of the year.
1  It all plays out... like a high-end John Hughes comedy, a kind of Elder Bueller's Time Out.
-2 A smug and convoluted action-comedy that doesn't allow an earnest moment to pass without reminding audiences that it's only a movie.
-1 Love Liza is a festival film that would have been better off staying on the festival circuit.
1  Simple, poignant and leavened with humor, it's a film that affirms the nourishing aspects of love and companionship.
0  Presents a good case while failing to provide a reason for us to care beyond the very basic dictums of human decency.
1  This seductive tease of a thriller gets the job done.
2  The movie is ingenious fun.
0  Noyce creates a film of near-hypnotic physical beauty even as he tells a story as horrifying as any in the heart-breakingly extensive annals of white-on-black racism.
0  It's a fanboy `what if?'
2  Melds derivative elements into something that is often quite rich and exciting, and always a beauty to behold.
-2 As plain and pedestrian as catsup --
0  `Like a child with an important message to tell... (Skins') faults are easy to forgive because the intentions are lofty.'
-2 It isn't that Stealing Harvard is a horrible movie -- if only it were that grand a failure!
-1 When your subject is illusion versus reality, shouldn't the reality seem at least passably real?
-2 This is the kind of movie that gets a quick release before real contenders arrive in September.
2  For devotees of French cinema, Safe Conduct is so rich with period minutiae it's like dying and going to celluloid heaven.
0  You can see the would-be surprises coming a mile away, and the execution of these twists is delivered with a hammer.
-1 If only Merchant paid more attention the story.
1  As the princess, Sorvino glides gracefully from male persona to female without missing a beat.
-1 The things this movie tries to get the audience to buy just won't fly with most intelligent viewers.
1  Though its rather routine script is loaded with familiar situations, the movie has a cinematic fluidity and sense of intelligence that makes it work more than it probably should.
0  It's a brilliant, honest performance by Nicholson, but the film is an agonizing bore except when the fantastic Kathy Bates turns up.
0  cynical and serious look at teenage boys doing what they do best - being teenagers.
-1 This is for the most part a useless movie, even with a great director at the helm.
-2 Mr. Deeds is not really a film as much as it is a loose collection of not-so-funny gags, scattered moments of lazy humor.
2  Secretary manages a neat trick, bundling the flowers of perversity, comedy and romance into a strangely tempting bouquet of a movie.
-2 It's dull, spiritless, silly and monotonous: an ultra-loud blast of pointless mayhem, going nowhere fast.
0  Yet another weepy Southern bore-athon.
0  It's actually pretty funny, but in all the wrong places.
-2 Madonna has made herself over so often now, there's apparently nothing left to work with, sort of like Michael Jackson's nose.
-1 Bottom-rung New Jack City wannabe.
1  There is a general air of exuberance in All About The Benjamins that's hard to resist.
1  There is a certain sense of experimentation and improvisation to this film that may not always work, but it is nevertheless compelling.
0  The film is a masterpiece of nuance and characterization, marred only by an inexplicable, utterly distracting blunder at the very end.
1  Playfully profound... and crazier than Michael Jackson on the top floor of a skyscraper nursery surrounded by open windows.
1  (Gosling's) combination of explosive physical energy and convincing intelligence helps create a complex, unpredictable character.
2  Both a beautifully made nature film and a tribute to a woman whose passion for this region and its inhabitants still shines in her quiet blue eyes.
1  Dense, exhilarating documentary.
-2 Not even Steven Spielberg has dreamed up such blatant and sickening product placement in a movie.
-1 As it stands, Crocodile Hunter has the hurried, badly cobbled look of the 1959 Godzilla, which combined scenes of a Japanese monster flick with canned shots of Raymond Burr commenting on the monster's path of destruction.
-2 Those of you who are not an eighth grade girl will most likely doze off during this one.
-2 is that it's a crime movie made by someone who obviously knows nothing about crime.
1  The movie, despite its rough edges and a tendency to sag in certain places, is wry and engrossing.
-1 A noble failure.
-2 Becomes a bit of a mishmash: a tearjerker that doesn't and a thriller that won't.
1  As ex-Marine Walter, who may or may not have shot Kennedy, actor Raymond J. Barry is perfectly creepy and believable.
0  It's not a bad plot; but, unfortunately, the movie is nowhere near as refined as all the classic dramas it borrows from.
-1 Until its final minutes this is a perceptive study of two families in crisis -- and of two girls whose friendship is severely tested by bad luck and their own immaturity.
1  I liked a lot of the smaller scenes.
1  Beautifully reclaiming the story of Carmen and recreating it an in an African idiom.
-2 but rather, `How can you charge money for this?'
1  What could have been a daytime soap opera is actually a compelling look at a young woman's tragic odyssey.
-1 For a film about action, Ultimate X is the gabbiest giant-screen movie ever, bogging down in a barrage of hype.
-2 No one involved, save Dash, shows the slightest aptitude for acting, and the script, credited to director Abdul Malik Abbott and Ernest `Tron' Anderson, seems entirely improvised.
2  Insanely hilarious!
-2 There is no psychology here, and no real narrative logic -- just a series of carefully choreographed atrocities, which become strangely impersonal and abstract.
0  The ending doesn't work... but most of the movie works so well I'm almost recommending it, anyway -- maybe not to everybody, but certainly to people with a curiosity about how a movie can go very right, and then step wrong.
-2 The cumulative effect of watching this 65-minute trifle is rather like being trapped while some weird relative trots out the video he took of the family vacation to Stonehenge.
-1 A waterlogged version of `Fatal Attraction' for the teeny-bopper set... a sad, soggy potboiler that wastes the talents of its attractive young leads.
0  Indeed, none of these words really gets at the very special type of badness that is Deuces Wild.
-2 Completely creatively stillborn and executed in a manner that I'm not sure could be a single iota worse... a soulless hunk of exploitative garbage.
1  There aren't many conclusive answers in the film, but there is an interesting story of pointed personalities, courage, tragedy and the little guys vs. the big guys.
-2 Aside from the fact that the film idiotically uses the website feardotcom.com or the improperly hammy performance from poor Stephen Rea, the film gets added disdain for the fact that it is nearly impossible to look at or understand.
-1 Insufferably naive.
-1 Animated drivel meant to enhance the self-image of drooling idiots.
2  The performances are remarkable.
-2 Tries so hard to be quirky and funny that the strain is all too evident.
0  it may play well as a double feature with mainstream foreign mush like My Big Fat Greek Wedding
-2 (Creates) the worst kind of mythologizing, the kind that sacrifices real heroism and abject suffering for melodrama.
1  The wonderfully lush Morvern Callar is pure punk existentialism, and Ms. Ramsay and her co-writer, Liana Dognini, have dramatized the Alan Warner novel, which itself felt like an answer to Irvine Welsh's book Trainspotting.
-1 Too bad writer-director Adam Rifkin situates it all in a plot as musty as one of the Golden Eagle's carpets.
2  A smart, sassy and exceptionally charming romantic comedy.
-1 Yet another iteration of what's become one of the movies' creepiest conventions, in which the developmentally disabled are portrayed with almost supernatural powers to humble, teach and ultimately redeem their mentally ``superior'' friends, family...
-1 A droll, bitchy frolic which pokes fun at the price of popularity and small-town pretension in the Lone Star State.
-1 These self-styled athletes have banged their brains into the ground so frequently and furiously, their capacity to explain themselves has gone the same way as their natural instinct for self-preservation.
-1 No amount of good acting is enough to save Oleander's uninspired story.
-2 No amount of nostalgia for Carvey's glory days can disguise the fact that the new film is a lame kiddie flick and that Carvey's considerable talents are wasted in it.
-2 ... pays tribute to heroes the way Julia Roberts hands out awards -- with phony humility barely camouflaging grotesque narcissism.
-1 More likely to have you scratching your head than hiding under your seat.
1  The beauty of the piece is that it counts heart as important as humor.
0  This is NOT a retread of ``Dead Poets' Society.''
0  Pumpkin struts about with ``courage'' pinned to its huckster lapel while a yellow streak a mile wide decorates its back.
1  A directorial tour de force by Bernard Rose, ivans xtc.
0  May be the most undeserving victim of critical overkill since Town and Country.
-1 A straight-ahead thriller that never rises above superficiality.
2  It tends to remind one of a really solid Woody Allen film, with its excellent use of New York locales and sharp writing
0  Films are made of little moments.
0  In a strange way, Egoyan has done too much.
1  Wise and deadpan humorous.
-1 Instead of panoramic sweep, Kapur gives us episodic choppiness, undermining the story's emotional thrust.
-2 It's too interested in jerking off in all its Byzantine incarnations to bother pleasuring its audience.
2  The film is a hoot, and is just as good, if not better than much of what's on Saturday morning TV especially the pseudo-educational stuff we all can't stand.
1  `What's the Russian word for Wow!?'
0  Pascale Bailly's rom-com
0  A very pretty after-school special.
1  Catch it... if you can!
1  This real-life Hollywood fairy-tale is more engaging than the usual fantasies Hollywood produces.
1  It is Scott's convincing portrayal of Roger the sad cad that really gives the film its oomph.
-1 Shallow.
1  Screenwriter Dan Schneider and director Shawn Levy substitute volume and primary colors for humor and bite.
1  A film that will enthrall the whole family.
-2 True to its animatronic roots:... as stiff, ponderous and charmless as a mechanical apparatus... `The Country Bears' should never have been brought out of hibernation.
-1 The filmmakers are playing to the Big Boys in New York and L.A. To that end, they mock the kind of folks they don't understand, ones they figure the power-lunchers don't care to understand, either.
-2 The biggest problem with Roger Avary's uproar against the MPAA is that, even in all its director's cut glory, he's made a film that's barely shocking, barely interesting and most of all, barely anything.
-1 (T) oo many of these gross out scenes...
2  It's a head-turner -- thoughtfully written, beautifully read and, finally, deeply humanizing.
1  To others, it will remind them that Hong Kong action cinema is still alive and kicking.
2  A poignant comedy that offers food for thought.
0  About as original as a gangster sweating bullets while worrying about a contract on his life.
-1 Its weighty themes are too grave for youngsters, but the story is too steeped in fairy tales and other childish things to appeal much to teenagers.
1  While the story's undeniably hard to follow, Iwai's gorgeous visuals seduce.
2  Extraordinary debut from Josh Koury.
0  Smothered by its own solemnity.
1  Even if it pushes its agenda too forcefully, this remains a film about something, one that attempts and often achieves a level of connection and concern.
-1 Writer-director Walter Hill and co-writer David Giler try to create characters out of the obvious cliches, but wind up using them as punching bags.
2  Secret Ballot is a funny, puzzling movie ambiguous enough to be engaging and oddly moving.
-2 It's as sorry a mess as its director's diabolical debut, Mad Cows.
-1 While this film has an `A' list cast and some strong supporting players, the tale -- like its central figure, Vivi -- is just a little bit hard to love.
-1 As for children, they won't enjoy the movie at all.
2  It's no lie -- Big Fat Liar is a real charmer.
2  A witty, low-key romantic comedy.
0  Streamlined to a tight, brisk 85-minute screwball thriller, ``Big Trouble'' is funny, harmless and as substantial as a tub of popcorn with extra butter.
-1 Death might be a release.
1  Spirit is a visual treat, and it takes chances that are bold by studio standards, but it lacks a strong narrative.
-2 If you go, pack your knitting needles.
1  Implicitly acknowledges and celebrates the glorious chicanery and self-delusion of this most American of businesses, and for that reason it may be the most oddly honest Hollywood document of all.
1  Much of The Lady and the Duke is about quiet, decisive moments between members of the cultural elite as they determine how to proceed as the world implodes.
1  The movie is pretty funny now and then without in any way demeaning its subjects.
-1 A movie that's held captive by mediocrity.
2  It's a treat -- a delightful, witty, improbable romantic comedy with a zippy jazzy score... Grant and Bullock make it look as though they are having so much fun.
0  Whereas the extremely competent hitman films such as Pulp Fiction and Get Shorty resonate a sardonic verve to their caustic purpose for existing, Who Is Cletis Tout?
1  It's probably worth catching solely on its visual merits.
0  Bartlett's hero remains a reactive cipher, when opening the man's head and heart is the only imaginable reason for the film to be made.
-1 You may think you have figured out the con and the players in this debut film by Argentine director Fabian Bielinsky, but while you were thinking someone made off with your wallet.
1  A sharp and quick documentary that is funny and pithy, while illuminating an era of theatrical comedy that, while past, really isn't.
-2 A major waste... generic.
-1 (Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai are) sure to find an enthusiastic audience among American action-adventure buffs, but the film's interests may be too narrow to attract crossover viewers.
-2 The movie is a dud.
2  It's a fun adventure movie for kids (of all ages) that like adventure.
1  It's the type of film about growing up that we don't see often enough these days: realistic, urgent, and not sugarcoated in the least.
-1 A great script brought down by lousy direction.
-1 Unless you come in to the film with a skateboard under your arm, you're going to feel like you weren't invited to the party.
-1 It's so downbeat and nearly humorless that it becomes a chore to sit through -- despite some first-rate performances by its lead.
2  No Such Thing is sort of a minimalist Beauty and the Beast, but in this case the Beast should definitely get top billing.
-1 This picture is mostly a lump of run-of-the-mill profanity sprinkled with a few remarks so geared toward engendering audience sympathy that you might think he was running for office -- or trying to win over a probation officer.
0  Tells (the story) with such atmospheric ballast that shrugging off the plot's persnickety problems is simply a matter of (being) in a shrugging mood.
2  Fast-paced and wonderfully edited, the film is extremely thorough.
2  Gives everyone something to shout about.
1  A showcase for both the scenic splendor of the mountains and for legendary actor Michel Serrault, the film is less successful on other levels.
-1 There are few things more frustrating to a film buff than seeing an otherwise good movie marred beyond redemption by a disastrous ending.
-1 into How Long Is This Movie?
-1 When the fire burns out, we've only come face-to-face with a couple dragons and that's where the film ultimately fails.
-1 Parker updates the setting in an attempt to make the film relevant today, without fully understanding what it was that made the story relevant in the first place.
-1 But what is missing from it all is a moral.
0  OK arthouse.
1  The film, while not exactly assured in its execution, is notable for its sheer audacity and openness.
1  Not only a reminder of how they used to make movies, but also how they sometimes still can be made.
-1 True to its title, it traps audiences in a series of relentlessly nasty situations that we would pay a considerable ransom not to be looking at.
0  It follows the basic plot trajectory of nearly every Schwarzenegger film: Someone crosses Arnie.
1  The hot topics of the plot are relegated to the background -- a welcome step forward from the Sally Jesse Raphael atmosphere of films like Philadelphia and American Beauty.
-1 contrasting the original Ringu with the current Americanized adaptation is akin to comparing The Evil Dead with Evil Dead II
1  There are so few films about the plight of American Indians in modern America that Skins comes as a welcome, if downbeat, missive from a forgotten front.
1  Director Paul Cox's unorthodox, abstract approach to visualizing Nijinsky's diaries is both stimulating and demanding.
1  While there's likely very little crossover appeal to those without much interest in the Elizabethans (as well as rank frustration from those in the know about Rubbo's dumbed-down tactics), Much Ado About Something is an amicable endeavor.
1  The film is a fierce dance of destruction.
-1 It's impossible to even categorize this as a smutty guilty pleasure.
-1 Nothing more than a widget cranked out on an assembly line to see if stupid Americans will get a kick out of goofy Brits with cute accents performing ages-old slapstick and unfunny tricks.
1  And that makes all the difference.
-2 It looks like an action movie, but it's so poorly made, on all levels, that it doesn't even qualify as a spoof of such.
0  Like being invited to a classy dinner soiree and not knowing anyone.
-2 What we get in FearDotCom is more like something from a bad Clive Barker movie.
-1 Knockaround Guys plays like a student film by two guys who desperately want to be Quentin Tarantino when they grow up.
-2 The story is lacking any real emotional impact, and the plot is both contrived and cliched.
2  You'll probably love it.
-2 One sloughs one's way through the mire of this alleged psychological thriller in search of purpose or even a plot.
0  Cynics need not apply.'
0  An involving, inspirational drama that sometimes falls prey to its sob-story trappings.
1  A sense of real magic, perhaps.
2  Bouquet gives a performance that is masterly.
-1 Yes, Spirited Away is a triumph of imagination, but it's also a failure of storytelling.
0  s face is chillingly unemotive, yet he communicates a great deal in his performance.
-1 Shrewd but pointless.
1  A heady, biting, be-bop ride through nighttime Manhattan, a loquacious videologue of the modern male and the lengths to which he'll go to weave a protective cocoon around his own ego.
0  If all of Eight Legged Freaks was as entertaining as the final hour, I would have no problem giving it an unqualified recommendation.
1  A weird little movie that's amusing enough while you watch it, offering fine acting moments and pungent insights into modern L.A.'s show-biz and media subcultures.
0  A lack of thesis makes Maryam, in the end, play out with the intellectual and emotional impact of an after-school special.
-1 A high-minded snoozer.
1  `it's better to go in knowing full well what's going to happen, but willing to let the earnestness of its execution and skill of its cast take you down a familiar road with a few twists.
-1 A little less extreme than in the past, with longer exposition sequences between them, and with fewer gags to break the tedium.
0  The camera twirls!
1  This version does justice both to Stevenson and to the sci-fi genre.
-1 A boring masquerade ball where normally good actors, even Kingsley, are made to look bad.
1  If you are into splatter movies, then you will probably have a reasonably good time with The Salton Sea.
1  They're just a couple of cops in Copmovieland, these two, but in Narc, they find new routes through a familiar neighborhood.
-2 Hate it because it's lousy.
1  Nicks refuses to let Slackers be seen as just another teen movie, which means he can be forgiven for frequently pandering to fans of the gross-out comedy.
2  Director Lee has a true cinematic knack, but it's also nice to see a movie with its heart so thoroughly, unabashedly on its sleeve.
-2 ... a movie that, quite simply, shouldn't have been made.
1  - style cross-country adventure... it has sporadic bursts of liveliness, some so-so slapstick and a few ear-pleasing songs on its soundtrack.
-1 Howard and his co-stars all give committed performances, but they're often undone by Howard's self-conscious attempts to find a `literary' filmmaking style to match his subject.
1  The film has the uncanny ability to right itself precisely when you think it's in danger of going wrong.
2  ... an enjoyably frothy `date movie'...
1  ... certainly an entertaining ride, despite many talky, slow scenes.
2  ... a series of tales told with the intricate preciseness of the best short story writing.
2  It's a wonderful, sobering, heart-felt drama.
1  The cast, collectively a successful example of the lovable-loser protagonist, shows deft comic timing.
-1 Its plot and animation offer daytime TV serviceability, but little more.
-1 On the evidence before us, the answer is clear: Not easily and, in the end, not well enough.
0  It is not what you see, it is what you think you see.
1  Canada's arctic light shines bright on this frozen tundra soap opera that breathes extraordinary life into the private existence of the Inuit people.
-2 Several uninteresting, unlikeable people do bad things to and with each other in ``Unfaithful.''
-1 Plays like the old disease-of-the-week small-screen melodramas.
1  Alternating between facetious comic parody and pulp melodrama, this smart-aleck movie... tosses around some intriguing questions about the difference between human and android life.
-1 If I want a real movie, I'll buy the Criterion DVD.
1  A deliberative account of a lifestyle characterized by its surface-obsession -- one that typifies the delirium of post, pre, and extant stardom.
2  Lux, now in her eighties, does a great combination act as narrator, Jewish grandmother and subject -- taking us through a film that is part biography, part entertainment and part history.
-1 Video games are more involving than this mess.
1  Features Fincher's characteristically startling visual style and an almost palpable sense of intensity.
-1 None of the characters or plot-lines are fleshed-out enough to build any interest.
-1 Otherwise, this could be a passable date film.
0  Are monsters born, or made?
-1 All of the elements are in place for a great film noir, but director George Hickenlooper's approach to the material is too upbeat.
1  A little melodramatic, but with enough hope to keep you engaged.
0  Generic slasher-movie nonsense, but it's not without style.
1  A superlative B movie -- funny, sexy, and rousing.
0  It didn't go straight to video.
-2 The misery of these people becomes just another voyeuristic spectacle, to be consumed and forgotten.
-1 Aan opportunity wasted.
-2 This stuck pig of a movie flails limply between bizarre comedy and pallid horror.
-1 It is bad, but certainly not without merit as entertainment.
2  One of the most original American productions this year, you'll find yourself remembering this refreshing visit to a Sunshine State.
-1 A bland animated sequel that hardly seems worth the effort.
-1 Maybe LeBlanc thought, ``Hey, the movie about the baseball-playing monkey was worse.''
1  From its invitingly upbeat overture to its pathos-filled but ultimately life-affirming finale, Martin is a masterfully conducted work.
1  Poignant Japanese epic about adolescent anomie and heartbreak.
1  Great fun both for sports aficionados and for ordinary louts whose idea of exercise is climbing the steps of a stadium-seat megaplex.
-1 An excruciating demonstration of the unsalvageability of a movie saddled with an amateurish screenplay.
-1 Trying to make head or tail of the story in the hip-hop indie Snipes is enough to give you brain strain -- and the pay-off is negligible.
-1 It reduces the complexities to bromides and slogans and it gets so preachy-keen and so tub-thumpingly loud it makes you feel like a chump just for sitting through it.
1  Uneven, self-conscious but often hilarious spoof.
-1 Feeble comedy.
2  Many a parent and their teen (or preteen) kid could bond while watching A Walk To Remember.
0  A Jewish WW II doc that isn't trying simply to out-shock, out-outrage or out-depress its potential audience!
2  It's no surprise that as a director Washington demands and receives excellent performances, from himself and from newcomer Derek Luke.
1  Austin Powers for the most part is extremely funny, the first part making up for any flaws that come later.
0  A collage
1  Psychologically revealing.
-1 Serving Sara should be served an eviction notice at every theater stuck with it.
-1 ... expands the horizons of boredom to the point of collapse, turning into a black hole of dullness, from which no interesting concept can escape.
1  All three women deliver remarkable performances.
1  Leigh makes these lives count.
1  This is a nicely handled affair, a film about human darkness but etched with a light (yet unsentimental) touch.
0  Meant to reduce Blake's philosophy into a tragic coming-of-age saga punctuated by bursts of animator Todd McFarlane's superhero dystopia.
-1 But it also comes with the laziness and arrogance of a thing that already knows it's won.
1  What's really so appealing about the characters is their resemblance to everyday children.
0  will be far more interesting to the Soderbergh faithful than it will be to the casual moviegoer who might be lured in by Julia Roberts...
-1 A bore that tends to hammer home every one of its points.
-2 ... an airless, prepackaged Julia Roberts wannabe that stinks so badly of hard-sell image-mongering you'll wonder if Lopez's publicist should share screenwriting credit.
1  It is quite a vision.
2  I like this movie a lot.
1  An old-fashioned drama of substance about a teacher's slide down the slippery slope of dishonesty after an encounter with the rich and the powerful who have nothing but disdain for virtue.
-2 An ugly, pointless, stupid movie.
0  Ritchie may not have a novel thought in his head, but he knows how to pose Madonna.
1  Manages to delight without much of a story.
-1 The histrionic muse still eludes Madonna and, playing a charmless witch, she is merely a charmless witch.
1  If you're down for a silly hack-and-slash flick, you can do no wrong with Jason X.
0  If you thought Tom Hanks was just an ordinary big-screen star, wait until you've seen him eight stories tall.
-2 Her fans walked out muttering words like ``horrible'' and ``terrible,'' but had so much fun dissing the film that they didn't mind the ticket cost.
1  Bluto Blutarsky, we miss you.
0  You Should Pay Nine Bucks for This: Because you can hear about suffering Afghan refugees on the news and still be unaffected.
0  Eric Byler's nuanced pic avoids easy sentiments and explanations...
1  While obviously aimed at kids, The Country Bears... should keep parents amused with its low groan-to-guffaw ratio.
-1 Wildly incompetent but brilliantly named Half Past Dead -- or for Seagal pessimists: Totally Past His Prime.
-1 Most fish stories are a little peculiar, but this is one that should be thrown back in the river.
1  You may leave the theater with more questions than answers, but darned if your toes won't still be tapping.
1  While it has definite weaknesses -- like a rather unbelievable love interest and a meandering ending -- this '60s caper film is a riveting, brisk delight.
-2 There's no disguising this as one of the worst films of the summer.
1  Coy but exhilarating, with really solid performances by Ving Rhames and Wesley Snipes.
-1 Nijinsky says,' I know how to suffer' and if you see this film you'll know too.
0  There ain't a lot more painful than an unfunny movie that thinks it's hilarious.
1  No worse a film than Breaking Out, and Breaking Out was utterly charming.
0  Maid in Manhattan might not look so appealing on third or fourth viewing down the road... But as a high concept vehicle for two bright stars of the moment who can rise to fans' lofty expectations, the movie passes inspection.
1  Whether or not you buy Mr. Broomfield's findings, the film acquires an undeniable entertainment value as the slight, pale Mr. Broomfield continues to force himself on people and into situations that would make lesser men run for cover.
2  Third time's the charm... yeah, baby!
1  Quietly engaging.
-2 It all unfolds predictably, and the adventures that happen along the way seem repetitive and designed to fill time, providing no real sense of suspense.
0  Sometimes this modest little number clicks, and sometimes it doesn't.
2  It's always enthralling.
-1 Yet why it fails is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
2  Morvern Callar confirms Lynne Ramsay as an important, original talent in international cinema.
-1 If only it had the story to match.
0  to be more engaging on an emotional level, funnier, and on the whole less detached.
-1 about gays in what is essentially an extended soap opera
-2 It's possible that something hip and transgressive was being attempted here that stubbornly refused to gel, but the result is more puzzling than unsettling.
1  Slow and ponderous, but Rohmer's drama builds to an intense indoor drama about compassion, sacrifice, and Christian love in the face of political corruption.
0  ``The turntable is now outselling the electric guitar...''
1  Strip it of all its excess debris, and you'd have a 90-minute, four-star movie.
-1 Sadly, as Blood Work proves, that was a long, long time ago.
-1 Like Showgirls and Glitter, the most entertaining moments here are unintentional.
1  The footage of the rappers at play and the prison interview with Suge Knight are just two of the elements that will grab you.
1  Some Body will take you places you haven't been, and also places you have.
-2 The director, with his fake backdrops and stately pacing, never settles on a consistent tone.
1  A little uneven to be the cat's meow, but it's good enough to be the purr.
-1 Like its script, which nurses plot holes gaping enough to pilot an entire Olympic swim team through, the characters in Swimfan seem motivated by nothing short of dull, brain-deadening hangover.
-1 It's surprisingly bland despite the heavy doses of weird performances and direction.
-1 Disreputable doings and exquisite trappings are dampened by a lackluster script and substandard performances.
-1 An unencouraging threefold expansion on the former MTV series, accompanying the stunt-hungry dimwits in a random series of collected gags, pranks, pratfalls, dares, injuries, etc..
-1 This is a movie that starts out like Heathers, then becomes Bring it On, then becomes unwatchable.
0  Director Chris Eyre is going through the paces again with his usual high melodramatic style of filmmaking.
1  The observations of this social/economic/urban environment are canny and spiced with irony.
-2 Suffers from over-familiarity since hit-hungry British filmmakers have strip-mined the Monty formula mercilessly since 1997.
1  Generates an enormous feeling of empathy for its characters.
0  ``It's all about the image.''
-2 Sheridan is painfully bad, a fourth-rate Jim Carrey who doesn't understand the difference between dumb fun and just plain dumb.
2  Eric Schweig and Graham Greene both exude an air of dignity that's perfect for the proud warrior that still lingers in the souls of these characters.
1  Amidst the action, the script carries Arnold (and the viewers) into the forbidden zone of sympathizing with terrorist motivations by presenting the ``other side of the story.''
0  I would be shocked if there was actually one correct interpretation, but that shouldn't make the movie or the discussion any less enjoyable.
-2 The film feels formulaic, its plot and pacing typical Hollywood war-movie stuff, while the performances elicit more of a sense of deja vu than awe.
1  One of the smarter offerings the horror genre has produced in recent memory, even if it's far tamer than advertised.
-2 The issues are presented in such a lousy way, complete with some of the year's (unintentionally) funniest moments, that it's impossible to care.
1  A funny film.
2  Sayles has a knack for casting, often resurrecting performers who rarely work in movies now... and drawing flavorful performances from bland actors.
0  The photographer's show-don `t-tell stance is admirable, but it can make him a problematic documentary subject.
0  It is a testament of quiet endurance, of common concern, of reconciled survival.
1  If you're in the right B-movie frame of mind, it may just scare the pants off you.
1  Despite its shortcomings, Girls Can't Swim represents an engaging and intimate first feature by a talented director to watch, and it's a worthy entry in the French coming-of-age genre.
0  Weiss and Speck never make a convincing case for the relevance of these two 20th-century footnotes.
1  Even before it builds up to its insanely staged ballroom scene, in which 3000 actors appear in full regalia, it's waltzed itself into the art film pantheon.
1  Australia: Land Beyond Time is an enjoyable Big Movie primarily because Australia is a weirdly beautiful place.
2  Even if you've seen ``Stomp'' (the stage show), you still have to see this!
-2 There is nothing funny in this every-joke-has - been-told-a - thousand-times - before movie.
0  But if you've paid a matinee price and bought a big tub of popcorn, there's guilty fun to be had here.
1  that works.
-1 Although... visually striking and slickly staged, it's also cold, grey, antiseptic and emotionally desiccated.
0  A highly personal look at the effects of living a dysfunctionally privileged lifestyle, and by the end, we only wish we could have spent more time in its world.
2  Overall, Cletis Tout is a winning comedy that excites the imagination and tickles the funny bone.
-2 Rollerball IS as bad as you think, and worse than you can imagine.
2  may prove to be (Tsai's) masterpiece.
-1 Donovan... squanders his main asset, Jackie Chan, and fumbles the vital action sequences.
0  Dense and enigmatic... elusive... stagy and stilted
0  If the movie were all comedy, it might work better.
1  May lack the pungent bite of its title, but it's an enjoyable trifle nonetheless.
0  There are problems with this film that even 3 Oscar winners can't overcome, but it's a nice girl-buddy movie once it gets rock-n-rolling.
1  Rodriguez does a splendid job of racial profiling Hollywood style -- casting excellent Latin actors of all ages -- a trend long overdue.
0  Wouldn't it be funny if a bunch of Allied soldiers went undercover as women in a German factory during World War II?
1  Interesting both as a historical study and as a tragic love story.
0  Clayburgh and Tambor are charming performers; neither of them deserves Eric Schaeffer.
-1 One key problem with these ardently Christian storylines is that there is never any question of how things will turn out.
-2 It's so devoid of joy and energy it makes even Jason X... look positively Shakesperean by comparison.
-1 The darker elements of misogyny and unprovoked violence suffocate the illumination created by the two daughters and the sparse instances of humor meant to shine through the gloomy film noir veil.
-1 Predictably melodramatic.
1  Tends to pile too many ``serious issues'' on its plate at times, yet remains fairly light, always entertaining, and smartly written.
2  A marvel of production design.
2  Nicole Holofcener's Lovely and Amazing, from her own screenplay, jumps to the head of the class of women's films that manage to avoid the ghetto of sentimental chick-flicks by treating female follies with a satirical style.
0  But something seems to be missing.
-1 The connected stories of Breitbart and Hanussen are actually fascinating, but the filmmaking in Invincible is such that the movie does not do them justice.
-2 I have returned from the beyond to warn you: this movie is 90 minutes long, and life is too short.
-2 Although the sequel has all the outward elements of the original, the first film's lovely flakiness is gone, replaced by the forced funniness found in the dullest kiddie flicks.
2  Ozpetek's effort has the scope and shape of an especially well-executed television movie.
-1 Less a study in madness or love than a study in schoolgirl obsession.
-2 ... really horrible drek.
0  It's not particularly subtle... However, it still manages to build to a terrifying, if obvious, conclusion.
1  A terrific insider look at the star-making machinery of tinseltown.
1  The complex, politically charged tapestry of contemporary Chinese life this exciting new filmmaker has brought to the screen is like nothing we Westerners have seen before.
-1 Has enough gun battles and throwaway humor to cover up the yawning chasm where the plot should be.
2  Filled with honest performances and exceptional detail, Baran is a gentle film with dramatic punch, a haunting ode to humanity.
1  Though Nijinsky's words grow increasingly disturbed, the film maintains a beguiling serenity and poise that make it accessible for a non-narrative feature.
-2 The entire movie is so formulaic and forgettable that it's hardly over before it begins to fade from memory.
0  Yet another movie which presumes that high school social groups are at war, let alone conscious of each other's existence.
-2 A dim-witted and lazy spin-off of the Animal Planet documentary series, Crocodile Hunter is entertainment opportunism at its most glaring.
-1 In the not-too-distant future, movies like Ghost Ship will be used as analgesic balm for overstimulated minds.
1  It's truly awful and heartbreaking subject matter, but one whose lessons are well worth revisiting as many times as possible.
2  A fascinating, bombshell documentary that should shame Americans, regardless of whether or not ultimate blame finally lies with Kissinger.
1  And the reason for that is a self-aware, often self-mocking, intelligence.
1  For those who are intrigued by politics of the '70s, the film is every bit as fascinating as it is flawed.
2  Could I have been more geeked when I heard that Apollo 13 was going to be released in IMAX format?
1  If the film fails to fulfill its own ambitious goals, it nonetheless sustains interest during the long build-up of expository material.
-1 ... a confusing drudgery.
1  It is as uncompromising as it is nonjudgmental, and makes clear that a prostitute can be as lonely and needy as any of the clients.
0  Until (the) superfluous... epilogue that leaks suspension of disbelief like a sieve, Die Another Day is as stimulating & heart-rate-raising as any James Bond thriller.
0  Ensemble movies, like soap operas, depend on empathy.
2  Mostly honest, this somber picture reveals itself slowly, intelligently, artfully.
1  I couldn't recommend this film more.
2  The problems and characters it reveals are universal and involving, and the film itself -- as well its delightful cast -- is so breezy, pretty and gifted, it really won my heart.
2  Nair's cast is so large it's Altman-esque, but she deftly spins the multiple stories in a vibrant and intoxicating fashion.
1  Touches smartly and wistfully on a number of themes, not least the notion that the marginal members of society... might benefit from a helping hand and a friendly kick in the pants.
2  The artwork is spectacular and unlike most animaton from Japan, the characters move with grace and panache.
1  It strikes hardest... when it reminds you how pertinent its dynamics remain.
-1 Mr. Wollter and Ms. Seldhal give strong and convincing performances, but neither reaches into the deepest recesses of the character to unearth the quaking essence of passion, grief and fear.
0  Marinated
2  A film about female friendship that men can embrace and women will talk about for hours.
-1 Hollywood Ending just isn't very funny.
0  The film may not hit as hard as some of the better drug-related pictures, but it still manages to get a few punches in.
-1 Before it collapses into exactly the kind of buddy cop comedy it set out to lampoon, anyway.
1  Unlike lots of Hollywood fluff, this has layered, well-developed characters and some surprises.
0  An unflinching look at the world's dispossessed.
-1 Ultimately... the movie is too heady for children, and too preachy for adults.
-1 But seriously, folks, it doesn't work.
1  Too damn weird to pass up, and for the blacklight crowd, way cheaper (and better) than Pink Floyd tickets.
2  Sweetly sexy, funny and touching.
0  It's got some pretentious eye-rolling moments and it didn't entirely grab me, but there's stuff here to like.
-1 A muddy psychological thriller rife with miscalculations.
0  De Niro cries.
-1 A domestic melodrama with weak dialogue and biopic cliches.
1  It's a rare window on an artistic collaboration.
-2 May cause you to bite your tongue to keep from laughing at the ridiculous dialog or the oh-so convenient plot twists.
0  It's a 100-year old mystery that is constantly being interrupted by Elizabeth Hurley in a bathing suit.
2  Peppered with witty dialogue and inventive moments.
-1 So aggressively cheery that Pollyana would reach for a barf bag.
-1 (T) he film is never sure to make a clear point -- even if it seeks to rely on an ambiguous presentation.
-1 The cinematic equivalent of patronizing a bar favored by pretentious, untalented artistes who enjoy moaning about their cruel fate.
-1 Seems content to dog-paddle in the mediocre end of the pool, and it's a sad, sick sight.
1  Holland lets things peter out midway, but it's notably better acted -- and far less crass - than some other recent efforts in the burgeoning genre of films about black urban professionals.
0  ... little more than a well-acted television melodrama shot for the big screen.
-1 With elements cribbed from Lang's Metropolis, Welles' Kane, and Eisenstein's Potemkin
0  Sometimes this `Blood' seems as tired as its protagonist... Still, the pulse never disappears entirely, and the picture crosses the finish line winded but still game.
0  It's been made with an innocent yet fervid conviction that our Hollywood has all but lost.
1  Though the aboriginal aspect lends the ending an extraordinary poignancy, and the story itself could be played out in any working class community in the nation.
1  A tour de force of modern cinema.
-1 Murder by Numbers just doesn't add up.
0  ... the implication is Kissinger may have decided that -- when it comes to truncheoning -- it's better to give than to receive.
2  Brings together some of the biggest names in Japanese anime, with impressive results.
-1 It's so tedious that it makes you forgive every fake, dishonest, entertaining and, ultimately, more perceptive moment in Bridget Jones's Diary.
1  Offers a persuasive look at a defeated but defiant nation in flux.
-1 With the exception of McCoist, the players don't have a clue on the park.
-1 `Opening up' the play more has partly closed it down.
0  What it lacks in originality it makes up for in effective if cheap moments of fright and dread.
2  ... spellbinding fun and deliciously exploitative.
-1 He fails.
-2 The problem with ANTWONE FISHER is that it has a screenplay written by Antwone Fisher based on the book by Antwone Fisher.
-1 can be as tiresome as 9 seconds of Jesse Helms' anti- Castro rhetoric, which are included
-2 Bray is completely at sea; with nothing but a Savage Garden music video on his resume, he has no clue about making a movie.
-1 Maybe there's a metaphor here, but figuring it out wouldn't make Trouble Every Day any better.
-1 With Zoe Clarke-Williams's lackluster thriller ``New Best Friend'', who needs enemies?
-1 The film is hampered by its predictable plot and paper-thin supporting characters.
-1 Debut effort by ``Project Greenlight'' winner is sappy and amateurish.
1  It's a familiar story, but one that is presented with great sympathy and intelligence.
-1 Sadly, Full Frontal plays like the work of a dilettante.
0  It's not exactly worth the bucks to expend the full price for a date, but when it comes out on video, it's well worth a rental.
1  Children, Christian or otherwise, deserve to hear the full story of Jonah's despair -- in all its agonizing, Catch-22 glory -- even if they spend years trying to comprehend it.
2  Mazel tov to a film about a family's joyous life acting on the Yiddish stage.
-1 Unsurprisingly, the way this all works out makes the women look more like stereotypical caretakers and moral teachers, instead of serious athletes.
1  Much smarter and more attentive than it first sets out to be.
0  A fascinating but choppy documentary.
-1 This is a remake by the numbers, linking a halfwit plot to a series of standup routines in which Wilson and Murphy show how funny they could have been in a more ambitious movie.
1  An enjoyable, if occasionally flawed, experiment.
1  I'll go out on a limb.
0  just pile up.
2  A brutal and funny work.
-1 If nothing else, ``Rollerball'' 2002 may go down in cinema history as the only movie ever in which the rest of the cast was outshined by LL Cool J.
1  Chilling in its objective portrait of dreary, lost twenty-first century America.
0  There's no doubting that this is a highly ambitious and personal project for Egoyan, but it's also one that, next to his best work, feels clumsy and convoluted.
-1 The sequel plays out like a flimsy excuse to give Blade fans another look at Wesley Snipes' iconic hero doing battle with dozens of bad guys -- at once.
0  They should have found Orson Welles' great-grandson.
1  It offers a glimpse of the Solomonic decision facing Jewish parents in those turbulent times: to save their children and yet to lose them.
1  He's a better actor than a standup comedian.
-1 Really does feel like a short stretched out to feature length.
2  The film is a verbal duel between two gifted performers.
2  A deliciously nonsensical comedy about a city coming apart at its seams.
0  The camera whirls!
-1 This New Zealand coming-of-age movie isn't really about anything.
1  What makes the movie special is its utter sincerity.
2  (A) devastatingly powerful and astonishingly vivid Holocaust drama.
