sst-test-finetuning-output.txt

1 ||| Effective but too-tepid biopic
3 ||| If you sometimes like to go to the movies to have fun , Wasabi is a good place to start .
3 ||| Emerges as something rare , an issue movie that 's so honest and keenly observed that it does n't feel like one .
3 ||| The film provides some great insight into the neurotic mindset of all comics -- even those who have reached the absolute top of the game .
4 ||| Offers that rare combination of entertainment and education .
3 ||| Perhaps no picture ever made has more literally showed that the road to hell is paved with good intentions .
3 ||| Steers turns in a snappy screenplay that curls at the edges ; it 's so clever you want to hate it .
1 ||| But he somehow pulls it off .
3 ||| Take Care of My Cat offers a refreshingly different slice of Asian cinema .
4 ||| This is a film well worth seeing , talking and singing heads and all .
3 ||| What really surprises about Wisegirls is its low-key quality and genuine tenderness .
3 ||| -LRB- Wendigo is -RRB- why we go to the cinema : to be fed through the eye , the heart , the mind .
4 ||| One of the greatest family-oriented , fantasy-adventure movies ever .
2 ||| Ultimately , it ponders the reasons we need stories so much .
4 ||| An utterly compelling ` who wrote it ' in which the reputation of the most famous author who ever lived comes into question .
3 ||| Illuminating if overly talky documentary .
4 ||| A masterpiece four years in the making .
4 ||| The movie 's ripe , enrapturing beauty will tempt those willing to probe its inscrutable mysteries .
3 ||| Offers a breath of the fresh air of true sophistication .
4 ||| A thoughtful , provocative , insistently humanizing film .
4 ||| With a cast that includes some of the top actors working in independent film , Lovely & Amazing involves us because it is so incisive , so bleakly amusing about how we go about our lives .
3 ||| A disturbing and frighteningly evocative assembly of imagery and hypnotic music composed by Philip Glass .
3 ||| Not for everyone , but for those with whom it will connect , it 's a nice departure from standard moviegoing fare .
3 ||| Scores a few points for doing what it does with a dedicated and good-hearted professionalism .
2 ||| Occasionally melodramatic , it 's also extremely effective .
3 ||| An idealistic love story that brings out the latent 15-year-old romantic in everyone .
3 ||| At about 95 minutes , Treasure Planet maintains a brisk pace as it races through the familiar story .
3 ||| However , it lacks grandeur and that epic quality often associated with Stevenson 's tale as well as with earlier Disney efforts .
3 ||| It helps that Lil Bow Wow ... tones down his pint-sized gangsta act to play someone who resembles a real kid .
1 ||| Guaranteed to move anyone who ever shook , rattled , or rolled .
4 ||| A masterful film from a master filmmaker , unique in its deceptive grimness , compelling in its fatalist worldview .
3 ||| Light , cute and forgettable .
1 ||| If there 's a way to effectively teach kids about the dangers of drugs , I think it 's in projects like the -LRB- unfortunately R-rated -RRB- Paid .
3 ||| While it would be easy to give Crush the new title of Two Weddings and a Funeral , it 's a far more thoughtful film than any slice of Hugh Grant whimsy .
3 ||| Though everything might be literate and smart , it never took off and always seemed static .
3 ||| Cantet perfectly captures the hotel lobbies , two-lane highways , and roadside cafes that permeate Vincent 's days
2 ||| Ms. Fulford-Wierzbicki is almost spooky in her sulky , calculating Lolita turn .
3 ||| Though it is by no means his best work , Laissez-Passer is a distinguished and distinctive effort by a bona-fide master , a fascinating film replete with rewards to be had by all willing to make the effort to reap them .
1 ||| Like most Bond outings in recent years , some of the stunts are so outlandish that they border on being cartoonlike .
2 ||| A heavy reliance on CGI technology is beginning to creep into the series .
3 ||| Newton draws our attention like a magnet , and acts circles around her better known co-star , Mark Wahlberg .
1 ||| The story loses its bite in a last-minute happy ending that 's even less plausible than the rest of the picture .
3 ||| Much of the way , though , this is a refreshingly novel ride .
3 ||| Fuller would surely have called this gutsy and at times exhilarating movie a great yarn .
3 ||| The film makes a strong case for the importance of the musicians in creating the Motown sound .
2 ||| Karmen moves like rhythm itself , her lips chanting to the beat , her long , braided hair doing little to wipe away the jeweled beads of sweat .
4 ||| Gosling provides an amazing performance that dwarfs everything else in the film .
4 ||| A real movie , about real people , that gives us a rare glimpse into a culture most of us do n't know .
3 ||| Tender yet lacerating and darkly funny fable .
3 ||| May be spoofing an easy target -- those old ' 50 's giant creature features -- but ... it acknowledges and celebrates their cheesiness as the reason why people get a kick out of watching them today .
3 ||| An engaging overview of Johnson 's eccentric career .
0 ||| In its ragged , cheap and unassuming way , the movie works .
3 ||| Some actors have so much charisma that you 'd be happy to listen to them reading the phone book .
4 ||| Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock are two such likeable actors .
3 ||| Sandra Nettelbeck beautifully orchestrates the transformation of the chilly , neurotic , and self-absorbed Martha as her heart begins to open .
4 ||| Behind the snow games and lovable Siberian huskies -LRB- plus one sheep dog -RRB- , the picture hosts a parka-wrapped dose of heart .
3 ||| Everytime you think Undercover Brother has run out of steam , it finds a new way to surprise and amuse .
3 ||| Manages to be original , even though it rips off many of its ideas .
3 ||| A pleasant enough movie , held together by skilled ensemble actors .
4 ||| This is the best American movie about troubled teens since 1998 's Whatever .
