As intensely personal and deeply felt as it is, however, Davies' attempt to breathe new life into Rattigan's 1952 play is a rather bloodless, suffocating thing, lent tragic passion more by its use of Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto than by anything achieved by his star Rachel Weisz and her leading man.

Visually stunning and strongly voiced, but doesn't take any real risks.

As overcranked as it is -- the film is directed as if it were an action drama, with two or three times more cuts than necessary -- People Like Us has a persuasive emotional pull at its heart that's hard to deny.

Savages represents at least a partial resurrection of the director's more hallucinatory, violent, sexual and, in a word, savage side.

French farce is alive and reasonably well in 2 Days in New York, a madcap inter-family romp that deftly keeps many comic balls in the air for a good hour, before dropping some in the final stretch.

The look, styles, dialogue and attitudes all feel more 21st century than 1968, but this new Sparkle still sparkles more brightly than its 1976 namesake, which was a sort of rough draft for Dreamgirls.

Absorbing if somewhat predictable in its dramatic trajectory, Jacques Audiard's follow-up to his powerhouse prison yarn "A Prophet" benefits from unvarnished, forthright performances from Marion Cotillard and Bullhead hunk Matthias Schoenaerts, as well as from the utterly convincing representation of the former's paraplegic state.

Bill Murray as FDR? It takes a few minutes to get used to, but once he settles into the role of the 32nd president, the idiosyncratic comic actor does a wonderfully jaunty job of it in Hyde Park on Hudson.

Pitch Perfect is an enjoyably snarky campus romp that's both wildly nerdy and somewhat sexy.

It's all sufficiently well done and amusing enough to satisfy the appetites of fans who mainline this sort of thing, but it also sports a concocted, second-hand feel common to this sort of throwback homage.

Even with all its ups and downs, there are more than enough bawdy laughs and truthful emotional moments to put this over as a mainstream audience pleaser during a holiday season short on good comedies.

Stewart, selected for Marylou five years ago on the basis of her striking debut in "Into the Wild," is perfect in the role, takes off her clothes more than once and nearly always seems to be breaking a sweat, which kicks the sexiness quotient up high.

Mama represents a throwback and a modest delight for people who like a good scare but prefer not to be terrorized or grossed out.

Unusual for this sort of thing, Snitch is a film after which you remember the characters and actors more than the big action moments.

The film’s small scale is more than compensated for by its insights into adolescent awareness, the passions stoked by global causes and the moral hypocrisy of the ideologically righteous.

There's little facetious comedy a la the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. It's all traditional stuff, done well but without an original spark.

For all its derivative poetics -- as many exteriors as possible were shot during or just after magic hour, a la Malick -- the film is a lovely thing to experience and possesses a measure of real power.

The Call for the most part is a tense, extreme-jeopardy thriller that delivers the intended goods.

So fetishistic about high-powered weapons that it qualifies as an NRA wet dream, G.I. Joe: Retaliation pretty accurately reflects the franchise's comic book and cartoon origins, which is both a good and a bad thing: good if you're a 12- to 15-year-old boy, bad if you're just about anyone else.

Oblivion is an absolutely gorgeous film dramatically caught between its aspirations for poetic romanticism and the demands of heavy sci-fi action. After a captivating beginning brimming with mystery and evident ambition, the air gradually seeps out of the balloon that keeps this thinly populated tale aloft, leaving the ultimate impression of a nice try that falls somewhat short of the mark.

Given all the ways a project like this could have gone wrong, the result is surprisingly good on several fronts, beginning with a shrewd structure that fosters an intelligent dual perspective on the public and private aspects of the Deep Throat phenomenon.

No matter how frenzied and elaborate and sometimes distracting his technique may be, Luhrmann's personal connection and commitment to the material remains palpable, which makes for a film that, most of the time, feels vibrantly alive while remaining quite faithful to the spirit, if not the letter or the tone, of its source.

Redford, who can’t avoid exuding charisma, plays this role with utter naturalism and lack of histrionics or self-regard.

007 is undone by villainous scripting and misguided casting and acting in a couple of key secondary roles.

Remains exciting as long as it stays on the mountains.

Absorbing in a low-key way but more dramatic where its secondary characters are concerned than its leads, and capped by climactic incidents that are less than entirely convincing.

Achieves a certain poignancy through its sensitivity to mortality in a context where illness and death are often thought of primarily in terms of gossip, blown deals and lost money.

Elaborate, sporadically amusing but awfully lightweight followup, which has close to the same tone as its predecessor but makes one realize that freshness had a lot to do with its impact.

An oddly schizophrenic fantasy thriller that ultimately succumbs to a fatal case of sentimentality.

Sheer energy and audience allure to burn, even if numerous speed bumps cause many of the comic possibilities to go tumbling overboard.

The opposition of the two dramas winds up in gratifyingly moral and philosophical territory.

It's good to see Schwarzenegger doing his thing again after what, for him, was a long sabbatical.

A crudely funny farce that covers no new ground but sees its talented players running some surefire plays.

Reasonably intelligent, well-crafted and dramatically understated.

The pervasive chill, ugly feelings and downward spiral of the narrative make this a work that requires an equally sober, serious-minded attitude on the part of the viewer.

A disappointingly pedestrian prison meller that falls between stools artistically and politically.