-1 A distinctly mixed bag, the occasional bursts of sharp writing alternating with lots of sloppiness and the obligatory moments of sentimental ooze.
-1 Flat, misguided comedy.
-1 With minimal imagination, you could restage the whole thing in your bathtub.
-1 I'm sorry to say that this should seal the deal - Arnold is not, nor will he be, back.
-1 The script boasts some tart TV-insider humor, but the film has not a trace of humanity or empathy.
2  It is definitely worth seeing.
1  Director Roger Kumble offers just enough sweet and traditional romantic comedy to counter the crudity.
-1 The problem with the mayhem in Formula 51 is not that it's offensive, but that it's boring.
-1 Although it starts off so bad that you feel like running out screaming, it eventually works its way up to merely bad rather than painfully awful.
-1 A worthy idea, but the uninspired scripts, acting and direction never rise above the level of an after-school TV special.
-2 This is absolutely and completely ridiculous and an insult to every family whose mother has suffered through the horrible pains of a death by cancer.
-2 Instead of a balanced film that explains the zeitgeist that is the X Games, we get a cinematic postcard that's superficial and unrealized.
-1 The adventure doesn't contain half the excitement of Balto, or quarter the fun of Toy Story 2.
0  Anemic chronicle of money grubbing New Yorkers and their serial loveless hook ups.
2  Remarkable for its excellent storytelling, its economical, compressed characterisations and for its profound humanity, it's an adventure story and history lesson all in one.
0  Creeps you out in high style, even if Nakata did it better.
0  downtown
-2 In all the annals of the movies, few films have been this odd, inexplicable and unpleasant.
1  Argento, at only 26, brings a youthful, out-to-change-the-world aggressiveness to the project, as if she's cut open a vein and bled the raw film stock.
1  Elaborate special effects take centre screen, so that the human story is pushed to one side.
2  The film has the courage of its convictions and excellent performances on its side.
0  ... its stupidities wind up sticking in one's mind a lot more than the cool bits.
1  Audiences are advised to sit near the back and squint to avoid noticing some truly egregious lip-non-synching, but otherwise the production is suitably elegant.
0  This rough trade Punch-and-Judy act didn't play well then and it plays worse now.
0  Whether our action-and-popcorn obsessed culture will embrace this engaging and literate psychodrama isn't much of a mystery, unfortunately.
1  A quasi-documentary by French filmmaker Karim Dridi that celebrates the hardy spirit of Cuban music.
-1 The only question... is to determine how well the schmaltz is manufactured -- to assess the quality of the manipulative engineering.
2  Solaris is rigid and evasive in ways that Soderbergh's best films, ``Erin Brockovich,'' ``Out of Sight'' and ``Ocean's Eleven,'' never were.
0  It's likely that whatever you thought of the first production -- pro or con -- you'll likely think of this one.
-1 ... familiar and predictable, and 4/5ths of it might as well have come from a Xerox machine rather than (writer-director) Franc.
1  A movie just for Friday fans, critics be damned.
1  If you come from a family that eats, meddles, argues, laughs, kibbitzes and fights together, then go see this delightful comedy.
-1 Laconic and very stilted in its dialogue, this indie flick never found its audience, probably because it's extremely hard to relate to any of the characters.
-1 The movie does such an excellent job of critiquing itself at every faltering half-step of its development that criticizing feels more like commiserating.
1  ... a solid, unassuming drama.
1  Much of this slick and sprightly CGI feature is sufficiently funny to amuse even the most resolutely unreligious parents who escort their little ones to megaplex screenings.
0  No big hairy deal.
-1 The package in which this fascinating -- and timely -- content comes wrapped is disappointingly generic.
1  Sparse but oddly compelling.
2  For most of its footage, the new thriller proves that director M. Night Shyamalan can weave an eerie spell and that Mel Gibson can gasp, shudder and even tremble without losing his machismo.
-1 It's mildly interesting to ponder the peculiar American style of justice that plays out here, but it's so muddled and derivative that few will bother thinking it all through.
0  Feardotcom's thrills are all cheap, but they mostly work.
-1 You try to guess the order in which the kids in the house will be gored.
-1 That the film opens with maggots crawling on a dead dog is not an out of place metaphor.
-1 Not really a thriller so much as a movie for teens to laugh, groan and hiss at.
2  Forget about one Oscar nomination for Julianne Moore this year - she should get all five.
0  The boys' sparring, like the succession of blows dumped on Guei, wears down the story's more cerebral, and likable, plot elements.
1  At its most basic, this cartoon adventure is that wind-in-the-hair exhilarating.
1  Simone is not a bad film.
2  Graphic sex may be what's attracting audiences to Unfaithful, but gripping performances by Lane and Gere are what will keep them awake.
0  The members manage to pronounce KOK exactly as you think they might, thus giving the cast ample opportunity to use that term as often as possible.
-1 There may have been a good film in ``Trouble Every Day,'' but it is not what is on the screen.
-1 Full Frontal had no effect and elicited no sympathies for any of the characters.
-2 ... a bland murder-on-campus yawner.
-2 The only problem is that, by the end, no one in the audience or the film seems to really care.
1  The most consistently funny of the Austin Powers films.
-2 This franchise has not spawned a single good film.
-2 One of the most incoherent features in recent memory.
1  A compelling yarn, but not quite a ripping one.
1  This is a visually stunning rumination on love, memory, history and the war between art and commerce.
0  If Signs is a good film, and it is, the essence of a great one is in there somewhere.
0  And that should tell you everything you need to know about All the Queen's Men.
-2 - spy action flick with Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu never comes together.
-1 `Dragonfly' dwells on crossing-over mumbo jumbo, manipulative sentimentality, and sappy dialogue.
1  Sayles has an eye for the ways people of different ethnicities talk to and about others outside the group.
1  It's always fascinating to watch Marker the essayist at work.
1  ``Mr. Deeds'' is suitable summer entertainment that offers escapism without requiring a great deal of thought.
2  Just about the best straight-up, old-school horror film of the last 15 years.
-1 The verdict: Two bodies and hardly a laugh between them.
1  (D) espite its familiar subject matter, Ice Age is consistently amusing and engrossing...
2  Here is a divine monument to a single man's struggle to regain his life, his dignity and his music.
1  Schaeffer isn't in this film, which may be why it works as well as it does.
1  Your children will be occupied for 72 minutes.
-2 This hastily mounted production exists only to capitalize on Hopkins' inclination to play Hannibal Lecter again, even though Harris has no immediate inclination to provide a fourth book.
0  A pint-sized `Goodfellas' designed to appeal to the younger set, it's not a very good movie in any objective sense, but it does mostly hold one's interest.
2  This documentary is a dazzling, remarkably unpretentious reminder of what (Evans) had, lost, and got back.
-1 As earnest as a community-college advertisement, American Chai is enough to make you put away the guitar, sell the amp, and apply to medical school.
1  A thoroughly enjoyable, heartfelt coming-of-age comedy.
1  It's better than The Phantom Menace.
0  An unintentional parody of every teen movie made in the last five years.
-2 This ludicrous film is predictable at every turn.
-1 The movie isn't painfully bad, something to be `fully experienced'; it's just tediously bad, something to be fully forgotten.
0  This will go on so long as there are moviegoers anxious to see strange young guys doing strange guy things.
1  Alternately hilarious and sad, aggravating and soulful, scathing and joyous.
2  The year 2002 has conjured up more coming-of-age stories than seem possible, but Take Care of My Cat emerges as the very best of them.
0  It briefly flirts with player masochism, but the point of real interest - -- audience sadism -- is evaded completely.
1  The best film of the year 2002.
2  A moving and not infrequently breathtaking film.
1  An ambitious `what if?'
2  A slam-bang extravaganza that is all about a wild-and-woolly, wall-to-wall good time.
-1 overstylized
-2 Vulgar is too optimistic a title.
1  Campanella's competent direction and his excellent cast overcome the obstacles of a predictable outcome and a screenplay that glosses over Rafael's evolution.
2  A refreshingly realistic, affectation-free coming-of-age tale.
-1 What's needed so badly but what is virtually absent here is either a saving dark humor or the feel of poetic tragedy.
1  Left me with the visceral sensation of longing, lasting traces of Charlotte's web of desire and desperation.
0  ``The Kid Stays in the Picture'' is a great story, terrifically told by the man who wrote it but this Cliff Notes edition is a cheat.
1  You can almost see Mendes and company getting together before a single frame had been shot and collectively vowing, `This is going to be something really good.'
-1 The screenwriters dig themselves in deeper every time they toss logic and science into what is essentially a ``Dungeons and Dragons'' fantasy with modern military weaponry...
1  A fascinating examination of the joyous, turbulent self-discovery made by a proper, middle-aged woman.
2  Its use of the thriller form to examine the labyrinthine ways in which people's lives cross and change, buffeted by events seemingly out of their control, is intriguing, provocative stuff.
0  Visually exciting sci-fi film which suffers from a lackluster screenplay.
0  A sterling film - a cross between Boys Don't Cry, Deliverance, and Ode to Billy Joe - lies somewhere in the story of Matthew Shepard, but that film is yet to be made.
0  Narc can only remind us of brilliant crime dramas without becoming one itself.
-2 The actors improvise and scream their way around this movie directionless, lacking any of the rollicking dark humor so necessary to make this kind of idea work on screen.
-1 Kapur weighs down the tale with bogus profundities.
0  Provides a porthole into that noble, trembling incoherence that defines us all.
2  One of the greatest films I've ever seen.
-1 By turns numbingly dull-witted and disquietingly creepy.
2  Poignant and moving, A Walk to Remember is an inspirational love story, capturing the innocence and idealism of that first encounter.
-1 While the production details are lavish, film has little insight into the historical period and its artists, particularly in how Sand developed a notorious reputation.
0  It's not life-affirming -- its vulgar and mean, but I liked it.
2  `Anyone with a passion for cinema, and indeed sex, should see it as soon as possible.'
2  To call this one an eventual cult classic would be an understatement, and woe is the horror fan who opts to overlook this goofily endearing and well-lensed gorefest.
-2 Sorority Boys, which is as bad at it is cruel, takes every potential laugh and stiletto-stomps the life out of it.
2  Adaptation is simply brilliant.
1  I enjoyed the movie in a superficial way, while never sure what its purpose was.
0  The sight of the name Bruce Willis brings to mind images of a violent battlefield action picture, but the film has a lot more on its mind -- maybe too much.
1  It will make you think twice about what might be going on inside each trailer park you drive past -- even if it chiefly inspires you to drive a little faster.
-1 Eight Legged Freaks falls flat as a spoof.
1  While it can be a bit repetitive, overall it's an entertaining and informative documentary.
1  Ultimately, ``MIB II'' succeeds due to its rapid-fire delivery and enough inspired levity that it can't be dismissed as mindless.
1  J. Lo will earn her share of the holiday box office pie, although this movie makes one thing perfectly clear: She's a pretty woman, but she's no working girl.
-2 Some writer dude, I think his name was, uh, Michael Zaidan, was supposed to have like written the screenplay or something, but, dude, the only thing that I ever saw that was written down were the zeroes on my paycheck.
0  But this is not a movie about an inhuman monster; it's about a very human one.
-1 There's a persistent theatrical sentiment and a woozy quality to the manner of the storytelling, which undercuts the devastatingly telling impact of utter loss personified in the film's simple title.
1  Splendidly illustrates the ability of the human spirit to overcome adversity.
1  The filmmakers know how to please the eye, but it is not always the prettiest pictures that tell the best story.
0  A fine film, but it would be a lot better if it stuck to Betty Fisher and left out the other stories.
0  But not a whit more.
-1 It's not a great monster movie.
0  Might best be enjoyed as a daytime soaper.
0  A drama of great power, yet some members of the audience will leave the theater believing they have seen a comedy.
-1 Though Tom Shadyac's film kicks off spookily enough, around the halfway mark it takes an abrupt turn into glucose sentimentality and laughable contrivance.
2  A must-see for fans of thoughtful war films and those interested in the sights and sounds of battle.
2  An enthralling aesthetic experience, one that's steeped in mystery and a ravishing, baroque beauty.
0  Berling and
0  High Crimes knows the mistakes that bad movies make and is determined not to make them, and maybe that is nobility of a sort.
-1 ZigZag might have been richer and more observant if it were less densely plotted.
-2 Despite all the closed-door hanky-panky, the film is essentially juiceless.
1  American musical comedy as we know it wouldn't exist without the precedent of Yiddish theater, whose jolly, fun-for-fun's - sake communal spirit goes to the essence of Broadway.
-2 A `Girls Gone Wild' video for the boho art-house crowd, The Burning Sensation isn't a definitive counter-cultural document -- its makers aren't removed and inquisitive enough for that.
0  Kurys never shows why, of all the period's volatile romantic lives, Sand and Musset are worth particular attention.
-1 Skip this dreck, rent Animal House and go back to the source.
-1 Reign of Fire never comes close to recovering from its demented premise, but it does sustain an enjoyable level of ridiculousness.
0  An overly melodramatic but somewhat insightful French coming-of-age film...
-1 ... a rather bland affair.
0  Only for young children, if them.
-2 ... it wasn't the subject matter that ultimately defeated the film... It was the unfulfilling, incongruous, ``wait a second, did I miss something?''
1  Toes the fine line between cheese and earnestness remarkably well; everything is delivered with such conviction that it's hard not to be carried away.
-1 ... comes alive only when it switches gears to the sentimental.
0  It may even fall into the category of Films You Love to Hate.
0  Those of you who don't believe in Santa Claus probably also think that sequels can never capture the magic of the original.
1  Grant carries the day with impeccable comic timing, raffish charm and piercing intellect.
2  Good fun, good action, good acting, good dialogue, good pace, good cinematography.
0  There are a few chuckles, but not a single gag sequence that really scores, and the stars seem to be in two different movies.
0  For all the complications, it's all surprisingly predictable.
1  Michael Moore has perfected the art of highly entertaining, self-aggrandizing, politically motivated documentary-making, and he's got as potent a topic as ever here.
0  Sometimes entertaining, sometimes indulgent -- but never less than pure wankery.
1  The difference between Cho and most comics is that her confidence in her material is merited.
1  Delivers the sexy razzle-dazzle that everyone, especially movie musical fans, has been hoping for.
-1 Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant make a great team, but this predictable romantic comedy should get a pink slip.
2  The film offers an intriguing what-if premise.
1  Wonder, hope and magic can never escape the heart of the boy when the right movie comes along, especially if it begins with the name of Star Wars
-2 Very stupid and annoying.
1  Aside from Rohmer's bold choices regarding point of view, The Lady and the Duke represents the filmmaker's lifelong concern with formalist experimentation in cinematic art.
1  `If you are in the mood for an intelligent weepy, it can easily worm its way into your heart.'
-2 In the end, the movie bogs down in insignificance, saying nothing about Kennedy's assassination and revealing nothing about the pathology it pretends to investigate.
-2 The picture emerges as a surprisingly anemic disappointment.
-1 Though Impostor deviously adopts the guise of a modern motion picture, it too is a bomb.
-1 `It looks good, Sonny, but you missed the point.'
-2 Crummy.
0  Essentially, the film is weak on detail and strong on personality
1  Cold, nervy and memorable.
2  A captivating coming-of-age story that may also be the first narrative film to be truly informed by the wireless age.
-2 Nothing about this movie works.
0  If Mr. Zhang's subject matter is, to some degree at least, quintessentially American, his approach to storytelling might be called Iranian.
0  It comes off as so silly that you wouldn't be surprised if BA, Murdock and rest of the A-Team were seen giving chase in a black and red van.
1  It's sort of in-between, and it works.
0  Impeccably filmed, sexually charged, but ultimately lacking in substance, not to mention dragged down by a leaden closing act.
0  `Tobey Maguire is a poster boy for the geek generation.'
0  With Freeman and Judd, I'll at least remember their characters.
0  A Lifetime movie about men.
2  Meeting, even exceeding expectations, it's the best sequel since The Empire Strikes Back... a majestic achievement, an epic of astonishing grandeur and surprising emotional depth.
1  If you're burnt out on It's a Wonderful Life marathons and bored with A Christmas Carol, it might just be the movie you're looking for.
-1 Parker can not sustain the buoyant energy level of the film's city beginnings into its country conclusion'
0  Kenneth Branagh's energetic sweet-and-sour performance as a curmudgeonly British playwright grounds this overstuffed, erratic dramedy in which he and his improbably forbearing wife contend with craziness and child-rearing in Los Angeles.
-2 Just another disjointed, fairly predictable psychological thriller.
-1 Pretend it's a werewolf itself by avoiding eye contact and walking slowly away.
2  A remarkable film by Bernard Rose.
1  With amazing finesse, the film shadows Heidi's trip back to Vietnam and the city where her mother, Mai Thi Kim, still lives.
-2 There's too much forced drama in this wildly uneven movie, about a young man's battle with his inescapable past and uncertain future in a very shapable but largely unfulfilling present.
-1 Tedious Norwegian offering which somehow snagged an Oscar nomination.
1  It looks closely, insightfully at fragile, complex relationships.
0  Mildly entertaining.
0  Some stunning visuals -- and some staggeringly boring cinema.
-2 From the choppy editing to the annoying score to `special effects' by way of replacing objects in a character's hands below the camera line, ``Besotted'' is misbegotten
1  The hypnotic imagery and fragmentary tale explore the connections between place and personal identity.
0  Ze movie starts out so funny, then she is nothing.
-1 Instead of trying to bust some blondes, (Diggs) should be probing why a guy with his talent ended up in a movie this bad.
0  Suffers from a decided lack of creative storytelling.
1  There's back-stabbing, inter-racial desire and, most importantly, singing and dancing.
1  Director Todd Solondz has made a movie about critical reaction to his two previous movies, and about his responsibility to the characters that he creates.
2  The enjoyable Undercover Brother, a zany mix of Saturday Night Live-style parody, '70s Blaxploitation films and goofball action comedy gone wild, dishes out a ton of laughs that everyone can enjoy.
-1 I found the movie as divided against itself as the dysfunctional family it portrays.
2  Between them, De Niro and Murphy make Showtime the most savory and hilarious guilty pleasure of many a recent movie season.
0  What `Dumb and Dumber' would have been without the vulgarity and with an intelligent, life-affirming script.
-2 A movie in which two not very absorbing characters are engaged in a romance you can't wait to see end.
1  ... spiced with humor (' I speak fluent flatula,' advises Denlopp after a rather, er, bubbly exchange with an alien deckhand) and witty updatings (Silver's parrot has been replaced with Morph, a cute alien creature who mimics everyone and everything around)
2  This is a sincerely crafted picture that deserves to emerge from the traffic jam of holiday movies.
2  What elevates the movie above the run-of-the-mill singles blender is its surreal sense of humor and technological finish.
0  While not quite a comedy, the film tackles its relatively serious subject with an open mind and considerable good cheer, and is never less than engaging.
0  While the new film is much more eye-catching than its blood-drenched Stephen Norrington-directed predecessor, the new script by the returning David S. Goyer is much sillier.
-1 Frankly, it's pretty stupid.
1  You'll know a star when you see one.
-1 An entertainment so in love with its overinflated mythology that it no longer recognizes the needs of moviegoers for real characters and compelling plots.
0  Yep, it's ``Waking up in Reno.''
0  Vividly conveys the shadow side of the 30-year friendship between two English women.
-1 The end result is like cold porridge with only the odd enjoyably chewy lump.
2  What makes Salton Sea surprisingly engrossing is that Caruso takes an atypically hypnotic approach to a world that's often handled in fast-edit, hopped-up fashion.
1  (P) artnering Murphy with Robert De Niro for the TV-cops comedy Showtime would seem to be surefire casting.
-1 Full of the kind of obnoxious chitchat that only self-aware neurotics engage in.
-1 This dubious product of a college-spawned (Colgate U.) comedy ensemble known as Broken Lizard plays like a mix of Cheech and Chong and CHiPs.
-1 Not only does LeBlanc make one spectacularly ugly-looking broad, but he appears miserable throughout as he swaggers through his scenes.
0  The climactic events are so well realized that you may forget all about the original conflict, just like the movie does
-2 A sleep-inducingly slow-paced crime drama with clumsy dialogue, heavy-handed phoney-feeling sentiment, and an overly-familiar set of plot devices.
0  Depending upon your reaction to this movie, you may never again be able to look at a red felt Sharpie pen without disgust, a thrill, or the giggles.
2  It's a cool event for the whole family.
1  The journey to the secret's eventual discovery is a separate adventure, and thrill enough.
-2 Coarse, cliched and clunky, this trifling romantic comedy in which opposites attract for no better reason than that the screenplay demands it squanders the charms of stars Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock.
0  Greengrass (working from Don Mullan's script) forgoes the larger socio-political picture of the situation in Northern Ireland in favour of an approach that throws one in the pulsating thick of a truly frightening situation.
0  Lan Yu is certainly a serviceable melodrama, but it doesn't even try for the greatness that Happy Together shoots for (and misses).
1  And Lee seems just as expectant of an adoring, wide-smiling reception.
0  If you're looking for a tale of Brits behaving badly, watch Snatch again.
-1 The movie is not as terrible as the synergistic impulse that created it.
2  Schnitzler does a fine job contrasting the sleekness of the film's present with the playful paranoia of the film's past.'
-1 A horror movie with seriously dumb characters, which somewhat dilutes the pleasure of watching them stalked by creepy-crawly bug things that live only in the darkness.
-2 ... plays like a badly edited, 91-minute trailer (and) the director can't seem to get a coherent rhythm going.
0  Twenty years later, Reggio still knows how to make a point with poetic imagery, but his ability to startle has been stifled by the very prevalence of the fast-forward technology that he so stringently takes to task.
0  You could love Safe Conduct (Laissez Passer) for being a subtitled French movie that is 170 minutes long.
2  Salma goes native and she's never been better in this colorful bio-pic of a Mexican icon.
-1 Borrows from other movies like it in the most ordinary and obvious fashion.
-1 You emerge dazed, confused as to whether you've seen pornography or documentary.
1  An average kid-empowerment fantasy with slightly above-average brains.
2  Ben Kingsley is truly funny, playing a kind of Ghandi gone bad.
1  Seeks to transcend its genre with a curiously stylized, quasi-Shakespearean portrait of pure misogynist evil.
-1 A sham construct based on theory, sleight-of-hand, and ill-wrought hypothesis.
1  Passion, melodrama, sorrow, laugther, and tears cascade over the screen effortlessly...
-2 Banal and predictable.
-2 You expect more from director Michael Apted (Enigma) and screenwriter Nicholas Kazan (Reversal of Fortune) than this cliche pileup.
-1 With flashbulb editing as cover for the absence of narrative continuity, Undisputed is nearly incoherent, an excuse to get to the closing bout... by which time it's impossible to care who wins.
1  The Chateau is a risky venture that never quite goes where you expect and often surprises you with unexpected comedy.
1  Watching Austin Powers in Goldmember is like binging on cotton candy.
-1 In the wrong hands, i.e. Peploe's, it's simply unbearable
-2 Two hours of junk.
0  A perfectly respectable, perfectly inoffensive, easily forgettable film.
2  A colorful, joyous celebration of life; a tapestry woven of romance, dancing, singing, and unforgettable characters.
0  So here it is: It's about a family of sour immortals.
-1 The film falls short on tension, eloquence, spiritual challenge -- things that have made the original New Testament stories so compelling for 20 centuries.
0  A cautionary tale about the grandiosity of a college student who sees himself as impervious to a fall.
1  An affectionately goofy satire that's unafraid to throw elbows when necessary...
2  In addition to Hoffman's powerful acting clinic, this is that rare drama that offers a thoughtful and rewarding glimpse into the sort of heartache everyone has felt, or will feel someday.
-1 When `science fiction' takes advantage of the fact that its intended audience hasn't yet had much science, it does a disservice to the audience and to the genre.
1  By halfway through this picture I was beginning to hate it, and, of course, feeling guilty for it... Then, miracle of miracles, the movie does a flip-flop.
1  ... a funny yet dark and seedy clash of cultures and generations.
-2 What's most offensive isn't the waste of a good cast, but the film's denial of sincere grief and mourning in favor of bogus spiritualism.
2  Everyone's insecure in Lovely and Amazing, a poignant and wryly amusing film about mothers, daughters and their relationships.
-2 It isn't quite one of the worst movies of the year.
1  Directed by Kevin Bray, whose crisp framing, edgy camera work, and wholesale ineptitude with acting, tone and pace very obviously mark him as a video helmer making his feature debut.
1  Hard to resist.
-2 An almost unbearably morbid love story.
1  Dark and unrepentant, this excursion into the epicenter of percolating mental instability is not easily dismissed or forgotten.
1  A pleasing, often-funny comedy.
-1 There's not a spark of new inspiration in it, just more of the same, done with noticeably less energy and imagination.
-1 Murphy and Wilson actually make a pretty good team... but the project surrounding them is distressingly rote.
-1 It's one thing to read about or rail against the ongoing - and unprecedented - construction project going on over our heads.
-1 Its and pieces of The Hot Chick are so hilarious, and Schneider's performance is so fine, it's a real shame that so much of the movie -- again, as in The Animal -- is a slapdash mess.
-1 The abiding impression, despite the mild hallucinogenic buzz, is of overwhelming waste -- the acres of haute couture can't quite conceal that there's nothing resembling a spine here.
2  Arguably the best script that Besson has written in years.
2  It's a lovely, eerie film that casts an odd, rapt spell.
-2 Unfortunately, it's also not very good.
1  Like Kubrick, Soderbergh isn't afraid to try any genre and to do it his own way.
-2 The kind of film that leaves you scratching your head in amazement over the fact that so many talented people could participate in such an ill-advised and poorly executed idea.
-1 Writer-director Ritchie reduces Wertmuller's social mores and politics to tiresome jargon.
1  The pleasures that it does afford may be enough to keep many moviegoers occupied amidst some of the more serious-minded concerns of other year-end movies.
0  Dull and mechanical, kinda like a very goofy museum exhibit
0  You know that ten bucks you'd spend on a ticket?
1  It puts Washington, as honest working man John Q. Archibald, on a pedestal, then keeps lifting the pedestal higher.
-1 Content merely to lionize its title character and exploit his anger - all for easy sanctimony, formulaic thrills and a ham-fisted sermon on the need for national health insurance.
1  A realistically terrifying movie that puts another notch in the belt of the long list of renegade-cop tales.
2  That Storytelling has value can not be denied.
-2 The main characters are simply named The Husband, The Wife and The Kidnapper, emphasizing the disappointingly generic nature of the entire effort.
2  Brilliantly written and well-acted, Yellow Asphalt is an uncompromising film.
1  Miller tells this very compelling tale with little fuss or noise, expertly plucking tension from quiet.
2  borrows a bit from the classics ``Wait Until Dark'' and ``Extremities''... But in terms of its style, the movie is in a class by itself.
0  Almost everything about the film is unsettling, from the preposterous hairpiece worn by Lai's villainous father to the endless action sequences.
1  An older cad instructs a younger lad in Zen and the art of getting laid in this prickly indie comedy of manners and misanthropy.
-1 Often demented in a good way, but it is an uneven film for the most part.
-1 While the ensemble player who gained notice in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch has the bod, he's unlikely to become a household name on the basis of his first starring vehicle.
-1 The advantage of a postapocalyptic setting is that it can be made on the cheap.
0  meanders between its powerful moments.
2  As commander-in-chief of this film, Bigelow demonstrates a breadth of vision and an attention to detail that propels her into the upper echelons of the directing world.
1  It may not be a great piece of filmmaking, but its power comes from its soul's - eye view of how well-meaning patronizing masked a social injustice, at least as represented by this case.
2  The entire cast is first-rate, especially Sorvino.
1  Walter Hill's Undisputed is like a 1940s Warner Bros..
2  ... could easily be called the best Korean film of 2002.
-2 A predictable, manipulative stinker.
0  The plot plummets into a comedy graveyard before Janice comes racing to the rescue in the final reel.
1  `Alice's adventure through the looking glass and into zombie-land' is filled with strange and wonderful creatures.
2  Part of the film's cheeky charm comes from its vintage schmaltz.
1  Yes, it's as good as you remember.
-1 As the Mediterranean sparkles, `Swept Away' sinks.
-2 This painfully unfunny farce traffics in tired stereotypes and encumbers itself with complications... that have no bearing on the story.
2  ... once the true impact of the day unfolds, the power of this movie is undeniable.
2  An interesting psychological game of cat-and-mouse, three-dimensional characters and believable performances all add up to a satisfying crime drama.
2  Nicole Kidman makes it a party worth attending.
0  The Balkans provide the obstacle course for the love of a good woman.
1  Its story about a young Chinese woman, Ah Na, who has come to New York City to replace past tragedy with the American Dream is one that any art-house moviegoer is likely to find compelling.
0  The Ring is worth a look, if you don't demand much more than a few cheap thrills from your Halloween entertainment.
-2 Make like the title and dodge this one.
-1 Its message has merit and, in the hands of a brutally honest individual like Prophet Jack, might have made a point or two regarding life.
1  Adaptation is intricately constructed and in a strange way nails all of Orlean's themes without being a true adaptation of her book.
1  It's a solid movie about people whose lives are anything but.
1  Nicks sustains the level of exaggerated, stylized humor throughout by taking your expectations and twisting them just a bit.
-1 The problem with ``X X X'' is that its own action isn't very effective.
0  There's a bit of thematic meat on the bones of Queen of the Damned, as its origins in an Anne Rice novel dictate, but generally, it's a movie that emphasizes style over character and substance.
1  The film is delicately narrated by Martin Landau and directed with sensitivity and skill by Dana Janklowicz-Mann.
-1 SC2 is an autopilot Hollywood concoction lacking in imagination and authentic Christmas spirit, yet it's geared toward an audience full of masters of both.
1  Remove Spider-Man the movie from its red herring surroundings and it's apparent that this is one summer film that satisfies.
1  A meatier deeper beginning and/or ending would have easily tipped this film into the ``A'' range, as is, it's a very very strong ``B +.''
2  ... a triumph of emotionally and narratively complex filmmaking.
2  A winning comedy with its wry observations about long-lived friendships and the ways in which we all lose track of ourselves by trying to please others.
2  Fantastic!
1  Large budget notwithstanding, the movie is such a blip on the year's radar screen that it's tempting just to go with it for the ride.
-2 It's uninteresting.
-1 Little more than a well-mounted history lesson.
2  Leave it to the French to truly capture the terrifying angst of the modern working man without turning the film into a cheap thriller, a dumb comedy or a sappy melodrama.
1  Although the film boils down to a lightweight story about matchmaking, the characters make Italian for Beginners worth the journey
-2 Will probably be one of those movies barely registering a blip on the radar screen of 2002.
-1 An incredibly narrow in-joke targeted to the tiniest segment of an already obscure demographic.
1  Hoffman's performance is authentic to the core of his being.
2  Bluer than the Atlantic and more biologically detailed than an autopsy, the movie... is, also, frequently hilarious.
1  Some remarkable achival film about how Shanghai (of all places) served Jews who escaped the Holocaust.
1  In painting an unabashedly romantic picture of a nation whose songs spring directly from the lives of the people, the movie exalts the Marxian dream of honest working folk, with little to show for their labor, living harmoniously, joined in song.
-1 Somewhere inside the mess that is World Traveler, there is a mediocre movie trying to get out.
1  Everything about The Quiet American is good, except its timing.
1  This rich, bittersweet Israeli documentary, about the life of song-and-dance-man Pasach `ke Burstein and his family, transcends ethnic lines.
2  Writer/director David Caesar ladles on the local flavour with a hugely enjoyable film about changing times, clashing cultures and the pleasures of a well-made pizza.
-1 I have to admit that I am baffled by Jason X.
2  A smart, compelling drama.
1  Drumline ably captures the complicated relationships in a marching band.
0  Oh, and Booty Call.
-2 It is messy, uncouth, incomprehensible, vicious and absurd.
1  Confessions is without a doubt a memorable directorial debut from King Hunk.
0  Don't expect any subtlety from this latest entry in the increasingly threadbare gross-out comedy cycle.
2  Canadian filmmaker Gary Burns' inventive and mordantly humorous take on the soullessness of work in the city.
-2 New ways of describing badness need to be invented to describe exactly how bad it is.
-1 A film that suffers because of its many excesses.
2  Brings an irresistible blend of warmth and humor and a consistent embracing humanity in the face of life's harshness.
-1 (The film's) taste for ``shock humor'' will wear thin on all but those weaned on the comedy of Tom Green and the Farrelly Brothers.
-1 Its screenplay serves as auto-critique, and its clumsiness as its own most damning censure.
2  Uplifting as only a document of the worst possibilities of mankind can be, and among the best films of the year.
-1 The film is flat.
1  A fascinating, unnerving examination of the delusions of one unstable man.
0  Feels as if the inmates have actually taken over the asylum.
1  This is unusual, food-for-thought cinema that's as entertaining as it is instructive.
1  Watching The Powerpuff Girls Movie, my mind kept returning to one anecdote for comparison: the cartoon in Japan that gave people seizures.
2  A funny, triumphant, and moving documentary.
1  Just when you think that every possible angle has been exhausted by documentarians, another new film emerges with yet another remarkable yet shockingly little-known perspective.
0  A witty, trenchant, wildly unsentimental but flawed look at the ins and outs of modern moviemaking.
0  Please.
1  A thriller with an edge -- which is to say that it doesn't follow the stale, standard, connect-the-dots storyline which has become commonplace in movies that explore the seamy underbelly of the criminal world.
0  No matter how you slice it, Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton are not Hepburn and Grant, two cinematic icons with chemistry galore.
-1 Death to Smoochy tells a moldy-oldie, not-nearly - as-nasty - as-it - thinks-it-is joke.
-2 Dripping with cliche and bypassing no opportunity to trivialize the material.
1  If you're looking for an intelligent movie in which you can release your pent up anger, ENOUGH is just the ticket you need.
-1 Unfortunately, there is almost nothing in this flat effort that will amuse or entertain them, either.
2  Not to mention absolutely refreshed.
-2 My precious new Star Wars movie is a lumbering, wheezy drag...
-1 Boyd's screenplay (co-written with Guardian hack Nick Davies) has a florid turn of phrase that owes more to Guy Ritchie than the Bard of Avon.
0  Bacon keeps things interesting, but don't go out of your way to pay full price.
-2 A horrible, 99-minute stink bomb.
-2 A laughable -- or rather, unlaughable -- excuse for a film.
-1 A big fat pain.
1  There's nothing more satisfying during a summer of event movies than a spy thriller like The Bourne Identity that's packed with just as much intelligence as action.
1  Like Mike isn't going to make box office money that makes Michael Jordan jealous, but it has some cute moments, funny scenes, and hits the target audience (young Bow Wow fans) - with nothing but net.
2  By turns very dark and very funny.
1  The Last Kiss will probably never achieve the popularity of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but its provocative central wedding sequence has far more impact.
-2 `Punch-Drunk Love is so convinced of its own brilliance that, if it were a person, you'd want to smash its face in.'
-1 I've had more interesting -- and, dare I say, thematically complex -- bowel movements than this long-on-the-shelf, point-and-shoot exercise in gimmicky crime drama.
2  Woody Allen has really found his groove these days.
-1 A soap-opera quality twist in the last 20 minutes... almost puts the kibosh on what is otherwise a sumptuous work of B-movie imagination.
1  A coming-of-age tale from New Zealand whose boozy, languid air is balanced by a rich visual clarity and deeply felt performances across the board.
0  ``What really happened?''
-1 ... less a story than an inexplicable nightmare, right down to the population's shrugging acceptance to each new horror.
2  ``The best Disney movie since the Lion King''
-2 A devastating indictment of unbridled greed and materalism.
-1 The whole movie is simply a lazy exercise in bad filmmaking that asks you to not only suspend your disbelief but your intelligence as well.
1  Skin Of Man gets a few cheap shocks from its kids-in-peril theatrics, but it also taps into the primal fears of young people trying to cope with the mysterious and brutal nature of adults.
0  Overall, it's a pretty mediocre family film.
1  But even while his characters are acting horribly, he is always sympathetic.
2  Impresses as a skillfully assembled, highly polished and professional adaptation... just about as chilling and unsettling as `Manhunter' was.
2  An engrossing and grim portrait of hookers: what they think of themselves and their clients.
-1 Makes the same mistake as the music industry it criticizes, becoming so slick and watered-down it almost loses what made you love it in the first place.
0  Some motion pictures portray ultimate passion; others create ultimate thrills.
-1 Yet another genre exercise, Gangster No. 1 is as generic as its title.
2  First and foremost... the reason to go see ``Blue Crush'' is the phenomenal, water-born cinematography by David Hennings.
-2 An awful lot like one of (Spears') music videos in content -- except that it goes on for at least 90 more minutes and, worse, that you have to pay if you want to see it.
-1 In other words, it's just another sports drama/character study.
1  It's not too fast and not too slow.
-2 Get out your pooper-scoopers.
-1 The one not-so-small problem with Expecting is that the entire exercise has no real point.
-1 Starts off witty and sophisticated and you want to love it -- but filmmaker Yvan Attal quickly writes himself into a corner.
1  According to Wendigo, `nature' loves the members of the upper class almost as much as they love themselves.
-1 Then you get another phone call warning you that if the video isn't back at Blockbuster before midnight, you're going to face frightening late fees.
1  Often messy and frustrating, but very pleasing at its best moments, it's very much like life itself.
-1 But unless you're an absolute raving Star Wars junkie, it isn't much fun.
-1 The inherent limitations of using a video game as the source material movie are once again made all too clear in this schlocky horror/action hybrid.
0  It's difficult for a longtime admirer of his work to not be swept up in Invincible and overlook its drawbacks.
2  With this masterful, flawless film, (Wang) emerges in the front ranks of China's now numerous, world-renowned filmmakers.
0  The farcical elements seemed too pat and familiar to hold my interest, yet its diverting grim message is a good one.
-1 Much like Robin Williams, Death to Smoochy has already reached its expiration date.
1  And for many of us, that's good enough.
0  Sinks into the usual cafeteria goulash of fart jokes, masturbation jokes, and racist Japanese jokes.
-1 A puzzle whose pieces do not fit.
-1 Though a capable thriller, somewhere along the way K-19 jettisoned some crucial drama.
-1 A movie you observe, rather than one you enter into.
0  scenario that will give most parents pause... Then, something terrible happens.
1  The ingenious construction (adapted by David Hare from Michael Cunningham's novel) constantly flows forwards and back, weaving themes among three strands which allow us to view events as if through a prism
1  Those who trek to the `plex predisposed to like it probably will enjoy themselves.
0  ... tackling a low-budget movie in which inexperienced children play the two main characters might not be the best way to cut your teeth in the film industry.
-1 Ignoring that, he made Swimfan anyway
-2 About as enjoyable, I would imagine, as searching for a quarter in a giant pile of elephant feces... positively dreadful.
1  Though intrepid in exploring an attraction that crosses sexual identity, Ozpetek falls short in showing us Antonia's true emotions... But at the very least, His Secret Life will leave you thinking.
1  A conventional, but well-crafted film about a historic legal battle in Ireland over a man's right to raise his own children.
-2 This is just lazy writing.
-1 Hart's War seems to want to be a character study, but apparently can't quite decide which character.
-2 Contrived, awkward and filled with unintended laughs, the film shows signs that someone other than the director got into the editing room and tried to improve things by making the movie go faster.
-2 The movie is about as humorous as watching your favorite pet get buried alive.
2  A riveting documentary.
2  MY LITTLE EYE is the best little ``horror'' movie I've seen in years.
-1 Unfortunately, a cast of competent performers from movies, television and the theater are cast adrift in various New York City locations with no unifying rhythm or visual style.
1  Reveals how important our special talents can be when put in service of of others.
1  Crush is so warm and fuzzy you might be able to forgive its mean-spirited second half.
-1 The film's desire to be liked sometimes undermines the possibility for an exploration of the thornier aspects of the nature/nurture argument in regards to homosexuality.
1  Jolie gives it that extra little something that makes it worth checking out at theaters, especially if you're in the mood for something more comfortable than challenging.
-1 Unfortunately, we'd prefer a simple misfire.
-1 This is very much of a mixed bag, with enough negatives to outweigh the positives.
0  Although tender and touching, the movie would have benefited from a little more dramatic tension and some more editing.
-1 Officially, it is twice as bestial but half as funny.
-2 An ugly-duckling tale so hideously and clumsily told it feels accidental.
1  About the best thing you could say about Narc is that it's a rock-solid little genre picture.
-2 A film that should be relegated to a dark video store corner is somehow making its way instead to theaters.