1 ||| Disney has always been hit-or-miss when bringing beloved kids ' books to the screen ... Tuck Everlasting is a little of both .
3 ||| The animated subplot keenly depicts the inner struggles of our adolescent heroes - insecure , uncontrolled , and intense .
4 ||| The invincible Werner Herzog is alive and well and living in LA
3 ||| Morton is a great actress portraying a complex character , but Morvern Callar grows less compelling the farther it meanders from its shocking start .
3 ||| Son of the Bride may be a good half-hour too long but comes replete with a flattering sense of mystery and quietness .
1 ||| A simmering psychological drama in which the bursts of sudden violence are all the more startling for the slow buildup that has preceded them .
4 ||| A taut , intelligent psychological drama .
4 ||| A truly moving experience , and a perfect example of how art -- when done right -- can help heal , clarify , and comfort .
4 ||| This delicately observed story , deeply felt and masterfully stylized , is a triumph for its maverick director .
3 ||| At heart the movie is a deftly wrought suspense yarn whose richer shadings work as coloring rather than substance .
3 ||| The appearance of Treebeard and Gollum 's expanded role will either have you loving what you 're seeing , or rolling your eyes .
3 ||| I loved it !
4 ||| Gollum 's ` performance ' is incredible !
1 ||| If this movie were a book , it would be a page-turner , you ca n't wait to see what happens next .
2 ||| Haneke challenges us to confront the reality of sexual aberration .
1 ||| Absorbing and disturbing -- perhaps more disturbing than originally intended -- but a little clarity would have gone a long way .
4 ||| It 's the best film of the year so far , the benchmark against which all other Best Picture contenders should be measured .
4 ||| Painful to watch , but viewers willing to take a chance will be rewarded with two of the year 's most accomplished and riveting film performances .
3 ||| This is a startling film that gives you a fascinating , albeit depressing view of Iranian rural life close to the Iraqi border .
3 ||| A few artsy flourishes aside , Narc is as gritty as a movie gets these days .
4 ||| While The Isle is both preposterous and thoroughly misogynistic , its vistas are incredibly beautiful to look at .
3 ||| Together , Tok and O orchestrate a buoyant , darkly funny dance of death .
3 ||| In the process , they demonstrate that there 's still a lot of life in Hong Kong cinema .
4 ||| Director Kapur is a filmmaker with a real flair for epic landscapes and adventure , and this is a better film than his earlier English-language movie , the overpraised Elizabeth .
3 ||| The movie is a blast of educational energy , as bouncy animation and catchy songs escort you through the entire 85 minutes .
3 ||| A sports movie with action that 's exciting on the field and a story you care about off it .
3 ||| Doug Liman , the director of Bourne , directs the traffic well , gets a nice wintry look from his locations , absorbs us with the movie 's spycraft and uses Damon 's ability to be focused and sincere .
3 ||| The tenderness of the piece is still intact .
4 ||| Katz uses archival footage , horrifying documents of lynchings , still photographs and charming old reel-to-reel recordings of Meeropol entertaining his children to create his song history , but most powerful of all is the song itself
1 ||| Like the film 's almost anthropologically detailed realization of early - '80s suburbia , it 's significant without being overstated .
1 ||| While McFarlane 's animation lifts the film firmly above the level of other coming-of-age films ... it 's also so jarring that it 's hard to get back into the boys ' story .
3 ||| If nothing else , this movie introduces a promising , unusual kind of psychological horror .
1 ||| In a normal screen process , these bromides would be barely enough to sustain an interstitial program on the Discovery Channel .
3 ||| But in Imax 3-D , the clichés disappear into the vertiginous perspectives opened up by the photography .
1 ||| Writer-director Burger imaginatively fans the embers of a dormant national grief and curiosity that has calcified into chronic cynicism and fear .
3 ||| ... a roller-coaster ride of a movie
2 ||| I enjoyed Time of Favor while I was watching it , but I was surprised at how quickly it faded from my memory .
4 ||| Chicago is sophisticated , brash , sardonic , completely joyful in its execution .
3 ||| Steve Irwin 's method is Ernest Hemmingway at accelerated speed and volume .
3 ||| A refreshing Korean film about five female high school friends who face an uphill battle when they try to take their relationships into deeper waters .
3 ||| On the surface , it 's a lovers-on-the-run crime flick , but it has a lot in common with Piesiewicz 's and Kieslowski 's earlier work , films like The Double Life of Veronique .
3 ||| The values that have held the Enterprise crew together through previous adventures and perils do so again-courage , self-sacrifice and patience under pressure .
2 ||| If it 's possible for a sequel to outshine the original , then SL2 does just that .
3 ||| A romantic comedy that operates by the rules of its own self-contained universe .
3 ||| 4 friends , 2 couples , 2000 miles , and all the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer they can drink - it 's the ultimate redneck road-trip .
3 ||| The film is often filled with a sense of pure wonderment and excitement not often seen in today 's cinema du sarcasm
3 ||| It might be tempting to regard Mr. Andrew and his collaborators as oddballs , but Mr. Earnhart 's quizzical , charming movie allows us to see them , finally , as artists .
4 ||| A feel-good picture in the best sense of the term .
1 ||| Edited and shot with a syncopated style mimicking the work of his subjects , Pray turns the idea of the documentary on its head , making it rousing , invigorating fun lacking any MTV puffery .
4 ||| A mostly intelligent , engrossing and psychologically resonant suspenser .
0 ||| It 's this memory-as-identity obviation that gives Secret Life its intermittent unease , reaffirming that long-held illusions are indeed reality , and that erasing them recasts the self .
3 ||| Hip-hop has a history , and it 's a metaphor for this love story .
3 ||| In scope , ambition and accomplishment , Children of the Century ... takes Kurys ' career to a whole new level .