More palatable than most pictures of its ilk due to its keen awareness of its own preposterousness, a self-knowledge exuberantly expressed by a mostly live-wire cast.

Some fancy footwork in the writing and directing can't disguise the hoary "Ten Little Indians" origins of Identity.

Despite an effectively low-key performance by Billy Bob Thornton in the leading role, pic is no more spiritually insightful or illuminating than Sunday School instructional story, and a lot less dramatically coherent.

Callahan mostly overcomes its grungy technical quality with entertaining dialogue, nervy confrontation scenes, decent thesping and some truly spectacular shooting on the green velvet.

Deliberately unvarnished shock piece designed to give pause to anyone with a daughter approaching teenhood.

A mostly standard-issue latter-day Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner spiked with a creepily plausible cloning angle.

This is one of those pictures that unavoidably becomes part of the zeitgeist due to its coincidental arrival at a precise moment in history when its themes play into current events.

A sporadically funny romantic comedy with all the dramatic plausibility and tonal consistency of a TV variety show.

All smoke and mirrors. With his third straight excursion into the supernatural, M. Night Shyamalan has begun revealing the hand that works his spooky tricks so much that the lack of substance is plainly seen.

A potentially provocative idea is played out to diminishing returns.

The film is ultimately too glib in its suggestion that Hitler's discovering his career path was a matter of sheerest chance, even an accident.

Misses its comic targets as often as it hits them but is endearing all the same for the good-natured cheer with which it skewers the eminently skewerable.

Although decked out with a legitimate star and handsome production carpentry, pic takes no greater interest in creating three-dimensional characters or fleshing out a credible storyline than does the run-of-the-mill straight-to-video thriller.

The antics here are strained, graceless and tiresomely crude, the sorts of things audiences feel they're supposed to laugh at rather than well-developed situations that generate genuine amusement.

LaBute has had middling success at best, having come up with a passably engaging time-jumping romantic melodrama that at least grapples seriously with one of the novel's most potent themes.

Crucially, the teaming of standup favorite and "Martin" star Lawrence and "Fresh Prince" Smith clicks from the outset, with both right at home handling action and comedy on the bigscreen. Even when it's not particularly funny, their interplay is engaging, and their lively, raucous personalities keep the proceedings punchy and watchable for the slightly overlong running time.

The mildly engaging silliness of its premise is never transformed into something more substantial, and the attempt at a fine-tuned "Clueless"-like tone is only sputteringly achieved.

Most of the action is played for broad laughs, and Hogan demonstrates the ability to generate them, even if the humor is very base and often cruel, making fun of people's looks and ineptitude.

This entertaining confection possesses the substance of the TV show, the pacing of a Hong Kong actioner and the production values of a James Bond thriller.

A desperately slight romantic comedy marked by contrived romance and little comedy.

As computer game-derived features go, it sure beats "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."

A frothy, lightweight romantic comedy that strives to seem richer and more complex than it really is.

Lacks narrative push...atmospheric drama that casts a minor but distinctive spell.

A fine group of comic performers manages to keep the screen worth looking at despite the obsessively one-note nature of this curious matchup between MTV Films and producer Scott Rudin.

Phantom is easily consumable eye candy, but it contains no nutrients for the heart or mind.

Cheesy homage to a level of horniness Austin Powers could only imagine will be a dream movie for many a teenage boy.

Egoyan's pedantic, lecturing approach makes the film a bit of a slog, although the basic material has an intrinsic interest that makes one at least want to know more about the historical events.

Outrageously grungy and whacked-out walk on the wild side.

Just two weeks after successfully targeting boys with "Holes," Disney is giving girls something they want with this mild, quasi-romantic romp.

The few who saw the embalmed adaptation of "Snow Falling on Cedars" will recognize the same stifling approach brought to this more accessible material by director Scott Hicks.

An intensely whimsical shaggy-dog crime story that ricochets between goofy violence and some endearing personal moments.

Holes will no doubt speak clearly and appealingly to its intended early teen audience.

Borderline dull to sit through, The Sixth Sense is actually rather interesting to think about afterward because of the revelation of its ending.

The picture is lacking in the uproarious humor that might well have ensued from the material, which instead inspires occasional laughs but, much more often, bemused fascination and wonderment at the bizarre imaginations and impressive skill of the filmmakers.

A picture that, even more than the previous two, feels like a bunch of gags tossed together. The laughs are here, to be sure, although even some of the best of them are retreads and the Swinging '60s recycling act is now feeling a bit past its zeitgeist prime.

Engrossing but psychologically shallow tale.

It's hard to dislike a movie this light-hearted, but there's something terribly ephemeral about it as well; it's a film of complete weightlessness.

While this John Singleton-directed sequel provides a breezy enough joyride, it lacks the unassuming freshness and appealing neighborhood feel of the economy-priced original.

Robinson's script is alive to the material's literary roots, although there is a sense that the brakes have been applied so as not to push into territory perceived as too esoteric for American teenagers.

There are certainly good laughs to be had. But the contrived script and bland direction prevent the film from ever developing a comic life of its own, leaving what fun there is seeming like the foundation to a rumpus room that's never finished.

The picture's constant forward movement and breezy sense of amusement about itself provide a certain mild sort of diversion.

Odd mixture of ultra-sleek visuals, psychological probing, "Paper Moon"-like father-daughter swindling, self-improvement efforts and abrupt tough-guy stuff keeps the picture percolating, even if it seems too artificial to genuinely convince on an emotional or dramatic level.

