The movie has many of the elements that made the first "Dawn" so darkly entertaining.

Very, very funny, thanks to a lively first script by Mark O'Rowe, who has a good ear for earthy dialogue and a sense of life's absurd little synchronicities.

An elegy for an aging rock pixie.

A compelling, exquisitely acted drama about the shock waves emanating from -- and toward -- a single act of almost inexplicable violence.

Deliberate disorientation keeps the audience constantly off balance, and it's brilliantly effective.

Smart, funny, well-acted and visually lively.

Has important things to tell viewers about global politics, and in an eerily resonant way.

Its images of the destruction of the cities is far more powerful than in American films, where the cities are trashed for the pure pleasure of destruction, without any real sense of human loss.

This is a compelling cautionary tale hot-wired to your gag reflex.

The movie is powerful, if numbing. What movie about a massacre isn't?

Jarmusch's use of yin/yang, dark/light and good/evil symbolism makes glorious if goofy sense.

Given the current heightened tenor of religious rhetoric and paranoia, it may well wind up pushing brand-new buttons today. To quote Michael Palin quoting Jesus, "There's just no pleasing some people."

Strayed has the strange clarity of a fable. It strips everything away until only instincts and emotions are left.

Though Linklater allows the movie to wander, he never allows the pace to slacken, and more often than not he finds some unexpected bit of found poetry or cultural kitsch to make the digressions worthwhile.

Cinema at its most intellectually honest and morally necessary.

May be most valuable for its depiction of the strength of democratic ideals, even in the most precarious and contradictory of circumstances.

Does a terrific job of capturing the outlaw energy of the original production.

Bears the unmistakable stamp of authenticity, even at its most outrageous.

Strangely moving film.

Kitano the filmmaker makes sure that everything is beautiful, from the wonderful colors and passing tableaux to the intricate fighting choreography. This blind swordsman, you realize, has vision to spare.

Martin's poetic elegance turns to sappy mysticism. And if the material had been presented more insistently, it might have been insufferable, too goopy and new-age. Its modesty, though, is its prime virtue.

The movie's a treasure of small gems.

I laughed. And I laughed primarily over Heder's hilarious performance. You ain't seen nothing till you've seen Napoleon attack that tether ball.

This is cinema as oral tradition. And one heck of a cheap-seat deal.

If the setting is claustrophobic, it's also bracingly beautiful, a contradiction that is every bit in keeping with Sokurov's preference for ambiguity over clarity.

The spare and unsparing tone of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead makes it as existential -- and as original -- a whodunit as they come.

So disarming, it's hard to say anything but good things about it. So get in line. The doctor is in.

Anything that inspires that many whoops, gasps and groans with only two actors and a few choice words has earned its place at the summertime box office trough.

It stays in character, small, human, bitter and sad.

This is Disney at its live-action best and brightest.

Wonderfully silly all the time.

The most enjoyable John Sayles movie in recent memory.

Like the TV show, The X-Files movie is stylish, scary, sardonically funny and at times just plain gross.

It's also sweet, sentimental, rather funny and, as John Waters films go, surprisingly gentle.

The cast, all classically trained on the stage, is simply commanding.

Absorbing, funny, exhilaratingly entertaining ride through two years in the life of the most successful heavy metal band in history.

Smith makes it look easy, but underneath the physical high jinks and slick veneer of I, Robot lies a performance of real discipline and intelligence.

It's a terrific film because each of the characters is so fiercely felt.

Paul Thomas Anderson shows off the same sort of quirky smarts that Joel and Ethan Coen did in "Blood Simple."

Tomorrow Never Dies isn't one of the great Bonds, by any means. But it's familiar, flashy and enjoyable in all the right places.

Will seem a classic if you're stoned, and only slightly less funny if you're straight.

This is the kind of sophisticated and pleasurable movie you dream of seeing from France.

It's formulaic, yet edgy. It's predictable, yet full of surprises. How far you get through this tall tale of a thriller before you give up and howl is a matter of personal taste.

If Collateral is all formula, it's polished to a fine sheen.

The film is slick, beautifully acted and completely entrancing.

Rarely have the dangers of drifting apart been given such a visceral and genuinely upsetting emotional wallop.

The movie may leave its audience feeling a little battered (some might say betrayed) as well. Still, the film's honesty, along with its refusal to pander to Hollywood happy endings, is well worth the beating.

The interviews with band members, managers, friends and peer fans confirm not only how influential, but how beloved the Ramones were.

That rare movie that manages to be not only an adroit, carefully observed study in character and suspense, but important.