3 ||| This may not have the dramatic gut-wrenching impact of other Holocaust films , but it 's a compelling story , mainly because of the way it 's told by the people who were there .
2 ||| Between the drama of Cube ?
3 ||| s personal revelations regarding what the shop means in the big picture , iconic characters gambol fluidly through the story , with charming results .
4 ||| A gentle , compassionate drama about grief and healing .
1 ||| Somewhere short of Tremors on the modern B-scene : neither as funny nor as clever , though an agreeably unpretentious way to spend ninety minutes .
3 ||| Digital-video documentary about stand-up comedians is a great glimpse into a very different world .
3 ||| Unlike most teen flicks , Swimming takes its time to tell its story , casts mostly little-known performers in key roles , and introduces some intriguing ambiguity .
4 ||| An enthralling , playful film that constantly frustrates our desire to know the ` truth ' about this man , while deconstructing the very format of the biography in a manner that Derrida would doubtless give his blessing to .
3 ||| It 's obviously struck a responsive chord with many South Koreans , and should work its magic in other parts of the world .
3 ||| Run , do n't walk , to see this barbed and bracing comedy on the big screen .
3 ||| A classy item by a legend who may have nothing left to prove but still has the chops and drive to show how its done .
1 ||| It is nature against progress .
3 ||| In Fessenden 's horror trilogy , this theme has proved important to him and is especially so in the finale .
2 ||| It 's not exactly a gourmet meal but the fare is fair , even coming from the drive-thru .
3 ||| This is what IMAX was made for : Strap on a pair of 3-D goggles , shut out the real world , and take a vicarious voyage to the last frontier -- space .
3 ||| Merely as a technical , logistical feat , Russian Ark marks a cinematic milestone .
4 ||| -LRB- Schweiger is -RRB- talented and terribly charismatic , qualities essential to both movie stars and social anarchists .
3 ||| It 's a great deal of sizzle and very little steak .
3 ||| But what spectacular sizzle it is !
3 ||| ... In this incarnation its fizz is infectious .
4 ||| An original gem about an obsession with time .
3 ||| It will delight newcomers to the story and those who know it from bygone days .
3 ||| Gloriously goofy -LRB- and gory -RRB- midnight movie stuff .
3 ||| The film overcomes the regular minefield of coming-of-age cliches with potent doses of honesty and sensitivity .
3 ||| If your senses have n't been dulled by slasher films and gorefests , if you 're a connoisseur of psychological horror , this is your ticket .
2 ||| It 's a minor comedy that tries to balance sweetness with coarseness , while it paints a sad picture of the singles scene .
3 ||| It is intensely personal and yet -- unlike Quills -- deftly shows us the temper of the times .
1 ||| As lo-fi as the special effects are , the folks who cobbled Nemesis together indulge the force of humanity over hardware in a way that George Lucas has long forgotten .
1 ||| Like Mike does n't win any points for originality .
3 ||| It does succeed by following a feel-good formula with a winning style , and by offering its target audience of urban kids some welcome role models and optimism .
1 ||| It 's a hoot and a half , and a great way for the American people to see what a candidate is like when he 's not giving the same 15-cent stump speech .
3 ||| Far from perfect , but its heart is in the right place ... innocent and well-meaning .
3 ||| A sad , superior human comedy played out on the back roads of life .
4 ||| Waydowntown is by no means a perfect film , but its boasts a huge charm factor and smacks of originality .
3 ||| Tim Allen is great in his role but never hogs the scenes from his fellow cast , as there are plenty of laughs and good lines for everyone in this comedy .
3 ||| More a load of enjoyable , Conan-esque claptrap than the punishing , special-effects soul assaults the Mummy pictures represent .
3 ||| Enormously likable , partly because it is aware of its own grasp of the absurd .
4 ||| Here 's a British flick gleefully unconcerned with plausibility , yet just as determined to entertain you .
3 ||| It 's an old story , but a lively script , sharp acting and partially animated interludes make Just a Kiss seem minty fresh .
3 ||| Must be seen to be believed .
2 ||| Ray Liotta and Jason Patric do some of their best work in their underwritten roles , but do n't be fooled : Nobody deserves any prizes here .
3 ||| Everything that has to do with Yvan and Charlotte , and everything that has to do with Yvan 's rambunctious , Jewish sister and her non-Jew husband , feels funny and true .
4 ||| The year 's happiest surprise , a movie that deals with a real subject in an always surprising way .
3 ||| Fans of Behan 's work and of Irish movies in general will be rewarded by Borstal Boy .
3 ||| Its mysteries are transparently obvious , and it 's too slowly paced to be a thriller .
4 ||| -LRB- But it 's -RRB- worth recommending because of two marvelous performances by Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser .
3 ||| The film is faithful to what one presumes are the book 's twin premises -- that we become who we are on the backs of our parents , but we have no idea who they were at our age ; and that time is a fleeting and precious commodity no matter how old you are .
3 ||| Stephen Earnhart 's homespun documentary Mule Skinner Blues has nothing but love for its posse of trailer park denizens .
3 ||| A solidly seaworthy chiller .
1 ||| If you can get past the fantastical aspects and harsh realities of `` The Isle '' you 'll get a sock-you-in-the-eye flick that is a visual tour-de-force and a story that is unlike any you will likely see anywhere else .
3 ||| There are as many misses as hits , but ultimately , it finds humor in the foibles of human behavior , and it 's a welcome return to the roots of a genre that should depend on surprises .
4 ||| A well-made thriller with a certain level of intelligence and non-reactionary morality .
3 ||| There 's enough science to make it count as educational , and enough beauty to make it unforgettable .
3 ||| Remains a solid , if somewhat heavy-handed , account of the near-disaster ... done up by Howard with a steady , if not very imaginative , hand .