A tasty if wildly far-fetched thriller, Out of Time proves far stronger in its characterizations than in developing genuine suspense.

Still, there is an estimable integrity to the respect and fidelity with which the film regards its subjects, as well as an honesty in its attempt to illuminate the essences of these difficult people.

A very mild animated entry from Disney with a distinctly recycled feel.

A creepy, well-acted story of contagious evil, Apt Pupil has more than enough chilling dramatic scenes to rivet the attention but suffers from some hokey contrivances and underlying insufficiencies of motivation.

There is a trumped-up quality to the action climaxes that is disappointingly perfunctory, and the story's final revelation is simultaneously far-fetched and unsurprising.

Often a gutsy, intelligent writer, Toback has yet to prove himself decisively as a director, and this, his first fictional effort behind the camera in a decade, shows his talents to be as variable as ever.

A heaping serving of metaphysical gobbledygook wrapped in a physically striking package.

Refreshingly revisionist in the sense that it takes a relatively clear-eyed view of the messy lives and equivocal circumstances of many of the key participants.

One of the more absorbing and palatable entries in the rather disreputable "Death Wish"-style self-appointed vigilante sub-genre.

The sense of evil overkill is entirely representative of the picture itself, which repeatedly looks ready to blow all its fuses due to sensory overload.

Despite a sensationally attractive cast and an array of well-staged combat scenes presented on a vast scale, Wolfgang Petersen's highly telescoped rendition of the Trojan War lurches ahead in fits and starts for much of its hefty running time, to OK effect.

Compensating for the technical faults is the writer-director's unmistakable and undiluted need to express the issues he feels are at the heart of his community.

While pic remains sympathetic and appealing, the endless dialogue and repetitive settings become wearing through the couple's one long night together, and the artifice of the premise may contribute to the difficulty the film has in coming to romantic life.

A balanced, evenhanded film about a subject who has always managed to provoke intemperate reactions.

Takes plenty of liberties with the material and never generates much genuine excitement, but provides an agreeable ride without overloading it with contemporary filmmaking mannerisms.

Feels too piecemeal and ultimately inconsequential.

Replete with smart, capable characters and crimes so bizarre that they lend the film a suspiciously lurid nature, this tony suspenser is hampered by the presence of a villain who is all too obvious from the very beginning.

Nair's approach never entirely convinces, and the adaptation of the 900-plus-page book becomes increasingly episodic, making this Vanity Fair more a collection of intermittent pleasures than a satisfying emotional repast.

With the combination of mobster characters and heavily R&B, hip-hop and disco/soul tune orientation of the soundtrack, pic has a more streetwise feel than most animated fare, which is not to say that it has street smarts.

Butler is in no way a hot-headed or contentious piece of agit-prop, unlike so many other election year documentaries; like Kerry himself, the film speaks to the mind, not the emotions.

An unabashedly old-fashioned entertainment loaded with traditional dancing and music.

A minor affair, a confection based on dalliances and the way a set of sophisticated theater people handle them, that lacks true distinction.

Although The Postman conveys a thoroughly imagined vision of a future society, its basic concerns are actually far from those of traditional sci-fi, as it quickly comes to feel more like a Western than anything else.

Although uneven and too deliberately obscure in meaning to be entirely satisfying, result remains sufficiently intriguing and startling to bring many of Lynch's old fans back on board for this careening ride.

A generic suspenser that doesn't taste bad at first bite but becomes increasingly hard to swallow, The Saint comes off more as a pallid imitation of Paramount's Eurothriller "Mission: Impossible" than as anything resembling the further adventures of Leslie Charteris' charming rogue.

It's a film of myriad minor pleasures but scant compelling qualities.

A not-bad futuristic actioner with three or four astounding sequences, an unusual hero, a nifty villain and less mythic and romantic resonance than might be desired.

A witty and sometimes surreal sci-fi comedy, Men in Black is a wild knuckleball of a movie that keeps dancing in and out of the strike zone.

An exhaustingly elaborate romantic fantasy actioner.

Although it will most readily appeal to cinephiles…offers sufficient reality-based incident and ponderable cultural issues to attract curious audiences.

Atom Egoyan's most mainstream and genre-oriented picture in his 20-year career applies a thick noir lacquer to a jumbled, time-jumping tale of a young female journalist prying the facts out of the aging entertainers and their cronies.

Part absurdist drama, part personal observational commentary and part hormonal explosion, all seen through the filter of previous war pics, Sam Mendes' third feature has numerous arresting moments but never achieves a confident, consistent or sufficiently audacious tone.

Mildly engaging but very far from being for 50 Cent what "8 Mile" was for Eminem, this lurchingly structured story of survival against the odds looks to get off to a strong start thanks to the singer's large following.

Beautifully made pic will spur newsy media coverage and possible consternation on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, but members of the general public will be glancing at their watches rather than having epiphanies about world peace.

So determinedly old-fashioned it makes a strong claim to being the best film musical of 1959.

But the film also has its turgid, dialogue-heavy stretches, and the leading performances, if acceptable, are not everything they needed to be to fully flesh out these elegant immortals.

After lightly going through the motions of a plot, it all ends up in the quarry, where assorted machinery provides the excuse for a parade of slapstick gags and amusement park-like predicaments that seem mostly lumbering.