We are hooked into a low-tech but compelling dynamic -- between relatively static images and McElwee's sensitive, connective narrative.

If you view it passively, as a well-crafted melodrama set in danger among passionate antagonists, The Boxer is rewarding enough. If you attack it intellectually, you see the degree to which it is informed by ideas and realize the power of its argument.

Con Air, a summer blast of a movie, teaches us many things: Producer Jerry Bruckheimer never met an explosion, a car crash or 20 tough guys talking trash he didn't like. Nicolas Cage is one of our most enjoyable screen heroes. As long as you're funny, you can literally get away with murder in a movie.

A complex film about the minefield of loyalty and betrayal.

This unpretentious little bit of superior craftsmanship will be utterly mesmerizing to two kinds of people in particular: those who love cell phones and those who hate them.

It is a fascinating dance between style and substance.

Testament to the emergence of a visually masterful filmmaker, capable of ingenious, low-tech special effects.

If the zombie genre steadfastly refuses to die, we can be grateful to Shaun of the Dead for breathing fresh, diverting life into the form, with subtle visual humor and a smart, impish sense of fun.

The movie's not heavyhanded about this coming of moral age; the revelations unfurl in subtle ways. What Bernal and this well-wrought movie convey so well is the charisma that would soon become a part of human history.

It never smirks or condescends as does, say, a Michael Moore; it never seems smug and superior, only committed and compassionate.

John Waters may not be a great filmmaker, but he's usually onto something, and A Dirty Shame is onto something big.

Unlike so many pagan entertainments that seem to have no moral center as they blow things up, this one in fact does. It's very small, but it's there.

This is all terrifically nasty and shocking stuff.

Bening makes the movie into something finer still.

Even though the story ultimately doesn't match the intensity with which it began, the movie's extraordinary for its two main performances.

The movie builds slowly to its grinding climax, and the suspense -- the standard by which a thriller must primarily be judged -- is first-rate.

There may not be a bigger-hearted performance this year than Jamie Foxx's in Ray.

It's a love letter to the myriad ways, large and small, that mail handlers change lives the world over.

It's the best kind of movie: so alive in its storytelling that only in retrospect do you realize that the ideas represent a metaphysical inquiry.

Davis, who won an Oscar for Best Documentary, may not have agreed with presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon on the war, but he heeded Johnson's call to fight for hearts and minds. His aim was dead on target.

The film's many musical scenes can be riveting. But Selena is less concert film than family drama, particularly focusing on Selena's struggles with her father after she falls in love with, and eventually marries, her guitarist Chris Perez (heartthrob Jon Seda).

Depp is a charm. He becomes his own, subtly compelling Barrie.

If it lacks a certain fuzzy warmth, Kinsey makes up for the shortfall with spirited and (for a commercial movie) amazingly candid vigor. It's an alert, lively movie with a crackling performance by Liam Neeson.

This quietly odd and hilarious tale is a bit like a Japanese version of the popular BBC comedy series "The Office" or perhaps the "Dilbert" comic strip at its peak.

If you're the sort of person who laughs at funerals, train wrecks, earnest political documentaries and stories about the rape of nature, you'll love Closer.

A film about war and reconciliation, is deeply Christian, a study in humility and the moral uncertainty at the core of the Christian message.

A gem of a movie, all its adversity and wickedness a backdrop for a story about the remarkable resilience of children

Above all, the movie's funny and wicked fun.

Doesn't just bring you to the edge of the hopeless zone, it takes you right into its homes where the children play.

This is high-carb filmmaking at its finest. When it's all over, you'll have a knot in your stomach.

It sweeps over you with blunt, unequivocal conviction.

Not to be missed, if only for an unforgettable leading performance by Kevin Bacon.

To watch this movie is to not only appreciate the majesty of Shakespeare's poetics but to engage in a profound, subtextual dialogue with bigotry.

A pleasure because of zany developments like this, and a healthy dose of amusing characters.

Eastwood's instinct for creating efficient, adult, mainstream entertainment is virtually unerring. He's still a class act, not to mention craggy, suave, laconic and very, very cool.

Sweet without being saccharine, sad without being maudlin and funny without being forced.

Still, it is a decidedly fresh take. Rohmer has said he came upon a condensed version of Elliott's diary by chance, in a history magazine. His rendering of her story focuses not so much on the politics of the time -- though they are the basis of much of the dialogue -- but on the emotional thicket.

Savvy without being smug, cute without being saccharin, and funny without slipping into over-the-top goofiness, this is a 14th-century good time.

A psychic journey deep into the very fabric of Iranian (and by extension, all) life.