3 ||| Makmalbaf follows a resolutely realistic path in this uncompromising insight into the harsh existence of the Kurdish refugees of Iran 's borderlands .
3 ||| For a good chunk of its running time , Trapped is an effective and claustrophobic thriller .
4 ||| Most of Crush is a clever and captivating romantic comedy with a welcome pinch of tartness .
3 ||| Nair does capture the complexity of a big family and its trials and tribulations ...
3 ||| The seaside splendor and shallow , beautiful people are nice to look at while you wait for the story to get going .
3 ||| Rare is the ` urban comedy ' that even attempts the insight and honesty of this disarming indie .
3 ||| Ranks among Willams ' best screen work .
4 ||| Engagingly captures the maddening and magnetic ebb and flow of friendship .
4 ||| An experience so engrossing it is like being buried in a new environment .
3 ||| It 's traditional moviemaking all the way , but it 's done with a lot of careful period attention as well as some very welcome wit .
0 ||| Maybe it 's just because this past year has seen the release of some of the worst film comedies in decades ... But honestly , Analyze That really is n't all that bad .
4 ||| A droll , well-acted , character-driven comedy with unexpected deposits of feeling .
4 ||| This is simply the most fun you 'll ever have with a documentary !
4 ||| A very funny movie .
3 ||| Watching Haneke 's film is , aptly enough , a challenge and a punishment .
3 ||| But watching Huppert , a great actress tearing into a landmark role , is riveting .
4 ||| A cop story that understands the medium amazingly well .
4 ||| Britney has been delivered to the big screen safe and sound , the way we like our 20-year-old superstar girls to travel on the fame freeway .
1 ||| Those outside show business will enjoy a close look at people they do n't really want to know .
2 ||| The kind of nervous film that will either give you a mild headache or exhilarate you .
3 ||| Watching Beanie and his gang put together his slasher video from spare parts and borrowed materials is as much fun as it must have been for them to make it .
3 ||| Children may not understand everything that happens -- I 'm not sure even Miyazaki himself does -- but they will almost certainly be fascinated , and undoubtedly delighted .
4 ||| A fascinating and fun film .
3 ||| Tadpole is a sophisticated , funny and good-natured treat , slight but a pleasure .
4 ||| This insightful , Oscar-nominated documentary , in which children on both sides of the ever-escalating conflict have their say away from watchful parental eyes , gives peace yet another chance .
3 ||| I admired this work a lot .
3 ||| Whether you 're moved and love it , or bored or frustrated by the film , you 'll still feel something .
4 ||| ... there are enough moments of heartbreaking honesty to keep one glued to the screen .
3 ||| My goodness , Queen Latifah has a lot to offer and she seemed to have no problem flaunting her natural gifts .
2 ||| She must have a very strong back .
4 ||| A smart , sweet and playful romantic comedy .
3 ||| Without heavy-handedness , Dong provides perspective with his intelligent grasp of human foibles and contradictions .
3 ||| Solid , lump-in-the-throat family entertainment that derives its power by sticking to the facts .
3 ||| As an entertainment , the movie keeps you diverted and best of all , it lightens your wallet without leaving a sting .
4 ||| It is interesting and fun to see Goodall and her chimpanzees on the bigger-than-life screen .
1 ||| It wo n't bust your gut -- and it 's not intended to -- it 's merely a blandly cinematic surgical examination of what makes a joke a joke .
2 ||| A somewhat crudely constructed but gripping , questing look at a person so racked with self-loathing , he becomes an enemy to his own race .
3 ||| It extends the writings of Jean Genet and John Rechy , the films of Fassbinder , perhaps even the nocturnal works of Goya .
2 ||| Narc may not get an ` A ' for originality , but it wears its B-movie heritage like a badge of honor .
3 ||| With the film 's striking ending , one realizes that we have a long way to go before we fully understand all the sexual permutations involved .
3 ||| -LRB- Drumline -RRB- is entertaining for what it does , and admirable for what it does n't do .
3 ||| At its best early on as it plays the culture clashes between the brothers .
3 ||| An unabashedly schmaltzy and thoroughly enjoyable true story .
3 ||| A thoughtful look at a painful incident that made headlines in 1995 .
1 ||| Tsai Ming-liang has taken his trademark style and refined it to a crystalline point .
3 ||| Purely propaganda , a work of unabashed hero worship , it is nonetheless -- and likely inadvertently -- a timely and invaluable implicit reminder of the role that U.S. foreign policy has played in the rise of Castro .
2 ||| Now trimmed by about 20 minutes , this lavish three-year-old production has enough grandeur and scale to satisfy as grown-up escapism .
3 ||| We get some truly unique character studies and a cross-section of Americana that Hollywood could n't possibly fictionalize and be believed .
3 ||| Though this film can be clumsy , its ambitions are equally -- and admirably -- uncommercial .
4 ||| Daring , mesmerizing and exceedingly hard to forget .
3 ||| Moore 's performance impresses almost as much as her work with Haynes in 1995 's Safe .
4 ||| Visits spy-movie territory like a novel you ca n't put down , examines a footnote to history seldom brought to light on the screen , and keeps you guessing from first frame to last .
3 ||| An absorbing , slice-of-depression life that touches nerves and rings true .
4 ||| Mr. Parker has brilliantly updated his source and grasped its essence , composing a sorrowful and hilarious tone poem about alienated labor , or an absurdist workplace sitcom .
4 ||| The result is something quite fresh and delightful .
3 ||| All but the most persnickety preteens should enjoy this nonthreatening but thrilling adventure .
2 ||| Despite its many infuriating flaws -- not the least of which is Amy 's self-absorbed personality -- Amy 's O 's honesty will win you over .
4 ||| This is one of Polanski 's best films .
3 ||| Day is not a great Bond movie , but it is a good Bond movie , which still makes it much better than your typical Bond knock-offs .