More intriguing on paper than when it actually unspools onscreen. Kevin Willmott's small-scaled but ambitious picture is well-researched, sometimes amusing and not unintelligent.

The only problem is that the great majority of screen time is devoted to the kind of loutish, drunken, small-minded, confrontational macho posturing that, in assorted ethnic stripes, has been paraded across the screen innumerable times in recent years.

It is unfortunate when such a difficult, ambitious film doesn't quite pay off after building up so much solid credit, but that is the case here. It is possible that the nature of the history under consideration is as responsible for this as any other single factor.

Eventually, the impression is created of notes for good scenes full of pungent observations and sharp asides, but without fully developed drama or emotion, leaving a sketchy, wispy feeling when all is said and done.

Highlighted by a strong and sensual performance from Salma Hayek as the doomed heroine, elegant pic's muted quality and the central character's vexingly contrary behavior will keep auds from connecting with characters who themselves have trouble establishing bonds.

Strikes some resonant chords but also hits notes that simply don't ring true and are borderline risible at times

A tad crasser and pushier than its predecessor, Ice Age: The Meltdown is still an entirely serviceable follow-up to the 2002 hit that will thoroughly amuse kids and get a rise or two out of parents as well.

Despite a sprinkling of laughs and eye-catching moments, this adaptation of a popular comicstrip reps a middling effort from the house that "Shrek" built, a rather narrowly conceived tale that makes only modest hay from the overworked conflict between wildlife and encroaching humans.

A melodramatic step backward for writer-director Victor Nunez after his last two pictures, the first-rate "Ruby in Paradise" and "Ulee's Gold."

After the accomplished smoothness of "Match Point," it's back to more ragged form in Scoop, despite the almost identical posh settings, and the return of Scarlett Johansson as leading lady.

The battle of the sexes is restaged to clever but inconsequential effect in Conversations With Other Women. Very much a case of old wine in a new bottle.

A comprehensive, personal and surprisingly engaging look at how film crews routinely work hours far beyond anything that can be considered safe, healthy or conducive to a balanced life.

First-time scripter Paul Bernbaum's framing story, designed to stir up suspicion that George Reeves was a murder victim rather than a suicide, unfortunately proves far less intriguing than does the melancholy tale of a limited actor reaching the end of the line during a transitional period in Hollywood.

"Chinatown" it ain't, not in any department. On its own level, however, new pic generates a reasonable degree of intrigue.

Lovingly and knowledgeably made by director Tony Bill, who got his pilot's license as a teenager, pic nonetheless has a lightweight, airbrushed feel; despite the brutal dogfights and inevitable deaths, there's little gravity or resonance.

Unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry, John Cameron Mitchell's ambitious attempt to merge his characters' active sexual lives with more conventional emotional content is playfully and provocatively entertaining for roughly the first half, but loses staying power thereafter when investment in the uncompelling characters' problems is requested.

It is far from unpleasant to watch an attractive cast led by Kirsten Dunst parading around Versailles accoutered in Milena Canonero's luxuriant costumes to the accompaniment of catchy pop tunes. But the writer-director's follow-up to her breakthrough second feature, "Lost in Translation," is no more nourishing than a bonbon.

On its own terms, the plotting of "Devil" is absorbing, and the pieces actually fit together pretty decently. On the other hand, when scenes directly call to mind similar ones in "Chinatown," this effort's stepchild relationship to the classic is forcibly demonstrated.

Stories of resistance to oppression will never become obsolete, but this feels like a picture that should have been made a long time ago.

A psychotic seizure of a performance by Christian Bale dominates Harsh Times, the directorial debut of David Ayer that channels "Taxi Driver."

Picture is impressively crafted and acted but far too narrowly and benignly conceived to satisfy even on its own terms.

Entirely respectable in every way, it nonetheless has a very cool body temperature and thus likely will inspire polite admiration rather than excitement among viewers.

Intelligent scripting, solid thesping and eye-catching location shooting aren't enough to make a compelling modern film of The Painted Veil.

A blustery, bombastic, visually arresting account of the Battle of Thermopylae as channeled through the rabid imagination of graphic novelist Frank Miller.

An immediately involving yarn of an ace Marine sharpshooter set up to take the fall for an attempted presidential assassination, picture saddles itself with stereotypical villains, hokey contrivances and too-expedient crisis solutions.

Francis Ford Coppola's take on the Dracula legend is a bloody visual feast. Both the most extravagant screen telling of the oft-filmed story and the one most faithful to its literary source, this rendition sets grand romantic goals for itself that aren't fulfilled emotionally, and it is gory without being at all scary.

This decorous look at the great man's five years as ambassador to France in the period leading up to the French Revolution touches upon much significant history, incident and emotion but, ironically, lacks the intrigue and drama of great fiction.

Unswervingly sincere and dramatic without surprise or revelation, screenwriter Joe Eszterhas' longtime pet project may be personal, but it offers little to audiences that hasn't been served up in quantity in the past.

A live-wire performance by Benicio Del Toro sparks an otherwise morose study of loss, addiction and catharsis.

Reserved, careful and largely predictable in the way it plays out its wrenching emotional crises.

A feel-good film about death, a sitcom about mortality, "Ikiru" for meatheads. It's also a picture about two cancer patients confronting reality, and deciding how they want to spend their presumed last days, that has not an ounce of reality about it.