0  Deserves high marks for political courage but barely gets by on its artistic merits.
0  It's Young Guns meets Goodfellas in this easily skippable hayseeds-vs.
-2 ... unbearably lame.
-1 Real-life strongman Ahola lacks the charisma and ability to carry the film on his admittedly broad shoulders.
-1 An artful yet depressing film that makes a melodramatic mountain out of the molehill of a missing bike.
-1 It's got the brawn, but not the brains.
0  Too ordinary to restore (Harmon) to prominence, despite some creepy scenes that evoke childish night terrors, and a praiseworthy attempt to generate suspense rather than gross out the audience.
1  A sentimental hybrid that could benefit from the spice of specificity.
-2 The slapstick is labored, and the bigger setpieces flat.
2  Miyazaki has created such a vibrant, colorful world, it's almost impossible not to be swept away by the sheer beauty of his images.
-1 Less than fresh.
-1 It squanders Chan's uniqueness; it could even be said to squander Jennifer Love Hewitt!
-2 This is the sort of low-grade dreck that usually goes straight to video -- with a lousy script, inept direction, pathetic acting, poorly dubbed dialogue and murky cinematography, complete with visible boom mikes.
1  Like The Rugrats movies, The Wild Thornberrys Movie doesn't offer much more than the series, but its emphasis on caring for animals and respecting other cultures is particularly welcome.
-1 In truth, it has all the heart of a porno flick (but none of the sheer lust).
-1 Perhaps even the SLC high command found writer-director Mitch Davis's wall of kitsch hard going.
-2 It's quite an achievement to set and shoot a movie at the Cannes Film Festival and yet fail to capture its visual appeal or its atmosphere.
-2 Many went to see the attraction for the sole reason that it was hot outside and there was air conditioning inside, and I don't think that A.C. will help this movie one bit.
-1 Grant is certainly amusing, but the very hollowness of the character he plays keeps him at arms length
2  The script by David Koepp is perfectly serviceable and because he gives the story some soul... he elevates the experience to a more mythic level.
1  Washington overcomes the script's flaws and envelops the audience in his character's anguish, anger and frustration.
2  Well-acted, well-directed and, for all its moodiness, not too pretentious.
-1 Been there, done that, liked it much better the first time around - when it was called The Professional.
-1 While you have to admit it's semi-amusing to watch Robert DeNiro belt out ``When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way,'' it's equally distasteful to watch him sing the lyrics to ``Tonight.''
1  As a kind of colorful, dramatized PBS program, Frida gets the job done.
0  It's a boom-box of a movie that might have been titled `The Loud and the Ludicrous'... the pandering to a moviegoing audience dominated by young males is all too calculated.
1  It's not going to be everyone's bag of popcorn, but it definitely gives you something to chew on.
0  I'm not generally a fan of vegetables but this batch is pretty cute.
2  Each of these stories has the potential for Touched by an Angel simplicity and sappiness, but Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, for all its generosity and optimism, never resorts to easy feel-good sentiments.
-2 ``Sorority Boys'' was funnier, and that movie was pretty bad.
-1 There's something fishy about a seasonal holiday kids' movie... that derives its moment of most convincing emotional gravity from a scene where Santa gives gifts to grownups.
-1 I haven't seen such self-amused trash since Freddy Got Fingered.
1  Ramsay and Morton fill this character study with poetic force and buoyant feeling.
-2 With the cheesiest monsters this side of a horror spoof, which They isn't, it is more likely to induce sleep than fright.
0  Dogtown and Z-Boys more than exposes the roots of the skateboarding boom that would become ``the punk kids' revolution.''
0  To some eyes
-2 Most of the movie is so deadly dull that watching the proverbial paint dry would be a welcome improvement.
2  That Haynes can both maintain and dismantle the facades that his genre and his character construct is a wonderous accomplishment of veracity and narrative grace.
0  This is a nervy, risky film, and Villeneuve has inspired Croze to give herself over completely to the tormented persona of Bibi.
-2 It's a barely tolerable slog over well-trod ground.
-2 That such a horrible movie could have sprung from such a great one is one of the year's worst cinematic tragedies.
-2 That chirpy songbird Britney Spears has popped up with more mindless drivel.
-1 The Master of Disguise falls under the category of `should have been a sketch on Saturday Night Live.'
-1 A good-natured ensemble comedy that tries hard to make the most of a bumper cast, but never quite gets off the ground.
1  Like a precious and finely cut diamond, magnificent to behold in its sparkling beauty yet in reality it's one tough rock.
-1 Overall tomfoolery like this is a matter of taste.
2  What results is the best performance from either in years.
-2 You'll trudge out of the theater feeling as though you rode the Zipper after eating a corn dog and an extra-large cotton candy.
2  The actors are simply too good, and the story too intriguing, for technical flaws to get in the way.
1  Yes, but also intriguing and honorable, a worthwhile addition to a distinguished film legacy.
0  It may be about drug dealers, kidnapping, and unsavory folks, but the tone and pacing are shockingly intimate.
-1 Laggard drama wending its way to an uninspired philosophical epiphany.
2  When a movie has stuck around for this long, you know there's something there.
0  But Death to Smoochy keeps firing until the bitter end.
1  A dashing and absorbing outing with one of France's most inventive directors.
-1 Dogtown is hollow, self-indulgent, and - worst of all - boring.
0  Barrels along at the start before becoming mired in sentimentality.
2  The case is a convincing one, and should give anyone with a conscience reason to pause.
2  An uplifting, near-masterpiece.
1  A keep -'em - guessing plot and an affectionate take on its screwed-up characters.
-2 A loud, low-budget and tired formula film that arrives cloaked in the euphemism `urban drama.'
-1 Plays like a glossy melodrama that occasionally verges on camp.
-1 When (Reno) lets her radical flag fly, taking angry potshots at George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Larry King, et al., Reno devolves into a laugh-free lecture.
-1 Mattei's underdeveloped effort here is nothing but a convenient conveyor belt of brooding personalities that parade about as if they were coming back from Stock Character camp -- a drowsy drama infatuated by its own pretentious self-examination.
-1 A baffling subplot involving smuggling drugs inside Danish cows falls flat, and if you're going to alter the Bard's ending, you'd better have a good alternative.
-2 `In this poor remake of such a well loved classic, Parker exposes the limitations of his skill and the basic flaws in his vision.'
-2 Offers no new insight on the matter, nor do its characters exactly spring to life.
-1 ... a low rate Annie featuring some kid who can't act, only echoes of Jordan, and weirdo actor Crispin Glover screwing things up old school.
2  The quirky drama touches the heart and the funnybone thanks to the energetic and always surprising performance by Rachel Griffiths.
-2 (A) poorly executed comedy.
2  A deftly entertaining film, smartly played and smartly directed.
1  As chilling and fascinating as Philippe Mora's modern Hitler-study, Snide and Prejudice.
2  It's that rare family movie -- genuine and sweet without relying on animation or dumb humor.
1  Cox creates a fluid and mesmerizing sequence of images to match the words of Nijinsky's diaries.
-1 The whole affair, true story or not, feels incredibly hokey... (it) comes off like a Hallmark commercial.
1  Nicholas Nickleby celebrates the human spirit with such unrelenting Dickensian decency that it turned me (horrors!)
0  It is one more celluloid testimonial to the cruelties experienced by Southern blacks as distilled through a Caucasian perspective.
-1 It's a hellish, numbing experience to watch, and it doesn't offer any insights that haven't been thoroughly debated in the media already, back in the Dahmer heyday of the mid-'90s.
-1 The film is so packed with subplots involving the various Silbersteins that it feels more like the pilot episode of a TV series than a feature film.
2  The performances are immaculate, with Roussillon providing comic relief.
-2 A profoundly stupid affair, populating its hackneyed and meanspirited storyline with cardboard characters and performers who value cash above credibility.
2  A gem of a movie.
1  An effective portrait of a life in stasis -- of the power of inertia to arrest development in a dead-end existence.
2  Simply put, ``Far From Heaven'' is a masterpiece.
-1 The film starts promisingly, but the ending is all too predictable and far too cliched to really work.
1  ... begins on a high note and sustains it beautifully.
-2 Tries to work in the same vein as the brilliance of Animal House but instead comes closer to the failure of the third Revenge of the Nerds sequel.
1  An instance of an old dog not only learning but inventing a remarkable new trick.
1  Henry Bean's thoughtful screenplay provides no easy answers, but offers a compelling investigation of faith versus intellect
-1 What begins brightly gets bogged down over 140 minutes.
1  ... a guiltless film for nice evening out.
0  You might say Tykwer has done all that Heaven allows, if you wanted to make as anti-Kieslowski a pun as possible.
2  Shanghai Ghetto may not be as dramatic as Roman Polanski's The Pianist, but its compassionate spirit soars every bit as high.
0  ``The Tuxedo'' should have been the vehicle for Chan that ``The Mask'' was for Jim Carrey.
2  This is one of the year's best films.
-1 The film never finds its tone and several scenes run too long.
2  An entertaining British hybrid of comedy, caper thrills and quirky romance.
-1 Nothing more or less than an outright bodice-ripper -- it should have ditched the artsy pretensions and revelled in the entertaining shallows.
1  The powerful success of Read My Lips with such provocative material shows why, after only three films, director/co-writer Jacques Audiard, though little known in this country, belongs in the very top rank of French filmmakers.
-1 Big mistake.
0  Far away.
1  Enthusiastically taking up the current teen movie concern with bodily functions, Walt Becker's film pushes all the demographically appropriate comic buttons.
-2 Unfortunately, the experience of actually watching the movie is less compelling than the circumstances of its making.
0  Saved from being merely way-cool by a basic, credible compassion.
-1 For a film about explosions and death and spies, ``Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever'' seems as safe as a children's film.
-2 The title, alone, should scare any sane person away.
-2 Another boorish movie from the I-heard-a-joke - at-a-frat-party school of screenwriting.
2  ... even if you've never heard of Chaplin, you'll still be glued to the screen.
0  An original little film about one young woman's education.
-1 Unwieldy contraption.
-1 Well, in some of those, the mother deer even dies.
0  You really have to salute writer-director Haneke (he adapted Elfriede Jelinek's novel) for making a film that isn't nearly as graphic but much more powerful, brutally shocking and difficult to watch.
1  In his latest effort, Storytelling, Solondz has finally made a movie that isn't just offensive -- it also happens to be good.
1  ... quite endearing.
-1 It's hard to pity the `plain' girl who becomes a ravishing waif after applying a smear of lip-gloss.
0  It's the movie equivalent of a sweaty old guy in a rain coat shopping for cheap porn.
-1 The only pain you'll feel as the credits roll is your stomach grumbling for some tasty grub.
0  The threat
-1 Wanders all over the map thematically and stylistically, and borrows heavily from Lynch, Jeunet, and von Trier while failing to find a spark of its own.
2  Blessed with a searing lead performance by Ryan Gosling (Murder by Numbers), the movie is powerful and provocative.
-1 It's depressing to see how far Herzog has fallen.
0  Charming, if overly complicated...
1  The film has an infectious enthusiasm and we're touched by the film's conviction that all life centered on that place, that time and that sport.
-2 You'll just have your head in your hands wondering why Lee's character didn't just go to a bank manager and save everyone the misery.
1  Secretary is just too original to be ignored.
-1 Despite its dry wit and compassion, the film suffers from a philosophical emptiness and maddeningly sedate pacing.
-2 What should have been a cutting Hollywood satire is instead about as fresh as last week's issue of Variety.
2  Beautiful to watch and holds a certain charm.
2  The camera soars above the globe in dazzling panoramic shots that make the most of the large-screen format, before swooping down on a string of exotic locales, scooping the whole world up in a joyous communal festival of rhythm.
1  (Grant) goes beyond his usual fluttering and stammering and captures the soul of a man in pain who gradually comes to recognize it and deal with it.
-1 (A) stale retread of the '53 original.
-2 It makes even Elizabeth Hurley seem graceless and ugly.
-1 Blood Work is laughable in the solemnity with which it tries to pump life into overworked elements from Eastwood's Dirty Harry period.
-1 Anyone not into high-tech splatterfests is advised to take the warning literally, and log on to something more user-friendly.
0  It's mindless junk like this that makes you appreciate original romantic comedies like Punch-Drunk Love.
-1 The code talkers deserved better than a hollow tribute.
0  Underachieves only in not taking the Shakespeare parallels quite far enough.
0  Since the movie is based on a Nicholas Sparks best seller, you know death is lurking around the corner, just waiting to spoil things.
0  Tsai Ming-liang's ghosts are painfully aware of their not-being.
1  On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, The Powerpuff Girls is a fast, frenetic, funny, even punny 6 -- aimed specifically at a grade-school audience.
-1 The explosion essentially ruined -- or, rather, overpowered -- the fiction of the movie for me.
1  This isn't exactly profound cinema, but it's good-natured and sometimes quite funny.
-2 A pathetic exploitation film that tries to seem sincere, and just seems worse for the effort.
-1 The nicest thing that can be said about Stealing Harvard (which might have been called Freddy Gets Molested by a Dog) is that it's not as obnoxious as Tom Green's Freddie Got Fingered.
2  Full of detail about the man and his country, and is well worth seeing.
-1 works on the whodunit level as its larger themes get lost in the murk of its own making
0  May seriously impair your ability to ever again maintain a straight face while speaking to a highway patrolman.
-1 It hates its characters.
1  So fiendishly cunning that even the most jaded cinema audiences will leave the auditorium feeling dizzy, confused, and totally disorientated.
0  Like the series, the movie is funny, smart, visually inventive, and most of all, alive.
1  Jacquot has filmed the opera exactly as the libretto directs, ideally capturing the opera's drama and lyricism.
-2 Philosophically, intellectually and logistically a mess.
0  The performances are all solid; it merely lacks originality to make it a great movie.
2  Move over Bond; this girl deserves a sequel.
-1 Barely manages for but a few seconds over its seemingly eternal running time to pique your interest, your imagination, your empathy or anything, really, save your disgust and your indifference.
-1 The metaphors are provocative, but too often, the viewer is left puzzled by the mechanics of the delivery.
1  Interesting and thoroughly unfaithful version of Carmen
2  A terrifically entertaining specimen of Spielbergian sci-fi.
-1 Everything that was right about Blade is wrong in its sequel.
2  If you ever wondered what it would be like to be smack in the middle of a war zone armed with nothing but a camera, this Oscar-nominated documentary takes you there.
2  An animation landmark as monumental as Disney's 1937 breakthrough Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
-1 ... the whole thing succeeded only in making me groggy.
0  The niftiest trick perpetrated by The Importance of Being Earnest is the alchemical transmogrification of Wilde into Austen -- and a Hollywood-ized Austen at that.
-1 If religious films aren't your bailiwick, stay away.
0  Almost nothing else -- raunchy and graphic as it may be in presentation -- is one-sided, outwardly sexist or mean-spirited.
-1 Rumor, a muddled drama about coming to terms with death, feels impersonal, almost generic.
1  Alan and his fellow survivors are idiosyncratic enough to lift the movie above its playwriting 101 premise.
1  It's a satisfying summer blockbuster and worth a look.
1  K-19: The Widowmaker is derivative, overlong, and bombastic -- yet surprisingly entertaining.
-1 The story really has no place to go since Simone is not real -- she can't provide any conflict.
-1 There is something in Full Frontal, I guess, about artifice and acting and how it distorts reality for people who make movies and watch them, but like most movie riddles, it works only if you have an interest in the characters you see.
-1 An unsuccessful attempt at a movie of ideas.
0  Many shallower movies these days seem too long, but this one is egregiously short.
-1 Did no one on the set have a sense of humor, or did they not have the nerve to speak up?
-1 A not-so-Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood with a hefty helping of Re-Fried Green Tomatoes.
2  A fresh-faced, big-hearted and frequently funny thrill ride for the kiddies, with enough eye candy and cheeky wit to keep parents away from the concession stand.'
-1 But the feelings evoked in the film are lukewarm and quick to pass.
0  `The film is stark, straightforward and deadly... an unnatural calm that's occasionally shaken by... blasts of rage, and later, violent jealousy.'
1  What (Frei) gives us... is a man who uses the damage of war -- far more often than the warfare itself -- to create the kind of art shots that fill gallery shows.
-2 The entire movie is in need of a scented bath.
1  This new movie version of the Alexandre Dumas classic is the stuff of high romance, brought off with considerable wit.
1  Stands as a document of what it felt like to be a New Yorker -- or, really, to be a human being -- in the weeks after 9/11.
-1 Almost as offensive as ``Freddy Got Fingered.''
-1 The plot grows thin soon, and you find yourself praying for a quick resolution.
2  A funny and touching film that is gorgeously acted by a British cast to rival Gosford Park's.
-2 There's not a single jump-in-your-seat moment and believe it or not, Jason actually takes a backseat in his own film to special effects.
-1 Elegantly crafted but emotionally cold, a puzzle whose intricate construction one can admire but is difficult to connect with on any deeper level.
-2 It is that rare combination of bad writing, bad direction and bad acting -- the trifecta of badness.
-1 Off the Hook is overlong and not well-acted, but credit writer-producer-director Adam Watstein with finishing it at all.
-1 An occasionally interesting but mostly repetitive look at a slice of counterculture that might be best forgotten.
-2 You have no affinity for most of the characters.
-1 A perfect example of rancid, well-intentioned, but shamelessly manipulative movie making.
1  ... a quietly introspective portrait of the self-esteem of employment and the shame of losing a job...
0  Handsome and sincere but slightly awkward in its combination of entertainment and evangelical boosterism.
1  The storytelling may be ordinary, but the cast is one of those all-star reunions that fans of Gosford Park have come to assume is just another day of Brit cinema.
0  Barely.
-2 ... a complete shambles of a movie so sloppy, so uneven, so damn unpleasant that I can't believe any viewer, young or old, would have a good time here.
-1 Devotees of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan will feel a nagging sense of deja vu, and the grandeur of the best Next Generation episodes is lacking.
-1 Too campy to work as straight drama and too violent and sordid to function as comedy, Vulgar is, truly and thankfully, a one-of-a-kind work.
-1 Gets bogged down by an overly sillified plot and stop-and-start pacing.
-1 Theological matters aside, the movie is so clumsily sentimental and ineptly directed it may leave you speaking in tongues.
-1 Comes off more like a misdemeanor, a flat, unconvincing drama that never catches fire.
1  Offers laughs and insight into one of the toughest ages a kid can go through.
0  At its best (and it does have some very funny sequences) Looking for Leonard reminds you just how comically subversive silence can be.
0  The picture doesn't know it's a comedy.
0  The Armenian genocide deserves a more engaged and honest treatment.
-1 One scene after another in this supposedly funny movie falls to the floor with a sickening thud.
0  I have two words to say about Reign of Fire.
-1 Why did they deem it necessary to document all this emotional misery?
2  A first-class road movie that proves you can run away from home, but your ego and all your problems go with you.
2  The story itself it mostly told through on-camera interviews with several survivors, whose riveting memories are rendered with such clarity that it's as if it all happened only yesterday.
-2 It ends up being neither, and fails at both endeavors.
2  A coming-of-age movie that Hollywood wouldn't have the guts to make.
0  Tennessee Williams by way of Oprah's Book Club.
0  A brain twister, less a movie-movie than a funny and weird meditation on Hollywood, success, artistic integrity and intellectual bankruptcy.
0  Wraps itself in the guise of a dark and quirky comedy, but it isn't as quirky as it thinks it is and its comedy is generally mean-spirited.
2  One of the most exciting action films to come out of China in recent years.
0  A well-acted movie that simply doesn't gel.
-2 A real snooze.
-2 One of those films that started with a great premise and then just fell apart.
1  The success of Undercover Brother is found in its ability to spoof both black and white stereotypes equally.
1  If the plot seems a bit on the skinny side, that's because Panic Room is interested in nothing more than sucking you in... and making you sweat.
-2 This is the kind of movie during which you want to bang your head on the seat in front of you, at its cluelessness, at its idiocy, at its utterly misplaced earnestness.
2  The film boasts dry humor and jarring shocks, plus moments of breathtaking mystery.
-1 El Crimen Del Padre Amaro would likely be most effective if used as a tool to rally anti-Catholic protestors.
0  ... salaciously simplistic.
2  A fanciful drama about Napoleon's last years and his surprising discovery of love and humility.
2  Excellent performances from Jacqueline Bisset and Martha Plimpton grace this deeply touching melodrama.
-1 The film's thoroughly recycled plot and tiresome jokes... drag the movie down.
-2 Below is well below expectations.
-1 an essentially awkward version of the lightweight female empowerment picture we've been watching for decades
1  About Schmidt belongs to Nicholson.
1  And it marks him as one of the most interesting writer/directors working today.
-2 I approached the usher and said that if she had to sit through it again, she should ask for a raise.
1  At its best, which occurs often, Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine rekindles the muckraking, soul-searching spirit of the `Are we a sick society?'
1  The casting of von Sydow... is itself Intacto's luckiest stroke.
1  a cruelly funny twist on teen comedy packed with inventive cinematic tricks and an ironically killer soundtrack
1  (Caine) proves once again he hasn't lost his touch, bringing off a superb performance in an admittedly middling film.
1  A crisp psychological drama (and) a fascinating little thriller that would have been perfect for an old ``Twilight Zone'' episode.
-1 Too often, Son of the Bride becomes an exercise in trying to predict when a preordained ``big moment'' will occur and not ``if.''
-1 It's hard to care about a film that proposes as epic tragedy the plight of a callow rich boy who is forced to choose between his beautiful, self-satisfied 22-year-old girlfriend and an equally beautiful, self-satisfied 18-year-old mistress.
0  I admit it, I hate to like it.
-1 It's so crammed with scenes and vistas and pretty moments that it's left a few crucial things out, like character development and coherence.
0  Ozpetek joins the ranks of those gay filmmakers who have used the emigre experience to explore same-sex culture in ways that elude the more nationally settled.
1  Its director's most substantial feature for some time.
-2 To better understand why this didn't connect with me would require another viewing, and I won't be sitting through this one again... that in itself is commentary enough.
2  Vibrantly colored and beautifully designed, Metropolis is a feast for the eyes.
-1 Deuces Wild is an encyclopedia of cliches that shoplifts shamelessly from farewell-to-innocence movies like The Wanderers and A Bronx Tale without cribbing any of their intelligence.
0  If there ain't none, you have a problem.
0  Chomp chomp!
-1 Louiso lets the movie dawdle in classic disaffected-indie-film mode, and brother Hoffman's script stumbles over a late-inning twist that just doesn't make sense.
0  If you don't flee, you might be seduced.
-2 Oedekerk mugs mercilessly, and the genuinely funny jokes are few and far between.
-1 Forget the Psychology 101 study of romantic obsession and just watch the procession of costumes in castles and this won't seem like such a bore.
1  Allen shows he can outgag any of those young whippersnappers making moving pictures today.
2  The pleasure of Read My Lips is like seeing a series of perfect black pearls clicking together to form a string.
-1 Although Disney follows its standard formula in this animated adventure, it feels more forced than usual.
-2 The Irwins' scenes are fascinating; the movie as a whole is cheap junk and an insult to their death-defying efforts.
0  Few of the increasingly far-fetched events that first-time writer-director Neil Burger follows up with are terribly convincing, which is a pity, considering Barry's terrific performance.
1  As it turns out, you can go home again.
0  How I Killed My Father is one of those art house films that makes you feel like you're watching an iceberg melt -- only it never melts.
0  She's not yet an actress, not quite a singer...
-1 Complex, sinuously plotted and, somehow, off-puttingly cold.
0  While certain cues, like the happy music, suggest that this movie is supposed to warm our hearts, Jeong-Hyang Lee's film is just as likely to blacken that organ with cold vengefulness.
-2 Fails in making this character understandable, in getting under her skin, in exploring motivation... Well before the end, the film grows as dull as its characters, about whose fate it is hard to care.
1  It has plenty of laughs.
-1 Narc is all menace and atmosphere.
-1 No laughs.
1  Paul Bettany is cool.
0  The story is so light and sugary that were it a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, extra heavy-duty ropes would be needed to keep it from floating away.
0  Personal Velocity has a no-frills docu-Dogma plainness, yet Miller lingers on invisible, nearly psychic nuances, leaping into digressions of memory and desire.
0  Merry friggin' Christmas!
0  The screenplay comes across, rather unintentionally, as Hip-Hop Scooby-Doo.
-1 Judd's characters ought to pick up the durable best seller Smart Women, Foolish Choices for advice.
1  The Saigon of 1952 is an uneasy mix of sensual delights and simmering violence, and The Quiet American brings us right into the center of that world.
0  `Lovely and Amazing,' unhappily, is neither... excessively strained and contrived.
0  , Skins has its heart in the right place
-1 The script is too mainstream and the psychology too textbook to intrigue.
0  Jarecki and Gibney do find enough material to bring Kissinger's record into question and explain how the diplomat's tweaked version of statecraft may have cost thousands and possibly millions of lives.
1  A quirky comedy set in Newfoundland that cleverly captures the dry wit that's so prevalent on The Rock.
1  What bubbles up out of John C. Walsh's Pipe Dream is the distinct and very welcome sense of watching intelligent people making a movie they might actually want to watch.
0  You don't want to call the cops.
0  A canny, derivative, wildly gruesome portrait of a London sociopath who's the scariest of sadists.
2  A genuinely moving and wisely unsentimental drama.
0  You'd think by now America would have had enough of plucky British eccentrics with hearts of gold.
0  After Collateral Damage
-1 The truth about Charlie is that it's a brazenly misguided project.
1  Some of the most inventive silliness you are likely to witness in a movie theatre for some time.
-1 It's Tommy's job to clean the peep booths surrounding her, and after viewing this one, you'll feel like mopping up, too.
2  The story ultimately takes hold and grips hard.
2  Despite the predictable parent vs. child coming-of-age theme, first-class, natural acting and a look at ``the real Americans'' make this a charmer.
-2 Another wholly unnecessary addition to the growing, moldering pile of, well, extreme stunt pictures.
1  Bound to appeal to women looking for a howlingly trashy time.
2  Boisterous, heartfelt comedy.
-1 The redeeming feature of Chan's films has always been the action, but the stunts in The Tuxedo seem tired and, what's worse, routine.
0  It plays like a big-budget, after-school special with a generous cast, who at times lift the material from its well-meaning clunkiness.
0  The vistas are sweeping and the acting is far from painful.
-2 A gratingly unfunny groaner littered with zero-dimensional, unlikable characters and hackneyed, threadbare comic setups.
-2 It's hard to imagine another director ever making his wife look so bad in a major movie.
0  Nair doesn't use (Monsoon Wedding) to lament the loss of culture.
2  Much of it comes from the brave, uninhibited performances by its lead actors.
-1 But even then, I'd recommend waiting for DVD and just skipping straight to her scenes.
1  There are some movies that hit you from the first scene and you know it's going to be a trip.
1  He's the scariest guy you'll see all summer.
0  A movie that falls victim to frazzled wackiness and frayed satire.
1  This is the kind of subject matter that could so easily have been fumbled by a lesser filmmaker, but Ayres makes the right choices at every turn.
1  This is Christmas Future for a lot of baby boomers.
-1 ... most viewers will wish there had been more of the ``Queen'' and less of the ``Damned.''
-1 Not once does it come close to being exciting.
-1 If you go into the theater expecting a scary, action-packed chiller, you might soon be looking for a sign.
-2 Should have gone straight to video.
2  classic cinema served up with heart and humor
-1 What's missing is what we call the `wow' factor.
0  Perhaps the most annoying thing about Who Is Cletis Tout?
-2 Not at all clear what it's trying to say and even if it were -- I doubt it would be all that interesting.
-1 Lacks dramatic punch and depth.
-1 Instead of building to a laugh riot we are left with a handful of disparate funny moments of no real consequence.
1  The story that emerges has elements of romance, tragedy and even silent-movie comedy.
0  Quitting delivers a sucker-punch, and its impact is all the greater beause director Zhang's last film, the cuddly Shower, was a non-threatening multi-character piece centered around a public bath house.
2  A movie I loved on first sight and, even more important, love in remembrance.
2  Kids five and up will be delighted with the fast, funny, and even touching story.
-2 What an embarrassment.
1  Byler is too savvy a filmmaker to let this morph into a typical romantic triangle.
1  What ``Empire'' lacks in depth it makes up for with its heart.
2  Sensitive ensemble performances and good period reconstruction add up to a moving tragedy with some buoyant human moments.
-2 As a remake, it's a pale imitation.
1  Fessenden has nurtured his metaphors at the expense of his narrative, but he does display an original talent.
-1 Frida isn't that much different from many a Hollywood romance.
1  As action-adventure, this space-based homage to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island fires on all plasma conduits.
1  Coppola's directorial debut is an incredibly layered and stylistic film that, despite a fairly slow paced, almost humdrum approach to character development, still manages at least a decent attempt at meaningful cinema.
2  Both a grand tour through 300 hundred years of Russian cultural identity and a stunning technical achievement.
0  Unintelligible, poorly acted, brain-slappingly bad, Harvard Man is ludicrous enough that it could become a cult classic.
-2 The animation and game phenomenon that peaked about three years ago is actually dying a slow death, if the poor quality of Pokemon 4 Ever is any indication.
-1 It is just too bad the film's story does not live up to its style.
-1 Sex ironically has little to do with the story, which becomes something about how lame it is to try and evade your responsibilities and that you should never, ever, leave a large dog alone with a toddler.
-1 The movie is without intent.
0  Does anyone much think the central story of Brendan Behan is that he was a bisexual sweetheart before he took to drink?
-1 Director David Fincher and writer David Koepp can't sustain it.
1  Even though we know the outcome, the seesawing of the general's fate in the arguments of competing lawyers has the stomach-knotting suspense of a legal thriller, while the testimony of witnesses lends the film a resonant undertone of tragedy.
1  And they succeed merrily at their noble endeavor.
2  An immensely entertaining look at some of the unsung heroes of 20th century pop music.
-1 Too predictably, in fact.
0  Gangs, despite the gravity of its subject matter, is often as fun to watch as a good spaghetti western.
0  It's 51 times better than this.
1  But it's surprisingly harmless.
0  You might be shocked to discover that Seinfeld's real life is boring.
2  One of the most splendid entertainments to emerge from the French film industry in years.
2  As the movie traces Mr. Brown's athletic exploits, it is impossible not to be awed by the power and grace of one of the greatest natural sportsmen of modern times.
-1 Once again, director Chris Columbus takes a hat-in-hand approach to Rowling that stifles creativity and allows the film to drag on for nearly three hours.
-1 In the end, the film feels homogenized and a bit contrived, as if we're looking back at a tattered and ugly past with rose-tinted glasses.
-2 Apparently, romantic comedy with a fresh point of view just doesn't figure in the present Hollywood program.
-2 It's hard to imagine any recent film, independent or otherwise, that makes as much of a mess as this one.
1  A solid cast, assured direction and complete lack of modern day irony.
2  ... the kind of entertainment that parents love to have their kids see.
-1 Charly comes off as emotionally manipulative and sadly imitative of innumerable past Love Story derisions.
-1 The Pool drowned me in boredom.
-2 Despite the fact that this film wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, it's still not a good movie
2  Spy Kids 2 also happens to be that rarity among sequels: It actually improves upon the original hit movie.
0  The people in ABC Africa are treated as docile, mostly wordless ethnographic extras.
2  Maggie G. makes an amazing breakthrough in her first starring role and eats up the screen.
2  Very well-written and very well-acted.
2  This fascinating look at Israel in ferment feels as immediate as the latest news footage from Gaza and, because of its heightened, well-shaped dramas, twice as powerful.
1  For more than two decades Mr. Nachtwey has traveled to places in the world devastated by war, famine and poverty and documented the cruelty and suffering he has found with an devastating, eloquent clarity.
1  Nice piece of work.
2  Turturro is fabulously funny and over the top as a `very sneaky' butler who excels in the art of impossible disappearing/reappearing acts
1  A confluence of kiddie entertainment, sophisticated wit and symbolic graphic design.
1  Below may not mark Mr. Twohy's emergence into the mainstream, but his promise remains undiminished.
2  As satisfyingly odd and intriguing a tale as it was a century and a half ago... has a delightfully dour, deadpan tone and stylistic consistency.
-1 Jacobi, the most fluent of actors, is given relatively dry material from Nijinsky's writings to perform, and the visuals, even erotically frank ones, become dullingly repetitive.
1  I have always appreciated a smartly written motion picture, and, whatever flaws Igby Goes Down may possess, it is undeniably that.
0  ``Juwanna Mann?''
1  Who knows, but it works under the direction of Kevin Reynolds.
-2 A yawn-provoking little farm melodrama.
-2 The script's judgment and sense of weight is way, way off.
2  The solid filmmaking and convincing characters makes this a high water mark for this genre.
0  Shamelessly resorting to pee-related sight gags that might even cause Tom Green a grimace; still, Myer's energy and the silliness of it all eventually prevail
1  Murderous Maids has a lot going for it, not least the brilliant performances by Testud... and Parmentier.
0  The results, if not memorable, are at least interesting.
0  ... generically, forgettably pleasant from start to finish.
-1 Well made but uninvolving, Bloodwork isn't a terrible movie, just a stultifyingly obvious one -- an unrewarding collar for a murder mystery.
-2 Franco is an excellent choice for the walled-off but combustible hustler, but he does not give the transcendent performance SONNY needs to overcome gaps in character development and story logic.
0  Suffice to say that after seeing this movie in IMAX form, you'll be more acquainted with the tiniest details of Tom Hanks' face than his wife is.
0  It just doesn't have much else... especially in a moral sense.
1  A hallmark film in an increasingly important film industry and worth the look.
1  Has enough wit, energy and geniality to please not only the fanatical adherents on either side, but also people who know nothing about the subject and think they're not interested.
1  What one is left with, even after the most awful acts are committed, is an overwhelming sadness that feels as if it has made its way into your very bloodstream.
-2 (Lee) treats his audience the same way that Jim Brown treats his women -- as dumb, credulous, unassuming, subordinate subjects.
1  ... there is enough originality in `Life' to distance it from the pack of paint-by-number romantic comedies that so often end up on cinema screens.
0  A feature-length, R-rated, road-trip version of Mama's Family.
-2 The disjointed mess flows as naturally as Jolie's hideous yellow `do.
1  Though Jackson doesn't always succeed in integrating the characters in the foreground into the extraordinarily rich landscape, it must be said that he is an imaginative filmmaker who can see the forest for the trees.
2  A terrific B movie -- in fact, the best in recent memory.
1  This is a film that manages to find greatness in the hue of its drastic iconography.
2  The slam-bang superheroics are kinetic enough to engross even the most antsy youngsters.
1  I firmly believe that a good video game movie is going to show up soon.
1  Can you bear the laughter?
-2 One of the worst films of 2002.
-1 Needed a little less bling-bling and a lot more romance.
-1 Not even Solondz's thirst for controversy, sketchy characters and immature provocations can fully succeed at cheapening it.
-1 Like a three-ring circus, there are side stories aplenty -- none of them memorable.
1  Another entertaining romp from Robert Rodriguez.
1  A family film that contains some hefty thematic material on time, death, eternity, and what is needed to live a rich and full life.
2  It's a masterpiece.
-2 I was trying to decide what annoyed me most about God is Great... I'm Not, and then I realized that I just didn't care.
0  Watching Spirited Away is like watching an Eastern imagination explode.
-1 The entire point of a shaggy dog story, of course, is that it goes nowhere, and this is classic nowheresville in every sense.
1  (A) smarter and much funnier version of the old Police Academy flicks.
0  It tells its story in a flat manner and leaves you with the impression that you should have gotten more out of it than you did.
-1 As with so many merchandised-to-the-max movies of this type, more time appears to have gone into recruiting the right bands for the playlist and the costuming of the stars than into the script, which has a handful of smart jokes and not much else.
1  Foster breathes life into a roll that could have otherwise been bland and run of the mill.
0  Just how these families interact may surprise you.
1  A B-movie you can sit through, enjoy on a certain level and then forget.
-1 Trouble Every Day is a success in some sense, but it's hard to like a film so cold and dead.
0  Schneider's mugging is relentless and his constant need to suddenly transpose himself into another character undermines the story's continuity and progression.
1  They are what makes it worth the trip to the theatre.
1  Well, it probably won't have you swinging from the trees hooting it's praises, but it's definitely worth taking a look.
1  A gentle and engrossing character study.
0  Denver should not get the first and last look at one of the most triumphant performances of Vanessa Redgrave's career.
-1 `Butterfingered' is the word for the big-fisted direction of Jez Butterworth, who manages to blast even the smallest sensitivities from the romance with his clamorous approach.
1  Caruso sometimes descends into sub-Tarantino cuteness... but for the most part he makes sure The Salton Sea works the way a good noir should, keeping it tight and nasty.
0  Just watch Bettany strut his stuff.
1  Despite its faults, Gangs excels in spectacle and pacing.
0  The most remarkable (and frustrating) thing about World Traveler, which opens today in Manhattan, is that its protagonist, after being an object of intense scrutiny for 104 minutes, remains a complete blank.
2  Mr. Koshashvili is a director to watch.
1  Using an endearing cast, writer/director Dover Kosashvili takes a slightly dark look at relationships, both sexual and kindred.
0  Cube's charisma and chemistry compensate for corniness and cliche.
0  It's an unusual, thoughtful bio-drama with a rich subject and some fantastic moments and scenes.
1  A living testament to the power of the eccentric and the strange.
2  It's technically sumptuous but also almost wildly alive.
2  It's a compelling and horrifying story, and The Laramie Project is worthwhile for reminding us that this sort of thing does, in fact, still happen in America.
0  The film favors the scientific over the spectacular (visually speaking).
1  It is life affirming and heartbreaking, sweet without the decay factor, funny and sad.
0  The film is explosive, but a few of those sticks are wet.
-2 Jackass is a vulgar and cheap-looking version of Candid Camera staged for the Marquis de Sade set.
1  It rapidly develops into a gut-wrenching examination of the way cultural differences and emotional expectations collide.
-1 Attal's hang-ups surrounding infidelity are so old-fashioned and, dare I say, outdated, it's a wonder that he couldn't have brought something fresher to the proceedings simply by accident.
2  Most haunting about ``Fence'' is its conclusion, when we hear the ultimate fate of these girls and realize, much to our dismay, that this really did happen.
1  Then you'd do well to check this one out because it's straight up Twin Peaks action...
0  In the real world
1  an original and highly cerebral examination of the psychopathic mind
-1 There is no solace here, no entertainment value, merely a fierce lesson in where filmmaking can take us.
0  So earnest and well-meaning, and so stocked with talent, that you almost forget the sheer, ponderous awfulness of its script.
0  My Wife's plotting is nothing special; it's the delivery that matters here.
1  Likely to have decades of life as a classic movie franchise?
1  Although shot with little style, Skins is heartfelt and achingly real.
1  Few films have captured the chaos of an urban conflagration with such fury, and audience members will leave feeling as shaken as Nesbitt's Cooper looks when the bullets stop flying.
1  Those with a modicum of patience will find in these characters' foibles a timeless and unique perspective.
1  An unflinching, complex portrait of a modern Israel that is rarely seen on-screen.
1  Efteriades gives the neighborhood -- scenery, vibe and all -- the cinematic equivalent of a big, tender hug.
-1 Though it pretends to expose the life of male hustlers, it's exploitive without being insightful.
0  Egoyan's work often elegantly considers various levels of reality and uses shifting points of view, but here he has constructed a film so labyrinthine that it defeats his larger purpose.
2  Serious and thoughtful.
-2 Kung Pow seems like some futile concoction that was developed hastily after Oedekerk and his fellow moviemakers got through crashing a college keg party.
-2 This thing works on no level whatsoever for me.
1  Shiri is an action film that delivers on the promise of excitement, but it also has a strong dramatic and emotional pull that gradually sneaks up on the audience.
1  A properly spooky film about the power of spirits to influence us whether we believe in them or not.
2  Not only a coming-of-age story and cautionary parable, but also a perfectly rendered period piece.
1  Birthday Girl doesn't try to surprise us with plot twists, but rather seems to enjoy its own transparency.
0  A behind the scenes look at the training and dedication that goes into becoming a world-class fencer and the champion that's made a difference to NYC inner-city youth.
0  That's not vintage Spielberg and that, finally, is minimally satisfying.
-2 Every now and again, a movie comes along to remind us of how very bad a motion picture can truly be.
2  Raimi and his team couldn't have done any better in bringing the story of Spider-Man to the big screen.
-2 I still want my money back.
-1 It's unfortunate that Wallace, who wrote Gibson's Braveheart as well as the recent Pearl Harbor, has such an irrepressible passion for sappy situations and dialogue.