0 ||| Polished Korean political-action film is just as good -- and bad -- as Hollywood action epics .
1 ||| Is this progress ?
1 ||| Elling , portrayed with quiet fastidiousness by Per Christian Ellefsen , is a truly singular character , one whose frailties are only slightly magnified versions of the ones that vex nearly everyone .
1 ||| Denis and co-writer Michele Petin 's impeccable screenplay penetrates with a rawness that that is both unflinching and tantalizing .
3 ||| Lead provocatuers Testud and Parmentier give superlative performances
3 ||| An absorbing trip into the minds and motivations of people under stress as well as a keen , unsentimental look at variations on the theme of motherhood .
3 ||| I admired it , particularly that unexpected downer of an ending .
4 ||| The passions aroused by the discord between old and new cultures are set against the strange , stark beauty of the Mideast desert , so lovingly and perceptively filmed that you can almost taste the desiccated air .
3 ||| Remarkably accessible and affecting .
1 ||| Never mind whether you buy the stuff about Barris being a CIA hit man .
3 ||| The kooky yet shadowy vision Clooney sustains throughout is daring , inventive and impressive .
3 ||| A triumph of art direction over narrative , but what art direction !
2 ||| Behan himself knew how to spin a tale and one ca n't help but think he 'd appreciate this attempt to turn his life into art .
3 ||| Jirí Hubac 's script is a gem .
4 ||| His characters are engaging , intimate and the dialogue is realistic and greatly moving .
4 ||| The scope of the Silberstein family is large and we grow attached to their lives , full of strength , warmth and vitality . .
3 ||| Moore 's complex and important film is also , believe it or not , immensely entertaining , a David and Goliath story that 's still very much playing itself out .
3 ||| The additional storyline is interesting and entertaining , but it does n't have the same magical quality as the beginning of the story .
3 ||| I like the new footage and still love the old stuff .
2 ||| Though Mama takes a bit too long to find its rhythm and a third-act plot development is somewhat melodramatic , its ribald humor and touching nostalgia are sure to please anyone in search of a Jules and Jim for the new millennium .
1 ||| You might not buy the ideas .
2 ||| But you 'll definitely want the T-shirt .
3 ||| Provides an intriguing window into the imagination and hermetic analysis of Todd Solondz .
1 ||| Windtalkers is shapelessly gratifying , the kind of movie that invites you to pick apart its faults even as you have to admit that somehow it hit you where you live .
3 ||| Presents an astute appraisal of Middle American musical torpor and the desperate struggle to escape it .
3 ||| Just what makes us happy , anyway ?
4 ||| A thoughtful , moving piece that faces difficult issues with honesty and beauty .
4 ||| One of the greatest romantic comedies of the past decade .
3 ||| You would n't call The Good Girl a date movie -LRB- an anti-date movie is more like it -RRB- , but when it 's good , it 's good and horrid .
3 ||| Benefits from a strong performance from Zhao , but it 's Dong Jie 's face you remember at the end .
4 ||| This is a film brimming with detail and nuance and one that speaks volumes about the ability of the human spirit to find solace in events that could easily crush it forever .
3 ||| The director , Steven Shainberg , has succeeded by focusing intently on his characters , making them quirky individuals rather than figures of fun .
2 ||| It ultimately stands forth as an important chronicle of the abuses of one of Latin America 's most oppressive regimes .
3 ||| The movie has a soft , percolating magic , a deadpan suspense .
4 ||| A well-made and often lovely depiction of the mysteries of friendship .
3 ||| Using his audience as a figurative port-of-call , Dong pulls his even-handed ideological ship to their dock for unloading , before he continues his longer journey still ahead .
3 ||| ... understands that a generation defines its music as much as the music defines a generation .
0 ||| The Transporter is as lively and as fun as it is unapologetically dumb
2 ||| As a witness to several Greek-American weddings -- but , happily , a victim of none -- I can testify to the comparative accuracy of Ms. Vardalos ' memories and insights .
4 ||| Has it ever been possible to say that Williams has truly inhabited a character ?
1 ||| It is now .
1 ||| By presenting an impossible romance in an impossible world , Pumpkin dares us to say why either is impossible -- which forces us to confront what 's possible and what we might do to make it so .
4 ||| An impressive debut for first-time writer-director Mark Romanek , especially considering his background is in music video .
4 ||| An incendiary , deeply thought-provoking look at one of the most peculiar -LRB- and peculiarly venomous -RRB- bigotries in our increasingly frightening theocracy
3 ||| All the performances are top notch and , once you get through the accents , All or Nothing becomes an emotional , though still positive , wrench of a sit .
2 ||| `` its successes are also tempered with elements which prove the direct antithesis of what it gets right . ''
3 ||| It 's solid and affecting and exactly as thought-provoking as it should be .
4 ||| This is such a dazzlingly self-assured directorial debut that it 's hard to know what to praise first .
4 ||| Parker holds true to Wilde 's own vision of a pure comedy with absolutely no meaning , and no desire to be anything but a polished , sophisticated entertainment that is in love with its own cleverness .
3 ||| Münch 's genuine insight makes the film 's occasional overindulgence forgivable .
4 ||| Thankfully , the film , which skirts that rapidly deteriorating line between fantasy and reality ... takes a tongue-in-cheek attitude even as it pushes the Croc Hunter agenda .
1 ||| Ultimately , the message of Trouble Every Day seems to be that all sexual desire disrupts life 's stasis .
2 ||| If you 're like me , a sucker for a good old fashion romance and someone who shamelessly loves to eat , then Mostly Martha offers all the perfect ingredients to more than satisfy your appetite .
3 ||| The film has just enough of everything -- re-enactments , archival footage , talking-head interviews -- and the music is simply sublime .