Apart from startling, out-there comic turns by Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise, however, the antics here are pretty thin, redundant and one-note.

Brandishes physical verisimilitude and intelligent seriousness but proves unable to really get inside its chameleon-like central character.

Largely set in two of the least appetizing locations imaginable, a concentration camp and an insane asylum, this is a rigorously made film that does almost nothing to invite the viewer into its world.

If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and remains such a legendary figure; if anything, Che seems diminished by the way he's portrayed here.

This perky, episodic film is as broad and obvious as it could be, but delivers on its own terms thanks to sparky chemistry between its sunny blond stars, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, and the unabashed emotion-milking of the final reel.

Serves up enough goofy pranks and fractured wordplay to keep the series purring along.

The Ugly Truth is an arch, contrived, entirely predictable romantic comedy assembled with sufficient audience-friendly elements to put it over as both a good girls' night attraction and a date-night lure raunchy enough to leave couples in the right mood afterward.

Less turgid and aggravating than its predecessor, this cleverly produced melodrama remains hamstrung by novelist's Dan Brown's laborious connect-the-dots plotting and the filmmakers' prosaic literal-mindedness in the face of ripe historical antagonisms, mystery and intrigue.

Genre fans always looking for something new and awesome may feel like they've seen most of this before, but the conceptual and emotional strength of Summit's Nicolas Cage starrer largely carries the day.

Amusing and engaging yet lacking in snap and cohesion, this insider's look at the world of standup comics in contempo Los Angeles rings true in its view of the variously warped, stunted and narrow lives of its mostly male denizens.

Director Spike Jonze's sharp instincts and vibrant visual style can't quite compensate for the lack of narrative eventfulness that increasingly bogs down this bright-minded picture.

Design aspects are arresting and the filmmaker's abilities are obvious, but the basic survival story remains slight, just as the general setting, no matter how artfully imagined, is by now pretty familiar.

Amusingly eccentric rather than outright funny.

From a performance p.o.v., Aselton and Shepard hold the screen well and are most watchable, and Aselton does a fluid directing job within the limited challenge she set for herself production-wise.

The pain feels cushioned and secondhand, the characters are not terribly sympathetic or interesting other than for their misfortune, and the film shows little interest in analyzing the situation other than to point fingers at greedy CEOs.

The generational mix of actors works well enough, although Campbell too often seems stranded with little to do until the climax.

Undeniably fascinating as a visit to a world you'd never have wanted to have come near in real life -- that of the Hussein family's inner sanctum -- the film falls crucially short by not providing a window into the mind of the man who was coerced into acting as his double.

A blatant commodity designed to illustrate what a splendid influence the hit television show has been on the world at large, if the series' creators don't mind saying so themselves.

Red State is cleverly contrarian enough to get a rise out of almost any audience.

After quite a few tedious detours and distractions, when the film finally gets down to the business of a climax at a gathering of elite European diplomats in a precariously perched Swiss mountain castle, it becomes not half-bad.

The lead role of a working class former smuggler who dirties his hands again to save his family fits Mark Wahlberg like a glove.

Rodrigo Garcia's film only intermittently surmounts the limitations of the central character's parched emotional existence and restricted horizons, and the resolutions to some principal dramatic lines seem rather too easy.

Jewish and academically inclined audiences worldwide will respond to numerous aspects of this unusual drama, although it is paradoxically both too broad and too esoteric for the general art house public.

This Spanish-lingo farce plays very much like an SNL sketch. The only problem is that it packs about as many laughs into its 85 minutes as a good skit does in eight or 10.

More than the film that surrounds him, Jack Black is worth the price of admission in Bernie, an oddball May-December true life crime story that would have profited from being a whole lot darker and full-bodied than it is.

The characters and settings are attractively designed, and the vocal performances have real color and a sense of fun that gently undercuts the treacly sincerity of certain obligatory kid-pandering moments.

A purist's delight, something the millions of die-hard fans of his Lord of the Rings trilogy will gorge upon. In pure movie terms, however, it's also a bit of a slog, with an inordinate amount of exposition and lack of strong forward movement...There are elements in this new film that are as spectacular as much of the Rings trilogy was, but there is much that is flat-footed and tedious as well, especially in the early going.

Promised Land presents its environmental concerns in a clear, upfront manner but hits some narrative and character bumps in the second half that weaken the impact of this fundamentally gentle, sympathetic work.

Made up of synthetics rather than whole cloth, this lurid concoction superficially gets by thanks to a strong cast and jazzy period detail, but its cartoonish contrivances fail to convince and lack any of the depth, feeling or atmosphere of genre stand-bearers like "L.A. Confidential."

This paean to youthful irresponsibility applies the right crude and rude 'tude to its bulging sack of gags to have the desired effect on its target audience.

Generates a fair amount of tension and produces the kind of nationalistic outrage that rock-ribbed Americans will feel in their guts.

Although there is incident in the film's second half...it doesn't build to the level of compelling drama, leaving the film in a quiet, temperate realm that scarcely makes the pulse race.

Watching a bunch of people take a drug trip is seldom either entertaining or edifying, but Chilean director Sebastian Silva manages to make it at least tolerably amusing.

After impressing well enough in his previous big screen directorial outings, Abrams works in a narrower, less imaginative mode here; there's little sense of style, no grace notes or flights of imagination. One feels the dedication of a young musician at a recital determined not to make any mistakes, but there's no hint of creative interpretation, personal feelings or the spreading of artistic wings.