-1 This mistaken-identity picture is so film-culture referential that the final product is a ghost.
1  A forceful drama of an alienated executive who re-invents himself.
-1 It's kind of sad that so many people put so much time and energy into this turkey.
0  Charlize CHASES Kevin with a GUN.
1  The Woodman seems to have directly influenced this girl-meets-girl love story, but even more reassuring is how its makers actually seem to understand what made Allen's romantic comedies so pertinent and enduring.
-1 Cuba Gooding Jr. valiantly mugs his way through Snow Dogs, but even his boisterous energy fails to spark this leaden comedy.
-1 Earnest yet curiously tepid and choppy recycling in which predictability is the only winner.
0  The film makes strong arguments regarding the social status of America's indigenous people, but really only exists to try to eke out an emotional tug of the heart, one which it fails to get.
-2 Spreads itself too thin, leaving these actors, as well as the members of the commune, short of profound characterizations
1  A completely spooky piece of business that gets under your skin and, some plot blips aside, stays there for the duration.
-2 `Martin Lawrence Live' is so self-pitying, I almost expected there to be a collection taken for the comedian at the end of the show.
1  An entertaining, if somewhat standardized, action movie.
-1 It has no affect on the Kurds, but it wore me down.
1  Ken Russell would love this.
-2 Thumbs down.
0  Bang!
-2 The movie suffers from two fatal ailments -- a dearth of vitality and a story that's shapeless and uninflected.
0  This may be Dover Kosashvili's feature directing debut, but it looks an awful lot like life -- gritty, awkward and ironic.
2  The Trials of Henry Kissinger is a remarkable piece of filmmaking... because you get it.
1  Deserves a place of honor next to Nanook as a landmark in film history.
2  Like the best of Godard's movies... it is visually ravishing, penetrating, impenetrable.
-1 The film's most improbable feat?
2  Puts to rest any thought that the German film industry can not make a delightful comedy centering on food.
-1 Comes off like a bad imitation of the Bard.
1  A great cast and a wonderful but sometimes confusing flashback movie about growing up in a dysfunctional family.
-2 Stealing Harvard will dip into your wallet, swipe 90 minutes of your time, and offer you precisely this in recompense: A few early laughs scattered around a plot as thin as it is repetitious.
0  Neither a rousing success nor a blinding embarrassment.
2  A heroic tale of persistence that is sure to win viewers' hearts.
0  Not the best Herzog perhaps, but unmistakably Herzog.
-1 All mood and no movie.
1  An infinitely wittier version of the Home Alone formula.
1  The film's appeal has a lot to do with the casting of Juliette Binoche as Sand, who brings to the role her pale, dark beauty and characteristic warmth.
0  The result is more depressing than liberating, but it's never boring.
1  Though it lacks the utter authority of a genre gem, there's a certain robustness to this engaging mix of love and bloodletting.
-2 A movie so bad that it quickly enters the pantheon of wreckage that includes Battlefield Earth and Showgirls.
-2 The script falls back on too many tried-and-true shenanigans that hardly distinguish it from the next teen comedy.
2  Ms. Seigner and Mr. Serrault bring fresh, unforced naturalism to their characters.
2  Admirers of director Abel Ferrara may be relieved that his latest feature, R Xmas, marks a modest if encouraging return to form.
2  Witty, contemplative, and sublimely beautiful.
1  Passions, obsessions, and loneliest dark spots are pushed to their most virtuous limits, lending the narrative an unusually surreal tone.
2  A chance to see three splendid actors turn a larky chase movie into an emotionally satisfying exploration of the very human need to be somebody, and to belong to somebody.
2  ... one of the more influential works of the `Korean New Wave'.
0  The best drug addition movies are usually depressing but rewarding.
1  Undoubtedly the scariest movie ever made about tattoos.
0  The good thing -- the only good thing -- about Extreme Ops is that it's so inane that it gave me plenty of time to ponder my Thanksgiving to-do list.
0  To show these characters in the act and give them no feelings of remorse -- and to cut repeatedly to the flashback of the original rape -- is overkill to the highest degree.
1  George Clooney, in his first directorial effort, presents this utterly ridiculous shaggy dog story as one of the most creative, energetic and original comedies to hit the screen in years.
-2 Alas, getting there is not even half the interest.
0  This isn't a retooled genre piece, the tale of a guy and his gun, but an amiably idiosyncratic work.
1  It's sweet.
-1 Do we really need another film that praises female self-sacrifice?
2  Be prepared to cling to the edge of your seat, tense with suspense.
1  It may be a somewhat backhanded compliment to say that the film makes the viewer feel like the movie's various victimized audience members after a while, but it also happens to be the movie's most admirable quality
-1 ... may work as an addictive guilty pleasure but the material never overcomes its questionable satirical ambivalence.
0  If Deuces Wild had been tweaked up a notch it would have become a camp adventure, one of those movies that's so bad it starts to become good.
1  An engrossing Iranian film about two itinerant teachers and some lost and desolate people they encounter in a place where war has savaged the lives and liberties of the poor and the dispossessed.
-1 Throughout all the tumult, a question comes to mind: So why is this so boring?
0  It must be in the genes.
0  His scenes are short and often unexpected.
1  As animation increasingly emphasizes the computer and the cool, this is a film that takes a stand in favor of tradition and warmth.
1  The story is smart and entirely charming in intent and execution.
1  That rare film whose real-life basis is, in fact, so interesting that no embellishment is needed.
2  A powerful and telling story that examines forbidden love, racial tension, and other issues that are as valid today as they were in the 1950s.
2  are both superb, while Huppert... is magnificent.
-1 If Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood suffers from a ploddingly melodramatic structure, it comes to life in the performances.
-1 Devolves into the derivative, leaning on badly-rendered CGI effects.
2  In a summer overrun with movies dominated by CGI aliens and super heroes, it revigorates the mind to see a feature that concentrates on people, a project in which the script and characters hold sway.
1  The unexpected thing is that its dying, in this shower of black-and-white psychedelia, is quite beautiful.
-2 Bad movie.
-1 It's a movie that ends with Truckzilla, for cryin' out loud.
-1 Episode II -- Attack of the Clones is a technological exercise that lacks juice and delight.
0  It's been 20 years since 48 Hrs.
0  It's all entertaining enough, but don't look for any hefty anti-establishment message in what is essentially a whip-crack of a buddy movie that ends with a whimper.
1  A bright, inventive, thoroughly winning flight of revisionist fancy.
1  If there's no art here, it's still a good yarn -- which is nothing to sneeze at these days.
0  A close-to-solid espionage thriller with the misfortune of being released a few decades too late.
0  It's harmless, diverting fluff.
2  It's a hoot watching The Rock chomp on jumbo ants, pull an arrow out of his back, and leap unscathed through raging fire!
2  Scherfig, the writer-director, has made a film so unabashedly hopeful that it actually makes the heart soar.
0  Cinematic pratfalls given a working over.
1  Talk to Her is so darned assured, we have absolutely no idea who the main characters are until the film is well under way -- and yet it's hard to stop watching.
2  A miraculous movie, I'm Going Home is so slight, yet overflows with wisdom and emotion.
1  Wang Xiaoshuai directs this intricately structured and well-realized drama that presents a fascinating glimpse of urban life and the class warfare that embroils two young men.
-1 Nohe has made a decent `intro' documentary, but he feels like a spectator and not a participant.
1  Most thrillers send audiences out talking about specific scary scenes or startling moments; ``Frailty'' leaves us with the terrifying message that the real horror may be waiting for us at home.
1  The pain, loneliness and insecurity of the screenwriting process are vividly and painfully brought to slovenly life in this self-deprecating, biting and witty feature written by Charlie Kaufman and his twin brother, Donald, and directed by Spike Jonze.
-1 Imagine Susan Sontag falling in love with Howard Stern.
2  Sexy and romantic.
-1 A feeble Tootsie knockoff.
-2 It's supposed to be post-feminist breezy but ends up as tedious as the chatter of parrots raised on Oprah.
0  Blade II has a brilliant director and charismatic star, but it suffers from rampant vampire devaluation.
1  It finds its moviegoing pleasures in the tiny events that could make a person who has lived her life half-asleep suddenly wake up and take notice.
-1 Releasing a film with the word `dog' in its title in January lends itself to easy jokes and insults, and Snow Dogs deserves every single one of them.
-1 Here the love scenes all end in someone screaming.
0  ... has its moments, but ultimately, its curmudgeon doesn't quite make the cut of being placed on any list of favorites.
2  The riveting performances by the incredibly flexible cast make Love a joy to behold.
1  There's undeniable enjoyment to be had from films crammed with movie references, but the fun wears thin -- then out -- when there's nothing else happening.
0  Each punch seen through prison bars, the fights become not so much a struggle of man vs. man as Brother-Man vs. The Man.
0  Personal Velocity ought to be exploring these women's inner lives, but it never moves beyond their surfaces.
0  To work, love stories require the full emotional involvement and support of a viewer.
2  Adams, with four scriptwriters, takes care with the characters, who are so believable that you feel what they feel.
1  The film gets close to the chimps the same way Goodall did, with a serious minded patience, respect and affection.
-1 While this one gets off with a good natured warning, future Lizard endeavors will need to adhere more closely to the laws of laughter
-1 What `Blade Runner' would've looked like as a low-budget series on a UHF channel.
-1 It's a film with an idea buried somewhere inside its fabric, but never clearly seen or felt.
1  A good film with a solid pedigree both in front of and, more specifically, behind the camera.
0  While Serving Sara does have a long way to go before it reaches the level of crudity in the latest Austin Powers extravaganza, there's nothing here to match that movie's intermittent moments of inspiration.
1  Simultaneously heart-breaking and very funny, The Last Kiss is really all about performances.
-1 The story passes time until it's time for an absurd finale of twisted metal, fireballs and revenge.
0  It's a tour de force, written and directed so quietly that it's implosion rather than explosion you fear.
1  brought to life on the big screen.
-1 is an inexpressible and drab wannabe looking for that exact niche.
-1 By the time the surprise ending is revealed, interest can not be revived.
2  The film sparkles with the the wisdom and humor of its subjects.
-2 ... a hokey piece of nonsense that tries too hard to be emotional.
-1 And for all the wrong reasons besides.
1  Alas, it's the man that makes the clothes.
1  As Janice, Eileen Walsh, an engaging, wide-eyed actress whose teeth are a little too big for her mouth, infuses the movie with much of its slender, glinting charm.
1  Quiet, adult and just about more stately than any contemporary movie this year... a true study, a film with a questioning heart and mind that isn't afraid to admit it doesn't have all the answers.
0  Less cinematically powerful than quietly and deeply moving, which is powerful in itself.
1  What's most memorable about Circuit is that it's shot on digital video, whose tiny camera enables Shafer to navigate spaces both large... and small... with considerable aplomb.
2  Best of all is Garcia, who perfectly portrays the desperation of a very insecure man.
1  Mr. Clooney, Mr. Kaufman and all their collaborators are entitled to take a deep bow for fashioning an engrossing entertainment out of an almost sure-fire prescription for a critical and commercial disaster.
2  A remarkably insightful look at the backstage angst of the stand-up comic.
-1 Wewannour money back, actually.
1  The mood, look and tone of the film fit the incredible storyline to a T.
1  If Ayurveda can help us return to a sane regimen of eating, sleeping and stress-reducing contemplation, it is clearly a good thing.
1  A gangster movie with the capacity to surprise.
-1 Deserving of its critical backlash and more.
0  Has its share of arresting images.
-1 Starts as a tart little lemon drop of a movie and ends up as a bitter pill.
1  There's a lot of tooth in Roger Dodger.
0  How about starting with a more original story instead of just slapping extreme humor and gross-out gags on top of the same old crap?
-2 Certain to be distasteful to children and adults alike, Eight Crazy Nights is a total misfire.
-2 Director Jay Russell weighs down his capricious fairy-tale with heavy sentiment and lightweight meaning.
-2 McKay seems embarrassed by his own invention and tries to rush through the intermediary passages, apparently hoping that the audience will not notice the glaring triteness of the plot device he has put in service.
-2 One can't shake the feeling that Crossroads is nothing more than an hour-and-a-half-long commercial for Britney's latest album.
-1 The mantra behind the project seems to have been `it's just a kids' flick.'
2  Often shocking but ultimately worthwhile exploration of motherhood and desperate mothers.
-1 Exhibits the shallow sensationalism characteristic of soap opera... more salacious telenovela than serious drama.
1  This charming but slight tale has warmth, wit and interesting characters compassionately portrayed.
-2 A shame that Stealing Harvard is too busy getting in its own way to be anything but frustrating, boring, and forgettable.
-1 You'll feel like you ate a Reeses without the peanut butter...'
0  It's an often-cute film but either needs more substance to fill the time or some judicious editing.
-1 This latest installment of the horror film franchise that is apparently as invulnerable as its trademark villain has arrived for an incongruous summer playoff, demonstrating yet again that the era of the intelligent, well-made B movie is long gone.
-2 This is not one of the movies you'd want to watch if you only had a week to live.
-1 It all seemed wasted like DeNiro's once promising career and the once grand Long Beach boardwalk.
2  An Inuit masterpiece that will give you goosebumps as its uncanny tale of love, communal discord, and justice unfolds.
-1 The movie itself appears to be running on hypertime in reverse as the truly funny bits get further and further apart.
-2 The story is bogus and its characters tissue-thin.
-1 Ponderous, plodding soap opera disguised as a feature film.
-1 For casual moviegoers who stumble into Rules expecting a slice of American Pie hijinks starring the kid from Dawson's Creek, they'll probably run out screaming.
-2 Shouldn't have been allowed to use the word ``new'' in its title, because there's not an original character, siuation or joke in the entire movie.
-2 Totally overwrought, deeply biased, and wholly designed to make you feel guilty about ignoring what the filmmakers clearly believe are The Greatest Musicians of All Time.
2  This is a stunning film, a one-of-a-kind tour de force.
2  It's a wise and powerful tale of race and culture forcefully told, with superb performances throughout.
1  It's an entertaining movie, and the effects, boosted to the size of a downtown hotel, will all but take you to outer space.
1  As they used to say in the 1950s sci-fi movies, Signs is a tribute to Shyamalan's gifts, which are such that we'll keep watching the skies for his next project.
-1 Instead of a witty expose on the banality and hypocrisy of too much kid-vid, we get an ugly, mean-spirited lashing out by an adult who's apparently been forced by his kids to watch too many Barney videos.
-1 A technical triumph and an extraordinary bore.
2  It's Quaid who anchors the film with his effortless performance and that trademark grin of his -- so perfect for a ballplayer.
1  Making such a tragedy the backdrop to a love story risks trivializing it, though Chouraqui no doubt intended the film to affirm love's power to help people endure almost unimaginable horror.
-1 Instead of contriving a climactic hero's death for the beloved-major - character-who-shall - remain-nameless, why not invite some genuine spontaneity into the film by having the evil aliens' laser guns actually hit something for once?
1  Mel Gibson fights the good fight in Vietnam in director Randall Wallace's flag-waving war flick with a core of decency.
2  Barry convinces us he's a dangerous, secretly unhinged guy who could easily have killed a president because it made him feel powerful.
2  Not only does Spider-Man deliver, but I suspect it might deliver again and again.
-1 Not so much farcical as sour.
1  It's Burns' visuals, characters and his punchy dialogue, not his plot, that carry waydowntown.
-1 Kapur's contradictory feelings about his material result in a movie that works against itself.
-1 The problem, amazingly enough, is the screenplay.
0  Tom Shadyac has learned a bit more craft since directing Adams, but he still lingers over every point until the slowest viewer grasps it.
2  Isabelle Huppert excels as the enigmatic Mika and Anna Mouglalis is a stunning new young talent in one of Chabrol's most intense psychological mysteries.
1  The production values are of the highest and the performances attractive without being memorable.
2  Nair's attention to detail creates an impeccable sense of place, while Thurman and Lewis give what can easily be considered career-best performances.
1  ... in no way original, or even all that memorable, but as downtown Saturday matinee brain candy, it doesn't disappoint.
-2 Completely awful Iranian drama... as much fun as a grouchy ayatollah in a cold mosque.
1  By turns fanciful, grisly and engagingly quixotic.
-2 Neither revelatory nor truly edgy -- merely crassly flamboyant and comedically labored.
0  There's not much to Fatale, outside of its stylish surprises... but that's OK.
-2 The film has a nearly terminal case of the cutes, and it's neither as funny nor as charming as it thinks it is.
1  The gentle comic treatment of adolescent sturm und drang should please fans of Chris Fuhrman's posthumously published cult novel.
2  Holofcener rejects patent solutions to dramatize life's messiness from inside out, in all its strange quirks.
1  ... Rogers's mouth never stops shut about the war between the sexes and how to win the battle.
1  It grabs you in the dark and shakes you vigorously for its duration.
-1 This cloying, voices-from-the-other-side story is hell.
1  And, there's no way you won't be talking about the film once you exit the theater.
1  Children and adults enamored of all things Pokemon won't be disappointed.
-1 The film's hero is a bore and his innocence soon becomes a questionable kind of inexcusable dumb innocence.
-1 Bogdanich is unashamedly pro-Serbian and makes little attempt to give voice to the other side.
2  An extraordinary dramatic experience.
2  It's a great performance and a reminder of Dickens' grandeur.
-1 It looks good, but it is essentially empty.
-1 Slap her - she's not funny!
0  Last Dance, whatever its flaws, fulfills one facet of its mission in making me want to find out whether, in this case, that's true.
1  The story plays out slowly, but the characters are intriguing and realistic.
-2 ... the film's considered approach to its subject matter is too calm and thoughtful for agitprop, and the thinness of its characterizations makes it a failure as straight drama.'
-1 The laughs are as rare as snake foo yung.
-1 This isn't a movie; it's a symptom.
1  But it will just as likely make you weep, and it will do so in a way that doesn't make you feel like a sucker.
0  Though the opera itself takes place mostly indoors, Jacquot seems unsure of how to evoke any sort of naturalism on the set.
-1 One of those films that seems tailor made to air on pay cable to offer some modest amusements when one has nothing else to watch.
2  Young Hanks and Fisk, who vaguely resemble their celebrity parents, bring fresh good looks and an ease in front of the camera to the work.
-1 Eight Legged Freaks?
1  Fierce, glaring and unforgettable.
1  Though Lan Yu lacks a sense of dramatic urgency, the film makes up for it with a pleasing verisimilitude.
0  Wallace directs with such patronising reverence, it turns the stomach.
-2 No, I hate it.
-1 It's drab.
-1 The sort of picture in which, whenever one of the characters has some serious soul searching to do, they go to a picture-perfect beach during sunset.
1  Psychologically savvy.
2  Another Best of the Year selection.
1  As played by Ryan Gosling, Danny is a frighteningly fascinating contradiction.
-1 ... better described as a ghost story gone badly awry.
2  An Asian neo-realist treasure.
-1 An achingly enthralling premise, the film is hindered by uneven dialogue and plot lapses.
0  Disappointingly, the characters are too strange and dysfunctional, Tom included, to ever get under the skin, but this is compensated in large part by the off-the-wall dialogue, visual playfulness and the outlandishness of the idea itself.
2  See Scratch for the history, see Scratch for the music, see Scratch for a lesson in scratching, but, most of all, see it for the passion.
-2 A Rumor of Angels doesn't just slip -- it avalanches into forced fuzziness.
-1 Not only is it hokey, manipulative and as bland as Wonder Bread dipped in milk, but it also does the absolute last thing we need Hollywood doing to us: It preaches.
1  However, it's pleasant enough and its ecological, pro-wildlife sentiments are certainly welcome.
1  Dogtown & Z-Boys evokes the blithe rebel fantasy with the kind of insouciance embedded in the sexy demise of James Dean.
0  Tony Gayton's script doesn't give us anything we haven't seen before, but director D.J. Caruso's grimy visual veneer and Kilmer's absorbing performance increase the gravitational pull considerably.
-1 The story has its redundancies, and the young actors, not very experienced, are sometimes inexpressive.
1  Compared to his series of spectacular belly flops both on and off the screen, RunTelDat is something of a triumph.
-1 ... Watching it was painful.
1  While not for every taste, this often very funny collegiate gross-out comedy goes a long way toward restoring the luster of the National Lampoon film franchise, too long reduced to direct-to-video irrelevancy.
2  There's no reason to miss Interview with the Assassin
1  A knowing look at female friendship, spiked with raw urban humor.
-2 I've never seen (a remake) do anything as stomach-turning as the way Adam Sandler's new movie rapes, pillages and incinerates Frank Capra's classic...
-1 Been there, done that... a thousand times already, and better.
0  Each scene wreaks of routine; the film never manages to generate a single threat of suspense.
1  Nettelbeck... has a pleasing way with a metaphor.
0  Succeeds only because Bullock and Grant were made to share the silver screen.
0  It's almost as if it's an elaborate dare more than a full-blooded film.
2  Mike White's deft combination of serious subject matter and dark, funny humor make ``The Good Girl'' a film worth watching.
1  The film's unhurried pace is actually one of its strengths.
1  A cutesy romantic tale with a twist.
-1 A bizarre piece of work, with premise and dialogue at the level of kids' television and plot threads as morose as teen pregnancy, rape and suspected murder
1  A competent, unpretentious entertainment destined to fill the after-school slot at shopping mall theaters across the country.
1  While dutifully pulling on heartstrings, directors Dean Deblois and Chris Sanders valiantly keep punching up the mix.
-2 Feels at times like a giant commercial for Universal Studios, where much of the action takes place.
2  It's the brilliant surfing photography bringing you right inside the massive waves that lifts Blue Crush into one of the summer's most pleasurable movies.
1  The last scenes of the film are anguished, bitter and truthful.
-1 The romance between the leads isn't as compelling or as believable as it should be.
1  A lyrical metaphor for cultural and personal self-discovery and a picaresque view of a little-remembered world.
-2 But the film itself is ultimately quite unengaging.
-1 Fluffy and disposible.
-1 There's... an underlying Old World sexism to Monday Morning that undercuts its charm.
1  While the material is slight, the movie is better than you might think.
2  There's nothing like love to give a movie a B-12 shot, and CQ shimmers with it.
-1 The corpse count ultimately overrides what little we learn along the way about vicarious redemption.
-1 At every opportunity to do something clever, the film goes right over the edge and kills every sense of believability... all you have left is a no-surprise series of explosions and violence while Banderas looks like he's not trying to laugh at how bad it
-1 The criticism never rises above easy, cynical potshots at morally bankrupt characters...
1  Though it's equally solipsistic in tone, the movie has enough vitality to justify the notion of creating a screen adaptation of Evans' saga of Hollywood excess.
-1 Little more than a stylish exercise in revisionism whose point... is no doubt true, but serves as a rather thin moral to such a knowing fable.
2  One regards Reign of Fire with awe.
2  If anything, the film is doing something of a public service -- shedding light on a group of extremely talented musicians who might otherwise go unnoticed and underappreciated by music fans.
1  ... an adorably whimsical comedy that deserves more than a passing twinkle.
-2 The innate theatrics that provide its thrills and extreme emotions lose their luster when flattened onscreen.
0  Parents, on the other hand, will be ahead of the plot at all times, and there isn't enough clever innuendo to fil
-1 There's the plot, and a maddeningly insistent and repetitive piano score that made me want to scream.
-1 If the predictability of bland comfort food appeals to you, then the film is a pleasant enough dish.
-2 An exercise in cynicism every bit as ugly as the shabby digital photography and muddy sound.
-1 Just another generic drama that has nothing going for it other than its exploitive array of obligatory cheap thrills.
0  Strictly middle of the road.
-1 The film is undone by anachronistic quick edits and occasional jarring glimpses of a modern theater audience watching the events unfold.
-2 This kiddie-oriented stinker is so bad that I even caught the gum stuck under my seat trying to sneak out of the theater
-1 The filmmakers keep pushing the jokes at the expense of character until things fall apart.
-1 Two-bit potboiler.
-2 Gaping plot holes sink this `sub' - standard thriller and drag audience enthusiasm to crush depth.
0  Now he makes them.
0  It's a bizarre curiosity memorable mainly for the way it fritters away its potentially interesting subject matter via a banal script, unimpressive acting and indifferent direction.
1  The powder blues and sun-splashed whites of Tunis make an alluring backdrop for this sensuous and spirited tale of a prim widow who finds an unlikely release in belly-dancing clubs.
1  The amazing film work is so convincing that by movies' end you'll swear you are wet in some places and feel sand creeping in others.
0  an insular world
0  A violent initiation rite for the audience, as much as it is for Angelique, the (opening) dance guarantees Karmen's enthronement among the cinema's memorable women.
2  That Jack Nicholson makes this man so watchable is a tribute not only to his craft, but to his legend.
-2 What you expect is just what you get... assuming the bar of expectations hasn't been raised above sixth-grade height.
1  For all its brooding quality, Ash Wednesday is suspenseful and ultimately unpredictable, with a sterling ensemble cast.
-2 Hollywood Ending is the most disappointing Woody Allen movie ever.
1  All in all, a great party.
-1 Only masochistic moviegoers need apply.
1  Caviezel embodies the transformation of his character completely.
2  Rarely have I seen a film so willing to champion the fallibility of the human heart.
-2 The entire film is one big excuse to play one lewd scene after another.
0  Leigh's daring here is that without once denying the hardscrabble lives of people on the economic fringes of Margaret Thatcher's ruinous legacy, he insists on the importance of those moments when people can connect and express their love for each other.
-1 (H) ad I suffered and bled on the hard ground of Ia Drang, I'd want something a bit more complex than We Were Soldiers to be remembered by.
1  The filmmakers wisely decided to let Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin do what he does best, and fashion a story around him.
0  Despite the pyrotechnics, Narc is strictly by the book.
1  It's the cute frissons of discovery and humor between Chaplin and Kidman that keep this nicely wound clock not just ticking, but humming.
2  Simply and eloquently articulates the tangled feelings of particular New Yorkers deeply touched by an unprecedented tragedy.
-1 Collapses under its own meager weight.
-1 The Good Girl is a film in which the talent is undeniable but the results are underwhelming.
-1 Start reading your scripts before signing that dotted line.
2  A stirring, funny and finally transporting re-imagining of Beauty and the Beast and 1930s horror films
-2 Abysmally pathetic
2  The best animated feature to hit theaters since Beauty and the Beast 11 years ago.
0  A farce of a parody of a comedy of a premise, it isn't a comparison to reality so much as it is a commentary about our knowledge of films.
1  It's surprisingly decent, particularly for a tenth installment in a series.
1  Rubbo's humorously tendentious intervention into the who-wrote-Shakespeare controversy.
-1 Spain's greatest star wattage doesn't overcome the tumult of maudlin tragedy.
0  Real Women Have Curves doesn't offer any easy answers.
-1 That neither protagonist has a distinguishable condition hardly matters because both are just actory concoctions, defined by childlike dimness and a handful of quirks.
-1 Replacing John Carpenter's stylish tracking shots is degraded, handheld Blair Witch video-cam footage.
0  Your response to its new sequel, Analyze That, may hinge on what you thought of the first film.
1  Smarter than its commercials make it seem.
0  Missteps take what was otherwise a fascinating, riveting story and send it down the path of the mundane.
-1 What's really sad is to see two Academy Award winning actresses (and one Academy Award winning actor) succumb to appearing in this junk that's TV sitcom material at best.
0  Who are `they'?
0  At the film's centre is a precisely layered performance by an actor in his mid-seventies, Michel Piccoli.
0  Everything is pegged into the groove of a New York dating comedy with `issues' to simplify.
1  A weird, arresting little ride.
1  One funny popcorn flick.
2  But as you watch the movie, you're too interested to care.
1  Short-story quaint, touchingly mending a child's pain for his dead mother via communication with an old woman straight out of Eudora Welty.
0  It's difficult to discern if this is a crazy work of disturbed genius or merely 90 minutes of post-adolescent Electra rebellion.
0  An unremarkable, modern action/comedy buddy movie whose only nod to nostalgia is in the title.
-1 Helmer Hudlin tries to make a hip comedy, but his dependence on slapstick defeats the possibility of creating a more darkly edged tome.
2  I am highly amused by the idea that we have come to a point in society where it has been deemed important enough to make a film in which someone has to be hired to portray Richard Dawson.
1  Earnest, unsubtle and Hollywood-predictable, Green Dragon is still a deeply moving effort to put a human face on the travail of thousands of Vietnamese.
0  An average coming-of-age tale elevated by the wholesome twist of a pesky mother interfering during her son's discovery of his homosexuality.
0  Consider this review life-affirming.
0  The film's heady yet far from impenetrable theory suggests that Russians take comfort in their closed-off nationalist reality.
0  Freundlich's made (Crudup) a suburban architect, and a cipher.
1  There's something poignant about an artist of 90-plus years taking the effort to share his impressions of life and loss and time and art with us.
2  Stay for the credits and see a devastating comic impersonation by Dustin Hoffman that is revelatory.
1  The sentimental script has problems, but the actors pick up the slack.
-1 Opera on film is never satisfactory.
-1 I am more offended by his lack of faith in his audience than by anything on display here.
-1 Humor in I Spy is so anemic.
-1 A fairly harmless but ultimately lifeless feature-length afterschool special.
-1 You can tell almost immediately that Welcome to Collinwood isn't going to jell.
0  Grown-up quibbles are beside the point here.
-1 Although purportedly a study in modern alienation, it's really little more than a particularly slanted, gay s/m fantasy, enervating and deadeningly drawn-out.
-1 A piece of mildly entertaining, inoffensive fluff that drifts aimlessly for 90 minutes before lodging in the cracks of that ever-growing category: unembarrassing but unmemorable.
0  Its vision of that awkward age when sex threatens to overwhelm everything else is acute enough to make everyone who has been there squirm with recognition.
2  Remarkable for its intelligence and intensity.
-1 An opportunity missed.
0  It's sobering, particularly if anyone still thinks this conflict can be resolved easily, or soon.
1  UB equally spoofs and celebrates the more outre aspects of `black culture' and the dorkier aspects of `white culture,' even as it points out how inseparable the two are.
1  It excels because, unlike so many other Hollywood movies of its ilk, it offers hope.
2  The most amazing super-sized dosage of goofball stunts any ``Jackass'' fan could want.
-1 This director's cut -- which adds 51 minutes -- takes a great film and turns it into a mundane soap opera.
2  Consummate actor Barry has done excellent work here.
2  Majidi's direction has never been smoother or more confident.
1  Trapped presents a frightening and compelling `What if?'
0  None of his actors stand out, but that's less of a problem here than it would be in another film: Characterization matters less than atmosphere.
0  You have once again entered the bizarre realm where director Adrian Lyne holds sway, where all relationships are simultaneously broadly metaphorical, oddly abstract, and excruciatingly literal.
2  E.T. works because its flabbergasting principals, 14-year-old Robert MacNaughton, 6-year-old Drew Barrymore and 10-year-old Henry Thomas, convince us of the existence of the wise, wizened visitor from a faraway planet.
1  A film of quiet power.
2  Changing Lanes is an anomaly for a Hollywood movie; it's a well-written and occasionally challenging social drama that actually has something interesting to say.
-1 If any of them list this `credit' on their resumes in the future, that'll be much funnier than anything in the film...
2  An enthralling, entertaining feature.
1  A film neither bitter nor sweet, neither romantic nor comedic, neither warm nor fuzzy.
-1 Painfully padded.
2  It's worth taking the kids to.
-2 I'm not sure which half of Dragonfly is worse: The part where nothing's happening, or the part where something's happening, but it's stupid.
0  This movie has a strong message about never giving up on a loved one, but it's not an easy movie to watch and will probably disturb many who see it.
-2 The characters are never more than sketches... which leaves any true emotional connection or identification frustratingly out of reach.
1  Drug abuse, infidelity and death aren't usually comedy fare, but Turpin's film allows us to chuckle through the angst.
-2 Muddled, melodramatic paranormal romance is an all-time low for Kevin Costner.
-2 The rest of the film... is dudsville.
-1 Don't say you weren't warned.
-2 It's fitting that a movie as artificial and soulless as The Country Bears owes its genesis to an animatronic display at Disneyland.
0  less on forced air
0  Reeboir varies between a sweet smile and an angry bark, while Said attempts to wear down possible pupils through repetition.
-1 Strictly a `guy's film' in the worst sense of the expression.
1  Reno himself can take credit for most of the movie's success.
1  Almost everyone growing up believes their family must look like ``The Addams Family'' to everyone looking in... ``My Big Fat Greek Wedding'' comes from the heart...
0  An amalgam of The Fugitive, Blade Runner, and Total Recall, only without much energy or tension.
-1 A portrait of alienation so perfect, it will certainly succeed in alienating most viewers.
0  Dong shows how intolerance has the power to deform families, then tear them apart.
-1 Boasting some of the most poorly staged and lit action in memory, Impostor is as close as you can get to an imitation movie.
-2 Nothing about the film -- with the possible exception of Elizabeth Hurley's breasts -- is authentic.
0  ... passable enough for a shoot-out in the o.k. court house of life type of flick.
2  A highly spirited, imaginative kid's movie that broaches neo-Augustinian theology: Is God stuck in Heaven because He's afraid of His best-known creation?
1  For all the charm of Kevin Kline and a story that puts old-fashioned values under the microscope, there's something creepy about this movie.
-2 McKay shows crushingly little curiosity about, or is ill-equipped to examine, the interior lives of the characters in his film, much less incorporate them into his narrative.
-1 It's like Rocky and Bullwinkle on Speed, but that's neither completely enlightening, nor does it catch the intensity of the movie's strangeness.
-1 I don't think this movie loves women at all.
-1 If you are willing to do this, then you so crazy!
1  A bodice-ripper for intellectuals.
0  The Master of Disguise is funny -- not ``ha ha'' funny, ``dead circus performer'' funny.
-1 Made to be Jaglomized is the Cannes Film Festival, the annual Riviera spree of flesh, buzz, blab and money.
1  At once a testament to the divine calling of education and a demonstration of the painstaking process of imparting knowledge.
-1 Plays like one long, meandering sketch inspired by the works of John Waters and Todd Solondz, rather than a fully developed story.
-2 An unholy mess, driven by the pathetic idea that if you shoot something on crummy-looking videotape, it must be labelled `hip', `innovative' and `realistic'.
2  won't be placed in the pantheon of the best of the swashbucklers but it is a whole lot of fun and you get to see the one of the world's best actors, Daniel Auteuil, have a whale of a good time.
0  The video work is so grainy and rough, so dependent on being `naturalistic' rather than carefully lit and set up, that it's exhausting to watch.
-1 Cold, pretentious, thoroughly dislikable study in sociopathy.
1  Puts a refreshing and comical spin on the all-too-familiar saga of the contemporary single woman.
2  The cast is top-notch and I predict there will be plenty of female audience members drooling over Michael Idemoto as Michael.
0  A romance?
0  Might be one of those vanity projects in which a renowned filmmaker attempts to show off his talent by surrounding himself with untalented people.
-1 The biggest problem I have (other than the very sluggish pace) is we never really see her Esther blossom as an actress, even though her talent is supposed to be growing.
0  Has the marks of a septuagenarian; it's a crusty treatment of a clever gimmick.
0  The problems of the people in Love in the Time of Money are hardly specific to their era.
2  ... fuses the events of her life with the imagery in her paintings so vividly that the artist's work may take on a striking new significance for anyone who sees the film.
0  It's a good film, but it falls short of its aspiration to be a true `epic'.
2  Quite simply, a joy to watch and -- especially -- to listen to.
1  As an actor's showcase, Hart's War has much to recommend it, even if the top-billed Willis is not the most impressive player.
0  It's too bad nothing else is.
-2 The crap continues.
-1 Something has been lost in the translation... another routine Hollywood frightfest in which the slack execution italicizes the absurdity of the premise.
-1 When the casting call for this movie went out, it must have read `seeking anyone with acting ambition but no sense of pride or shame.'
-1 Though her fans will assuredly have their funny bones tickled, others will find their humor-seeking dollars best spent elsewhere.
-2 The movie is almost completely lacking in suspense, surprise and consistent emotional conviction.
2  Wickedly funny, visually engrossing, never boring, this movie challenges us to think about the ways we consume pop culture.
-1 The Piano Teacher, like its title character, is repellantly out of control.
0  Director-chef Gabriele Muccino keeps it fast -- zippy, comin' at ya -- as if fearing that his film is molto superficiale.
0  Veers uncomfortably close to pro-Serb propaganda.
-1 It's makes a better travelogue than movie.
1  Bravo for history rewritten, and for the uncompromising knowledge that the highest power of all is the power of love.
-1 It's also built on a faulty premise, one it follows into melodrama and silliness.
1  This is the stuff that Disney movies are made of.
1  For those who like quirky, slightly strange French films, this is a must!
1  This is one of the rarest kinds of films: a family-oriented non-Disney film that is actually funny without hitting below the belt.
-2 Horrible.
2  A strong first act and absolutely, inescapably gorgeous, skyscraper-trapeze motion of the amazing Spider-Man.
-1 Moves in such odd plot directions and descends into such message-mongering moralism that its good qualities are obscured.
1  An energetic, violent movie with a momentum that never lets up.
1  He allows his cast members to make creative contributions to the story and dialogue.
-1 Will undoubtedly play well in European markets, where Mr. Besson is a brand name, and in Asia, where Ms. Shu is an institution, but American audiences will probably find it familiar and insufficiently cathartic.
0  Simultaneously heartbreakingly beautiful and exquisitely sad.
-2 The exclamation point seems to be the only bit of glee you'll find in this dreary mess.
0  So verbally flatfooted and so emotionally predictable or bland that it plays like the standard made-for-TV movie.
0  Wow, a jump cut!
1  It has a way of seeping into your consciousness, with lingering questions about what the film is really getting at.
0  Apparently writer-director Attal thought he need only cast himself and his movie-star wife sitting around in their drawers to justify a film.
-1 A jumbled fantasy comedy that did not figure out a coherent game plan at scripting, shooting or post-production stages.
-1 Neither as scary-funny as Tremors nor demented-funny as Starship Troopers, the movie isn't tough to take as long as you've paid a matinee price.
1  (Barry) gives Assassin a disquieting authority.
-2 Without Shakespeare's eloquent language, the update is dreary and sluggish.
1  It won't hold up over the long haul, but in the moment, Finch's tale provides the forgettable pleasures of a Saturday matinee.
0  It's the type of stunt the Academy loves: a powerful political message stuffed into an otherwise mediocre film.
1  Much of the movie's charm lies in the utter cuteness of Stuart and Margolo.
1  Both Garcia and Jagger turn in perfectly executed and wonderfully sympathetic characters, who are alternately touching and funny.
-1 Watching junk like this induces a kind of abstract guilt, as if you were paying dues for good books unread, fine music never heard.
2  The film just might turn on many people to opera, in general, an art form at once visceral and spiritual, wonderfully vulgar and sublimely lofty -- and as emotionally grand as life.
2  Payne has created a beautiful canvas, and Nicholson proves once again that he's the best brush in the business.
-1 I didn't find much fascination in the swinging.
-1 Insomnia loses points when it surrenders to a formulaic bang-bang, shoot-em-up scene at the conclusion.
0  Affleck merely creates an outline for a role he still needs to grow into, a role that Ford effortlessly filled with authority.
-2 Reign of Fire has the disadvantage of also looking cheap.
0  It's another retelling of Alexandre Dumas' classic.
1  The first shocking thing about Sorority Boys is that it's actually watchable.
2  A fantastically vital movie that manages to invest real humor, sensuality, and sympathy into a story about two adolescent boys.
1  Even though the film doesn't manage to hit all of its marks, it's still entertaining to watch the target practice.
1  A film that will be best appreciated by those willing to endure its extremely languorous rhythms, Waiting for Happiness is ultimately thoughtful without having much dramatic impact.
-1 This rather unfocused, all-over-the-map movie would be a lot better if it pared down its plots and characters to a few rather than dozens... or if it were subtler... or if it had a sense of humor.
0  A creaky staircase gothic.
-1 ``White Oleander,'' the movie, is akin to a Reader's Digest condensed version of the source material.
-1 This dreadfully earnest inversion of the Concubine love triangle eschews the previous film's historical panorama and roiling pathos for bug-eyed mugging and gay-niche condescension.
-1 The direction, by George Hickenlooper, has no snap to it, no wiseacre crackle or hard-bitten cynicism.
1  Beautifully directed and convincingly acted.
-1 The movie is a lumbering load of hokum but... it's at least watchable.