3 ||| There are a few stabs at absurdist comedy ... but mostly the humor is of the sweet , gentle and occasionally cloying kind that has become an Iranian specialty .
4 ||| A wonderful character-based comedy .
1 ||| It would be interesting to hear from the other side , but in Talk to Her , the women are down for the count .
4 ||| An endearingly offbeat romantic comedy with a great meet-cute gimmick .
3 ||| The unique tug-of-war with viewer expectations is undeniable , if not a pleasure in its own right .
3 ||| It uses an old-time formula , it 's not terribly original and it 's rather messy -- but you just have to love the big , dumb , happy movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding .
3 ||| It 's almost impossible not to be moved by the movie 's depiction of sacrifice and its stirring epilogue in post-Soviet Russia .
2 ||| Who knows what exactly Godard is on about in this film , but his words and images do n't have to add up to mesmerize you .
3 ||| The tone is balanced , reflective and reasonable .
3 ||| The principals in this cast are all fine , but Bishop and Stevenson are standouts .
3 ||| It could change America , not only because it is full of necessary discussion points , but because it is so accessible that it makes complex politics understandable to viewers looking for nothing but energetic entertainment .
3 ||| What 's most striking about this largely celebratory film ... is the sense of isolation that permeates these bastions of individuality in an Ikea world .
3 ||| ... if you 're in a mind set for goofy comedy , the troopers will entertain with their gross outs , bawdy comedy and head games .
3 ||| Somewhat blurred , but Kinnear 's performance is razor sharp .
3 ||| As a director , Mr. Ratliff wisely rejects the temptation to make fun of his subjects .
4 ||| For anyone who remembers the '60s or is interested in one man 's response to stroke , Ram Dass : Fierce Grace is worth seeking out .
3 ||| Intriguing and beautiful film , but those of you who read the book are likely to be disappointed .
3 ||| The New Guy does have a heart .
2 ||| Now , if it only had a brain .
3 ||| A savvy exploration of paranoia and insecurity in America 's culture of fear .
4 ||| Legendary Irish writer Brendan Behan 's memoir , Borstal Boy , has been given a loving screen transferral .
4 ||| The film 's greatest asset is how much it 's not just another connect-the-dots , spy-on-the-run picture .
3 ||| This clever caper movie has twists worthy of David Mamet and is enormous fun for thinking audiences .
2 ||| It 's one of the saddest films I have ever seen that still manages to be uplifting but not overly sentimental .
4 ||| Morton is , as usual , brilliant .
3 ||| Even with all those rough edges safely sanded down , the American Insomnia is still pretty darned good .
3 ||| I do n't know precisely what to make of Steven Soderbergh 's Full Frontal , though that did n't stop me from enjoying much of it .
1 ||| The tug of war that ensues is as much a snapshot of modern China in microcosm as it is a crash course in movie mythology .
3 ||| Nearly surreal , dabbling in French , this is no simple movie , and you 'll be taking a risk if you choose to see it .
3 ||| I enjoyed the ride -LRB- bumps and all -RRB- , creamy depth , and ultimate theme .
2 ||| You could say that it 's slow at times , you could say that a few of the characters act in ways that real people would n't , but one thing you could n't say is that Alias Betty is predictable .
0 ||| Asia authors herself as Anna Battista , an Italian superstar and aspiring directress who just happens to be her own worst enemy .
2 ||| Roman Coppola may never become the filmmaker his Dad was , but heck -- few filmmakers will .
3 ||| But based on CQ , I 'll certainly be keeping an eye out for his next project .
3 ||| An amusing , breezily apolitical documentary about life on the campaign trail .
1 ||| High on melodrama .
4 ||| But it 's emotionally engrossing , too , thanks to strong , credible performances from the whole cast .
3 ||| Finally , a genre movie that delivers -- in a couple of genres , no less .
3 ||| It 's not so much enjoyable to watch as it is enlightening to listen to new sides of a previous reality , and to visit with some of the people who were able to make an impact in the theater world .
3 ||| Spielberg is the rare director who does not want to invite viewers to gawk at or applaud his special effects .
1 ||| He just wants them to be part of the action , the wallpaper of his chosen reality .
3 ||| Here , thankfully , they are .
4 ||| Hu and Liu offer natural , matter-of-fact performances that glint with sorrow , longing and love .
4 ||| This bold and lyrical first feature from Raja Amari expands the pat notion that middle-aged women just wanna have fun into a rousing treatise of sensual empowerment .
3 ||| Easier to respect than enthuse over , Andersson 's rigorous personal vision is not only distanced but distancing .
1 ||| Girls gone wild and gone civil again
3 ||| ... Tunney is allowed to build an uncommonly human character , an almost real-live girl complete with trouble and hope .
3 ||| While this film is not in the least surprising , it is still ultimately very satisfying .
2 ||| Think of it as a sort of comfort food for the mind .
3 ||| Clever , brutal and strangely soulful movie .
3 ||| ... always remains movingly genuine .
3 ||| An intelligent fiction about learning through cultural clash .
3 ||| Will grab your children by the imagination and amaze them and amuse them .
3 ||| A remarkable 179-minute meditation on the nature of revolution .
4 ||| Those who would follow Haneke on his creepy explorations ... are rewarded by brutal , committed performances from Huppert and Magimel .
3 ||| An involving true story of a Chinese actor who takes up drugs and winds up in an institution -- acted mostly by the actual people involved .
4 ||| Hands down the year 's most thought-provoking film .
3 ||| But it pays a price for its intricate intellectual gamesmanship .
3 ||| It 's a terrific American sports movie and Dennis Quaid is its athletic heart .
4 ||| This is such a high-energy movie where the drumming and the marching are so excellent , who cares if the story 's a little weak .
1 ||| Compelling revenge thriller , though somewhat weakened by a miscast leading lady .