No matter how silly and outlandish the action gets — and it does become ridiculous — it also delivers the goods its audience expects.

Coppola’s attitude toward her subject seems equivocal, uncertain; there is perhaps a smidgen of social commentary, but she seems far too at home in the world she depicts to offer a rewarding critique of it.

Intermittently engaging but dramatically slack, this tale...is more interesting around the edges than it is at its core, thanks to the dull nature of the lead character played by Matt Damon.

The gradual dilution of fresh humor is further undercut by a queasy sense that the picture, in the end, is quietly endorsing all the psychoanalytical mumbo jumbo that it has been poking fun at all along.

As eye and ear candy, pic has its modest pleasures, beginning with the attractive Diggs and Lathan.

Whit Stillman's stiff directorial approach ill suits the sensual ambiance of the club scene so intently depicted, and the mostly self-conscious, uptight characters seem to have made a left turn out of "Metropolitan" and walked through the wrong door to turn up in this flamboyant druggie scene.

Charlie Kaufman's clever screenplay bears many traces of the same brand of originality and eccentric imagination that graced his work on "Being John Malkovich," although even at an hour-and-a-half the conceit is stretched almost too thin for audience sustenance.

As impressive as the industrial-style special effects may be, they're both too much and not enough for this mild mild West.

A pale reworking of its predecessor.

Like a light buffet of tasty morsels rather than a full and satisfying meal; all the episodes are more or less agreeable, but as a whole it lacks a knockout punch, one dynamite sequence that will galvanize viewers.

A lightweight, modestly engaging yarn sporting reductive mystical and philosophical elements that are both valid and borderline silly.

Simultaneously contrived and genuinely felt.

The picture is stronger the closer it sticks to the streets and raw emotions and the more it avoids routine dramatic crutches and forced comedy.

Columbus' approach is intended to cloak such topics as mortality and human identity in the warm glow of greeting card sentiment, which renders the prescription palatable for mass consumption but hopelessly diluted.

The yarn's emotional undercurrents never take hold, resulting in a picture that leaves one thinking less about the fates of the characters than about how the actors had to spend most of their working days soaking wet.

Entombs its characters so thoroughly in a prison of palpably predestined tragedy that one knows from the outset that the very worst that can happen most certainly will.

A broad and obvious approach to ambiguous material that's virtually all plot mechanics with little nuance or characterization.

Good for a few lascivious titters but quite lacking in the sort of comic bite and social satire one hopes for in the work of Mike Nichols.

A half-broken adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's great modern Western novel. Neither dull nor exciting.

A half-absorbing, half-ridiculous techno-thriller that often goes too far in search of audience-rousing effects.

Director David Gordon Green has created some fresh, penetrating, beautifully drawn scenes of one-on-one intimacy…But some of what surrounds these interludes is variously misguided, fuzzy and borderline pretentious.

Staccato, Mamet-style dialogue exchanges, breathless pacing and remarkably healthy, well-fed-looking actors create a cumulative sense of artificiality that seriously undercuts the devastating effect clearly being sought.

Goes down like stiff medicine, leaving one feeling exhausted relief when it's finally over.

Anthony and Joe Russo place too much faith in the ability of their talented thesps to carry the day over precariously thin material.

Had the young Jack Nicholson played such a character during the height of the Vietnam War, it would have been easy to go along for the ride. But skilled as Phoenix is at pulling off the individual scenes of Elwood's shenanigans, the actor doesn't come across as embodying rebellion to the marrow of his bones, which renders his scams arbitrary and disagreeably irresponsible.

The major jolt is saved for the very end but, like much else in the film, it is overexplained and underlined when more simplicity and quiet would have provided the revelation with the power of a depth charge.

Surprisingly lacks a feeling of personal urgency and insight that would have made it a distinctive, even unique contribution to the considerable number of films that deal with the war in general and Holocaust in particular.

Earnest and well-intentioned.

Valerie Breiman’s exceedingly slick feature is one of those cutesy items in which the characters talk about nothing but relationships and themselves.

Pushes its dark, smart, clever, cynical, satirical, nasty, provocative and sarcastic instincts to the point of heavily diminished returns -- to the point where the very amusing premise just isn't funny anymore.

The significant potential of its premise is squandered by an increasing reliance on teen movie cliches, silly plotting and the urge to be upbeat rather than to communicate life lessons.

Taymor makes the action clear and easy to follow with her bold physicalization of the story and forceful direction of an astutely chosen cast.

Sports some tasty scenes, mostly in the first half, but also pushes 007 into CGI-driven, quasi-sci-fi territory that feels like a betrayal of what the franchise has always been about.

Comes across in muted fashion, with uninvolving characters and lack of genuine excitement or fright creating a second-rate, second-hand feel.

In its animated work, DreamWorks has repeatedly flip-flopped between the hip and the square. This time out, it's as if the company tried to apply a hip approach to a square subject, with unresolved results.

What they have done is taken a few second-hand ideas from noir and speculative fiction and mixed them in occasionally striking ways, even if, in the end, the result isn't all that much fun.

Can be taken to task for its overt point-making, lackluster style and some late-on dramatic contrivances seemingly dragged in to provide a little violence.