Stunningly acted by Liam Cunningham and Orla Brady as the Cloneys.

It's a film about culture clash, the generation gap and the loss of tradition that inevitably accompanies the arrival of anything new.

Penn's performance is the movie's ultimate grace note. As funny and ingenious as Allen's films can get, they are rarely known for depth of character.

Parker stays with and even streamlines Wilde's clever manipulations of betrayals and lies and plots and counterplots. Yet the film never feels stagy.

These are great, primal stories that pull you in, make you care and put you on the edge of madness and violence.

The last word you'd expect for it is "sweet," yet it is exactly the right one. That may come as no surprise to some, since the director is Jan Sverak, who brought sweetness to his breakthrough film "Koyla," but it caught me by total surprise.

The movie finds charming humor in a world full of sectarian strife between Protestant and Catholic.

Hilarious.

The dynamic between Channing and Stiles is as compelling as a freeway wreck.

More tasteful, sensitive and original than you might imagine.

Big muscular guys pruning roses IS funny and charming.

The story that emerges has elements of romance, tragedy and even silent-movie comedy.

An entertainment to be seen and appreciated in momentum. As such, it is constantly gripping

The movie is a piece of junk...However, it's also immensely likable and hysterically, irreverently funny.

Lee, who made the upbeat "Eat Drink Man Woman," plays this double love story as brightly as possible. There's peppy social satire in the smallest of gestures.

This entry in a rather stale genre deserves to be put at the head of the class.

Brave, funny and thoroughly irreverent.

To watch this movie is to be moved not only by an affecting, warmly spirited yarn, but also by the wisdom that seems to waft to us directly from those snow-capped peaks.

Engaging entertainment and a great work of art.

Has its share of surprises, especially in the performances of its two main players.

One of the loopiest, most hysterical family-values movies ever made.

This finale turns Assisted Living from fascinating experimental film into something finer.

Sexy, slap-happy links comedy.

Quite simply, a beautiful film, in both form and content.

Carrey's a human cartoon, and his spontaneous, Avery-esque, anything-for-a-laugh outrageousness makes this otherwise blank Mask a must-see.

All of the actors in Turtles Can Fly are nonprofessionals, and all bring electrifying authenticity and presence to their roles.

More love story than thriller, with the mystery providing only slack tension and the December-December romance that ultimately develops between Regina and Camargo crackling with drama and sexual tension aplenty.

Haunting little film, whose chaotic universe is churned up by the conflict between the haves and the have-nots.

Works as both historical allegory and moving family drama.

The film is more of an anthropological essay on the way young Americans relate while they make war, not love, and try to survive in the meantime.

It denotes a minor movie miracle: how with intelligence, imagination and craft a small film can work in really large ways.

it's the simple, earth-bound quality of the film that makes this comic-book fantasy soar.

The movie, though quite funny in parts, turns organically dark, and it refuses to paint a picture of a cotton-candy world. It prefers the real one.

There's a collective scintillation about its rich, distinctive characters, narrative serendipity and ineffable magic.

Its magnificence is that it takes itself dead serious. It's not entertainment, but it's sure a piece of toughness.

Visually stylish surrealist drama.

A movie of biting social observation. And it masterfully avoids Manichaean simplicity.

It won't be long before you feel the compulsion to watch again. There is too much to appreciate in one sitting.

Sternfeld has created a garden on film that opens up its blooms for us, not in the dark of the movie house, but long after we've left the theater.

What's important is that Major Dundee, not a great movie but a great star-driven, big budget 1965 studio western, is back in all its fractured glory and confidence.

It's a story of jaw-dropping chutzpah, grim, mostly hindsight-based humor and more stomach-churning drama than you could find in 10 screenplays.

It's a film that will stay with you.

It's a document that suggests that the road to hell is paved with bad communication skills.

The film is a small study in the dignity of letting go.

Good old-fashioned movie storytelling that steadily builds, over the course of nearly three hours, to a white-knuckle conclusion that satisfies on nearly every level.

This movie gives it to you, as no movie has in some years. Okay, if that's not your part of the swamp, don't go into it.

Full of astonishments, not the least of which are its ideas.

A startling portrayal of how the cycle of abuse plays itself out in the lives of its victims.

There's such a sense of overall intensity, you know you have been though something powerful.

Sweet and wise little film.

The director Vaughn has a flair not merely for action and ambiance but also for character.

Odd, complex and charming.

Possibly without meaning to, the younger Wexler has made a superb examination not of professional cinematography -- really, who cares? -- but of the eternal bad business between fathers and sons.