3 ||| It 's amazingly perceptive in its subtle , supportive but unsentimental look at the Marks family .
3 ||| A whole lot foul , freaky and funny .
3 ||| Attal mixes comedy with a serious exploration of ego and jealousy within a seemingly serene marriage .
1 ||| The diversity of the artists represented , both in terms of style and ethnicity , prevents the proceedings from feeling repetitious , as does the appropriately brief 40-minute running time .
4 ||| The Pianist is a fine valedictory work for Polanski , made richer by his own experiences , making his other movies somehow richer in the bargain .
3 ||| Foster nails the role , giving a tight , focused performance illuminated by shards of feeling .
3 ||| Even if you ca n't pronounce `` gyro '' correctly , you 'll appreciate much of Vardalos ' humor , which transcends ethnic boundaries .
1 ||| Is office work really as alienating as ` Bartleby ' so effectively makes it ?
3 ||| Farrell ... thankfully manages to outshine the role and successfully plays the foil to Willis 's world-weary colonel .
1 ||| Audiences conditioned to getting weepy over saucer-eyed , downy-cheeked moppets and their empathetic caretakers will probably feel emotionally cheated by the film 's tart , sugar-free wit .
3 ||| Bennett 's dramatization of her personal descent into post-breakup perdition has a morbid appeal that 's tough to shake .
3 ||| An intriguing and entertaining introduction to Johnson .
3 ||| As expected , Sayles ' smart wordplay and clever plot contrivances are as sharp as ever , though they may be overshadowed by some strong performances .
1 ||| A model of what films like this should be like .
3 ||| As Weber and Weissman demonstrate with such insight and celebratory verve , the Cockettes were n't as much about gender , sexual preference or political agitprop as they were simply a triumph of the indomitable human will to rebel , connect and create .
3 ||| Yeah , these flicks are just that damn good .
1 ||| Is n't it great ?
3 ||| An unbelievably fun film just a leading man away from perfection .
3 ||| Over-the-top and a bit ostentatious , this is a movie that 's got oodles of style and substance .
4 ||| ... a poignant and powerful narrative that reveals that reading writing and arithmetic are not the only subjects to learn in life .
3 ||| Nicely serves as an examination of a society in transition .
4 ||| A tender and touching drama , based on the true story of a troubled African-American 's quest to come to terms with his origins , reveals the yearning we all have in our hearts for acceptance within the family circle .
4 ||| As a randy film about sexy people in gorgeous places being pushed and pulled -LRB- literally and figuratively -RRB- by desire ... -LRB- Sex and Lucía -RRB- makes for an arousing good time .
4 ||| Celebrated at Sundance , this slight comedy of manners has winning performances and a glossy , glib charm that 's hard to beat .
4 ||| Renner 's performance as Dahmer is unforgettable , deeply absorbing .
1 ||| If no one singles out any of these performances as award-worthy , it 's only because we would expect nothing less from this bunch .
4 ||| Though of particular interest to students and enthusiast of international dance and world music , the film is designed to make viewers of all ages , cultural backgrounds and rhythmic ability want to get up and dance .
4 ||| Energetic and boldly provocative .
2 ||| Star Wars is back in a major way .
3 ||| It 's a movie -- and an album -- you wo n't want to miss .
4 ||| It 's rare to find a film that dazzles the eye , challenges the brain , AND satisfies our lust for fast-paced action , but Minority Report delivers all that and a whole lot more .
1 ||| While not all transitions to adulthood are so fraught , there 's much truth and no small amount of poetry in Girls Ca n't Swim .
4 ||| If there 's nothing fresh about Wannabes , which was written by Mr. DeMeo , who produced and directed the film with Charles A. Addessi , much of the time the movie feels authentic .
3 ||| Jacquot 's Tosca is a treat .
3 ||| By the end of No Such Thing the audience , like Beatrice , has a watchful affection for the monster .
3 ||| If you liked such movies as Notting Hill , Four Weddings And A Funeral , Bridget Jones ' Diary or High Fidelity , then you wo n't want to miss About A Boy .
3 ||| ... the gentle melding of drama and comedy makes `` What Time Is It There ? ''
3 ||| something the true film buff will enjoy .
3 ||| Romanek keeps the film constantly taut ... reflecting the character 's instability with a metaphorical visual style and an unnerving , heartbeat-like score .
1 ||| I whole-heartedly recommend that everyone see this movie -- for its historical significance alone .
2 ||| Hey , who else needs a shower ?
3 ||| Longley has constructed a remarkably coherent , horrifically vivid snapshot of those turbulent days .
4 ||| Although it bangs a very cliched drum at times , this crowd-pleaser 's fresh dialogue , energetic music , and good-natured spunk are often infectious .
4 ||| Often gruelling and heartbreaking to witness , but Seldahl and Wollter 's sterling performances raise this far above the level of the usual maudlin disease movie .
3 ||| Go see it and enjoy .
3 ||| The stunning , dreamlike visuals will impress even those viewers who have little patience for Euro-film pretension .
3 ||| George Clooney proves he 's quite a talented director and Sam Rockwell shows us he 's a world-class actor with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind .
2 ||| There 's a vastness implied in Metropolis that is just breathtaking .
3 ||| Murderous Maids may well be the most comprehensive of these films and also strike closest to the truth .
3 ||| The people in Dogtown and Z-Boys are so funny , aggressive and alive , you have to watch them because you ca n't wait to see what they do next .
3 ||| As green-guts monster movies go , it 's a beaut .
4 ||| As Bundy , Michael Reilly Burke -LRB- Octopus 2 : River of Fear -RRB- has just the right amount of charisma and menace .
3 ||| A deceivingly simple film , one that grows in power in retrospect .