Visually resplendent but dramatically uneven.

The feel of a direct-to-video title that's been upgraded to theatrical status in the hopes of wringing a few extra bucks out of it and improving its not-too-distant homevid marketability.

For those always on the lookout for the "funny" Allen, this one definitely has its moments, but too much of the picture is flat, dispiriting and frankly unbelievable in fundamental ways that defy the granting of poetic license.

An attempt to merge a semi-jokey buddy movie with a more realistic account of cops' messy private lives, Hollywood Homicide falls short on both counts.

This comically intended battle of the species is family entertainment for families that will buy anything.

This franchise-hungry champion of the underdog brings no sense of fun to his pursuit of bad guys; it's just the fate he's stuck with.

Routine, superficial manhunt stuff.

Despite its undeniably pure and earnest intent, Solaris is equally undeniably an arid, dull affair that imposes and maintains a huge distance between the viewer and what happens onscreen.

It feels much more like a shameless reshuffle of "The Princess Diaries."

A woefully predictable imperiled-yuppie-family-under-siege suspenser that hardly seems worth the attention of its relatively high-profile participants.

Takes itself so seriously that it never has fun with its shopworn genre elements.

Mismatched marriage of offbeat character study and unimaginative horror riffs. Most compelling element by far is Bruce Campbell's inspired performance as a nursing home patient who insists he is the real Elvis Presley.

Has absolutely nothing to say about its characters and their lamentable actions.

Beautifully crafted and highlighted by an arresting change-of-pace perf by Meg Ryan as an English teacher erotically awakened by a homicide detective. But the story's unpalatable narrative holes and dramatic missteps will hold sway over the pic's better qualities.

You can virtually see the mystique peeling away while beholding the turgid melodrama, patchy plotting, windy dialogue and, yes, spectacular combat effects of this grand finale.

Attractively designed, energetically performed and, above all, blessedly concise, this adaptation of one of the most popular American kids' books of all time walks the safe side of surrealism with its fur-flying shenanigans. The younger the viewers, the better reactions are bound to be.

As rich in period and historical background as it is deficient in fresh dramatic and thematic ideas.

The imaginatively illustrated but precariously precious film offers up a string of minor pleasures but never becomes more than moderately amusing or involving.

Handsome, respectable and well cast, elaborate production lacks the excitement and magic that would elevate the film to beloved status, and sheer abundance of CGI work weighs on it too heavily.

A less raucous and more serious-minded neighborhood comedy than its entertaining predecessor.

The season's first comet-targets-Earth special effects extravaganza is spectacular enough in its cataclysmic scenes of the planet being devastated by an unstoppable fireball, but proves far from thrilling in the down time spent with a largely dull assortment of troubled human beings.

What might have been an effective fantasy if handled with sophistication and insouciance is instead weighed down by ponderous pacing, overstuffed production values and an instance of miscasting.

Lacks the special creative spark needed to lift it to an uncommon imaginative level.

Beautifully made production lacks the emotional depth and dramatic tension needed to command audience attention beyond the level of a talented curiosity.

The souffle falls a little flat in The Ladykillers, a Coen brothers black comedy in which the humor seems arch and narrative momentum doesn't kick in until the final third.

A waterlogged would-be thriller deep-sixed by its misguided notion of high concept. [12 January 1998, p. 63]

The cutting-edge perfection of effects in Cameron and Spielberg films is replaced here by work that looks more homemade, particularly toward the end in some faintly cheesy composite shots.

Created as a comic vehicle for the lead actor, pic depends entirely too much on Wayans to carry the day, but at this point he is far more eager and willing than he is funny.

Cage supplies beaucoup energy, but his highly compromised hustler cop character provides little else in which he can invest his talent. Sinise wears an increasingly grim demeanor in a part that comes to make no sense, and John Heard's role as a local power broker gets lost in the shuffle.

Falls somewhere in between standing on its own feet as a real movie worth the price of a ticket and merely being a glorified TV episode refitted for theaters.

A humans vs. robots saga that feels machine-made, I, Robot looks to have been assembled from the spare parts of dozens of previous sci-fi pictures.

Desperately uncertain in tone and able to generate only sporadic laughs, pic decks out its meager story of revenge and comeuppance with a vulgar, flashy shimmer that will no doubt attract teenage girls, or the core "Clueless" audience.

Unfortunately, the operative word is bland, as the newcomers don't add much to the formula, leaving it to their nemeses to enliven the proceedings. Narrative drive and humor are also in short supply, which creates a serious sagsag in the middle when the novelty of the fresh components has mostly worn off.

Yields up plenty of opportunities for heated confrontations, wild and woolly dialogue and startling violence, which prove diverting in a shallow way.

A below-par star vehicle for Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts, Conspiracy Theory is a sporadically amusing but listless thriller that wears its humorous, romantic and political components like mismatched articles of clothing.

Notable for Kimberly Elise's ferocious lead performance and for the bigscreen exposure pic affords the charismatic Bishop T.D. Jakes, who plays himself and upon whose works the film is based.

In a role that Tom Hanks might have played a decade or so ago, Perry is pretty bland and doesn't provide any hints as to why Alex is so emotionally stymied.

Laura Linney’s beautiful performance is most of the story in p.s.

While After the Sunset is never exactly dull and is smartly cut to a brief running time, it never quickens the pulse.