Despite Madagascar's formulaic tendencies, it's a formula that works, so parents are urged to sit back, relax and enjoy -- the kids surely will.

A compelling, compact story about a country that was left to destroy itself while one man presided futilely over the carnage.

A sweet, true and, at times, universal love story it is.

The emotional story and fine acting are enough to make this a must-see movie for teen girls. The real surprise is that they can make a grown man cry.

This is as good a visual treat as you and your kids can expect.

A blend of gentle comedy and poignant drama.

A kicky, twisted thrill ride, with enough laughs to leaven what can be read, at heart, as a metaphor for the modern marriage.

Plays a little like a mystery, the central question of which is not whodunit but why.

A wise, funny film about the little leaps of faith it takes to just get through the day.

Remains highly watchable throughout, for its atmosphere and the actors.

It doesn't take a screenwriter, for example, to point out the uncanny fact that, when two parent penguins perform a neck-curving pas de deux above their tiny chick, they resemble nothing so much as a perfect heart.

Startlingly erotic and surprisingly moving.

As exciting for its narrative twists and turns as for its Korean textures and rhythms.

The audience is treated to one extraordinary vision after another; the sense of a world literally being destroyed around the principal actors, the sense of their flight through panic and destruction, the sense of concussion, collapse, rubble and ruin.

A nifty piece of work -- with, by the way, a fantastic musical score and soundtrack -- that, if there's any justice in the movie world, will eventually earn a mystique all its own.

Lung-bloatingly funny.

Matthau was merely worthless, while Thornton, God bless his soul, rises to the actual level of sociopathic. I love it when that happens.

For the right audience, this movie is the butt-kicking, dirt-talking, blood-spurting equivalent of beautiful music.

What makes the film so affecting, however, is its matter-of-fact evocation of character. Each person in the four-character cast is vivid and specific and believable.

It's definitely NOT a conventional biopic about Kurt Cobain. (Nor, as its title oddly suggests, is it about the demise of writer-director Van Sant.) It's a tone poem, an elliptical, fictionalized meditation about the ill-fated rock 'n' roll superstar.

A most excellent sequel, funnier and livelier than the original.

With one foot planted in the world of comic book fantasy and the other firmly stuck in the grim realities of high school, this is one of those rare family films that truly work for the whole family, even if Mom and Pop might find themselves needing earplugs during some exceedingly long and loud passages.

Under normal circumstances, nothing kills a joke faster than trying to explain it. Yet here, such examination is the film's strong suit and provides much-needed respite, quite frankly, from the exhaustion of constant laughter.

A marvelously moody meditation, beautiful to look at and beautiful to ponder as the camera slowly pans from one scene to the next, framing life as still life.

If the movie is straightforward and predictable in its attitude, it also exudes a sort of documentary lyricism.

Director Jay Chandrasekhar ... has found the perfect balance of old-fashioned charm and postmodern touches -- but not too many to overshadow the show's precious texture.

With its wise understanding of the magnetic pull (and invisible polarities) of family, Junebug is an auspicious debut for Morrison.

Jarmusch manages to imbue banality with surprising beauty and humor.

What gradually comes into focus is a terrifying, appalling, infuriating cycle of exploitation and corruption.

Documentary makers struggle for this effect -- a feeling for the land that is both grand and unsentimental. The makers of Duma, a fable fit for children, have found it.

Like the best horror movies, it doesn't beat you over the head, splatter you, or fold, spindle and mutilate you. Rather, slowly and subtly, it creeps you out. You may go home and throw out your computer and lock the doors.

What keeps The 40-Year-Old Virgin out of Rob Schneider territory, however, is: 1) the fact that it's pretty darn funny, and in a way that feels consistently real, and 2) the fact that it's actually an excellent date movie.

A smart, marvelously drawn account of the bravery of homing pigeons during World War II.

Isn't quite a great espionage movie or a great Africa movie, but in a summer of heat and wind, it's the next best thing.

Belgian actor [Jan] Decleir's tough-guy vulnerability ... gives an otherwise standard police procedural extraordinary grace and power.

First and best, it's got a rip-roaring story. It sweeps you along, borne effortlessly by believable if flawed characters, as it flows toward the inevitable tragedy. But it's also got a heart: It watches as a child harsh of judgment learns that judgment is too easy a posture for the world, and it's best to love with compassion. [07Nov1997 Pg G.01]

With a cast like this, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a superior performance vehicle and on that count alone is never less than riveting.

Tells Yuri's story with the same bravado and stylishness as Scorsese at his finest, with bigger-than-life characters and situations splashing across the screen in breathtaking scale.

A sobering reflection on our culture's attitude toward violence.