1  While Cherish doesn't completely survive its tonal transformation from dark comedy to suspense thriller, it's got just enough charm and appealing character quirks to forgive that still serious problem.
-2 It would be churlish to begrudge anyone for receiving whatever consolation that can be found in Dragonfly, yet it is impossible to find the film anything but appalling, shamelessly manipulative and contrived, and totally lacking in conviction.
-1 It's not the least of Afghan tragedies that this noble warlord would be consigned to the dustbin of history.
-1 Hawke's film, a boring, pretentious waste of nearly two hours, doesn't tell you anything except that the Chelsea Hotel today is populated by whiny, pathetic, starving and untalented artistes.
-1 This romantic/comedy asks the question how much souvlaki can you take before indigestion sets in.
0  A...
1  Jae-eun Jeong's Take Care of My Cat brings a beguiling freshness to a coming-of-age story with such a buoyant, expressive flow of images that it emerges as another key contribution to the flowering of the South Korean cinema.
-2 Depicts the sorriest and most sordid of human behavior on the screen, then laughs at how clever it's being.
1  Wow.
1  Whenever you think you've figured out Late Marriage, it throws you for a loop.
1  Anyone who ever fantasized about space travel but can't afford the $ 20 million ticket to ride a Russian rocket should catch this IMAX offering.
-1 The only thing I laughed at were the people who paid to see it.
0  This engrossing, characteristically complex Tom Clancy thriller is shifty in the manner in which it addresses current terrorism anxieties and sidesteps them at the same time.
1  A suffocating rape-payback horror show that hinges on the subgenre's most enabling victim... and an ebullient affection for industrial-model meat freezers.
2  With `Bowling for Columbine,' Michael Moore gives us the perfect starting point for a national conversation about guns, violence, and fear.
0  The script feels as if it started to explore the obvious voyeuristic potential of `hypertime' but then backed off when the producers saw the grosses for Spy Kids.
0  The name says it all.
-1 Fails to satisfactorily exploit its gender politics, genre thrills or inherent humor.
0  The pace and the visuals are so hyped up that a curious sense of menace informs everything.
-1 I'm giving it thumbs down due to the endlessly repetitive scenes of embarrassment.
-1 shows Holmes has the screen presence to become a major-league leading lady, (but) the movie itself is an underachiever, a psychological mystery that takes its sweet time building to a climax that's scarcely a surprise by the time it arrives.
-2 Time literally stops on a dime in the tries-so-hard-to-be-cool ``Clockstoppers,'' but that doesn't mean it still won't feel like the longest 90 minutes of your movie-going life.
0  Collateral Damage offers formula payback and the Big Payoff, but the explosions tend to simply hit their marks, pyro-correctly.
1  K-19: The Widowmaker is a great yarn.
1  It's funny, as the old saying goes, because it's true.
2  A sexy, surprising romance... Idemoto and Kim make a gorgeous pair... their scenes brim with sexual possibility and emotional danger.
1  A psychic journey deep into the very fabric of Iranian... life.
0  See it now, before the inevitable Hollywood remake flattens out all its odd, intriguing wrinkles.
-1 A distinctly minor effort that will be seen to better advantage on cable, especially considering its barely feature-length running time of one hour.
-1 Rosenthal (Halloween II) seems to have forgotten everything he ever knew about generating suspense.
-1 The acting is fine but the script is about as interesting as a recording of conversations at the Wal-Mart checkout line.
2  Fresh and raw like a blown-out vein, Narc takes a walking-dead, cop-flick subgenre and beats new life into it.
-2 Once Ice-T sticks his mug in the window of the couple's BMW and begins haranguing the wife in bad stage dialogue, all credibility flies out the window.
0  There's no question that Epps scores once or twice, but it's telling that his funniest moment comes when he falls about ten feet onto his head.
-1 Ear-splitting exercise in formula crash-and-bash action.
2  A strangely stirring experience that finds warmth in the coldest environment and makes each crumb of emotional comfort feel like a 10-course banquet.
1  One feels the dimming of a certain ambition, but in its place a sweetness, clarity and emotional openness that recalls the classics of early Italian neorealism.
0  The Grey Zone gives voice to a story that needs to be heard in the sea of Holocaust movies... but the film suffers from its own difficulties.
-1 It's leaden and predictable, and laughs are lacking.
-1 Fincher takes no apparent joy in making movies, and he gives none to the audience.
0  If you want to see a train wreck that you can't look away from, then look no further, because here it is.
-1 Like its title character, Esther Kahn is unusual but unfortunately also irritating.
0  The message of such reflections -- intentional or not -- is that while no art grows from a vacuum, many artists exist in one.
2  Viveka Seldahl and Sven Wollter will touch you to the core in a film you will never forget -- that you should never forget.
-1 Solondz is without doubt an artist of uncompromising vision, but that vision is beginning to feel, if not morally bankrupt, at least terribly monotonous.
0  A ``black Austin Powers?''
2  A burst of color, music, and dance that only the most practiced curmudgeon could fail to crack a smile at.
-1 Demme gets a lot of flavor and spice into his Charade remake, but he can't disguise that he's spiffing up leftovers that aren't so substantial or fresh.
-1 Nicolas Cage isn't the first actor to lead a group of talented friends astray, and this movie won't create a ruffle in what is already an erratic career.
-2 Stale and
2  Moving and vibrant.
1  A penetrating, potent exploration of sanctimony, self-awareness, self-hatred and self-determination.
0  ``Sum'' is Jack Ryan's ``do-over.''
-1 An allegory concerning the chronically mixed signals African American professionals get about overachieving could be intriguing, but the supernatural trappings only obscure the message.
2  The Pianist is Polanski's best film.
2  A compelling, gut-clutching piece of advocacy cinema that carries you along in a torrent of emotion as it explores the awful complications of one terrifying day.
-2 It's a stale, overused cocktail using the same olives since 1962 as garnish.
2  Enormously enjoyable, high-adrenaline documentary.
1  the past via surrealist flourishes
1  A different movie -- sometimes tedious -- by a director many viewers would like to skip but film buffs should get to know.
-1 An absurdist spider web.
2  Twenty years later, E.T. is still a cinematic touchstone.
0  If legendary shlockmeister Ed Wood had ever made a movie about a vampire, it probably would look a lot like this alarming production, adapted from Anne Rice's novel The Vampire Chronicles.
0  Red Dragon is less baroque and showy than Hannibal, and less emotionally affecting than Silence.
1  It's affecting, amusing, sad and reflective.
1  By turns gripping, amusing, tender and heart-wrenching, Laissez-passer has all the earmarks of French cinema at its best.
-1 The dialogue is very choppy and monosyllabic despite the fact that it is being dubbed.
-1 ... hokey art house pretension.
1  Khouri manages, with terrific flair, to keep the extremes of screwball farce and blood-curdling family intensity on one continuum.
0  Then Nadia's birthday might not have been such a bad day after all.
2  A film centering on a traditional Indian wedding in contemporary New Delhi may not sound like specialized fare, but Mira Nair's film is an absolute delight for all audiences.
-2 It's a frightful vanity film that, no doubt, pays off what debt Miramax felt they owed to Benigni.
2  An excellent sequel.
-1 Never comes together as a coherent whole.
-1 Its simplicity puts an exclamation point on the fact that this isn't something to be taken seriously, but it also wrecks any chance of the movie rising above similar fare.
-1 prechewed
1  The first five minutes will have you talking 'til the end of the year!
-2 A loud, ugly, irritating movie without any of its satirical salvos hitting a discernible target.
2  Last Orders nurtures the multi-layers of its characters, allowing us to remember that life's ultimately a gamble and last orders are to be embraced.
-2 The Sweetest Thing is expressly for idiots who don't care what kind of sewage they shovel into their mental gullets to simulate sustenance.
-2 Ultimately the, yes, snail-like pacing and lack of thematic resonance make the film more silly than scary, like some sort of Martha Stewart decorating program run amok.
2  Seems based on ugly ideas instead of ugly behavior, as Happiness was... Hence, Storytelling is far more appealing.
0  Weird, vulgar comedy that's definitely an acquired taste.
0  Director-writer Bille August... depicts this relationship with economical grace, letting his superb actors convey Martin's deterioration and Barbara's sadness -- and, occasionally, anger.
1  Unlike most anime, whose most ardent fans outside Japan seem to be introverted young men with fantasy fetishes, Metropolis never seems hopelessly juvenile.
2  ... wise and elegiac...
1  It certainly won't win any awards in the plot department but it sets out with no pretensions and delivers big time.
-2 Very much a home video, and so devoid of artifice and purpose that it appears not to have been edited at all.
2  The story gives ample opportunity for large-scale action and suspense, which director Shekhar Kapur supplies with tremendous skill.
2  What makes How I Killed My Father compelling, besides its terrific performances, is Fontaine's willingness to wander into the dark areas of parent-child relationships without flinching.
-1 Without (De Niro), City By The Sea would slip under the waves.
-1 It made me realize that we really haven't had a good cheesy B-movie playing in theaters since... well... since last week's Reign of Fire.
2  A movie of riveting power and sadness.
0  More of an intriguing curiosity than a gripping thriller.
1  A worthwhile documentary, whether you're into rap or not, even if it may still leave you wanting more answers as the credits roll.
-1 ... instead go rent ``Shakes The Clown'', a much funnier film with a similar theme and an equally great Robin Williams performance.
1  While we no longer possess the lack-of-attention span that we did at seventeen, we had no trouble sitting for Blade II.
-1 This action-thriller/dark comedy is one of the most repellent things to pop up in a cinematic year already littered with celluloid garbage.
1  Brown Sugar signals director Rick Famuyiwa's emergence as an articulate, grown-up voice in African-American cinema.
2  Almodovar is an imaginative teacher of emotional intelligence in this engaging film about two men who discover what William James once called `the gift of tears.'
-1 Such a fine idea for a film, and such a stultifying, lifeless execution.
0  Avary's film never quite emerges from the shadow of Ellis' book.
-1 What should have been a painless time-killer becomes instead a grating endurance test.
2  It's endlessly inventive, consistently intelligent and sickeningly savage.
1  The journey is worth your time, especially if you have Ellen Pompeo sitting next to you for the ride.
-1 While the performances are often engaging, this loose collection of largely improvised numbers would probably have worked better as a one-hour TV documentary.
-1 Leaves viewers out in the cold and undermines some phenomenal performances.
-1 A tired, unimaginative and derivative variation of that already-shallow genre.
1  Yes, MIBII is rote work and predictable, but with a philosophical visual coming right at the end that extravagantly redeems it.
-1 A bit too eager to please.
-2 The only thing that distinguishes a Randall Wallace film from any other is the fact that there is nothing distinguishing in a Randall Wallace film.
2  10 minutes into the film you'll be white-knuckled and unable to look away.
2  The determination of Pinochet's victims to seek justice, and their often heartbreaking testimony, spoken directly into director Patricio Guzman's camera, pack a powerful emotional wallop.
1  Writer/director Alexander Payne (Election) and his co-writer Jim Taylor brilliantly employ their quirky and fearless ability to look American angst in the eye and end up laughing.
1  The Movie is clever, offbeat and even gritty enough to overcome my resistance.
1  The film presents visceral and dangerously honest revelations about the men and machines behind the curtains of our planet.
1  It manages to squeeze by on Angelina Jolie's surprising flair for self-deprecating comedy.
2  A delicious and delicately funny look at the residents of a Copenhagen neighborhood coping with the befuddling complications life tosses at them.
0  Will no doubt delight Plympton's legion of fans; others may find 80 minutes of these shenanigans exhausting.
-2 Behind the glitz, Hollywood is sordid and disgusting.
1  Once folks started hanging out at the barbershop, they never wanted to leave.
1  (Has) an immediacy and an intimacy that sucks you in and dares you not to believe it's all true.
-2 The characters are so generic and the plot so bland that even as rogue CIA assassins working for Chris Cooper's agency boss close in on the resourceful amnesiac, we don't feel much for Damon/Bourne or his predicament.
0  Malone does have a gift for generating nightmarish images that will be hard to burn out of your brain.
0  Arty gay film.
1  There's a part of us that can not help be entertained by the sight of someone getting away with something.
1  Mention ``Solaris'' five years from now and I'm sure those who saw it will have an opinion to share.
2  Provides a very moving and revelatory footnote to the Holocaust.
1  Mastering its formidable arithmetic of cameras and souls, Group articulates a flood of emotion.
-1 A movie where story is almost an afterthought amidst a swirl of colors and inexplicable events.
1  Manages to accomplish what few sequels can -- it equals the original and in some ways even betters it.
2  The leads are natural and lovely, the pace is serene, the humor wry and sprightly.
1  Cantet beautifully illuminates what it means sometimes to be inside looking out, and at other times outside looking in.
0  journalism of the 1960s.
-1 Pretty much sucks, but has a funny moment or two.
1  It's not like having a real film of Nijinsky, but at least it's better than that eponymous 1980 biopic that used soap in the places where the mysteries lingered.
-1 A shoddy male hip hop fantasy filled with guns, expensive cars, lots of naked women and Rocawear clothing.
-1 What Madonna does here can't properly be called acting -- more accurately, it's moving and it's talking and it's occasionally gesturing, sometimes all at once.
1  Baby-faced Renner is eerily convincing as this bland blank of a man with unimaginable demons within.
0  A different kind of love story - one that is dark, disturbing, painful to watch, yet compelling.
1  Even if you don't understand what on earth is going on, this is a movie that will stimulate hours of post viewing discussion, if only to be reminded of who did what to whom and why.
2  Funny, somber, absurd, and, finally, achingly sad, Bartleby is a fine, understated piece of filmmaking.
-2 (T) his slop doesn't even have potential as a cult film, as it's too loud to shout insults at the screen.
0  In the telling of a story largely untold, Bui chooses to produce something that is ultimately suspiciously familiar.
2  My Big Fat Greek Wedding is not only the best date movie of the year, it's also a -- dare I say it twice -- delightfully charming -- and totally American, I might add -- slice of comedic bliss.
1  Provides a satisfactory overview of the bizarre world of extreme athletes as several daredevils express their own views.
-1 Not exaggerated enough to be a parody of gross-out flicks, college flicks, or even flicks in general.
-1 Looks and feels like a low-budget hybrid of Scarface or Carlito's Way.
2  and your reward will be a thoughtful, emotional movie experience.
1  Kwan is a master of shadow, quietude, and room noise, and Lan Yu is a disarmingly lived-in movie.
2  Neil Burger here succeeded in... making the mystery of four decades back the springboard for a more immediate mystery in the present.
1  The Komediant is a tale worth catching.
1  Even when it drags, we are forced to reflect that its visual imagination is breathtaking
0  Feeling like a dope has rarely been more fun than it is in Nine Queens.
-2 Of all the Halloween's, this is the most visually unappealing.
2  Funny, sexy, devastating and incurably romantic.
2  Directors Brett Morgen and Nanette Burstein have put together a bold biographical fantasia.
-1 As if trying to grab a lump of Play-Doh, the harder that Liman tries to squeeze his story, the more details slip out between his fingers.
1  It's consistently funny, in an irresistible junior-high way, and consistently free of any gag that would force you to give it a millisecond of thought.
-2 I did go back and check out the last 10 minutes, but these were more repulsive than the first 30 or 40 minutes.
-1 You can drive right by it without noticing anything special, save for a few comic turns, intended and otherwise.
-2 (MacDowell) ventures beyond her abilities several times here and reveals how bad an actress she is.
0  The question hanging over The Time Machine is not, as the main character suggests, `what if?'
1  More good than great but Freeman and Judd make it work.
2  This is a story that zings all the way through with originality, humour and pathos.
0  When in doubt, the film ratchets up the stirring soundtrack, throws in a fish-out-of-water gag and lets the cliched dialogue rip.
-1 A movie that's about as overbearing and over-the-top as the family it depicts.
1  I liked it because it was so endlessly, grotesquely, inventive.
-1 This story of unrequited love doesn't sustain interest beyond the first half-hour.
0  The smash'em - up, crash'em - up, shoot'em - up ending comes out of nowhere substituting mayhem for suspense.
-2 Suffers from unlikable characters and a self-conscious sense of its own quirky hipness.
-1 A fragile framework upon which to hang broad, mildly fleshed-out characters that seem to have been conjured up only 10 minutes prior to filming.
2  Offers a guilt-free trip into feel-good territory.
2  One of the most important and exhilarating forms of animated filmmaking since old Walt doodled Steamboat Willie.
1  While not quite ``Shrek'' or ``Monsters, Inc.'', it's not too bad.
1  In all fairness, I must report that the children of varying ages in my audience never coughed, fidgeted or romped up and down the aisles for bathroom breaks.
1  ou've got to love a Disney pic with as little cleavage as this one has, and a heroine as feisty and principled as Jane.
1  As simple and innocent a movie as you can imagine.
-1 I have a confession to make: I didn't particularly like E.T. the first time I saw it as a young boy.
0  Put it somewhere between Sling Blade and South of Heaven, West of Hell in the pantheon of Billy Bob's body of work.
-1 The Hanukkah spirit seems fried in pork.
-2 Eventually, they will have a showdown, but, by then, your senses are as mushy as peas and you don't care who fires the winning shot.
1  Witty dialog between realistic characters showing honest emotions.
0  13 Conversations may be a bit too enigmatic and overly ambitious to be fully successful, but Sprecher and her screenwriting partner and sister, Karen Sprecher, don't seem ever to run out of ideas.
-2 The film is so busy making reference to other films and trying to be other films that it fails to have a heart, mind or humor of its own.
-1 Viewers of Barney's crushingly self-indulgent spectacle will see nothing in it to match the ordeal of sitting through it.
0  In many ways, reminiscent of 1992's Unforgiven which also utilized the scintillating force of its actors to draw out the menace of its sparse dialogue.
1  I admire the closing scenes of the film, which seem to ask whether our civilization offers a cure for Vincent's complaint.
2  Berry's saucy, full-bodied performance gives this aging series a much needed kick, making ``Die Another Day'' one of the most entertaining Bonds in years
-1 The film's needlessly opaque intro takes its doe-eyed Crudup out of pre-9 / 11 New York and onto a cross-country road trip of the Homeric kind.
1  Boomers and their kids will have a Barrie good time.
2  Flamboyant in some movies and artfully restrained in others, 65-year-old Jack Nicholson could be looking at his 12th Oscar nomination by proving that he's now, more than ever, choosing his roles with the precision of the insurance actuary.
-1 Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro sleepwalk through vulgarities in a sequel you can refuse.
1  Its rawness and vitality give it considerable punch.
-2 It's the kind of under-inspired, overblown enterprise that gives Hollywood sequels a bad name.
1  Whatever complaints I might have, I'd take (its) earnest errors and hard-won rewards over the bombastic self-glorification of other feel-good fiascos like Antwone Fisher or The Emperor's Club any time.
-1 It's not so much a movie as a joint promotion for the National Basketball Association and teenaged rap and adolescent poster-boy Lil' Bow Wow.
2  Ryan Gosling... is at 22 a powerful young actor.
0  A bonanza of wacky sight gags, outlandish color schemes, and corny visual puns that can be appreciated equally as an abstract Frank Tashlin comedy and as a playful recapitulation of the artist's career.
-1 Every joke is repeated at least -- annoying, isn't it?
0  Made-Up lampoons the moviemaking process itself, while shining a not particularly flattering spotlight on America's skin-deep notions of pulchritude.
-1 It's a strange film, one that was hard for me to warm up to.
1  A haunting tale of murder and mayhem.
1  If you're part of her targeted audience, you'll cheer.
0  Director Kevin Bray excels in breaking glass and marking off the ``Miami Vice'' checklist of power boats, Latin music and dog tracks.
1  A brilliant, absurd collection of vignettes that, in their own idiosyncratic way, sum up the strange horror of life in the new millennium.
0  Ong chooses to present Ah Na's life as a slight, weightless fairy tale, whose most unpleasant details seem to melt away in the face of the character's blank-faced optimism.
1  In the end, the film is less the cheap thriller you'd expect than it is a fairly revealing study of its two main characters -- damaged-goods people whose orbits will inevitably and dangerously collide.
2  If you're not deeply touched by this movie, check your pulse.
1  The film's strength isn't in its details, but in the larger picture it paints - of a culture in conflict with itself, with the thin veneer of nationalism that covers our deepest, media-soaked fears.
1  I'm guessing the director is a magician.
1  For the most part, it works beautifully as a movie without sacrificing the integrity of the opera.
1  Both a detective story and a romance spiced with the intrigue of academic skullduggery and politics.
1  It's touching and tender and proves that even in sorrow you can find humor.
1  Oddly, the film isn't nearly as downbeat as it sounds, but strikes a tone that's alternately melancholic, hopeful and strangely funny.
-1 The film is really closer to porn than a serious critique of what's wrong with this increasingly pervasive aspect of gay culture.
-1 Occasionally loud and offensive, but more often, it simply lulls you into a gentle waking coma.
-1 ... Tara Reid plays a college journalist, but she looks like the six-time winner of the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Pageant, so I don't know what she's doing in here...
-1 It all starts to smack of a Hallmark Hall of Fame, with a few four letter words thrown in that are generally not heard on television.
-2 Any reasonably creative eighth-grader could have written a more credible script, though with the same number of continuity errors.
0  Little more than a super-sized infomercial for the cable-sports channel and its Summer X Games.
-1 As original and insightful as last week's episode of Behind the Music.
-2 A dull, simple-minded and stereotypical tale of drugs, death and mind-numbing indifference on the inner-city streets.
-1 mired in a shabby script
-2 What's hard to understand is why anybody picked it up.
-2 Some of the characters die and others don't, and the film pretends that those living have learned some sort of lesson, and, really, nobody in the viewing audience cares.
0  Its juxtaposition of overwrought existentialism and stomach-churning gore will have you forever on the verge of either cracking up or throwing up.
1  The film's gamble to occasionally break up the live-action scenes with animated sequences pays off, as does its sensitive handling of some delicate subject matter.
0  It's like an old Warner Bros. costumer jived with sex -- this could be the movie Errol Flynn always wanted to make, though Bette Davis, cast as Joan, would have killed him.
-1 The problematic characters and overly convenient plot twists foul up Shum's good intentions.
-2 The film desperately sinks further and further into comedy futility.
2  The story's scope and pageantry are mesmerizing, and Mr. Day-Lewis roars with leonine power.
-2 What ensues are much blood-splattering, mass drug-induced bowel evacuations, and none-too-funny commentary on the cultural distinctions between Americans and Brits.
-1 With a romantic comedy plotline straight from the ages, this Cinderella story doesn't have a single surprise up its sleeve.
0  Director Oliver Parker labors so hard to whip life into The Importance of Being Earnest that he probably pulled a muscle or two.
1  ``Extreme Ops'' exceeds expectations.
1  I know I shouldn't have laughed, but hey, those farts got to my inner nine-year-old.
-1 Uzumaki's interesting social parallel and defiant aesthetic seems a prostituted muse...
0  The film's stagecrafts are intimate and therefore bolder than the otherwise calculated artifice that defines and overwhelms the film's production design.
1  A real audience-pleaser that will strike a chord with anyone who's ever waited in a doctor's office, emergency room, hospital bed or insurance company office.
2  Huppert and Girardot give performances of exceptional honesty.
1  Tense, terrific, sweaty-palmed fun.
2  It's refreshing that someone understands the need for the bad boy; Diesel, with his brawny frame and cool, composed delivery, fits the bill perfectly.
1  A lovely film for the holiday season.
1  Though Jones and Snipes are enthralling
-2 Devoid of any of the qualities that made the first film so special.
-1 This is the kind of movie where the big scene is a man shot out of a cannon into a vat of ice cream.
-2 A thoroughly awful movie -- dumb, narratively chaotic, visually sloppy... a weird amalgam of `The Thing' and a geriatric `Scream.'
1  A film of epic scale with an intimate feeling, a saga of the ups and downs of friendships.
0  A pure participatory event that malnourished intellectuals will gulp down in a frenzy.
0  Ah, what the hell.
1  Parris' performance is credible and remarkably mature.
0  God is great, the movie's not.
2  Great performances, stylish cinematography and a gritty feel help make Gangster No. 1 a worthwhile moviegoing experience.
2  Highly engaging.
0  Will you go ape over this movie?
-2 ... an hour-and-a-half of inoffensive, unmemorable filler.
-2 It's not a bad premise, just a bad movie.
0  Schnitzler's film has a great hook, some clever bits and well-drawn, if standard issue, characters, but is still only partly satisfying.
-1 Unfortunately, Carvey's rubber-face routine is no match for the insipid script he has crafted with Harris Goldberg.
-1 ... begins with promise, but runs aground after being snared in its own tangled plot.
2  insightfully written, delicately performed
-1 There's nothing remotely topical or sexy here.
0  The movie's messages are quite admirable, but
0  In a 102-minute film, Aaliyah gets at most 20 minutes of screen time.
-1 The results are far more alienating than involving.
-1 It forces you to watch people doing unpleasant things to each other and themselves, and it maintains a cool distance from its material that is deliberately unsettling.
1  Neither quite a comedy nor a romance, more of an impish divertissement of themes that interest Attal and Gainsbourg -- they live together -- the film has a lot of charm.
1  Graham Greene's novel of colonialism and empire is elevated by Michael Caine's performance as a weary journalist in a changing world.
-2 If that doesn't clue you in that something's horribly wrong, nothing will.
0  Has all the right elements but completely fails to gel together.
1  Never Again, while nothing special, is pleasant, diverting and modest -- definitely a step in the right direction.
1  The magic (and original running time) of ace Japanimator Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away survives intact in BV's re-voiced version.
1  A tasty masala.
-1 Cherish would've worked a lot better had it been a short film.
1  You'll end up moved.
1  A sweet, tender sermon about a 12-year-old Welsh boy more curious about God than girls, who learns that believing in something does matter.
1  What it lacks in substance it makes up for in heart.
-2 Distinctly sub-par... more likely to drown a viewer in boredom than to send any shivers down his spine.
-1 Reyes' directorial debut has good things to offer, but ultimately it's undone by a sloppy script
-1 The trashy teen-sleaze equivalent of Showgirls.
-1 Snoots will no doubt rally to its cause, trotting out threadbare standbys like `masterpiece' and `triumph' and all that malarkey, but rarely does an established filmmaker so ardently waste viewers' time with a gobbler like this.
-1 It's better suited for the history or biography channel, but there's no arguing the tone of the movie - it leaves a bad taste in your mouth and questions on your mind.
0  Buries an interesting storyline
1  This one is a few bits funnier than Malle's dud, if only because the cast is so engagingly messing around like Slob City reductions of Damon Runyon crooks.
1  The film has several strong performances.
1  I have a new favorite musical -- and I'm not even a fan of the genre
-2 This movie plays like an extended dialogue exercise in Retard 101.
0  Ninety minutes of Viva Castro!
1  An indispensable peek at the art and the agony of making people laugh.
1  Judging by those standards, `Scratch' is a pretty decent little documentary.
1  Does point the way for adventurous Indian filmmakers toward a crossover into nonethnic markets.
0  A direct-to-void release, heading nowhere.
-2 Whether Jason X is this bad on purpose is never clear.
0  Davis has energy, but she doesn't bother to make her heroine's book sound convincing, the gender-war ideas original, or the comic scenes fly.
2  Soderbergh, like Kubrick before him, may not touch the planet's skin, but understands the workings of its spirit.
-2 ... an incredibly heavy-handed, manipulative dud that feels all too familiar.
-1 Unlike Trey Parker, Sandler doesn't understand that the idea of exploiting molestation for laughs is funny, not actually exploiting it yourself.
1  Visually engrossing, seldom hammy, honorably Mexican and burns its Kahlories with conviction.
0  A Sha-Na-Na sketch punctuated with graphic violence.
2  It's a technically superb film, shining with all the usual Spielberg flair, expertly utilizing the talents of his top-notch creative team.
-1 Everything is off.
1  Here's yet another cool crime movie that actually manages to bring something new into the mix.
-2 What a stiflingly unfunny and unoriginal mess this is!
-1 Its inescapable absurdities are tantamount to insulting the intelligence of anyone who hasn't been living under a rock (since Sept. 11).
-1 (Jackson and Bledel) seem to have been picked not for their acting chops, but for their looks and appeal to the pre-teen crowd.
1  A lovely and beautifully photographed romance.
-1 Feels like the work of someone who may indeed have finally aged past his prime... and, perhaps more than he realizes, just wants to be liked by the people who can still give him work.
0  Serviceable at best, slightly less than serviceable at worst.
1  It's sort of a 21st century morality play with a Latino hip hop beat.
-1 An inelegant combination of two unrelated shorts that falls far short of the director's previous work in terms of both thematic content and narrative strength.
1  In its dry and forceful way, it delivers the same message as Jiri Menzel's Closely Watched Trains and Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land.
2  But the performances of Pacino, Williams, and Swank keep the viewer wide-awake all the way through.
2  The gags that fly at such a furiously funny pace that the only rip off that we were aware of was the one we felt when the movie ended so damned soon.
1  There are enough throwaway references to faith and rainbows to plant smile-button faces on that segment of the populace that made A Walk to Remember a niche hit.
-1 Rife with nutty cliches and far too much dialogue.
-1 It has the requisite faux-urban vibe and hotter-two-years-ago rap and R&B names and references.
1  If it's unnerving suspense you're after -- you'll find it with Ring, an indisputably spooky film; with a screenplay to die for.
-1 Leaks treacle from every pore.
0  The best thing that can be said of the picture is that it does have a few cute moments.
-1 One lousy movie.
-1 A rather tired exercise in nostalgia.
2  Vividly conveys the passion, creativity, and fearlessness of one of Mexico's most colorful and controversial artists -- a captivating drama that will speak to the nonconformist in us all.
2  One-of-a-kind near-masterpiece.
-2 MIB II is a movie that makes it possible for the viewer to doze off for a few minutes or make several runs to the concession stand and/or restroom and not feel as if he or she has missed anything.
0  Alas, the black-and-white archival footage of their act showcases pretty mediocre shtick.
1  Remember it.
-2 Skip the film and buy the Philip Glass soundtrack CD.
-1 essentially ``Fatal Attraction'' remade for viewers who were in diapers when the original was released in 1987.
-1 Doesn't do more than expand a TV show to movie length.
0  Mushes the college-friends genre (The Big Chill) together with the contrivances and overwrought emotion of soap operas.
0  Meyjes focuses too much on Max when he should be filling the screen with this tortured, dull artist and monster-in-the - making.
-2 The Tuxedo miscalculates badly by forcing the star to play second fiddle to the dull effects that allow the suit to come to life.
0  Fubar is very funny, but not always in a laugh-out-loud way.
-2 As aimless as an old pickup skidding completely out of control on a long patch of black ice, the movie makes two hours feel like four.
-1 If you saw Benigni's Pinocchio at a public park, you'd grab your kids and run and then probably call the police.
-2 The characters are paper thin and the plot is so cliched and contrived that it makes your least favorite James Bond movie seem as cleverly plotted as The Usual Suspects.
0  Harris is supposed to be the star of the story, but comes across as pretty dull and wooden.
1  It celebrates the group's playful spark of nonconformity, glancing vividly back at what Hibiscus grandly called his `angels of light.'
0  And I expect much more from a talent as outstanding as director Bruce McCulloch.
1  A harrowing account of a psychological breakdown.
1  There's absolutely no reason why Blue Crush, a late-summer surfer girl entry, should be as entertaining as it is
0  Overall, it's a wacky and inspired little film that works effortlessly at delivering genuine, acerbic laughs.
-1 Oscar caliber cast doesn't live up to material
-1 ... the kind of movie you see because the theater has air conditioning.
-1 When the screenwriter responsible for one of the worst movies of one year directs an equally miserable film the following year, you'd have a hard time believing it was just coincidence.
-1 Although made on a shoestring and unevenly acted, conjures a Lynch-like vision of the rotting underbelly of Middle America.
-2 `It's painful to watch Witherspoon's talents wasting away inside unnecessary films like Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Abomination, I mean, Alabama.'
0  A family-friendly fantasy that ends up doing very little with its imaginative premise.
1  It's hard to imagine anybody ever being ``in the mood'' to view a movie as harrowing and painful as The Grey Zone, but it's equally hard to imagine anybody being able to tear their eyes away from the screen once it's started.
1  Chicago offers much colorful eye candy, including the spectacle of Gere in his dancing shoes, hoofing and crooning with the best of them.
-1 No new plot conceptions or environmental changes, just different bodies for sharp objects to rip through.
0  The inevitable double - and triple-crosses arise, but the only drama is in waiting to hear how John Malkovich's reedy consigliere will pronounce his next line.
-1 You come away thinking not only that Kate isn't very bright, but that she hasn't been worth caring about and that maybe she, Janine and Molly -- an all-woman dysfunctional family -- deserve one another.
-1 The result is so tame that even slightly wised-up kids would quickly change the channel.
0  One of the oddest and most inexplicable sequels in movie history.
1  A mostly believable, refreshingly low-key and quietly inspirational little sports drama.
0  Ana's journey is not a stereotypical one of self-discovery, as she's already comfortable enough in her own skin to be proud of her Rubenesque physique...
0  Falls short in explaining the music and its roots.
0  Boy oh boy, it's a howler.
1  Niccol the filmmaker merges his collaborators' symbolic images with his words, insinuating, for example, that in Hollywood, only God speaks to the press
2  One of the most genuinely sweet films to come along in quite some time.
-1 The movie starts with a legend and ends with a story that is so far-fetched it would be impossible to believe if it weren't true.
2  Works because Reno doesn't become smug or sanctimonious towards the audience.
1  A few nonbelievers may rethink their attitudes when they see the joy the characters take in this creed, but skeptics aren't likely to enter the theater.
-2 Fred Schepisi's film is paced at a speed that is slow to those of us in middle age and deathly slow to any teen.
-2 Yes, I have given this movie a rating of zero.
1  A film of delicate interpersonal dances.
1  The film is full of charm.
0  In both the writing and cutting, it does not achieve the kind of dramatic unity that transports you.
-2 To be influenced chiefly by humanity's greatest shame, reality shows -- reality shows for God's sake!
0  When Mr. Hundert tells us in his narration that `this is a story without surprises,' we nod in agreement.
-1 Time Out is as serious as a pink slip.
0  Spy-vs.
-1 A listless and desultory affair.
-1 By the final whistle you're convinced that this Mean Machine was a decent TV outing that just doesn't have big screen magic.
1  This time, the hype is quieter, and while the movie is slightly less successful than the first, it's still a rollicking good time for the most part.
1  Often likable, but just as often it's meandering, low on energy, and too eager to be quirky at moments when a little old-fashioned storytelling would come in handy.
0  We could have expected a little more human being, and a little less product.
1  Wonder of wonders -- a teen movie with a humanistic message.
-1 Whether it's the worst movie of 2002, I can't say for sure: Memories of Rollerball have faded, and I skipped Country Bears.
0  Proof of this is Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
-1 Michele is a such a brainless flibbertigibbet that it's hard to take her spiritual quest at all seriously.
1  Though this saga would be terrific to read about, it is dicey screen material that only a genius should touch.
-1 There's got to be a more graceful way of portraying the devastation of this disease.
2  Drawing on an irresistible, languid romanticism, Byler reveals the ways in which a sultry evening or a beer-fueled afternoon in the sun can inspire even the most retiring heart to venture forth.
1  A moving tale of love and destruction in unexpected places, unexamined lives.
0  Much of the digitally altered footage
0  If you can keep your eyes open amid all the blood and gore, you'll see Del Toro has brought unexpected gravity to Blade II.
-1 Nothing but one relentlessly depressing situation after another for its entire running time, something that you could easily be dealing with right now in your lives.
2  Gosling creates a staggeringly compelling character, a young man whose sharp intellect is at the very root of his contradictory, self-hating, self-destructive ways.
0  It's all pretty tame.
-2 A less-than-thrilling thriller.
0  The plot meanders from gripping to plodding and back.
-1 Parts of the film feel a bit too much like an infomercial for Ram Dass's latest book aimed at the boomer demographic.
-1 A prolonged extrusion of psychopathic pulp.
1  The film's sense of imagery gives it a terrible strength, but it's propelled by the acting.
2  Schepisi, aided by a cast that seems to include every top-notch British actor who did not appear in Gosford Park (as well as one, Ms. Mirren, who did), has succeeded beyond all expectation.
0  The plan to make Enough into `an inspiring tale of survival wrapped in the heart-pounding suspense of a stylish psychological thriller'
1  A lovably old-school Hollywood confection.
-1 The characters seem one-dimensional, and the film is superficial and will probably be of interest primarily to its target audience.
1  For once, a movie does not proclaim the truth about two love-struck somebodies, but permits them time and space to convince us of that all on their own.
-2 A dull, somnambulant exercise in pretension whose pervasive quiet is broken by frequent outbursts of violence and noise.
0  Paxton's uneven directorial debut fails to unlock the full potential of what is in many ways a fresh and dramatically substantial spin on the genre.
1  Watching the chemistry between Freeman and Judd, however, almost makes this movie worth seeing.
-2 The attempt to build up a pressure cooker of horrified awe emerges from the simple fact that the movie has virtually nothing to show.
0  There's something about a marching band that gets me where I live.
2  Serious movie-goers embarking upon this journey will find that The Road to Perdition leads to a satisfying destination.
-1 It's mildly sentimental, unabashedly consumerist... studiously inoffensive and completely disposable.
-1 Serving Sara is little more than a mall movie designed to kill time.
-2 A dull, dumb and derivative horror film.
-1 Wimps out by going for that PG-13 rating, so the more graphic violence is mostly off-screen and the sexuality is muted.
1  While this movie, by necessity, lacks Fellowship's heart, Two Towers outdoes its spectacle.
2  The performers are so spot on, it is hard to conceive anyone else in their roles.
1  Asks what truth can be discerned from non-firsthand experience, and specifically questions cinema's capability for recording truth.
-1 It's a mystery how the movie could be released in this condition.
2  Extremely well acted by the four primary actors, this is a seriously intended movie that is not easily forgotten.
1  A formula family tearjerker told with a heavy Irish brogue... accentuating, rather than muting, the plot's saccharine thrust.
1  The stunt work is top-notch; the dialogue and drama often food-spittingly funny.
1  A mischievous visual style and oodles of charm make `Cherish' a very good (but not great) movie.
0  Ends up being mostly about ravishing costumes, eye-filling, wide-screen production design and Joan's wacky decision to stand by her man, no matter how many times he demonstrates that he's a disloyal satyr.
1  A four star performance from Kevin Kline who unfortunately works with a two star script.
1  Talk To Her is not the perfect movie many have made it out to be, but it's still quite worth seeing.
2  Wilco is a phenomenal band with such an engrossing story that will capture the minds and hearts of many.
1  It may not be a huge cut of above the rest, but I enjoyed Barbershop.
1  A gripping documentary that reveals how deep the antagonism lies in war-torn Jerusalem.
-1 All movie long, City by the Sea swings from one approach to the other, but in the end, it stays in formula -- which is a waste of De Niro, McDormand and the other good actors in the cast.
2  Miyazaki's nonstop images are so stunning, and his imagination so vivid, that the only possible complaint you could have about Spirited Away is that there is no rest period, no timeout.
-2 No French people were harmed during the making of this movie, but they were insulted and the audience was put through torture for an hour and a half.
-2 Instead of making his own style, director Marcus Adams just copies from various sources -- good sources, bad mixture
1  After seeing `Analyze That,' I feel better already.
1  Very predictable but still entertaining
1  Don't wait to see this terrific film with your kids -- if you don't have kids borrow some.
1  It thankfully goes easy on the reel/real world dichotomy that (Jaglom) pursued with such enervating determination in Venice/Venice.
1  A subtle, humorous, illuminating study of politics, power and social mobility.
2  For all its visual panache and compelling supporting characters, the heart of the film rests in the relationship between Sullivan and his son.
-1 There's a delightfully quirky movie to be made from curling, but Brooms isn't it.
0  The animation is competent, and some of the gags are quite funny, but Jonah... never shakes the oppressive, morally superior good-for-you quality that almost automatically accompanies didactic entertainment.
2  A venturesome, beautifully realized psychological mood piece that reveals its first-time feature director's understanding of the expressive power of the camera.
1  A film with contemporary political resonance illustrated by a winning family story.
-1 It's not too much of anything.
-1 It dabbles all around, never gaining much momentum.
2  An enjoyable experience.
-1 With the dog days of August upon us, think of this dog of a movie as the cinematic equivalent of high humidity.
-2 ... the story is far-flung, illogical, and plain stupid.
-1 If they broke out into elaborate choreography, singing and finger snapping it might have held my attention, but as it stands I kept looking for the last exit from Brooklyn.