At best an honorable failure, an intelligent and ambitious picture that crucially lacks dramatic flair and emotional involvement.

Te laughs "Fockers" generates are the type you feel embarrassed about almost immediately afterward.

Penn's magnetism and hesitant line delivery create what interest there is, although the whole picture suffers from a central figure who can never get it together on any level.

Unfortunately, story's tension climaxes a half-hour before the film is over, and thereafter dissipates much of the charge and good will generated up to that point.

Lack of much substance or dramatic payoff makes the whole significantly less than sum of its parts.

A great title in search of a movie to live up to it, this startlingly uneventful compendium of thick-headed boy-talk and female tolerance squanders a fine cast on incredibly ordinary characters and situations.

Half-intriguing, half-tedious.

Well-wrought individual scenes and sharply focused acting provide Rebecca Miller's third feature with a measure of gravity, but too much abrupt, even melodramatic behavior and undigested psychological matter leave nagging dissatisfactions.

More evident than ever the film is inherently a deeply flawed work that was far from fully realized in both script and shooting.

Well-crafted but thoroughly unsuspenseful.

A protracted parade of woefully familiar motifs from the Amerindie playbook, Happy Endings comes off like an undernourished Paul Thomas Anderson wannabe.

Physicality of the second half, then, will keep the audience going, but it is not quite sufficient to camouflage the elemental silliness of storyline.

This first dramatic feature by "Hoop Dreams" director Steve James has one foot still squarely planted in the docu aesthetic and notably lacks any psychological interest or emotional depth.

Compared with high-powered action specialists like James Cameron, director Charles Russell seems content to accomplish just one thing per shot, getting the essentials on the screen but creating no special dynamic or look.

Pfeiffer tackles the part with obvious dedication, but she's thwarted from the get-go by the heavily proscribed nature of the role as written.

Like his previous efforts, Jarmusch's sidelong take on Western conventions relies upon quirky tone, hipsterish performances and a highly refined visual style to put it over.

Lives up to its name by serving up a fraction of what audiences are used to getting in this department from PixarPixar and DreamWorks -- little originality, little humor and little ingratiating characterization.

The film is ice cold, never finding a way to invite the viewer into the story, and Richard Gere doesn't convince as a Jewish biblical scholar.

Despite numerous surface pleasures, including a beguiling pop soundtrack and presence of rising star Cillian Murphy in the lead role, dramatic shortcomings spell a mixed overall reception.

Malick's exalted visuals and isolated metaphysical epiphanies are ill-supported by a muddled, lurching narrative, resulting in a sprawling, unfocused account of an epochal historical moment.

A superficial look at the '50s sex icon, picture feels like it was researched via press clippings rather than attempting a fresh rethinking of its era and provocative subject.

Director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama, leaving expectant audiences with an oppressively talky film that isn't exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material.

There is a sense of bloat and where-do-we-go-from here aimlessness to this unconscionably protracted undertaking.

Director Sturla Gunnarsson seems aware of the savagery intrinsic to the story, but is unable to mine it deeply, proving too genteel in the end to make a genuinely creepy or disturbing film.

Although arresting in spots, it falls far short of bringing out the full values of the play, and doesn't approach the emotional resonance of Franco Zeffirelli's immensely popular 1968 screen version.

A study of the urban dope-dealing culture and its toll on everyone who comes in contact with it, the picture has an insider's feel that is constantly undercut by the filmmaker's impulse to editorialize.

A game and winning performance by Melinda Page Hamilton is the only saving grace.

This handsome, not unappealing look at a Scottish legend of nearly 300 years ago is too solemn, wooden and dour for its own good, and feels oddly of another era.

Unfortunately, after a relatively promising warmup, pic actually proceeds to flatten out the characters in the latter sections and to make them less dimensional and interesting than they initially seemed.

Disappointingly, Death of a President shrinks from its promise as a piece of genuinely radical or adventurous speculative fiction.

A simple repast consisting of sometimes strained slapsticky comedy, a sweet romance and a life lesson learned, this little picnic doesn't amount to much but goes down easily enough.

Despite her (Judd's) efforts and those of a generally talented cast, picture just pokes along and offers nothing out of the ordinary in terms of drama, characterization or insight. Judd's presence notwithstanding, this one would be more at home on small than on big screens.

Visually, the film is without flair or ambition, conveying no sense of atmosphere or mood. But the performances put it over.

Memories of dreary Sunday school classes come flooding back courtesy of The Nativity Story.

For actor and director, the project seems like trying on a new coat, and it doesn't fit either of them.

Nowhere to be found is any dramatic surprise, heightening of the pulse or genuine pulling of heartstrings. Gary Winick's direction consists of button pushing, and the mechanics are palpable at every step.

Aside from spasms of brutal violence, however, there's nothing rousing or new here.

Mix Brigitte Bardot in "And God Created Woman" with Carroll Baker in "Baby Doll," sex it up times 10 and you have a notion of the effect of Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan.

The Basketball Diaries is a weak-tea rendition of Jim Carroll's much-admired cult tome about his teenage drug addiction. Leonardo DiCaprio's committed lead performance deserves a better context than this gloss on the source material.

A sense of strain envelops the proceedings this time around. One can feel the effort required to suit up one more time, come up with fresh variations on a winning formula and inject urgency into a format that basically needs to be repeated and, due to audience expectations, can't be toyed with or deepened very much.