1  I loved the look of this film.
0  Elmo touts his drug as being 51 times stronger than coke.
0  A brutally honest documentary about a much anticipated family reunion that goes wrong thanks to culture shock and a refusal to empathize with others.
-1 And adults will at least have a dream image of the West to savor whenever the film's lamer instincts are in the saddle.
-1 The lousy lead performances... keep the movie from ever reaching the comic heights it obviously desired.
-2 The lack of naturalness makes everything seem self-consciously poetic and forced... It's a pity that (Nelson's) achievement doesn't match his ambition.
1  Coral Reef Adventure is a heavyweight film that fights a good fight on behalf of the world's endangered reefs -- and it lets the pictures do the punching.
1  This story of a determined woman's courage to find her husband in a war zone offers winning performances and some effecting moments.
-1 Feels less like a cousin to Blade Runner than like a bottom-feeder sequel in the Escape From New York series.
0  Life or Something Like It has its share of high points, but it misses too many opportunities.
1  Piercingly affecting... while clearly a manipulative film, emerges as powerful rather than cloying.
-1 The holiday message of the 37-minute Santa vs. the Snowman leaves a lot to be desired.
-2 A DOA dud from frame one.
2  A vibrant, colorful, semimusical rendition.
1  (A) strong piece of work.
2  Visually breathtaking, viscerally exciting, and dramatically moving, it's the very definition of epic adventure.
1  The movie is... very funny as you peek at it through the fingers in front of your eyes.
1  Instead of simply handling conventional material in a conventional way, Secretary takes the most unexpected material and handles it in the most unexpected way.
-1 We get the comedy we settle for.
0  This is the first full scale WWII flick from Hong Kong's John Woo.
0  For all of its insights into the dream world of teen life, and its electronic expression through cyber culture
2  This comic gem is as delightful as it is derivative.
2  A must see for all sides of the political spectrum
1  Smaller numbered kidlets will enjoy.
1  - West Coast rap wars, this modern mob music drama never fails to fascinate.
2  In the new release of Cinema Paradiso, the tale has turned from sweet to bittersweet, and when the tears come during that final, beautiful scene, they finally feel absolutely earned.
2  A worthy addition to the cinematic canon, which, at last count, numbered 52 different versions.
-1 We do get the distinct impression that this franchise is drawing to a close.
1  A sensitive, modest comic tragedy that works as both character study and symbolic examination of the huge economic changes sweeping modern China.
0  Parker should be commended for taking a fresh approach to familiar material, but his determination to remain true to the original text leads him to adopt a somewhat mannered tone... that ultimately dulls the human tragedy at the story's core.
1  Buy is an accomplished actress, and this is a big, juicy role.
-2 For the future, one hopes Mr. Plympton will find room for one more member of his little band, a professional screenwriter.
1  A clever script and skilled actors bring new energy to the familiar topic of office politics.
0  The cameo-packed, M: I-2-spoofing title sequence is the funniest 5 minutes to date in this spy comedy franchise... Then Mike Myers shows up and ruins everything.
1  A photographic marvel of sorts, and it's certainly an invaluable record of that special fishy community.
2  Hashiguchi covers this territory with wit and originality, suggesting that with his fourth feature -- the first to be released in the U.S. -- a major director is emerging in world cinema.
1  A grittily beautiful film that looks, sounds, and feels more like an extended, open-ended poem than a traditionally structured story.
-2 (L) ame and unnecessary.
1  Davis' candid, archly funny and deeply authentic take on intimate relationships comes to fruition in her sophomore effort.
2  Think of it as Gidget, only with muscles and a lot more smarts, but just as endearing and easy to watch.
-1 ... too contrived to be as naturally charming as it needs to be.
1  The Lady and the Duke is a smart, romantic drama that dares to depict the French Revolution from the aristocrats' perspective.
-1 The film is strictly routine.
2  Features one of the most affecting depictions of a love affair ever committed to film.
-2 Doesn't come close to justifying the hype that surrounded its debut at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago.
0  The story, touching though it is, does not quite have enough emotional resonance or variety of incident to sustain a feature, and even at 85 minutes it feels a bit long.
1  The film is insightful about Kissinger's background and history.
-1 A rote exercise in both animation and storytelling.
-1 With a ``Spy Kids'' sequel opening next week, why bother with a contemptible imitator starring a ``SNL'' has-been acting like an 8-year-old channeling Roberto Benigni?
0  The movie isn't horrible, but you can see mediocre cresting on the next wave.
2  Give credit to everyone from Robinson down to the key grip that this bold move works.
-1 Its salient points are simultaneously buried, drowned and smothered in the excesses of writer-director Roger Avary.
-1 The movie is too impressed with its own solemn insights to work up much entertainment value.
0  There's a lot of good material here, but there's also a lot of redundancy and unsuccessful crudeness accompanying it.
-1 The director's many dodges and turns add up to little more than a screenful of gamesmanship that's low on both suspense and payoff.
-1 A Movie to Forget
2  Irwin is so earnest that it's hard to resist his pleas to spare wildlife and respect their environs.
-1 The narrator and the other characters try to convince us that acting transfigures Esther, but she's never seen speaking on stage; one feels cheated, and Esther seems to remain an unchanged dullard.
-1 Worthy of the gong.
-2 It's tough to be startled when you're almost dozing.
-1 The images lack contrast, are murky and are frequently too dark to be decipherable.
2  One of those exceedingly rare films in which the talk alone is enough to keep us involved.
2  a screenplay more ingeniously constructed than ``Memento''
-1 The film never gets over its own investment in conventional arrangements, in terms of love, age, gender, race, and class.
-1 Lucas has in fact come closer than anyone could desire to the cheap, graceless, hackneyed sci-fi serials of the '30s and '40s.
2  The film's intimate camera work and searing performances pull us deep into the girls' confusion and pain as they struggle tragically to comprehend the chasm of knowledge that's opened between them.
-1 Like leafing through an album of photos accompanied by the sketchiest of captions.
-2 (Sam's) self-flagellation is more depressing than entertaining.
-1 Resembles a soft porn Brian De Palma pastiche.
-1 So mind-numbingly awful that you hope Britney won't do it one more time, as far as movies are concerned.
-1 I can imagine this movie as a b & w British comedy, circa 1960, with Peter Sellers, Kenneth Williams, et al., but at this time, with this cast, this movie is hopeless.
2  (Danny Huston gives) an astounding performance that deftly, gradually reveals a real human soul buried beneath a spellbinding serpent's smirk.
2  Just like a splendid meal, Red Dragon satisfies -- from its ripe recipe, inspiring ingredients, certified cuisine and palatable presentation.
2  Director Juan Jose Campanella could have turned this into an Argentine retread of ``Iris'' or ``American Beauty,'' but instead pulls a little from each film and creates something more beautiful than either of those films.
2  Bursting through the constraints of its source, this is one adapted - from-television movie that actually looks as if it belongs on the big screen.
0  an 83 minute document of a project which started in a muddle, seesawed back and forth between controlling interests multiple times, then found its sweet spot
1  Twohy knows how to inflate the mundane into the scarifying, and gets full mileage out of the rolling of a stray barrel or the unexpected blast of a phonograph record.
1  every once in a while, a movie will come along that turns me into that annoying specimen of humanity that I usually dread encountering the most - The Fanboy
2  Bogdanovich taps deep into the Hearst mystique, entertainingly reenacting a historic scandal.
1  K 19 stays afloat as decent drama/action flick
-2 Burns' fifth beer-soaked film feels in almost every possible way -- from the writing and direction to the soggy performances -- tossed off.
-1 The problem with movies about angels is they have a tendency to slip into hokum.
1  The graphic carnage and re-creation of war-torn Croatia is uncomfortably timely, relevant, and sickeningly real.
0  I survived.
0  A slight and obvious effort, even for one whose target demographic is likely still in the single digits, age-wise.
1  Roman Polanski's autobiographical gesture at redemption is better than `Shindler's List' - it is more than merely a Holocaust movie.
0  Less a heartfelt appeal for the handicapped than a nice Belgian waffle.
-1 As saccharine movies go, this is likely to cause massive cardiac arrest if taken in large doses.
1  It falls far short of poetry, but it's not bad prose.
2  Exceptionally well acted by Diane Lane and Richard Gere.
2  This is more fascinating -- being real -- than anything seen on Jerry Springer.
1  Their computer-animated faces are very expressive.
-2 It appears as if even the filmmakers didn't know what kind of movie they were making.
0  You'll laugh at either the obviousness of it all or its stupidity or maybe even its inventiveness, but the point is, you'll laugh.
0  like a poor man's You Can Count On Me
0  Confounding because it solemnly advances a daringly preposterous thesis.
-1 A documentary to make the stones weep -- as shameful as it is scary.
-1 A thriller without thrills and a mystery devoid of urgent questions.
1  Return to Never Land may be another shameless attempt by Disney to rake in dough from baby boomer families, but it's not half-bad.
0  They do a good job of painting this family dynamic for the audience but they tried to squeeze too many elements into the film.
1  A fine documentary can be distinguished from a mediocre one by the better film's ability to make its subject interesting to those who aren't part of its supposed target audience.
1  Strange and beautiful film.
-1 The script becomes lifeless and falls apart like a cheap lawn chair.
-1 ... hits every cliche we've come to expect, including the assumption that ``crazy'' people are innocent, childlike and inherently funny.
1  We've seen it all before in one form or another, but director Hoffman, with great help from Kevin Kline, makes us care about this latest reincarnation of the world's greatest teacher.
-1 There's a reason why halftime is only fifteen minutes long.
2  Ong's promising debut is a warm and well-told tale of one recent Chinese immigrant's experiences in New York City.
1  What's so striking about Jolie's performance is that she never lets her character become a caricature -- not even with that radioactive hair.
-1 It's supposed to be a romantic comedy - it suffers from too much Norma Rae and not enough Pretty Woman.
0  Humorous, artsy, and even cute, in an off-kilter, dark, vaguely disturbing way.
1  The leanest and meanest of Solondz's misanthropic comedies.
1  The movie enters a realm where few non-porn films venture, and comes across as darkly funny, energetic, and surprisingly gentle.
-1 It's as if Solondz had two ideas for two movies, couldn't really figure out how to flesh either out, so he just slopped `em together here.
-1 A low-rent retread of the Alien pictures.
1  For decades we've marveled at Disney's rendering of water, snow, flames and shadows in a hand-drawn animated world.
0  Has its charming quirks and its dull spots.
1  Several of Steven Soderbergh's earlier films were hailed as the works of an artist.
0  Who is the audience for Cletis Tout?
0  Perhaps not since Nelson Eddy crooned his Indian Love Call to Jeanette MacDonald has there been a movie so unabashedly Canadian, not afraid to risk American scorn or disinterest.
-2 Like a soft drink that's been sitting open too long: it's too much syrup and not enough fizz.
-1 But they lack their idol's energy and passion for detail.
-1 Schaefer's... determination to inject farcical raunch... drowns out the promise of the romantic angle.
-1 Instead of using George and Lucy's most obvious differences to ignite sparks, Lawrence desperately looks elsewhere, seizing on George's haplessness and Lucy's personality tics.
0  It isn't that the picture is unfamiliar, but that it manages to find new avenues of discourse on old problems.
1  An alternately fascinating and frustrating documentary.
-2 Contrived, maudlin and cliche-ridden... if this sappy script was the best the contest received, those rejected must have been astronomically bad.
1  An absorbing and unsettling psychological drama.
0  There are times when you wish that the movie had worked a little harder to conceal its contrivances, but Brown Sugar turns out to be a sweet and enjoyable fantasy.
-2 It doesn't work as either.
-1 ... too sappy for its own good.
-2 Without any redeeming value whatsoever.
-1 A Blair Witch - style adventure that plays like a bad soap opera, with passable performances from everyone in the cast.
-1 The author's devotees will probably find it fascinating; others may find it baffling.
1  The quirky and recessive charms of co-stars Martin Donovan and Mary-Louise Parker help overcome the problematic script.
2  It's a very valuable film...
1  And more than that, it's an observant, unfussily poetic meditation about identity and alienation.
2  That rare movie that works on any number of levels -- as a film of magic and whimsy for children, a heartfelt romance for teenagers and a compelling argument about death, both pro and con, for adults.
1  Apart from its own considerable achievement
2  A cultural wildcard experience: wacky, different, unusual, even nutty.
1  Just as the recent Argentine film Son of the Bride reminded us that a feel-good movie can still show real heart, Time of Favor presents us with an action movie that actually has a brain.
1  A marvelous performance by Allison Lohman as an identity-seeking foster child.
1  In fact, it's quite fun in places.
0  Halloween: Resurrection isn't exactly quality cinema, but it isn't nearly as terrible as it cold have been.
-1 It's a thin notion, repetitively stretched out to feature length, awash in self-consciously flashy camera effects, droning house music and flat, flat dialogue.
0  As his circle of friends keeps getting smaller one of the characters in Long Time Dead says `I'm telling you, this is f \*\*\* ed'.
1  Worth a look as a curiosity.
-1 It's a Frankenstein-monster of a film that doesn't know what it wants to be.
0  Super Troopers is an odd amalgam of comedy genres, existing somewhere between the often literal riffs of early Zucker Brothers/Abrahams films, and the decidedly foul stylings of their post-modern contemporaries, The Farrelly Brothers.
-2 There's nothing to gain from watching They.
2  The all-French cast is marveilleux.
0  Worse than `Silence of the Lambs' better than `Hannibal'
-2 It's not just the vampires that are damned in Queen of the Damned -- the viewers will feel they suffer the same fate.
-1 ``Looking For Leonard'' just seems to kinda sit in neutral, hoping for a stiff wind to blow it uphill or something.
2  But believe it or not, it's one of the most beautiful, evocative works I've seen.
-1 While American Adobo has its heart (and its palate) in the right place, its brain is a little scattered -- ditsy, even.
-1 There's a reason the studio didn't offer an advance screening.
1  And there's the inimitable Diaz, holding it all together.
0  makes sense,
0  Not everything in the film works, including its somewhat convenient ending.
1  The word that comes to mind, while watching Eric Rohmer's tribute to a courageous Scottish lady, is painterly.
0  It may not be as cutting, as witty or as true as back in the glory days of Weekend and Two or Three Things I Know About Her, but who else engaged in filmmaking today is so cognizant of the cultural and moral issues involved in the process?
2  Tully is in many ways the perfect festival film: a calm, self-assured portrait of small town regret, love, duty and friendship that appeals to the storytelling instincts of a slightly more literate filmgoing audience.
1  Nakata's technique is to imply terror by suggestion, rather than the overuse of special effects.
0  If I have to choose between gorgeous animation and a lame story (like, say, Treasure Planet) or so-so animation and an exciting, clever story with a batch of appealing characters, I'll take the latter every time.
-1 For every articulate player, such as skateboarder Tony Hawk or BMX rider Mat Hoffman, are about a half dozen young Turks angling to see how many times they can work the words ``radical'' or ``suck'' into a sentence.
0  It's a sight to behold.
-1 Excruciatingly unfunny and pitifully unromantic.
1  A wildly erratic drama with sequences that make you wince in embarrassment and others, thanks to the actors, that are quite touching.
1  A modest masterpiece.
1  Be patient with the lovely Hush!
1  There are laughs aplenty, and, as a bonus, viewers don't have to worry about being subjected to farts, urine, feces, semen, or any of the other foul substances that have overrun modern-day comedies.
2  Beautifully crafted and cooly unsettling... recreates the atmosphere of the crime expertly.
-1 Any rock pile will do for a set.
-1 I'm left slightly disappointed that it didn't.
-1 The elements were all there but lack of a pyschological center knocks it flat.
0  Where Bowling for Columbine is at its most valuable is in its examination of America's culture of fear as a root cause of gun violence.
1  Though the story... is hackneyed, the characters have a freshness and modesty that transcends their predicament.
0  Often overwrought and at times positively irritating, the film turns into an engrossing thriller almost in spite of itself.
2  A well paced and satisfying little drama that deserved better than a `direct-to-video' release.
0  In Moonlight Mile, no one gets shut out of the hug cycle.
1  It can be safely recommended as a video/DVD babysitter.
2  A conventional but heartwarming tale.
1  It is hard not to be especially grateful for freedom after a film like this.
2  Woody Allen can write and deliver a one liner as well as anybody.
-1 I spied with my little eye... a mediocre collection of cookie-cutter action scenes and occasionally inspired dialogue bits
0  Blithely anachronistic and slyly achronological.
-1 A disappointment for a movie that should have been the ultimate IMAX trip.
2  It turns out to be smarter and more diabolical than you could have guessed at the beginning.
-2 In terms of execution this movie is careless and unfocused.
0  Your nightmares, on the other hand, will be anything but.
2  A slick, engrossing melodrama.
-2 This picture is murder by numbers, and as easy to be bored by as your ABC's, despite a few whopping shootouts.
0  Some are fascinating and others are not, and in the end, it is almost a good movie.
0  Both flawed and delayed, Martin Scorcese's Gangs of New York still emerges as his most vital work since GoodFellas.
0  Entertaining despite its one-joke premise with the thesis that women from Venus and men from Mars can indeed get together.
0  A film that presents an interesting, even sexy premise then ruins itself with too many contrivances and goofy situations.
2  It's sweet, funny, charming, and completely delightful.
0  A respectable venture on its own terms, lacking the broader vision that has seen certain Trek films... cross over to a more mainstream audience.
2  A movie that both thrills the eye and, in its over-the-top way, touches the heart.
1  Though it runs 163 minutes, Safe Conduct is anything but languorous.
-2 Sinks so low in a poorly played game of absurd plot twists, idiotic court maneuvers and stupid characters that even Freeman can't save it.
1  A surprisingly charming and even witty match for the best of Hollywood's comic-book adaptations.
2  Still, this flick is fun, and host to some truly excellent sequences.
2  Some of the visual flourishes are a little too obvious, but restrained and subtle storytelling, and fine performances make this delicate coming-of-age tale a treat.
-1 Those seeking a definitive account of Eisenstein's life would do better elsewhere.
1  The casting of Raymond J. Barry as the `assassin' greatly enhances the quality of Neil Burger's impressive fake documentary.
-2 The only thing to fear about ``Fear Dot Com'' is hitting your head on the theater seat in front of you when you doze off thirty minutes into the film.
1  Affectionately reminds us that, in any language, the huge stuff in life can usually be traced back to the little things.
1  Entirely appropriately, the tale unfolds like a lazy summer afternoon and concludes with the crisp clarity of a fall dawn.
-1 The Chateau... is less concerned with cultural and political issues than doting on its eccentric characters.
-1 As is often the case with ambitious, eager first-time filmmakers, Mr. Murray, a prolific director of music videos, stuffs his debut with more plot than it can comfortably hold.
0  It's a gag that's worn a bit thin over the years, though Don't Ask still finds a few chuckles.
-1 Like Schindler's List, The Grey Zone attempts to be grandiloquent, but ends up merely pretentious -- in a grisly sort of way.
0  A movie that will wear you out and make you misty even when you don't want to be.
1  Compassionately explores the seemingly irreconcilable situation between conservative Christian parents and their estranged gay and lesbian children.
-1 Sad nonsense, this.
2  An amusing and unexpectedly insightful examination of sexual jealousy, resentment and the fine line between passion and pretence.
0  You see Robin Williams and psycho killer, and you think, hmmmmm.
0  It's not a film to be taken literally on any level, but its focus always appears questionable.
-1 Broomfield's style of journalism is hardly journalism at all, and even those with an avid interest in the subject will grow impatient.
1  Never once predictable.
-2 It would take a complete moron to foul up a screen adaptation of Oscar Wilde's classic satire.
0  It's too bad that the rest isn't more compelling.
-1 There are some laughs in this movie, but Williams' anarchy gets tiresome, the satire is weak.
0  That is made almost impossible by events that set the plot in motion.
-2 You see the movie and you think, zzzzzzzzz.
1  The film's highlight is definitely its screenplay, both for the rhapsodic dialogue that jumps off the page, and for the memorable character creations.
-2 Gaghan captures the half-lit, sometimes creepy intimacy of college dorm rooms, a subtlety that makes the silly, over-the-top coda especially disappointing.
-2 Such an incomprehensible mess that it feels less like bad cinema than like being stuck in a dark pit having a nightmare about bad cinema.
0  I believe Silberling had the best intentions here, but he just doesn't have the restraint to fully realize them.
1  Craig Bartlett and director Tuck Tucker should be commended for illustrating the merits of fighting hard for something that really matters.
1  A good thriller.
0  It's up to you to decide whether to admire these people's dedication to their cause or be repelled by their dogmatism, manipulativeness and narrow, fearful view of American life.
2  One fantastic (and educational) documentary.
1  ... an interesting slice of history.
1  It's too harsh to work as a piece of storytelling, but as an intellectual exercise -- an unpleasant debate that's been given the drive of a narrative and that's been acted out -- The Believer is nothing less than a provocative piece of work.
-2 I guess it just goes to show that if you give a filmmaker an unlimited amount of phony blood, nothing good can happen.
1  The performances are uniformly good.
-1 I wanted more.
-1 Femme Fatale offers nothing more than a bait-and-switch that is beyond playing fair with the audience.
2  More intimate than spectacular, E.T. is carried less by wow factors than by its funny, moving yarn that holds up well after two decades.
-1 A wannabe comedy of manners about a brainy prep-school kid with a Mrs. Robinson complex founders on its own preciousness -- and squanders its beautiful women.
-1 This is an action movie with an action icon who's been all but decommissioned.
-1 One thing's for sure -- if George Romero had directed this movie, it wouldn't have taken the protagonists a full hour to determine that in order to kill a zombie you must shoot it in the head.
1  An amused indictment of Jaglom's own profession.
0  Trailer park Magnolia: too long, too cutesy, too sure of its own importance, and possessed of that peculiar tension of being too dense & about nothing at all.
-1 This is a film tailor-made for those who when they were in high school would choose the Cliff-Notes over reading a full-length classic.
2  ``Home Movie'' is a sweet treasure and something well worth your time.
0  A mess, but it's a sincere mess.
2  The movie is brilliant, really.
-2 Another week, another gross-out college comedy -- ugh.
0  The film's overall mood and focus is interesting but constantly unfulfilling.
-1 This is a movie so insecure about its capacity to excite that it churns up not one but two flagrantly fake thunderstorms to underscore the action.
-2 An undistinguished attempt to make a classic theater piece cinematic.
0  It's not too racy and it's not too offensive.
0  Make no mistake, ivans xtc.
0  Impostor doesn't do much with its template, despite a remarkably strong cast.
-1 Ultimately, the film amounts to being lectured to by tech-geeks, if you're up for that sort of thing.
-1 Although no pastry is violated, this nasty comedy pokes fun at the same easy targets as other rowdy raunch-fests -- farts, boobs, unmentionables -- without much success.
-1 Yet another Arnold vehicle that fails to make adequate use of his particular talents.
-1 Most of the information has already appeared in one forum or another and, no matter how Broomfield dresses it up, it tends to speculation, conspiracy theories or, at best, circumstantial evidence.
-2 Be forewarned, if you're depressed about anything before watching this film, you may just end up trying to drown yourself in a lake afterwards.
2  The music makes a nice album, the food is enticing and Italy beckons us all.
-2 A lame comedy.
2  It's tough to watch, but it's a fantastic movie.
1  The plot of the comeback curlers isn't very interesting actually, but what I like about Men With Brooms and what is kind of special is how the film knows what's unique and quirky about Canadians.
2  Like Vardalos and Corbett, who play their roles with vibrant charm, the film, directed by Joel Zwick, is heartfelt and hilarious in ways you can't fake.
-2 Makes 98 minutes feel like three hours.
1  Most consumers of lo mein and General Tso's chicken barely give a thought to the folks who prepare and deliver it, so, hopefully, this film will attach a human face to all those little steaming cartons.
-1 ... a pretentious and ultimately empty examination of a sick and evil woman.
1  Sad to say -- it accurately reflects the rage and alienation that fuels the self-destructiveness of many young people.
1  The little girls understand, and McCracken knows that's all that matters.
-2 An unfortunate title for a film that has nothing endearing about it.
-1 Shame on writer/director Vicente Aranda for making a florid biopic about mad queens, obsessive relationships, and rampant adultery so dull.
0  This is SO De Palma.
2  Spiderman ROCKS
1  Overcomes its visual hideousness with a sharp script and strong performances.
0  Thriller directorial debut for Traffic scribe Gaghan has all the right parts, but the pieces don't quite fit together.
-1 Though there are many tense scenes in Trapped, they prove more distressing than suspenseful.
1  ... works on some levels and is certainly worth seeing at least once.
-1 Doesn't deliver a great story, nor is the action as gripping as in past Seagal films.
-2 For a guy who has waited three years with breathless anticipation for a new Hal Hartley movie to pore over, No Such Thing is a big letdown.
-1 Watching ``Ending'' is too often like looking over the outdated clothes and plastic knickknacks at your neighbor's garage sale.
2  Unfolds with such a wallop of you-are-there immediacy that when the bullets start to fly, your first instinct is to duck.
0  The reason to see ``Sade'' lay with the chemistry and complex relationship between the marquis (Auteil) and Emilie (Le Besco).
2  Still rapturous after all these years, Cinema Paradiso stands as one of the great films about movie love.
0  A passable romantic comedy, in need of another couple of passes through the word processor.
2  An enjoyable comedy
-1 The gifted Crudup has the perfect face to play a handsome blank yearning to find himself, and his cipherlike personality and bad behavior would play fine if the movie knew what to do with him.
1  This film is an act of spiritual faith -- an eloquent, deeply felt meditation on the nature of compassion.
-1 Feels aimless for much of its running time, until late in the film when a tidal wave of plot arrives, leaving questions in its wake.
1  Although Estela Bravo's documentary is cloyingly hagiographic in its portrait of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, it's still a guilty pleasure to watch.
-2 for those for whom the name Woody Allen was once a guarantee of something fresh, sometimes funny, and usually genuinely worthwhile, Hollywood Ending is a depressing experience
1  Even if you're an agnostic carnivore, you can enjoy much of Jonah simply, and gratefully, as laugh-out-loud lunacy with a pronounced Monty Pythonesque flavor.
0  Though it was made with careful attention to detail and is well-acted by James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, I felt disrespected.
-1 How this one escaped the Lifetime network I'll never know.
0  A bit too derivative to stand on its own as the psychological thriller it purports to be.
2  By the standards of knucklehead swill, The Hot Chick is pretty damned funny.
2  Cuaron repeatedly, perversely undercuts the joie de vivre even as he creates it, giving the movie a mournful undercurrent that places the good-time shenanigans in welcome perspective.
-1 Every visual joke is milked, every set-up obvious and lengthy, every punchline predictable.
0  I prefer to think of it as ``Pootie Tang with a budget.''
0  Ranges from laugh-out-loud hilarious to wonder-what - time-it-is tedious.
2  A reminder that beyond all the hype and recent digital glitz, Spielberg knows how to tell us about people.
1  A fast paced and suspenseful Argentinian thriller about the shadow side of play.
2  Ryan Gosling is, in a word, brilliant as the conflicted Daniel.
1  It's a visual delight and a decent popcorn adventure, as long as you don't try to look too deep into the story
-1 Possibly the most irresponsible picture ever released by a major film studio.
2  Steven Spielberg brings us another masterpiece
1  While the frequent allusions to gurus and doshas will strike some Westerners as verging on mumbo-jumbo... broad streaks of common sense emerge with unimpeachable clarity.
1  Old-fashioned but thoroughly satisfying entertainment.
1  Told just proficiently enough to trounce its overly comfortable trappings.
1  City by the Sea is a gritty police thriller with all the dysfunctional family dynamics one could wish for.
-2 Sets animation back 30 years, musicals back 40 years and Judaism back at least 50.
0  Not kids, who don't need the lesson in repugnance.
-2 under-rehearsed and lifeless
-1 The film ultimately offers nothing more than people in an urban jungle needing other people to survive...
1  ... ``Bowling for Columbine'' remains a disquieting and thought-provoking film...
2  The byplay and bickering between the now spy-savvy siblings, Carmen (Vega) and Juni (Sabara) Cortez, anchor the film in a very real and amusing give-and-take.
0  Melodrama with a message.
-1 The Sweetest Thing leaves an awful sour taste.
2  ``13 Conversations About One Thing'' is an intelligent flick that examines many different ideas from happiness to guilt in an intriguing bit of storytelling.
-2 Just dreadful.
2  This is pure, exciting moviemaking.
1  The work of an exhausted, desiccated talent who can't get out of his own way.
0  The director has injected self-consciousness into the proceedings at every turn.
1  Deepa Mehta provides an accessible introduction as well as some intelligent observations on the success of Bollywood in the Western world.
0  Tian emphasizes the isolation of these characters by confining color to Liyan's backyard.
0  As well-acted and well-intentioned as All or Nothing is, however, the film comes perilously close to being too bleak, too pessimistic and too unflinching for its own good.
-1 Seagal is painfully foolish in trying to hold onto what's left of his passe' chopsocky glory.
-1 Do we really need the Tiger Beat version?
-1 Two big things are missing -- anything approaching a visceral kick, and anything approaching even a vague reason to sit through it all.
-1 This film biggest problem?
2  ``Simone'' is a fun and funky look into an artificial creation in a world that thrives on artificiality.
1  Will give many ministers and Bible-study groups hours of material to discuss.
-2 Amazingly lame.
2  An engrossing portrait of a man whose engaging manner and flamboyant style made him a truly larger-than-life character.
0  Moretti plays Giovanni, a psychiatrist who predictably finds it difficult to sustain interest in his profession after the family tragedy.
-1 A slow-moving police-procedural thriller that takes its title all too literally.
1  An awfully good, achingly human picture.
-2 The story's pathetic and the gags are puerile..
-1 Where their heads were is anyone's guess.
-2 The drama was so uninspiring that even a story immersed in love, lust, and sin couldn't keep my attention.
-1 Whatever satire Lucky Break was aiming for, it certainly got lost in the ``soon-to-be-forgettable'' section of the quirky rip-off prison romp pile.
2  Will assuredly rank as one of the cleverest, most deceptively amusing comedies of the year.
2  Filled with Alexandre Desplat's haunting and sublime music, the movie completely transfixes the audience.
-1 A muted freak-out
0  Can't get enough of libidinous young city dwellers?
-1 This Bond film goes off the beaten path, not necessarily for the better.
0  Mostly Martha could have used a little trimming -- 10 or 15 minutes could be cut and no one would notice -- but it's a pleasurable trifle.
0  `Wouldn't it be nice if all guys got a taste of what it's like on the other side of the bra?'
0  The movie tries to be ethereal, but ends up seeming goofy.
-1 It's tough to tell which is in more abundant supply in this woefully hackneyed movie, directed by Scott Kalvert, about street gangs and turf wars in 1958 Brooklyn -- stale cliches, gratuitous violence, or empty machismo.
-2 Generic thriller junk.
-2 The movie is the equivalent of French hip-hop, which also seems to play on a 10-year delay.
-1 An uneven mix of dark satire and childhood awakening.
2  Leaping from one arresting image to another, Songs from the Second Floor has all the enjoyable randomness of a very lively dream and so manages to be compelling, amusing and unsettling at the same time.
-1 Nothing about them is attractive.
-1 During The Tuxedo's 90 minutes of screen time, there isn't one true `Chan moment'.
0  A few energetic stunt sequences briefly enliven the film, but the wheezing terrorist subplot hasn't the stamina for the 100-minute running time, and the protagonists' bohemian boorishness mars the spirit of good clean fun.
0  Highly irritating at first, Mr. Koury's passive technique eventually begins to yield some interesting results.
1  A thought-provoking and often-funny drama about isolation.
1  It's an interesting effort (particularly for JFK conspiracy nuts), and Barry's cold-fish act makes the experience worthwhile.
1  The mushy finale turns John Q into a movie-of-the-week tearjerker.
-2 A lot of talent is wasted in this crass, low-wattage endeavor.
2  One of the year's best films, featuring an Oscar-worthy performance by Julianne Moore.
0  Anyone who gets chills from movies with giant plot holes will find plenty to shake and shiver about in `The Ring.'
0  Made for teens and reviewed as such, this is recommended only for those under 20 years of age... and then only as a very mild rental.
-1 The soul-searching deliberateness of the film, although leavened nicely with dry absurdist wit, eventually becomes too heavy for the plot.
1  One thing you have to give them credit for: The message of the movie is consistent with the messages espoused in the company's previous video work.
1  It's a scorcher.
2  Spectacular in every sense of the word, even if you don' t know an Orc from a Uruk-Hai.
0  Slackers' jokey approach to college education is disappointingly simplistic -- the film's biggest problem -- and there are no unforgettably stupid stunts or uproariously rude lines of dialogue to remember it by.
1  It is OK for a movie to be something of a sitcom apparatus, if the lines work, the humor has point and the actors are humanly engaged.
-1 ... although this idea is ``new'' the results are tired.
2  Surprisingly powerful and universal.
-2 Features nonsensical and laughable plotting, wooden performances, ineptly directed action sequences and some of the worst dialogue in recent memory.
1  It's weird, wonderful, and not necessarily for kids.
2  A pleasant piece of escapist entertainment.
2  The best comedy concert movie I've seen since Cho's previous concert comedy film, I'm the One That I Want, in 2000.
1  It's a very sincere work, but it would be better as a diary or documentary.
2  A touching drama about old age and grief with a tour de force performance by Michel Piccoli.
1  The film fearlessly gets under the skin of the people involved... This makes it not only a detailed historical document, but an engaging and moving portrait of a subculture.
-1 You... get a sense of good intentions derailed by a failure to seek and strike just the right tone.
2  That, in itself, is extraordinary.
-1 The Rules of Attraction gets us too drunk on the party favors to sober us up with the transparent attempts at moralizing.
0  The movie is gorgeously made, but it is also somewhat shallow and art-conscious.
2  A classy, sprightly spin on film.
2  It's no accident that The Accidental Spy is a solid action pic that returns the martial arts master to top form.
1  Everyone should be able to appreciate the wonderful cinematography and naturalistic acting.
1  This story still seems timely and important.
-1 A complete waste of time.
-2 Just plain bad.
2  It leaves little doubt that Kidman has become one of our best actors.
2  A fascinating documentary that provides a rounded and revealing overview of this ancient holistic healing system
-2 The action scenes have all the suspense of a 20-car pileup, while the plot holes are big enough for a train car to drive through -- if Kaos hadn't blown them all up.
2  It is refreshingly undogmatic about its characters.
-1 Things really get weird, though not particularly scary: the movie is all portent and no content.
1  The cast... keeps this pretty watchable, and casting Mick Jagger as director of the escort service was inspired.
0  Mildly amusing.
2  Leave it to John Sayles to take on developers, the Chamber of Commerce, tourism, historical pageants, and commercialism all in the same movie... without neglecting character development for even one minute.
1  One can't deny its seriousness and quality.
0  Any intellectual arguments being made about the nature of God are framed in a drama so clumsy, there is a real danger less sophisticated audiences will mistake it for an endorsement of the very things that Bean abhors.
1  An entertaining mix of period drama and flat-out farce that should please history fans.
1  What saves this deeply affecting film from being merely a collection of wrenching cases is Corcuera's attention to detail.
1  From the dull, surreal ache of mortal awareness emerges a radiant character portrait.
2  Refreshing.
-1 An ill-conceived jumble that's not scary, not smart and not engaging.
1  This breezy caper movie becomes a soulful, incisive meditation on the way we were, and the way we are.
-2 Too bad none of it is funny.
-1 While Solondz tries and tries hard, Storytelling fails to provide much more insight than the inside column of a torn book jacket.
2  Literary purists may not be pleased, but as far as mainstream matinee-style entertainment goes, it does a bang-up job of pleasing the crowds.
1  But on the whole, you're gonna like this movie.
-2 For dance completists only.
0  The movie obviously seeks to re-create the excitement of such '50s flicks as Jules Verne's' 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' and the George Pal version of H.G. Wells' `The Time Machine.'
2  There's so much to look at in Metropolis you hate to tear your eyes away from the images long enough to read the subtitles.
2  More timely than its director could ever have dreamed, this quietly lyrical tale probes the ambiguous welcome extended by Iran to the Afghani refugees who streamed across its borders, desperate for work and food.
1  What Lee does so marvelously compelling is present Brown as a catalyst for the struggle of black manhood in restrictive and chaotic America... sketchy but nevertheless gripping portrait of Jim Brown, a celebrated wonder in the spotlight
-1 The film has a kind of hard, cold effect.
1  Beneath the film's obvious determination to shock at any cost lies considerable skill and determination, backed by sheer nerve.
-1 But then again, I hate myself most mornings.
-2 How about surprising us by trying something new?
1  Katz's documentary doesn't have much panache, but with material this rich it doesn't need it.
0  Sweet Home Alabama is one dumb movie, but its stupidity is so relentlessly harmless that it almost wins you over in the end.
1  A polished and vastly entertaining caper film that puts the sting back into the con.
0  Most folks with a real stake in the American sexual landscape will find it either moderately amusing or just plain irrelevant.
1  Even though it's common knowledge that Park and his founding partner, Yong Kang, lost Kozmo in the end, you can't help but get caught up in the thrill of the company's astonishing growth.
-1 This is the kind of movie where people who have never picked a lock do so easily after a few tries and become expert fighters after a few weeks.
0  When the violence actually shocked?
1  The extent to which it succeeds is impressive.
0  Too many improbabilities and rose-colored situations temper what could've been an impacting film.
0  Like other great documentaries... this goes after one truth (the Ford administration's complicity in tearing `orphans' from their mothers) and stumbles upon others even more compelling.
-2 Then again, in a better movie, you might not have noticed.
1  Take nothing seriously and enjoy the ride.
-1 (Seems) even more uselessly redundant and shamelessly money-grubbing than most third-rate horror sequels.
1  Reign of Fire just might go down as one of the all-time great apocalypse movies.
1  O Fantasma is boldly, confidently orchestrated, aesthetically and sexually, and its impact is deeply and rightly disturbing.
2  It's soulful and unslick, and that's apparently just what (Aniston) has always needed to grow into a movie career.
0  Entertaining but like shooting fish in a barrel.
-2 The original wasn't a good movie but this remake makes it look like a masterpiece!
0  One of those based-on-truth stories that persuades you, with every scene, that it could never really have happened this way.
1  Not too fancy, not too filling, not too fluffy, but definitely tasty and sweet.
1  For all the wit and hoopla, Festival In Cannes offers rare insight into the structure of relationships.
0  The tonal shifts are jolting, and though Wen's messages are profound and thoughtfully delivered, more thorough transitions would have made the film more cohesive.
2  It's all stitched together with energy, intelligence and verve, enhanced by a surplus of vintage archive footage.
0  The soupy end result has the odd distinction of being playful without being fun, too.
-2 Seagal, who looks more like Danny Aiello these days, mumbles his way through the movie.
1  The acting, for the most part, is terrific, although the actors must struggle with the fact that they're playing characters who sometimes feel more like literary conceits than flesh-and-blood humans.
1  A winning piece of work filled with love for the movies of the 1960s.
1  Though the film is static, its writer-director's heart is in the right place, his plea for democracy and civic action laudable.
2  Griffin & Co. manage to be spectacularly outrageous.
1  Like The English Patient and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Hours is one of those reputedly ``unfilmable'' novels that has bucked the odds to emerge as an exquisite motion picture in its own right.
1  ``Auto Focus'' works as an unusual biopic and document of male swingers in the Playboy era
1  Very amusing, not the usual route in a thriller, and the performances are odd and pixilated and sometimes both.
1  Max pokes, provokes, takes expressionistic license and hits a nerve... as far as art is concerned, it's mission accomplished.
0  Authentic, and at times endearing, humorous, spooky, educational, but at other times as bland as a block of snow.
2  Yakusho, as always, is wonderful as the long-faced sad sack... and his chemistry with Shimizu is very believable.
-1 By no means a slam-dunk and sure to ultimately disappoint the action fans who will be moved to the edge of their seats by the dynamic first act, it still comes off as a touching, transcendent love story.
-1 All the characters are clinically depressed and have abandoned their slim hopes and dreams.
0  At its worst, it's Rambo - meets-John Ford.
1  It's about issues most adults have to face in marriage and I think that's what I liked about it -- the real issues tucked between the silly and crude storyline.
-2 It goes on for too long and bogs down in a surfeit of characters and unnecessary subplots.
-1 Costner's warm-milk persona is just as ill-fitting as Shadyac's perfunctory directing chops, and some of the more overtly silly dialogue would sink Laurence Olivier.
0  Although it doesn't always hang together -- violence and whimsy don't combine easily -- ``Cherish'' certainly isn't dull.
2  It's a perfect show of respect to just one of those underrated professionals who deserve but rarely receive it.
-2 Further sad evidence that Tom Tykwer, director of the resonant and sense-spinning Run Lola Run, has turned out to be a one-trick pony -- a maker of softheaded metaphysical claptrap.
-1 The screenplay does too much meandering, Norton has to recite bland police procedural details, Fiennes wanders around in an attempt to seem weird and distanced, Hopkins looks like a drag queen.
1  Plays out with a dogged and eventually winning squareness that would make it the darling of many a kids-and-family-oriented cable channel.
1  A vivid, sometimes surreal, glimpse into the mysteries of human behavior.
-2 A 94-minute travesty of unparalleled proportions, writer-director Parker seems to go out of his way to turn the legendary wit's classic mistaken identity farce into brutally labored and unfunny hokum.
1  Pan Nalin's exposition is beautiful and mysterious, and the interviews that follow, with the practitioners of this ancient Indian practice, are as subtle and as enigmatic.
0  The innocence of holiday cheer ain't what it used to be.
-1 Don't let the subtitles fool you; the movie only proves that Hollywood no longer has a monopoly on mindless action.
0  Acting can not be acted.
1  What doesn't this film have that an impressionable kid couldn't stand to hear?
-1 A pleasant and engaging enough sit, but in trying to have the best of both worlds it ends up falling short as a whole.
1  What saves it... and makes it one of the better video-game-based flicks, is that the film acknowledges upfront that the plot makes no sense, such that the lack of linearity is the point of emotional and moral departure for protagonist Alice.
-1 But it's hardly a necessary enterprise.
2  The trailer is a riot.
-1 Disappointing in comparison to other recent war movies... or any other John Woo flick for that matter.
2  This enthralling documentary... is at once playful and haunting, an in-depth portrait of an iconoclastic artist who was fundamentally unknowable even to his closest friends.
0  Very well made, but doesn't generate a lot of tension.
1  An engaging criminal romp that will have viewers guessing just who's being conned right up to the finale.
1  Directing with a sure and measured hand, (Haneke) steers clear of the sensational and offers instead an unflinching and objective look at a decidedly perverse pathology.
-1 This is a film about the irksome, tiresome nature of complacency that remains utterly satisfied to remain the same throughout.
1  For the most part, the film does hold up pretty well.
2  Stands as one of the year's most intriguing movie experiences, letting its imagery speak for it while it forces you to ponder anew what a movie can be.
-1 Lucy's a dull girl, that's all.
0  While we want MacDowell's character to retrieve her husband, we have to ask whether her personal odyssey trumps the carnage that claims so many lives around her.
2  It may also be the best sex comedy about environmental pollution ever made.
-1 In the wake of Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers, you are likely to be as heartily sick of mayhem as Cage's war-weary marine.
-1 The holes in this film remain agape -- holes punched through by an inconsistent, meandering, and sometimes dry plot.
-1 He doesn't, however, deliver nearly enough of the show's trademark style and flash.
-2 (Hell is) looking down at your watch and realizing Serving Sara isn't even halfway through.
0  Supposedly based upon real, or at least soberly reported incidents, the film ends with a large human tragedy.
2  An inventive, absorbing movie that's as hard to classify as it is hard to resist.
2  A finely tuned mood piece, a model of menacing atmosphere.
2  The film is small in scope, yet perfectly formed.
1  Even if Invincible is not quite the career peak that The Pianist is for Roman Polanski, it demonstrates that Werner Herzog can still leave us with a sense of wonder at the diverse, marvelously twisted shapes history has taken.
0  It's just a little too self-satisfied.
0  Slow, dry, poorly cast, but beautifully shot.
1  A movie that will surely be profane, politically charged music to the ears of Cho's fans.
-2 ... Stylistically, the movie is a disaster.
-1 If routine action and jokes like this are your cup of tea, then pay your $ 8 and get ready for the big shear.
1  This cinema verite speculation on the assassination of John F. Kennedy may have been inspired by Blair Witch, but it takes its techniques into such fresh territory that the film never feels derivative.
-2 Given too much time to consider the looseness of the piece, the picture begins to resemble the shapeless, grasping actors' workshop that it is.
-1 Suffers from a flat script and a low budget.
1  Marshall puts a suspenseful spin on standard horror flick formula.
-1 What they're doing is a matter of plumbing arrangements and mind games, of no erotic or sensuous charge.
1  A sloppy, amusing comedy that proceeds from a stunningly unoriginal premise.
-1 Each story is built on a potentially interesting idea, but the first two are ruined by amateurish writing and acting, while the third feels limited by its short running time.
-1 At three hours and with very little story or character development, there is plenty of room for editing, and a much shorter cut surely would have resulted in a smoother, more focused narrative without sacrificing any of the cultural intrigue.
2  Manages to be both hugely entertaining and uplifting.
-2 Instead of letting the laughs come as they may, Lawrence unleashes his trademark misogyny -- er, comedy -- like a human volcano or an overflowing septic tank, take your pick.
-2 The Paradiso's rusted-out ruin and ultimate collapse during the film's final (restored) third... emotionally belittle a cinema classic.
-1 It's quite diverting nonsense.
-1 Witless and utterly pointless.
0  Tsai has managed to create an underplayed melodrama about family dynamics and dysfunction that harks back to the spare, unchecked heartache of Yasujiro Ozu.
1  The more you think about the movie, the more you will probably like it.
-1 The director seems to take an unseemly pleasure in (the characters') misery and at the same time to congratulate himself for having the guts to confront it.
1  It's secondary to American Psycho but still has claws enough to get inside you and stay there for a couple of hours.
0  At its worst the screenplay is callow, but at its best it is a young artist's thoughtful consideration of fatherhood.
0  The film's best trick is the way that it treats conspiracy as a kind of political Blair Witch, a monstrous murk that haunts us precisely because it can never be seen.
2  This is an extraordinary film, not least because it is Japanese and yet feels universal.
0  And that holds true for both the movie and the title character played by Brendan Fraser.
-2 Forages for audience sympathy like a temperamental child begging for attention, giving audiences no reason to truly care for its decrepit freaks beyond the promise of a reprieve from their incessant whining.
-1 Too smart to ignore but a little too smugly superior to like, this could be a movie that ends up slapping its target audience in the face by shooting itself in the foot.
1  It's neither as sappy as Big Daddy nor as anarchic as Happy Gilmore or The Waterboy, but it has its moments.
-1 Although I didn't hate this one, it's not very good either.
1  Well-made but mush-hearted.
2  Fun and nimble.
1  Unfolds in a series of achronological vignettes whose cumulative effect is chilling.
1  Sitting in the third row of the IMAX cinema at Sydney's Darling Harbour, but I sometimes felt as though I was in the tiny two seater plane that carried the giant camera around Australia, sweeping and gliding, banking and hovering over some of the most not
-1 Just a Kiss is a just a waste.
1  The gags are often a stitch.
1  Captivates as it shows excess in business and pleasure, allowing us to find the small, human moments, and leaving off with a grand whimper.
-1 Piccoli's performance is amazing, yes, but the symbols of loss and denial and life-at-arm's - length in the film seem irritatingly transparent.
0  For single digits kidlets Stuart Little 2 is still a no brainer.
1  Beyond the cleverness, the weirdness and the pristine camerawork, One Hour Photo is a sobering meditation on why we take pictures.
2  Dramas like this make it human.
1  A very good film sits in the place where a masterpiece should be.
0  The Country Bears has no scenes that will upset or frighten young viewers.
0  The 70-year-old Godard has become, to judge from In Praise of Love, the sort of bitter old crank who sits behind his light meter and harangues the supposed injustices of the artistic world-at-large without doing all that much to correct them.
-1 An ambitious, guilt-suffused melodrama crippled by poor casting.
1  Constantly touching, surprisingly funny, semi-surrealist exploration of the creative act.
2  Impossible as it may sound, this film's heart is even more embracing than Monty, if only because it accepts nasty behavior and severe flaws as part of the human condition.
-1 Director Yu seems far more interested in gross-out humor than in showing us well-thought stunts or a car chase that we haven't seen 10,000 times.
0  Just a Kiss wants desperately to come off as a fanciful film about the typical problems of average people.
0  Dodgy mixture of cutesy romance, dark satire and murder mystery.
-2 Cox offers plenty of glimpses at existing photos, but there are no movies of Nijinsky, so instead the director treats us to an aimless hodgepodge.
2  ... a true delight.
1  Cinematic poetry showcases the city's old-world charm before machines change nearly everything.
-2 The performances are so overstated, the effect comes off as self-parody.
2  The production has been made with an enormous amount of affection, so we believe these characters love each other.
-1 The movie ends with outtakes in which most of the characters forget their lines and just utter `uhhh,' which is better than most of the writing in the movie.
1  Frei assembles a fascinating profile of a deeply humanistic artist who, in spite of all that he's witnessed, remains surprisingly idealistic, and retains an extraordinary faith in the ability of images to communicate the truth of the world around him.
1  A moving, if uneven, success.
1  Jeong-Hyang Lee's film is deceptively simple, deeply satisfying.
1  Yes.
-1 Every note rings false.
0  An extraordinarily silly thriller.
-1 A seriously bad film with seriously warped logic by writer-director Kurt Wimmer at the screenplay level.
2  A work of extraordinary journalism, but it is also a work of deft and subtle poetry.
1  Kids who are into this Thornberry stuff will probably be in wedgie heaven.
1  An ingenious and often harrowing look at damaged people and how families can offer either despair or consolation.
1  A literary detective story is still a detective story and aficionados of the whodunit won't be disappointed.
-2 Cinematic poo.
0  As we have come to learn -- as many times as we have fingers to count on -- Jason is a killer who doesn't know the meaning of the word `quit.'
-1 Director George Hickenlooper has had some success with documentaries, but here his sense of story and his juvenile camera movements smack of a film school undergrad, and his maudlin ending might not have gotten him into film school in the first place.
1  The film is filled with humorous observations about the general absurdity of modern life as seen through the eyes outsiders, but deftly manages to avoid many of the condescending stereotypes that so often plague films dealing with the mentally ill.
-2 So putrid it is not worth the price of the match that should be used to burn every print of the film.
-2 It's as if De Palma spent an hour setting a fancy table and then served up Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
2  Morvern rocks.
0  Shanghai Ghetto should be applauded for finding a new angle on a tireless story, but you might want to think twice before booking passage.
-1 In old-fashioned screenwriting parlance, Ms. Shreve's novel proved too difficult a text to `lick,' despite the efforts of a first-rate cast.
0  I can't remember the last time I saw an audience laugh so much during a movie, but there's only one problem... it's supposed to be a drama.
1  A treat for its depiction on not giving up on dreams when you're a struggling nobody.
1  The obnoxious title character provides the drama that gives added clout to this doc.
-2 Not only does the thoroughly formulaic film represent totally exemplify middle-of-the-road mainstream, it also represents glossy Hollywood at its laziest.
-1 If you've got a house full of tots -- don't worry, this will be on video long before they grow up and you can wait till then.
-1 This is rote drivel aimed at Mom and Dad's wallet.
0  Bisset delivers a game performance, but she is unable to save the movie.
0  Analyze That regurgitates and waters down many of the previous film's successes, with a few new swings thrown in.
0  It depends on how well flatulence gags fit into your holiday concept.
1  Not as good as The Full Monty, but a really strong second effort.
0  A penetrating glimpse into the tissue-thin ego of the stand-up comic.
-2 The whole mess boils down to a transparently hypocritical work that feels as though it's trying to set the women's liberation movement back 20 years.'
2  If you like quirky, odd movies and/or the ironic, here's a fun one.
2  Laced with liberal doses of dark humor, gorgeous exterior photography, and a stable-full of solid performances, No Such Thing is a fascinating little tale.
2  A captivating and intimate study about dying and loving...
0  We get light showers of emotion a couple of times, but then -- strangely -- these wane to an inconsistent and ultimately unsatisfying drizzle.
1  Enjoyably dumb, sweet, and intermittently hilarious -- if you've a taste for the quirky, steal a glimpse.
-1 Schneidermeister... Makin' a fool of himself... Losin' his fan base...
-1 Nicks and Steinberg match their own creations for pure venality -- that's giving it the old college try.
1  It's an effort to watch this movie, but it eventually pays off and is effective if you stick with it.
-2 Unfortunately, Kapur modernizes A.E.W. Mason's story to suit the sensibilities of a young American, a decision that plucks ``The Four Feathers'' bare.
-1 Who, exactly, is fighting whom here?
0  A melancholy, emotional film.
1  This ready-made midnight movie probably won't stand the cold light of day, but under the right conditions, it's goofy (if not entirely wholesome) fun.
-2 Rarely has a film's title served such dire warning.
1  A bittersweet film, simple in form but rich with human events.
1  A delightful stimulus for the optic nerves, so much that it's forgivable that the plot feels like every other tale of a totalitarian tomorrow.
-1 Isn't it a bit early in his career for director Barry Sonnenfeld to do a homage to himself?
2  A breathtaking adventure for all ages, Spirit tells its poignant and uplifting story in a stunning fusion of music and images.
2  More concerned with overall feelings, broader ideas, and open-ended questions than concrete story and definitive answers, Soderbergh's Solaris is a gorgeous and deceptively minimalist cinematic tone poem.
-1 Feels like pieces a bunch of other, better movies slapped together.
-2 Maybe you'll be lucky, and there'll be a power outage during your screening so you can get your money back.
0  Jones helps breathe some life into the insubstantial plot, but even he is overwhelmed by predictability.
1  The spaniel-eyed Jean Reno infuses Hubert with a mixture of deadpan cool, wry humor and just the measure of tenderness required to give this comic slugfest some heart.
-2 Imagine O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi relocated to the scuzzy underbelly of NYC's drug scene.
1  Ash Wednesday is not Edward Burns' best film, but it is a good and ambitious film.
-2 It's a feel-bad ending for a depressing story that throws a bunch of hot-button items in the viewer's face and asks to be seen as hip, winking social commentary.
-1 Lan Yu seems altogether too slight to be called any kind of masterpiece.
-1 Woody, what happened?
1  Like its New England characters, most of whom wander about in thick clouds of denial, the movie eventually gets around to its real emotional business, striking deep chords of sadness.
-1 A film which presses familiar Herzog tropes into the service of a limpid and conventional historical fiction, when really what we demand of the director is to be mesmerised.
1  It is a likable story, told with competence.
-1 If The Tuxedo actually were a suit, it would fit Chan like a $ 99 bargain-basement special.
-1 The film is grossly contradictory in conveying its social message, if indeed there is one.
-1 One long, numbing action sequence made up mostly of routine stuff Yuen has given us before.
0  Oliveira seems to pursue silent film representation with every mournful composition.
1  Ratliff's two previous titles, Plutonium Circus and Purgatory County show his penchant for wry, contentious configurations, and this film is part of that delicate canon.
0  Sandra Bullock's best dramatic performance to date (is) almost enough to lift (this) thrill-kill cat-and-mouser... above its paint-by-numbers plot.
-2 It might not be 1970s animation, but everything else about it is straight from the Saturday morning cartoons -- a retread story, bad writing, and the same old silliness.
-2 Soulless and -- even more damning -- virtually joyless, X X X achieves near virtuosity in its crapulence.
1  The locations go from stark desert to gorgeous beaches.
-1 Its appeal will probably limited to LDS Church members and undemanding armchair tourists.
-1 It follows the Blair Witch formula for an hour, in which we're told something creepy and vague is in the works, and then it goes awry in the final 30 minutes.
1  Does an impressive job of relating the complicated history of the war and of filling in the background.
1  Rich in atmosphere of the post-war art world, it manages to instruct without reeking of research library dust.
-1 Just a string of stale gags, with no good inside dope, and no particular bite.
1  Tres Greek writer and star Nia Vardalos has crafted here a worldly-wise and very funny script.
0  Summer's far too fleeting to squander on offal like this.
-1 Baran is shockingly devoid of your typical Majid Majidi shoe-loving, crippled children.
1  After one gets the feeling that the typical Hollywood disregard for historical truth and realism is at work here, it's a matter of finding entertainment in the experiences of Zishe and the fiery presence of Hanussen.
0  Post 9/11 the philosophical message of ``Personal Freedom First'' might not be as palatable as intended.
-2 Slap me, I saw this movie.
-1 The movie is like Scorsese's Mean Streets redone by someone who ignored it in favor of old `juvenile delinquent' paperbacks with titles like Leather Warriors and Switchblade Sexpot.
-1 The film's maudlin focus on the young woman's infirmity and her naive dreams play like the worst kind of Hollywood heart-string plucking.
1  Maryam is more timely now than ever.
-1 A feel-good movie that doesn't give you enough to feel good about.
1  The Ring never lets you off the hook.
-1 Like most movies about the pitfalls of bad behavior... Circuit gets drawn into the party.
0  The filmmaker ascends, literally, to the Olympus of the art world, but he would have done well to end this flawed, dazzling series with the raising of something other than his own cremaster.
-2 The heedless impetuousness of youth is on full, irritating display in (this) meandering and pointless French coming-of-age import from writer-director Anne-Sophie Birot.
-1 The Sum of All Fears is remarkably fuddled about motives and context, which drains it of the dramatic substance that would shake us in our boots (or cinema seats).
-1 Low rent from frame one.
1  The film fits into a genre that has been overexposed, redolent of a thousand cliches, and yet remains uniquely itself, vibrant with originality.
-2 The most repugnant adaptation
-2 Glazed with a tawdry B-movie scum.
-2 A decided lack of spontaneity in its execution and a dearth of real poignancy in its epiphanies.
0  Comedy troupe Broken Lizard's first movie is very funny but too concerned with giving us a plot.
1  If you're willing to have fun with it, you won't feel cheated by the high infidelity of Unfaithful.
-1 If you want a movie time trip, the 1960 version is a far smoother ride.
1  Filmmakers David Weissman and Bill Weber benefit enormously from the Cockettes' camera craziness -- not only did they film performances, but they did the same at home.
0  Benigni presents himself as the boy puppet Pinocchio, complete with receding hairline, weathered countenance and American Breckin Meyer's ridiculously inappropriate Valley Boy voice.
-1 Will anyone who isn't a Fangoria subscriber be excited that it hasn't gone straight to video?
0  Most of the characters come off as pantomimesque sterotypes.
2  A gripping drama.
2  Darkly funny and frequently insightful.
-1 A spooky yarn of demonic doings on the high seas that works better the less the brain is engaged.
-1 The only young people who possibly will enjoy it are infants... who might be distracted by the movie's quick movements and sounds.
-1 Sayles... once again strands his superb performers in the same old story.
1  An unforgettable look at morality, family, and social expectation through the prism of that omnibus tradition called marriage.
2  Weaver and LaPaglia are both excellent, in the kind of low-key way that allows us to forget that they are actually movie folk.
2  smart, funny and just honest enough to provide the pleasures of a slightly naughty, just-above-average off - Broadway play.
-2 This is an ungainly movie, ill-fitting, with its elbows sticking out where the knees should be.
0  For a debut film, Skin of Man, Heart of Beast feels unusually assured.
-2 It sucked.
-1 But how it washed out despite all of that is the project's prime mystery.
1  As broad and cartoonish as the screenplay is, there is an accuracy of observation in the work of the director, Frank Novak, that keeps the film grounded in an undeniable social realism.
1  (``Take Care of My Cat'') is an honestly nice little film that takes us on an examination of young adult life in urban South Korea through the hearts and minds of the five principals.
-1 More successful at relating history than in creating an emotionally complex, dramatically satisfying heroine
-1 Imagine the CleanFlicks version of `Love Story,' with Ali MacGraw's profanities replaced by romance-novel platitudes.
-1 ... built on the premise that middle-class Arkansas consists of monster truck-loving good ol' boys and peroxide blond honeys whose worldly knowledge comes from TV reruns and supermarket tabloids.
-2 Oversexed, at times overwrought comedy/drama that offers little insight into the experience of being forty, female and single.
1  Cho continues her exploration of the outer limits of raunch with considerable brio.
1  Even if you don't know the band or the album's songs by heart, you will enjoy seeing how both evolve, and you will also learn a good deal about the state of the music business in the 21st Century.
1  An off-beat and fanciful film about the human need for monsters to blame for all that is amiss in the world.
2  The fun of the movie is the chance it affords to watch Jackson, who also served as executive producer, take his smooth, shrewd, powerful act abroad.
0  The power of this script, and the performances that come with it, is that the whole damned thing didn't get our moral hackles up.
1  A sharp satire of desperation and cinematic deception.
-1 Stale, futile scenario.
-1 With a tone as variable as the cinematography, Schaeffer's film never settles into the light-footed enchantment the material needs, and the characters' quirks and foibles never jell into charm.
1  ``Frailty'' has been written so well, that even a simple ``Goddammit!''
-1 Feels familiar and tired.
0  Despite the holes in the story and the somewhat predictable plot, moments of the movie caused me to jump in my chair...
2  Runs on the pure adrenalin of Pacino's performance.
-2 Borstal Boy represents the worst kind of filmmaking, the kind that pretends to be passionate and truthful but is really frustratingly timid and soggy.
1  Mr. Scorsese's bravery and integrity in advancing this vision can hardly be underestimated.
-1 The movie is a mess from start to finish.
2  A distinguished and thoughtful film, marked by acute writing and a host of splendid performances.
2  Demonstrates the unusual power of thoughtful, subjective filmmaking.
-2 In other words, about as bad a film you're likely to see all year.
2  A fine production with splendid singing by Angela Gheorghiu, Ruggero Raimondi, and Roberto Alagna.
0  The most ill-conceived animated comedy since the 1991 dog Rover Dangerfield.
1  Even during the climactic hourlong cricket match, boredom never takes hold.
0  Aptly named, this shimmering, beautifully costumed and filmed production doesn't work for me.
-2 An unremittingly ugly movie to look at, listen to, and think about, it is quite possibly the sturdiest example yet of why the DV revolution has cheapened the artistry of making a film.
0  Meant for Star Wars fans.
-2 It's that painful.
-1 The film, like Jimmy's routines, could use a few good laughs.
2  Highly watchable stuff.
0  The faithful will enjoy this sometimes wry adaptation of V.S. Naipaul's novel, but newcomers may find themselves stifling a yawn or two during the first hour.
1  ``Sweet Home Alabama'' is what it is -- a nice, harmless date film...
0  It's not difficult to spot the culprit early-on in this predictable thriller.
0  I found myself liking the film, though in this case one man's treasure could prove to be another man's garbage.
-2 Diaz wears out her welcome in her most charmless performance
1  The script manages the rare trick of seeming at once both refreshingly different and reassuringly familiar.
1  It's a clear-eyed portrait of an intensely lived time, filled with nervous energy, moral ambiguity and great uncertainties.
2  an admirable, sometimes exceptional film
-1 A mediocre exercise in target demographics, unaware that it's the butt of its own joke.
2  Well cast and well directed - a powerful drama with enough sardonic wit to keep it from being maudlin.
0  This big screen caper has a good bark, far from being a bow-wow.
0  The doofus-on - the-loose banter of Welcome to Collinwood has a cocky, after-hours loopiness to it.
-2 The comedy is nonexistent.
1  The first Bond movie in ages that isn't fake fun.
-1 A wretched movie that reduces the Second World War to one man's quest to find an old flame.
1  Death to Smoochy is often very funny, but what's even more remarkable is the integrity of DeVito's misanthropic vision.
2  Armed with a game supporting cast, from the pitch-perfect Forster to the always hilarious Meara and Levy, Like Mike shoots and scores, doing its namesake proud.
1  Claire is a terrific role for someone like Judd, who really ought to be playing villains.
-1 Too bad Kramer couldn't make a guest appearance to liven things up.
-1 If Hill isn't quite his generation's Don Siegel (or Robert Aldrich), it's because there's no discernible feeling beneath the chest hair;
0  But you'd never guess that from the performances.
1  Cannon's confidence and laid-back good spirits are, with the drumming routines, among the film's saving graces.
1  The movie is hardly a masterpiece, but it does mark Ms. Bullock's best work in some time.
1  The film becomes an overwhelming pleasure, and you find yourself rooting for Gai's character to avoid the fate that has befallen every other Carmen before her.
-1 Nearly all the fundamentals you take for granted in most films are mishandled here.
1  (Clooney's) debut can be accused of being a bit undisciplined, but it has a tremendous, offbeat sense of style and humor that suggests he was influenced by some of the filmmakers who have directed him, especially the Coen brothers and Steven Soderbergh.
0  The pitch must have read like a discarded House Beautiful spread.
0  Go.
0  For free.
1  Bring tissues.
-1 The Piano Teacher is not an easy film.
-2 By the time you reach the finale, you're likely wondering why you've been watching all this strutting and posturing.
-1 Lawrence should stick to his day job.
0  Sparkles in its deft portrait of Tinseltown's seasoned veterans of gossip, wealth, paranoia, and celebrityhood.
0  Sex With Strangers will shock many with its unblinking frankness.
0  Plays like a checklist of everything Rob Reiner and his cast were sending up.
1  This movie has the usual impossible stunts... But it has just as many scenes that are lean and tough enough to fit in any modern action movie.
-1 As if Drop Dead Gorgeous wasn't enough, this equally derisive clunker is fixated on the spectacle of small-town competition.
-2 It's a drag how Nettelbeck sees working women -- or at least this working woman -- for whom she shows little understanding.
-2 Such a bad movie that its luckiest viewers will be seated next to one of those ignorant pinheads who talk throughout the show.
2  Promises is one film that's truly deserving of its Oscar nomination.
0  ``13 Conversations'' holds its goodwill close, but is relatively slow to come to the point.
1  some good, organic character work, lots of obvious political insights and
-1 Such a wildly uneven hit-and-miss enterprise, you can't help suspecting that it was improvised on a day-to-day basis during production.
1  The stars may be college kids, but the subject matter is as adult as you can get: the temptations of the flesh are unleashed by a slightly crazed, overtly determined young woman and a one-night swim turns into an ocean of trouble.
1  , ``They're out there!''
-2 In the end, there isn't much to it.
-1 It makes me feel weird / Thinking about all the bad things in the world / Like puppies with broken legs / And butterflies that die / And movies starring pop queens
-2 Collapses after 30 minutes into a slap-happy series of adolescent violence.
-1 What starts off as a satisfying kids flck becomes increasingly implausible as it races through contrived plot points.
1  It's absolutely amazing how first-time director Kevin Donovan managed to find something new to add to the canon of Chan.
2  Really quite funny.
1  Prepare to marvel again.
1  It's definitely an improvement on the first Blade, since it doesn't take itself so deadly seriously.
2  But mostly it's a work that, with humor, warmth, and intelligence, captures a life interestingly lived.
2  Brash, intelligent and erotically perplexing, Haneke's portrait of an upper class Austrian society and the suppression of its tucked away demons is uniquely felt with a sardonic jolt.
1  Succeeds as a well-made evocation of a subculture.
0  It may not be history -- but then again, what if it is?
2  A backstage must-see for true fans of comedy.
2  Allen's funniest and most likeable movie in years.
-1 Medem may have disrobed most of the cast, leaving their bodies exposed, but the plot remains as guarded as a virgin with a chastity belt.
0  Well-meaning but inert.
-1 An inconsequential, barely there bit of piffle.
0  Do you chuckle at the thought of an ancient librarian whacking a certain part of a man's body?
1  How good this film might be, depends if you believe that the shocking conclusion is too much of a plunge or not.
-1 For something as splendid-looking as this particular film, the viewer expects something special but instead gets (sci-fi) rehash.
2  With Dirty Deeds, David Caesar has stepped into the mainstream of filmmaking with an assurance worthy of international acclaim and with every cinematic tool well under his control -- driven by a natural sense for what works on screen.
2  But the talented cast alone will keep you watching, as will the fight scenes.
1  If we sometimes need comforting fantasies about mental illness, we also need movies like Tim McCann's Revolution No. 9.
2  One of the finest, most humane and important Holocaust movies ever made.
1  Cage makes an unusual but pleasantly haunting debut behind the camera.
1  ... flat-out amusing, sometimes endearing and often fabulous, with a solid cast, noteworthy characters, delicious dialogue and a wide supply of effective sight gags.
1  Two tedious acts light on great scares and a good surprise ending.
1  Japanese director Shohei Imamura's latest film is an odd but ultimately satisfying blend of the sophomoric and the sublime.
1  It's a treat watching Shaw, a British stage icon, melting under the heat of Phocion's attentions.
-2 Rifkin no doubt fancies himself something of a Hubert Selby Jr., but there isn't an ounce of honest poetry in his entire script; it's simply crude and unrelentingly exploitative.
-2 A chilly, remote, emotionally distant piece... so dull that its tagline should be: `In space, no one can hear you snore.'
1  Just offbeat enough to keep you interested without coming close to bowling you over.
0  Unofficially, National Lampoon's Van Wilder is Son of Animal House.
-1 Lurid and less than lucid work.
-1 Deuces Wild treads heavily into Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story territory, where it plainly has no business going.
0  The isolated moments of creative insanity finally are lost in the thin soup of canned humor.
1  Hollywood Ending is not show-stoppingly hilarious, but scathingly witty nonetheless.
-2 If there's a heaven for bad movies, Deuces Wild is on its way.
0  Call this The Full Monty on ice, the underdog sports team formula redux.
-1 Ever see one of those comedies that just seem like a bad idea from frame one?
-1 Despite its sincere acting, Signs is just another unoriginal run of the mill sci-fi film with a flimsy ending and lots of hype.
1  A manically generous Christmas vaudeville.
-1 It's as if Allen, at 66, has stopped challenging himself.
-1 Mendes still doesn't quite know how to fill a frame.
-1 Some movies were made for the big screen, some for the small screen, and some, like Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, were made for the palm screen.
1  While the filmmaking may be a bit disjointed, the subject matter is so fascinating that you won't care.
0  Still, not every low-budget movie must be quirky or bleak, and a happy ending is no cinematic sin.
-2 The movie is a desperate miscalculation.
-1 the film doesn't sustain its initial promise with a jarring, new-agey tone creeping into the second half
-1 It irritates and saddens me that Martin Lawrence's latest vehicle can explode obnoxiously into 2,500 screens while something of Bubba Ho-Tep's clearly evident quality may end up languishing on a shelf somewhere.
0  If Reno is to the left of liberal on the political spectrum, her tough, funny, rather chaotic show isn't subversive so much as it is nit-picky about the hypocrisies of our time.
0  A tedious parable about honesty and good sportsmanship.
0  Draggin' about dragons
-1 Pap invested in undergraduate doubling subtexts and ridiculous stabs at existentialism reminding of the discovery of the wizard of God in the fifth Trek flick.
2  Kinnear and Dafoe give what may be the performances of their careers.
-1 It's difficult to feel anything much while watching this movie, beyond mild disturbance or detached pleasure at the acting.
-1 Like being able to hit on a 15-year old when you're over 100.
-2 The thought of watching this film with an audience full of teenagers fixating on its body humour and reinforcement of stereotypes (of which they'll get plenty) fills me with revulsion.
-1 There's not a fresh idea at the core of this tale.
1  It was only a matter of time before some savvy producer saw the potential success inherent in the mixture of Bullock Bubble and Hugh Goo.
2  But Mr. Polanski creates images even more haunting than those in Mr. Spielberg's 1993 classic.
-1 A mimetic approximation of better films
1  The closest thing to the experience of space travel
-1 This would have been better than the fiction it has concocted, and there still could have been room for the war scenes.
2  Director Charles Stone III applies more detail to the film's music than to the story line; what's best about Drumline is its energy.
1  If you can read the subtitles (the opera is sung in Italian) and you like `Masterpiece Theatre' type costumes, you'll enjoy this movie.
2  ``Frailty'' starts out like a typical Bible killer story, but it turns out to be significantly different (and better) than most films with this theme.
2  Diane Lane works nothing short of a minor miracle in Unfaithful.
2  A mix of gritty realism, crisp storytelling and radiant compassion that effortlessly draws you in.
1  If you love reading and/or poetry, then by all means check it out.
0  Did it move me to care about what happened in 1915 Armenia?
1  A highly watchable, giggly little story with a sweet edge to it.
0  Quelle surprise!
-2 The film's trailer also looked like crap, so crap is what I was expecting.
0  The biggest problem with this movie is that it's not nearly long enough.
0  The movie, while beautiful, feels labored, with a hint of the writing exercise about it.
1  Unexpected, and often contradictory, truths emerge.
1  One of the best of a growing strain of daring films... that argue that any sexual relationship that doesn't hurt anyone and works for its participants is a relationship that is worthy of our respect.
1  A film with a great premise but only a great premise.
-1 One of those so-so films that could have been much better.
-1 Normally, Rohmer's talky films fascinate me, but when he moves his setting to the past, and relies on a historical text, he loses the richness of characterization that makes his films so memorable.
0  Circuit queens won't learn a thing, they'll be too busy cursing the film's strategically placed white sheets.
2  LaBute's careful handling makes the material seem genuine rather than pandering.
0  Tom Green and an Ivy League college should never appear together on a marquee, especially when the payoff is an unschooled comedy like Stealing Harvard, which fails to keep 80 minutes from seeming like 800.
-1 The great pity is that those responsible didn't cut their losses -- and ours -- and retitle it The Adventures of Direct-to-Video Nash, and send it to its proper home.
2  A film that begins with the everyday lives of naval personnel in San Diego and ends with scenes so true and heartbreaking that tears welled up in my eyes both times I saw the film.
-1 There's a little violence and lots of sex in a bid to hold our attention, but it grows monotonous after a while, as do Joan and Philip's repetitive arguments, schemes and treachery.
1  made Eddie Murphy a movie star and the man hasn't aged a day.
1  Even when he's not at his most critically insightful, Godard can still be smarter than any 50 other filmmakers still at work.
-1 But, like Silence, it's a movie that gets under your skin.
0  Wanker Goths are on the loose!
-1 It sounds like another clever if pointless excursion into the abyss, and that's more or less how it plays out.
2  A must for fans of British cinema, if only because so many titans of the industry are along for the ride.
2  It's a fine, focused piece of work that reopens an interesting controversy and never succumbs to sensationalism.
2  Romantic comedy and Dogme 95 filmmaking may seem odd bedfellows, but they turn out to be delightfully compatible here.
-1 At a time when we've learned the hard way just how complex international terrorism is, Collateral Damage paints an absurdly simplistic picture.
2  A fascinating documentary about the long and eventful spiritual journey of the guru who helped launch the New Age.
1  Rodriguez has the chops of a smart-aleck film school brat and the imagination of a big kid...
-2 The film's lack of personality permeates all its aspects -- from the TV movie-esque, affected child acting to the dullest Irish pub scenes ever filmed.
-1 Eight Legged Freaks won't join the pantheon of great monster/science fiction flicks that we have come to love...
1  There is a beautiful, aching sadness to it all.
0  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is deja vu all over again, and while that is a cliche, nothing could be more appropriate.
1  The kind of primal storytelling that George Lucas can only dream of.
-1 The actors must indeed be good to recite some of this laughable dialogue with a straight face.
-1 Stress `dumb.'
1  In questioning the election process, Payami graphically illustrates the problems of fledgling democracies, but also the strength and sense of freedom the Iranian people already possess, with or without access to the ballot box.
-1 While the film is competent, it's also uninspired, lacking the real talent and wit to elevate it beyond its formula to the level of classic romantic comedy to which it aspires.
1  It works well enough, since the thrills pop up frequently, and the dispatching of the cast is as often imaginative as it is gory.
2  The hard-to-predict and absolutely essential chemistry between the down-to-earth Bullock and the nonchalant Grant proves to be sensational, and everything meshes in this elegant entertainment.
0  Norton holds the film together.
-2 There's not one decent performance from the cast and not one clever line of dialogue.
2  The film brilliantly shines on all the characters, as the direction is intelligently accomplished.
2  A delightful surprise because despite all the backstage drama, this is a movie that tells stories that work -- is charming, is moving, is funny and looks professional.
-1 ... the maudlin way its story unfolds suggests a director fighting against the urge to sensationalize his material.
-2 too many scenarios in which the hero might have an opportunity to triumphantly sermonize, and too few that allow us to wonder for ourselves if things will turn out okay.
0  A flawed film but an admirable one that tries to immerse us in a world of artistic abandon and political madness and very nearly succeeds.
-1 It wouldn't matter so much that this arrogant Richard Pryor wannabe's routine is offensive, puerile and unimaginatively foul-mouthed if it was at least funny.
-1 The makers of Mothman Prophecies succeed in producing that most frightening of all movies -- a mediocre horror film too bad to be good and too good to be bad.
-2 Epps has neither the charisma nor the natural affability that has made Tucker a star.
-2 Given the fact that virtually no one is bound to show up at theatres for it, the project should have been made for the tube.
1  I am not generally a huge fan of cartoons derived from TV shows, but Hey Arnold!
2  This is a fascinating film because there is no clear-cut hero and no all-out villain.
1  Rehearsals are frequently more fascinating than the results.
0  The dark and bittersweet twist feels strange as things turn nasty and tragic during the final third of the film.
0  The film thrusts the inchoate but already eldritch Christian Right propaganda machine into national media circles.
1  The engagingly primitive animated special effects contribute to a mood that's sustained through the surprisingly somber conclusion.
-1 Hip-hop prison thriller of stupefying absurdity.
-1 is a question for philosophers, not filmmakers; all the filmmakers need to do is engage an audience.
-2 If you enjoy being rewarded by a script that assumes you aren't very bright, then Blood Work is for you.
1  Nair doesn't treat the issues lightly.
1  By and large this is Mr. Kilmer's movie, and it's his strongest performance since The Doors.
1  This masterfully calibrated psychological thriller thrives on its taut performances and creepy atmosphere even if the screenplay falls somewhat short.
1  The charming result is Festival in Cannes.
0  ``Home Movie'' is the film equivalent of a lovingly rendered coffee table book.
-1 Cherry Orchard is badly edited, often awkwardly directed and suffers from the addition of a wholly unnecessary pre-credit sequence designed to give some of the characters a `back story.'
0  Though excessively tiresome, The Uncertainty Principle, as verbally pretentious as the title may be, has its handful of redeeming features, as long as you discount its ability to bore.
0  So brisk is Wang's pacing that none of the excellent cast are given air to breathe.
0  The only time 8 Crazy Nights comes close to hitting a comedic or satirical target is during the offbeat musical numbers.
2  Me Without You has a bracing truth that's refreshing after the phoniness of female-bonding pictures like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
1  Some of the most ravaging, gut-wrenching, frightening war scenes since ``Saving Private Ryan'' have been recreated by John Woo in this little-known story of Native Americans and their role in the second great war.
-2 ... a plotline that's as lumpy as two-day old porridge... the filmmakers' paws, sad to say, were all over this ``un-bear-able'' project!
-1 The story has some nice twists but the ending and some of the back-story is a little tired.
-1 There's no excuse for following up a delightful, well-crafted family film with a computer-generated cold fish.
-1 On top of a foundering performance, (Madonna's) denied her own athleticism by lighting that emphasizes every line and sag.
1  Shiner can certainly go the distance, but isn't world championship material
2  The film is bright and flashy in all the right ways.
1  If anything, see it for Karen Black, who camps up a storm as a fringe feminist conspiracy theorist named Dirty Dick.
2  The A A A of action, X X X is a blast of adrenalin, rated E E E for excitement.
-2 What remains is a variant of the nincompoop Benigni persona, here a more annoying, though less angry version of the irresponsible Sandlerian manchild, undercut by the voice of the star of Road Trip.
2  A well-done film of a self-reflexive, philosophical nature.
1  An old-fashioned scary movie, one that relies on lingering terror punctuated by sudden shocks and not constant bloodshed punctuated by flying guts.
0  Although melodramatic and predictable, this romantic comedy explores the friendship between five Filipino-Americans and their frantic efforts to find love.
-2 Nothing sticks, really, except a lingering creepiness one feels from being dragged through a sad, sordid universe of guns, drugs, avarice and damaged dreams.
2  Brosnan gives a portrayal as solid and as perfect as his outstanding performance as Bond in Die Another Day.
0  Goes a long way on hedonistic gusto.
1  Thirteen Conversations About One Thing lays out a narrative puzzle that interweaves individual stories, and, like a Mobius strip, elliptically loops back to where it began.
-1 I'm sure there's a teenage boy out there somewhere who's dying for this kind of entertainment.
-1 The acting is just fine, but there's not enough substance here to sustain interest for the full 90 minutes, especially with the weak payoff.
-1 The first hour is tedious though Ford and Neeson capably hold our interest, but its just not a thrilling movie.
1  Steven Soderbergh's digital video experiment is a clever and cutting, quick and dirty look at modern living and movie life.
-2 Weighted down with slow, uninvolving storytelling and flat acting.
-1 Sheridan had a wonderful account to work from, but, curiously, he waters it down, turning grit and vulnerability into light reading.
-2 No amount of arty theorizing -- the special effects are `German-Expressionist,' according to the press notes -- can render it anything but laughable.
-1 What goes on for the 110 minutes of ``Panic Room'' is a battle of witlessness between a not-so-bright mother and daughter and an even less capable trio of criminals.
-1 Illiterate, often inert sci-fi action thriller.
2  When compared to the usual, more somber festival entries, Davis' highly personal brand of romantic comedy is a tart, smart breath of fresh air that stands out from the pack even if the picture itself is somewhat problematic.
1  The best thing about the movie is its personable, amusing cast.
1  Inherently caustic and oddly whimsical, the film chimes in on the grieving process and strangely draws the audience into the unexplainable pain and eccentricities that are attached to the concept of loss.
0  Heaven is a haunting dramatization of a couple's moral ascension.
-2 Haneke's script (from Elfriede Jelinek's novel) is contrived, unmotivated, and psychologically unpersuasive, with an inconclusive ending.
1  With an expressive face reminiscent of Gong Li and a vivid personality like Zhang Ziyi's, Dong stakes out the emotional heart of Happy.
2  A modestly made but profoundly moving documentary.
1  Fred Schepisi's tale of four Englishmen facing the prospect of their own mortality views youthful affluence not as a lost ideal but a starting point.
2  It is, however, a completely honest, open-hearted film that should appeal to anyone willing to succumb to it.
-2 Movies like High Crimes flog the dead horse of surprise as if it were an obligation.
-1 A zippy 96 minutes of mediocre special effects, hoary dialogue, fluxing accents, and -- worst of all -- silly-looking Morlocks.
-1 The movie doesn't generate a lot of energy.
-1 One of those decades-spanning historical epics that strives to be intimate and socially encompassing but fails to do justice to either effort in three hours of screen time.
1  A captivatingly quirky hybrid of character portrait, romantic comedy and beat-the-clock thriller.
-1 The plot is plastered with one Hollywood cliche after another, most of which involve precocious kids getting the better of obnoxious adults.
1  I like all four of the lead actors a lot and they manage to squeeze a few laughs out of the material, but they're treading water at best in this forgettable effort.
-2 Loud, chaotic and largely unfunny.
-1 Abandon spends 90 minutes trying figure out whether or not some cocky pseudo-intellectual kid has intentionally left college or was killed.
-1 The script is a disaster, with cloying messages and irksome characters.
1  The art demands live viewing.
-1 Since Dahmer resorts to standard slasher flick thrills when it should be most in the mind of the killer, it misses a major opportunity to be truly revelatory about his psyche.
-2 None of this sounds promising and, indeed, the first half of Sorority Boys is as appalling as any `comedy' to ever spill from a projector's lens.
-1 This mild-mannered farce, directed by one of its writers, John C. Walsh, is corny in a way that bespeaks an expiration date passed a long time ago.
0  Visually sumptuous but intellectually stultifying.
1  But that they are doing it is thought-provoking.
1  Vera has created a provocative, absorbing drama that reveals the curse of a self-hatred instilled by rigid social mores.
-2 It aimlessly and unsuccessfully attempts to fuse at least three dull plots into one good one.
1  The film sounds like the stuff of lurid melodrama, but what makes it interesting as a character study is the fact that the story is told from Paul's perspective.
1  A moving and weighty depiction of one family's attempts to heal after the death of a child.
1  As I settled into my World War II memories, I found myself strangely moved by even the corniest and most hackneyed contrivances.
0  This is amusing for about three minutes.
0  Its strengths and weaknesses play off each other virtually to a stand-off, with the unfortunate trump card being the dreary mid-section of the film.
0  As happily glib and vicious as its characters.
2  Mr. Caine and Mr. Fraser are the whole show here, with their memorable and resourceful performances.
1  It really is a shame that more won't get an opportunity to embrace small, sweet `Evelyn.'
-1 The problem with the film is whether these ambitions, laudable in themselves, justify a theatrical simulation of the death camp of Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
-1 Too much of the movie feels contrived, as if the filmmakers were worried the story wouldn't work without all those gimmicks.
1  The picture runs a mere 84 minutes, but it's no glance.
1  An elegant and sly deadpan comedy.
0  With its hint of an awkward Hitchcockian theme in tact, Harmon's daunting narrative promotes a reasonable landscape of conflict and pathos to support the scattershot terrorizing tone
-2 The notion of deleting emotion from people, even in an advanced Prozac Nation, is so insanely dysfunctional that the rampantly designed Equilibrium becomes a concept doofus.
1  Best enjoyed as a work of fiction inspired by real-life events.
-2 Mr. Soderbergh's direction and visual style struck me as unusually and unimpressively fussy and pretentious.
0  Debate it.
2  A wildly entertaining scan of Evans' career.
2  Like The Full Monty, this is sure to raise audience's spirits and leave them singing long after the credits roll.
1  But not without cheesy fun factor.
1  Upsetting and thought-provoking, the film has an odd purity that doesn't bring you into the characters so much as it has you study them.
1  A live-action cartoon, a fast-moving and cheerfully simplistic 88 minutes of exaggerated action put together with the preteen boy in mind.
1  A dazzling thing to behold -- as long as you're wearing the somewhat cumbersome 3D goggles the theater provides.
1  Could use a little more humanity, but it never lacks in eye-popping visuals.
-1 Mostly, Shafer and co-writer Gregory Hinton lack a strong-minded viewpoint, or a sense of humor.
-2 I'm not sure these words have ever been together in the same sentence: This erotic cannibal movie is boring.
0  Gambling and throwing a basketball game for money isn't a new plot -- in fact Toback himself used it in Black and White.
2  With an admirably dark first script by Brent Hanley, Paxton, making his directorial feature debut, does strong, measured work.
2  Bolstered by exceptional performances and a clear-eyed take on the economics of dealing and the pathology of ghetto fabulousness.
2  Douglas McGrath's Nicholas Nickleby does Dickens as it should be done cinematically.
0  How I Killed My Father would be a rarity in Hollywood.
0  The problem is not that it's all derivative, because plenty of funny movies recycle old tropes.
1  That the e-graveyard holds as many good ideas as bad is the cold comfort that Chin's film serves up with style and empathy.
-1 Ends up offering nothing more than the latest Schwarzenegger or Stallone flick would.
0  The film's only missteps come from the script's insistence on providing deep emotional motivation for each and every one of Abagnale's antics.
-1 At best this is a film for the under-7 crowd.
2  A thoughtful movie, a movie that is concerned with souls and risk and schemes and the consequences of one's actions.
-1 Jaw-droppingly superficial, straining to get by on humor that is not even as daring as John Ritter's glory days on Three's Company.
1  Even through its flaws, Revolution # 9 proves to be a compelling, interestingly told film.
0  It's still Adam Sandler, and it's not Little Nicky.
1  Sorvino is delightful in the central role.
0  Bogs down badly as we absorb Jia's moody, bad-boy behavior which he portrays himself in a one-note performance.
-2 An awful movie that will only satisfy the most emotionally malleable of filmgoers.
1  Exhilarating but blatantly biased.
-2 The story of Trouble Every Day... is so sketchy it amounts to little more than preliminary notes for a science-fiction horror film, and the movie's fragmentary narrative style makes piecing the story together frustrating difficult.
-1 Lame Sweet Home leaves no Southern stereotype unturned.
1  First-time writer-director Dylan Kidd also has a good ear for dialogue, and the characters sound like real people.
-2 It is very difficult to care about the character, and that is the central flaw of the film.
1  What makes it worth watching is Quaid's performance.
1  By turns pretentious, fascinating, ludicrous, provocative and vainglorious.
0  An empty, ugly exercise in druggy trance-noir and trumped-up street credibility.
2  Especially give credit to Affleck.
1  If you grew up on Scooby -- you'll love this movie.
2  It's hard to imagine anyone managing to steal a movie not only from charismatic rising star Jake Gyllenhaal but also from accomplished Oscar winners Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman and Holly Hunter, yet newcomer Ellen Pompeo pulls off the feat with aplomb.
-2 After you laugh once (maybe twice), you will have completely forgotten the movie by the time you get back to your car in the parking lot.
-1 The screenplay flounders under the weight of too many story lines.
-1 Snipes is both a snore and utter tripe.
-1 The troubling thing about Clockstoppers is that it doesn't make any sense.
-1 There's no good answer to that one.
1  Singer/composer Bryan Adams contributes a slew of songs -- a few potential hits, a few more simply intrusive to the story -- but the whole package certainly captures the intended, er, spirit of the piece.
-2 It's a road-trip drama with too many wrong turns.
-1 Seriously, rent the Disney version.
-2 You'll forget about it by Monday, though, and if they're old enough to have developed some taste, so will your kids.
-2 Like many such biographical melodramas, it suffers from the awkwardness that results from adhering to the messiness of true stories.
-2 No cute factor here... Not that I mind ugly; the problem is he has no character, loveable or otherwise.
1  A remarkable movie with an unsatisfying ending, which is just the point.
2  If you're a fan of the series you'll love it and probably want to see it twice.
-1 Unless Bob Crane is someone of particular interest to you, this film's impressive performances and adept direction aren't likely to leave a lasting impression.
-1 It doesn't flinch from its unsettling prognosis, namely, that the legacy of war is a kind of perpetual pain.
-1 If you recognize Zeus (the dog from Snatch) it will make you wish you were at home watching that movie instead of in the theater watching this one.
0  ... a trashy little bit of fluff stuffed with enjoyable performances and a bewildering sense of self-importance
0  If you're really renting this you're not interested in discretion in your entertainment choices, you're interested in Anne Geddes, John Grisham, and Thomas Kincaid.
-2 Like a can of 2-day old Coke.
-1 What Jackson has done is proven that no amount of imagination, no creature, no fantasy story and no incredibly outlandish scenery
2  As a girl-meets-girl romantic comedy, Kissing Jessica Steinis quirky, charming and often hilarious.
2  Humorous and heartfelt, Douglas McGrath's version of `Nicholas Nickleby' left me feeling refreshed and hopeful.
2  ... a solid, well-formed satire.
-1 May offend viewers not amused by the sick sense of humor.
0  The Lady and the Duke is Eric Rohmer's economical antidote to the bloated costume drama
1  Assayas' ambitious, sometimes beautiful adaptation of Jacques Chardonne's novel.
-2 It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a Mormon family movie, and a sappy, preachy one at that.
0  There are many things that solid acting can do for a movie, but crafting something promising from a mediocre screenplay is not one of them.
-1 A cautionary tale about the folly of superficiality that is itself endlessly superficial.
-2 It should be doing a lot of things, but doesn't.
0  I was hoping that it would be sleazy and fun, but it was neither.
-2 The logic of it all will be Greek to anyone not predisposed to the movie's rude and crude humor.
2  About as big a crowdpleaser as they possibly come.
2  Thumbs up to Paxton for not falling into the Hollywood trap and making a vanity project with nothing new to offer.
-1 Why ``they'' were here and what ``they'' wanted and quite honestly, I didn't care.
1  Together (Time Out and Human Resources) establish Mr. Cantet as France's foremost cinematic poet of the workplace.
1  It's mildly entertaining, especially if you find comfort in familiarity.
-1 The chocolate factory without Charlie.
-1 Why, you may ask, why should you buy the movie milk when the TV cow is free?
-1 The trappings of I Spy are so familiar you might as well be watching a rerun.
-2 We've liked Klein's other work but Rollerball left us cold.
-2 Even on its own ludicrous terms, The Sum of All Fears generates little narrative momentum, and invites unflattering comparisons to other installments in the Ryan series.
1  But the actors make this worth a peek.
-2 This mess of a movie is nothing short of a travesty of a transvestite comedy.
-1 A determined, ennui-hobbled slog that really doesn't have much to say beyond the news flash that loneliness can make people act weird.
-2 The satire is unfocused, while the story goes nowhere.
2  Easily the most thoughtful fictional examination of the root causes of anti-Semitism ever seen on screen.
1  Conceptually brilliant... Plays like a living-room War Of The Worlds, gaining most of its unsettling force from the suggested and the unknown.
-2 I have to admit I walked out of Runteldat.
0  Less worrying about covering all the drama in Frida's life and more time spent exploring her process of turning pain into art would have made this a superior movie.
1  It's excessively quirky and a little underconfident in its delivery, but otherwise this is the best `old neighborhood' project since Christopher Walken kinda romanced Cyndi Lauper in The Opportunists.
2  This is a movie full of grace and, ultimately, hope.
2  (Ferrera) has the charisma of a young woman who knows how to hold the screen.
0  We get an image of Big Papa spanning history, rather than suspending it.
0  ``On Guard!''
-1 Average, at best, I'm afraid.
2  An eloquent, reflective and beautifully acted meditation on both the profoundly devastating events of one year ago and the slow, painful healing process that has followed in their wake.
1  Fortunately, Elling never gets too cloying thanks to the actors' perfect comic timing and sweet, genuine chemistry.
2  Tully is worth a look for its true-to-life characters, its sensitive acting, its unadorned view of rural life and the subtle direction of first-timer Hilary Birmingham.
-1 Two badly interlocked stories drowned by all too clever complexity.
1  - I also wanted a little alien as a friend!
2  It's immensely ambitious, different than anything that's been done before and amazingly successful in terms of what it's trying to do.
-1 Forget the misleading title, what's with the unexplained baboon cameo?
-1 Though an important political documentary, this does not really make the case the Kissinger should be tried as a war criminal.
1  Not everyone will welcome or accept The Trials of Henry Kissinger as faithful portraiture, but few can argue that the debate it joins is a necessary and timely one.
-2 It's always disappointing when a documentary fails to live up to -- or offer any new insight into -- its chosen topic.
-2 A frustrating `tweener' -- too slick, contrived and exploitative for the art houses and too cynical, small and decadent for the malls.
-2 Muddled, simplistic and more than a little pretentious.
1  The Mothman Prophecies is best when illustrating the demons bedevilling the modern masculine journey.
1  An oddity, to be sure, but one that you might wind up remembering with a degree of affection rather than revulsion.
0  Although bright, well-acted and thought-provoking, Tuck Everlasting suffers from a laconic pace and a lack of traditional action.
-2 Feel free to go get popcorn whenever he's not onscreen.
-2 The very simple story seems too simple and the working out of the plot almost arbitrary.
1  (Allen) manages to breathe life into this somewhat tired premise.
-1 After a while, Hoffman's quirks and mannerisms, particularly his penchant for tearing up on cue -- things that seem so real in small doses -- become annoying and artificial.
1  There are flaws, but also stretches of impact and moments of awe; we're wrapped up in the characters, how they make their choices, and why.
-1 Who cares?).
2  While general audiences might not come away with a greater knowledge of the facts of Cuban music, they'll be treated to an impressive and highly entertaining celebration of its sounds.
-1 Exploitative and largely devoid of the depth or sophistication that would make watching such a graphic treatment of the crimes bearable.
1  A sentimental but entirely irresistible portrait of three aging sisters.
0  A typically observant, carefully nuanced and intimate French coming-of-age film that is an encouraging debut feature but has a needlessly downbeat ending that is too heavy for all that has preceded it.
2  Good, solid storytelling.
2  As gory as the scenes of torture and self-mutilation may be, they are pitted against shimmering cinematography that lends the setting the ethereal beauty of an Asian landscape painting.
1  We're drawn in by the dark luster.
0  A pleasant, if forgettable, romp of a film.
2  A classic fairy tale that perfectly captures the wonders and worries of childhood in a way that few movies have ever approached.
2  Congrats Disney on a job well done, I enjoyed it just as much!
0  Some movies can get by without being funny simply by structuring the scenes as if they were jokes: a setup, delivery and payoff.
0  Big time.
-1 I wish it would have just gone more over-the-top instead of trying to have it both ways.
-1 It just doesn't have anything really interesting to say.
0  ... would be a total loss if not for two supporting performances taking place at the movie's edges.
0  Cox is far more concerned with aggrandizing madness, not the man, and the results might drive you crazy.
1  A rather brilliant little cult item: a pastiche of children's entertainment, superhero comics, and Japanese animation.
0  Oozes condescension from every pore.
-2 Clumsy, obvious, preposterous, the movie will likely set the cause of woman warriors back decades.
-1 The result is an `action film' mired in stasis.
-1 Hollywood has taken quite a nosedive from Alfred Hitchcock's imaginative flight to Shyamalan's self-important summer fluff.
2  Takes a simple premise and carries it to unexpected heights.
-1 It's lost the politics and the social observation and become just another situation romance about a couple of saps stuck in an inarticulate screenplay.
1  The film's plot may be shallow, but you've never seen the deep like you see it in these harrowing surf shots.
-1 This is a movie where the most notable observation is how long you've been sitting still.
1  The film is hard to dismiss -- moody, thoughtful, and lit by flashes of mordant humor.
0  If Jews were Catholics, this would be Catechism
2  Hard, endearing, caring, warm.
1  Shanghai Ghetto, much stranger than any fiction, brings this unknown slice of history affectingly to life.
-2 Boy, has this franchise ever run out of gas.
-1 I've seen some bad singer-turned actors, but Lil Bow Wow takes the cake.
-1 Follows the original film virtually scene for scene and yet manages to bleed it almost completely dry of humor, verve and fun.
-1 A pathetically inane and unimaginative cross between X X X and Vertical Limit.
1  Arteta paints a picture of lives lived in a state of quiet desperation.
2  Shot largely in small rooms, the film has a gentle, unforced intimacy that never becomes claustrophobic.
-1 But I had a lot of problems with this movie.
1  Takes you by the face, strokes your cheeks and coos beseechingly at you: slow down, shake off your tensions and take this picture at its own breezy, distracted rhythms.
1  ... the plot weaves us into a complex web.
0  The messy emotions raging throughout this three-hour effort are instantly recognizable, allowing the film to paradoxically feel familiar and foreign at the same time.
0  Plods along, minus the twisted humor and eye-popping visuals that have made Miike... a cult hero.
1  (The Cockettes) provides a window into a subculture hell-bent on expressing itself in every way imaginable.'
-1 An exceptionally dreary and overwrought bit of work, every bit as imperious as Katzenberg's The Prince of Egypt from 1998.
1  In its treatment of the dehumanizing and ego-destroying process of unemployment, Time Out offers an exploration that is more accurate than anything I have seen in an American film.
2  Renner carries much of the film with a creepy and dead-on performance.
0  ... if you're just in the mood for a fun -- but bad -- movie, you might want to catch Freaks as a matinee.
-1 Feels like a cold old man going through the motions.
0  Vampire epic succeeds as spooky action-packed trash of the highest order.
1  The film's images give a backbone to the company and provide an emotional edge to its ultimate demise.
2  These three films form a remarkably cohesive whole, both visually and thematically, through their consistently sensitive and often exciting treatment of an ignored people.
-1 Hoffman waits too long to turn his movie in an unexpected direction, and even then his tone retains a genteel, prep-school quality that feels dusty and leatherbound.
1  The dirty jokes provide the funniest moments in this oddly sweet comedy about jokester highway patrolmen.
-2 In a big corner office in Hell, Satan is throwing up his hands in surrender, is firing his R&D people, and has decided he will just screen The Master of Disguise 24/7.
2  A delicious, quirky movie with a terrific screenplay and fanciful direction by Michael Gondry.
-1 It doesn't really know or care about the characters, and uses them as markers for a series of preordained events.
1  Jackson and co have brought back the value and respect for the term epic cinema.
1  The fourth ``Pokemon'' is a diverting -- if predictable -- adventure suitable for a matinee, with a message that cautions children about disturbing the world's delicate ecological balance.
-1 Supposedly authentic account of a historical event that's far too tragic to merit such superficial treatment.
-2 ... if you, like me, think an action film disguised as a war tribute is disgusting to begin with, then you're in for a painful ride.
0  ... a somber film, almost completely unrelieved by any comedy beyond the wistful everyday ironies of the working poor.
-2 Journalistically dubious, inept and often lethally dull.
-1 He's not good with people.
-2 The sheer dumbness of the plot (other than its one good idea) and the movie's inescapable air of sleaziness get you down.
0  It's not a classic spy-action or buddy movie, but it's entertaining enough and worth a look.
-2 Priggish, lethargically paced parable of renewal.
0  Everything else about High Crimes is, like the military system of justice it portrays, tiresomely regimented.
2  Warm in its loving yet unforgivingly inconsistent depiction of everyday people, relaxed in its perfect quiet pace and proud in its message.
1  An eye-boggling blend of psychedelic devices, special effects and backgrounds, `Spy Kids 2' is a visual treat for all audiences.
-2 ``The Adventures of Pluto Nash'' is a big time stinker.
-2 Quite frankly, I can't see why any actor of talent would ever work in a McCulloch production again if they looked at how this movie turned out.
-1 It's such a mechanical endeavor (that) it never bothers to question why somebody might devote time to see it.
-1 And second, what's with all the shooting?
-1 Despite some strong performances, never rises above the level of a telanovela.
0  ... best seen as speculative history, as much an exploration of the paranoid impulse as a creative sequel to the Warren Report.
2  Rarely, indeed almost never, is such high-wattage brainpower coupled with pitch-perfect acting and an exquisite, unfakable sense of cinema.
0  There's no clear picture of who killed Bob Crane.
-1 Payami tries to raise some serious issues about Iran's electoral process, but the result is a film that's about as subtle as a party political broadcast.
-1 The action here is unusually tame, the characters are too simplistic to maintain interest, and the plot offers few surprises.
0  The message is that even the most unlikely can link together to conquer all kinds of obstacles, whether they be of nature, of man or of one another.
0  Merci pour le movie.
2  Devos and Cassel have tremendous chemistry -- their sexual and romantic tension, while never really vocalized, is palpable.
1  Poignant and funny.
-1 The overall vibe is druggy and self-indulgent, like a spring-break orgy for pretentious arts majors.
1  A glib but bouncy bit of sixties-style slickness in which the hero might wind up caught but the audience gets pure escapism.
2  The storylines are woven together skilfully, the magnificent swooping aerial shots are breathtaking, and the overall experience is awesome.
-1 It finds no way to entertain or inspire its viewers.
1  With an unusual protagonist (a kilt-wearing Jackson) and subject matter, the improbable ``Formula 51'' is somewhat entertaining, but it could have been much stronger.
-1 Director Elie Chouraqui, who co-wrote the script, catches the chaotic horror of war, but why bother if you're going to subjugate truth to the tear-jerking demands of soap opera?
-1 Is anyone else out there getting tired of the whole slo-mo, double-pistoled, ballistic-pyrotechnic Hong Kong action aesthetic?
-1 It's the humanizing stuff that will probably sink the film for anyone who doesn't think about percentages all day long.
1  A moving essay about the specter of death, especially suicide.
-1 A disaster of a drama, saved only by its winged assailants.
-2 When it comes out on video, then it's the perfect cure for insomnia.
1  A beguiling evocation of the quality that keeps Dickens evergreen: the exuberant openness with which he expresses our most basic emotions.
0  The movie should be credited with remembering his victims.
-1 Coupling disgracefully written dialogue with flailing bodily movements that substitute for acting, Circuit is the awkwardly paced soap opera-ish story.
0  Snipes relies too much on a scorchingly plotted dramatic scenario for its own good.
-1 Kurys seems intimidated by both her subject matter and the period trappings of this debut venture into the heritage business.
0  The Sweetest Thing, a romantic comedy with outrageous tendencies, may be a mess in a lot of ways.
1  Has its moments -- and almost as many subplots.
1  A chilly, brooding but quietly resonant psychological study of domestic tension and unhappiness.
1  Smart and fun, but far more witty than it is wise.
1  Succeeds where its recent predecessor miserably fails because it demands that you suffer the dreadfulness of war from both sides.
2  A rare and lightly entertaining look behind the curtain that separates comics from the people laughing in the crowd.
1  High Crimes steals so freely from other movies and combines enough disparate types of films that it can't help but engage an audience.
1  Michel Piccoli's moving performance is this films reason for being.
-2 Purposefully shocking in its eroticized gore, if unintentionally dull in its lack of poetic frissons.
1  An intimate contemplation of two marvelously messy lives.
0  The party scenes deliver some tawdry kicks.
0  Meandering and glacially paced, and often just plain dull.
-1 A fake street drama that keeps telling you things instead of showing them.
1  A quietly moving look back at what it was to be Iranian-American in 1979.
-2 Confuses its message with an ultimate desire to please, and contorting itself into an idea of expectation is the last thing any of these three actresses, nor their characters, deserve.
2  ... a good film that must have baffled the folks in the marketing department.
-1 ... its solemn pretension prevents us from sharing the awe in which it holds itself.
0  but `Why?'
0  Denis forges out of the theories of class - based rage and sisterly obsession a razor-sided tuning fork that rings with cultural, sexual and social discord.
-2 If you value your time and money, find an escape clause and avoid seeing this trite, predictable rehash.
1  While most films these days are about nothing, this film seems to be about everything that's plaguing the human spirit in a relentlessly globalizing world.
1  She boxes these women's souls right open for us.
2  In his U.S. debut, Mr. Schnitzler proves himself a deft pace master and stylist.
2  Sex With Strangers is fascinating...
-2 It made me feel unclean, and I'm the guy who liked There's Something About Mary and both American Pie movies.
0  Anyone who's ever suffered under a martinet music instructor has no doubt fantasized about what an unhappy, repressed and twisted personal life their tormentor deserved.
-1 Just a collection of this and that -- whatever fills time -- with no unified whole.
-2 And it's a lousy one at that.
0  Not one moment in the enterprise didn't make me want to lie down in a dark room with something cool to my brow.
0  It gets bogged down by hit-and-miss topical humour before getting to the truly good stuff.
1  Between bursts of automatic gunfire, the story offers a trenchant critique of capitalism.
2  In addition to gluing you to the edge of your seat, Changing Lanes is also a film of freshness, imagination and insight.
1  Lasker's canny, meditative script distances sex and love, as Byron and Luther... realize they can't get no satisfaction without the latter.
-1 This angst-ridden territory was covered earlier and much better in Ordinary People.
1  A smart little indie.
-2 My only wish is that Celebi could take me back to a time before I saw this movie and I could just skip it.
-2 Imagine Kevin Smith, the blasphemous bad boy of suburban Jersey, if he were stripped of most of his budget and all of his sense of humor.
0  this film is not a love letter for the slain rappers, it's a taunt - a call for justice for two crimes from which many of us have not yet recovered.
0  Whether you like it or not is basically a matter of taste.
0  The best way to describe it is as a cross between Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia and David Lynch's Mulholland Dr.
1  harmlessly
-1 After a while, the only way for a reasonably intelligent person to get through The Country Bears is to ponder how a whole segment of pop-music history has been allowed to get wet, fuzzy and sticky.
2  A powerful performance from Mel Gibson and a brutal 90-minute battle sequence that does everything but issue you a dog-tag and an M-16.
-1 So much about the film is loopy and ludicrous... that it could have been a hoot in a bad-movie way if the laborious pacing and endless exposition had been tightened.
-2 By the time the plot grinds itself out in increasingly incoherent fashion, you might be wishing for a watch that makes time go faster rather than the other way around.
-1 Director Tom Shadyac and star Kevin Costner glumly mishandle the story's promising premise of a physician who needs to heal himself.
-1 It's a big idea, but the film itself is small and shriveled.
-1 Some fine acting, but ultimately a movie with no reason for being.
0  The movie has no respect for laws, political correctness or common decency, but it displays something more important: respect for its flawed, crazy people.
-1 The film lapses too often into sugary sentiment and withholds delivery on the pell-mell pyrotechnics its punchy style promises.
-1 One well-timed explosion in a movie can be a knockout, but a hundred of them can be numbing.
0  A dark, dull thriller with a parting shot that misfires.
1  Audacious-impossible yet compelling...
1  In its own floundering way, it gets to you.
-1 Presents nothing special and, until the final act, nothing overtly disagreeable.
-1 Let's see, a haunted house, a haunted ship, what's next... Ghost Blimp?
-1 The material and the production itself are little more than routine.
0  (Haynes') homage to such films as ``All That Heaven Allows'' and ``Imitation of Life'' transcends them.
-2 Nobody seems to have cared much about any aspect of it, from its cheesy screenplay to the grayish quality of its lighting to its last-minute, haphazard theatrical release.
0  A movie that's just plain awful but still manages to entertain on a guilty-pleasure, so-bad-it's - funny level.
1  A good documentary can make interesting a subject you thought would leave you cold.
0  As self-aware movies go, Who is Cletis Tout?
-1 Britney Spears' phoniness is nothing compared to the movie's contrived, lame screenplay and listless direction.
1  Nothing can detract from the affection of that moral favorite: friends will be friends through thick and thin.
1  The film... presents classic moral-condundrum drama: What would you have done to survive?
-2 Terminally brain dead production.
1  An interesting look behind the scenes of Chicago-based rock group Wilco...
-1 Has nothing good to speak about other than the fact that it is relatively short, tries its best to hide the fact that Seagal's overweight and out of shape.
1  A winning and wildly fascinating work.
1  After watching it, you can only love the players it brings to the fore for the gifted but no-nonsense human beings they are and for the still-inestimable contribution they have made to our shared history.
-1 Yet it's not quite the genre-busting film it's been hyped to be because it plays everything too safe.
0  The film is a blunt indictment, part of a perhaps surreal campaign to bring Kissinger to trial for crimes against humanity.
1  Intelligent, caustic take on a great writer and dubious human being.
0  The whole mildly pleasant outing -- the R rating is for brief nudity and a grisly corpse -- remains aloft not on its own self-referential hot air, but on the inspired performance of Tim Allen.
1  Gondry's direction is adequate... but what gives Human Nature its unique feel is Kaufman's script.
1  This is a shrewd and effective film from a director who understands how to create and sustain a mood.
1  If you can swallow its absurdities and crudities Lagaan really is enormously good fun.
-1 Cheap, vulgar dialogue and a plot that crawls along at a snail's pace.
1  Alarms for Duvall's throbbing sincerity and his elderly propensity for patting people while he talks.
0  Rob Schneider, Dana Carvey and Sarah Michelle Gellar in The Philadelphia Story?
-2 The acting isn't much better.
1  Zoom!
0  I had more fun with Ben Stiller's Zoolander, which I thought was rather clever.
1  If the film's vision of sport as a secular religion is a bit cloying, its through-line of family and community is heartening in the same way that each season marks a new start.
1  It's pretty linear and only makeup-deep, but Bogdanovich ties it together with efficiency and an affection for the period.
2  More mature than Fatal Attraction, more complete than Indecent Proposal and more relevant than 9 1/2 Weeks, Unfaithful is at once intimate and universal cinema.
-1 That's its first sign of trouble.
2  A very charming and funny movie.
0  A good-looking but ultimately pointless political thriller with plenty of action and almost no substance.
-2 ``... something appears to have been lost in the translation this time.
-2 A period story about a Catholic boy who tries to help a Jewish friend get into heaven by sending the audience straight to hell.
-2 A markedly inactive film, City is conversational bordering on confessional.
0  The strong subject matter continues to shock throughout the film.
-1 A fan film that for the uninitiated plays better on video with the sound turned down.
-1 Romanek keeps adding flourishes -- artsy fantasy sequences -- that simply feel wrong.
1  The result is somewhat satisfying -- it still comes from Spielberg, who has never made anything that wasn't at least watchable.
1  A wonderfully speculative character study that made up for its rather slow beginning by drawing me into the picture.
0  Gibney and Jarecki just want to string the bastard up.
-1 Lazily directed by Charles Stone III... from a leaden script by Matthew Cirulnick and novelist Thulani Davis.
2  Nonchalantly freaky and uncommonly pleasurable, Warm Water may well be the year's best and most unpredictable comedy.
-1 Though there's a clarity of purpose and even-handedness to the film's direction, the drama feels rigged and sluggish.
-2 Sunk by way too much indulgence of scene-chewing, teeth-gnashing actorliness.
-2 What starts off as a possible Argentine American Beauty reeks like a room stacked with pungent flowers.
2  ... by the time it's done with us, Mira Nair's new movie has its audience giddy with the delight of discovery, of having been immersed in a foreign culture only to find that human nature is pretty much the same all over.
2  Shot in rich, shadowy black-and-white, Devils chronicles, with increasingly amused irony, the relationship between reluctant captors and befuddled captives.
0  Bond-inspired?
-2 Staggeringly dreadful romance.
2  This method almost never fails him, and it works superbly here.
-1 Weird.
2  Nolan proves that he can cross swords with the best of them and helm a more traditionally plotted popcorn thriller while surrendering little of his intellectual rigor or creative composure.
2  Maybe not a classic, but a movie the kids will want to see over and over again.
0  The film didn't move me one way or the other, but it was an honest effort and if you want to see a flick about telemarketers this one will due.
-1 And as with most late-night bull sessions, eventually the content isn't nearly as captivating as the rowdy participants think it is.
2  The kind of sweet-and-sour insider movie that film buffs will eat up like so much gelati.
-1 Ill-considered, unholy hokum.
0  Or that the battery on your watch has died.
1  Competently directed but terminally cute drama.
-2 This pathetic junk is barely an hour long.
0  (Taylor) takes us on a ride that's consistently surprising, easy to watch -- but, oh, so dumb.
-1 Feels less like a change in (Herzog's) personal policy than a half-hearted fluke.
-1 Just too silly and sophomoric to ensnare its target audience.
1  Familiar but utterly delightful.
-1 For those of us who respond more strongly to storytelling than computer-generated effects, the new Star Wars installment hasn't escaped the rut dug by the last one.
2  Consider it `perfection.'
-2 At the one-hour mark, Herzog simply runs out of ideas and the pace turns positively leaden as the movie sputters to its inevitable tragic conclusion.
1  This is a more fascinating look at the future than ``Bladerunner'' and one of the most high-concept sci fi adventures attempted for the screen.
2  Samuel L. Jackson is one of the best actors there is.
1  Huppert's show to steal and she makes a meal of it, channeling Kathy Baker's creepy turn as the repressed mother on Boston Public just as much as 8 Women's Augustine.
-1 But no..
-1 Even in terms of the low-grade cheese standards on which it operates, it never quite makes the grade as tawdry trash.
1  If you love him, you'll like it.
2  A new film from Bill Plympton, the animation master, is always welcome.
0  There's no getting around the fact that this is Revenge Of The Nerds Revisited -- again.
-1 The idea is more interesting than the screenplay, which lags badly in the middle and lurches between not-very-funny comedy, unconvincing dramatics and some last-minute action strongly reminiscent of Run Lola Run.
-1 Woefully pretentious.
-1 Lacks the visual flair and bouncing bravado that characterizes better hip-hop clips and is content to recycle images and characters that were already tired 10 years ago.
1  Makes one thing abundantly clear.
1  A flick about our infantilized culture that isn't entirely infantile.
-1 Still, it just sits there like a side dish no one ordered.
-1 We can tell what it is supposed to be, but can't really call it a work of art.
-2 A ragbag of cliches.
1  It made me want to get made-up and go see this movie with my sisters.
1  Visually, `Santa Clause 2' is wondrously creative.
-1 Girlfriends are bad, wives are worse and babies are the kiss of death in this bitter Italian comedy.
1  And we don't avert our eyes for a moment.
2  Exudes the fizz of a Busby Berkeley musical and the visceral excitement of a sports extravaganza.
-1 For all its brilliant touches, Dragon loses its fire midway, nearly flickering out by its perfunctory conclusion.
1  An engaging, formulaic sports drama that carries a charge of genuine excitement.
0  with a couple of burnt-out cylinders
1  Tackles the difficult subject of grief and loss with such life-embracing spirit that the theme doesn't drag an audience down.
2  A moving story of determination and the human spirit.
2  We admire this film for its harsh objectivity and refusal to seek our tears, our sympathies.
-2 Disgusting.
-1 `Moore is like a progressive bull in a china shop, a provocateur crashing into ideas and special-interest groups as he slaps together his own brand of liberalism.'
0  Reno does what he can in a thankless situation, the film ricochets from humor to violence and back again, and Ryoko Hirosue makes us wonder if she is always like that.
0  The culmination of everyone's efforts is given life when A Selection appears in its final form (in ``Last Dance'').
1  It goes down easy, leaving virtually no aftertaste.
-2 Crossroads feels like a teenybopper Ed Wood film, replete with the pubescent scandalous innuendo and the high-strung but flaccid drama.
0  Certainly beautiful to look at, but its not very informative about its titular character and no more challenging than your average television biopic.
2  Mike Leigh populates his movie with a wonderful ensemble cast of characters that bring the routine day to day struggles of the working class to life
1  If you open yourself up to Mr. Reggio's theory of this imagery as the movie's set... it can impart an almost visceral sense of dislocation and change.
-1 Does not go far enough in its humor or stock ideas to stand out as particularly memorable or even all that funny.
1  It's refreshing to see a romance this smart.
1  Like the chilled breath of oral storytelling frozen onto film.
1  Shattering, devastating documentary on two maladjusted teens in a downward narcotized spiral.
-2 As exciting as all this exoticism might sound to the typical Pax viewer, the rest of us will be lulled into a coma.
1  The film is reasonably entertaining, though it begins to drag two-thirds through, when the melodramatic aspects start to overtake the comedy.
-1 It never rises to its clever what-if concept.
1  Much has been written about those years when the psychedelic '60s grooved over into the gay '70s, but words don't really do the era justice.
0  A sly dissection of the inanities of the contemporary music business and a rather sad story of the difficulties of artistic collaboration.
2  A gracious, eloquent film that by its end offers a ray of hope to the refugees able to look ahead and resist living in a past forever lost.
-2 Every conceivable mistake a director could make in filming opera has been perpetrated here.
2  It's the kind of movie that, aside from Robert Altman, Spike Lee, the Coen Brothers and a few others, our moviemakers don't make often enough.
2  Williams creates a stunning, Taxi Driver-esque portrayal of a man teetering on the edge of sanity.
1  Campbell Scott finds the ideal outlet for his flick-knife diction in the role of Roger Swanson.
1  Has a certain ghoulish fascination, and generates a fair amount of B-movie excitement.
-1 With its parade of almost perpetually wasted characters... Margarita feels like a hazy high that takes too long to shake.
1  Bolstered by an astonishing voice cast (excepting Love Hewitt), an interesting racial tension, and a storyline that I haven't encountered since at least Pete's Dragon.
1  A witty, whimsical feature debut.
2  Exhilarating, funny and fun.
-1 As an entertainment destination for the general public, Kung Pow sets a new benchmark for lameness.
1  Downbeat, period-perfect biopic hammers home a heavy-handed moralistic message.
-1 None of this so-called satire has any sting to it, as if Woody is afraid of biting the hand that has finally, to some extent, warmed up to him.
0  The Santa Clause 2 is a barely adequate babysitter for older kids, but I've got to give it thumbs down.
-1 Sometimes there are very, very good reasons for certain movies to be sealed in a jar and left on a remote shelf indefinitely.
1  It makes you believe the cast and crew thoroughly enjoyed themselves and believed in their small-budget film.
1  The underworld urban angst is derivative of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, but this film speaks for itself.
0  Even if you have no interest in the gang-infested, East-vs.
-1 The film doesn't really care about the thousands of Americans who die hideously, it cares about how Ryan meets his future wife and makes his start at the CIA.
1  Proves a servicable World War II drama that can't totally hide its contrivances, but it at least calls attention to a problem Hollywood too long has ignored.
-1 This movie... doesn't deserve the energy it takes to describe how bad it is.
-1 In this case zero.
-1 Simply put, there should have been a more compelling excuse to pair Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn.
1  Definitely in the guilty pleasure B-movie category, Reign of Fire is so incredibly inane that it is laughingly enjoyable.
1  It's an experience in understanding a unique culture that is presented with universal appeal.
-2 The French director has turned out nearly 21/2 hours of unfocused, excruciatingly tedious cinema that, half an hour in, starts making water torture seem appealing.
0  ... either you're willing to go with this claustrophobic concept or you're not.
0  Despite these annoyances, the capable Clayburgh and Tambor really do a great job of anchoring the characters in the emotional realities of middle age.
-1 (Tries) to parody a genre that's already a joke in the United States.
-1 The movie's downfall is to substitute plot for personality.
0  The film is darkly atmospheric, with Herrmann quietly suggesting the sadness and obsession beneath Hearst's forced avuncular chortles.