3 ||| Ana is a vivid , vibrant individual and the movie 's focus upon her makes it successful and accessible .
4 ||| A slick , skillful little horror film .
3 ||| A very witty take on change , risk and romance , and the film uses humour to make its points about acceptance and growth .
3 ||| -LRB- Anderson -RRB- uses a hit-or-miss aesthetic that hits often enough to keep the film entertaining even if none of it makes a lick of sense .
4 ||| Bubba Ho-Tep is a wonderful film with a bravura lead performance by Bruce Campbell that does n't deserve to leave the building until everyone is aware of it .
1 ||| despite the long running time , the pace never feels slack -- there 's no scene that screams `` bathroom break ! ''
3 ||| Bullock does a good job here of working against her natural likability .
3 ||| A film of precious increments artfully camouflaged as everyday activities .
4 ||| Kinnear gives a tremendous performance .
4 ||| The best movie of its kind since ` Brazil . '
2 ||| Lucas , take notes .
4 ||| This is how you use special effects .
1 ||| One Hour Photo is an intriguing snapshot of one man and his delusions ; it 's just too bad it does n't have more flashes of insight .
3 ||| Kaufman creates an eerie sense of not only being there at the time of these events but the very night Matthew was killed .
3 ||| Chalk it up to my adoration for both De Niro and Murphy , but I had a pretty good time with this movie - despite its myriad flaws .
3 ||| Its scenes and sensibility are all more than familiar , but it exudes a kind of nostalgic spy-movie charm and , at the same time , is so fresh and free of the usual thriller nonsense that it all seems to be happening for the first time .
1 ||| It represents better-than-average movie-making that does n't demand a dumb , distracted audience .
3 ||| A charming yet poignant tale of the irrevocable ties that bind .
4 ||| An enchanting spectacular for Potter fans anxious to ride the Hogwarts Express toward a new year of magic and mischief .
4 ||| The talents of the actors helps `` Moonlight Mile '' rise above its heart-on-its-sleeve writing .
3 ||| It 's a humble effort , but spiced with wry humor and genuine pathos , especially between Morgan and Redgrave .
3 ||| This examination of aquatic life off the shores of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico offers an engrossing way to demonstrate the virtues of the IMAX format .
3 ||| Dark and disturbing , but also surprisingly funny .
1 ||| The movie has an avalanche of eye-popping visual effects .
1 ||| Starts off with a bang , but then fizzles like a wet stick of dynamite at the very end .
3 ||| It 's still worth a look .
3 ||| Most impressive , though , is the film 's open-ended finale that refuses to entirely close its characters ' emotional wounds .
4 ||| A hip ride into hyper-time , Clockstoppers is a lively and enjoyable adventure for all ages at any time .
4 ||| ... a polished and relatively sincere piece of escapism .
3 ||| The story wraps back around on itself in the kind of elegant symmetry that 's rare in film today , but be warned : It 's a slow slog to get there .
1 ||| The whole cast looks to be having so much fun with the slapstick antics and silly street patois , tossing around obscure expressions like Bellini and Mullinski , that the compact 86 minutes breezes by .
1 ||| ... has freaky scenes where the crew wonder if they 're ghosts imagining themselves as alive .
1 ||| It 's a sly wink to The Others without becoming a postmodern joke , made creepy by its `` men in a sardine can '' warped logic .
4 ||| Long after you leave Justine , you 'll be wondering what will happen to her and wishing her the best -- whatever that might mean .
3 ||| Still pretentious and filled with subtext , but entertaining enough at ` face value ' to recommend to anyone looking for something different .
3 ||| Call me a wimp , but I cried , not once , but three times in this animated sweet film .
3 ||| Notorious C.H.O. has oodles of vulgar highlights .
3 ||| An inspiring and heart-affecting film about the desperate attempts of Vietnamese refugees living in U.S. relocation camps to keep their hopes alive in 1975 .
3 ||| The level of maturity displayed by this 33-year-old first-time feature director is astonishing , considering her inexperience and her subject matter .
4 ||| A splendid entertainment , young in spirit but accomplished in all aspects with the fullness of spirit and sense of ease that comes only with experience .
3 ||| Disney 's live-action division has a history of releasing cinematic flotsam , but this is one occasion when they have unearthed a rare gem .
1 ||| If the message seems more facile than the earlier films , the images have such a terrible beauty you may not care .
1 ||| Whether Kiss is a future cult classic or destined to be completely forgotten is open to question , but the risk-takers in the crowd should check it out and form their own opinion .
4 ||| There are moments in this account of the life of artist Frida Kahlo that are among cinema 's finest this year .
1 ||| Unfortunately , they 're sandwiched in between the most impossibly dry account of Kahlo 's life imaginable .
4 ||| There are moments it can be heart-rending in an honest and unaffected -LRB- and gentle -RRB- way .
3 ||| Stay clear of reminding yourself that it 's a `` true story '' and you 're likely to have one helluva time at the movies .
3 ||| There are just enough twists in the tale to make it far more satisfying than almost any horror film in recent memory .
3 ||| Working from Elliott 's memoir , Rohmer fashions the sort of delicate , articulate character - and - relationship study he 's favored for decades .
3 ||| The story feels more like a serious read , filled with heavy doses of always enticing Sayles dialogue .
3 ||| When it really counts ... Bloody Sunday connects on a visceral level that transcends language .
3 ||| The crime matters less than the characters , although the filmmakers supply enough complications , close calls and double-crosses to satisfy us .
4 ||| Ranging from funny to shattering and featuring some of the year 's best acting , Personal Velocity gathers plenty of dramatic momentum .
2 ||| I complain all the time about seeing the same ideas repeated in films over and over again , but The Bourne Identity proves that a fresh take is always possible .
1 ||| Recalls quiet freak-outs like L'Avventura and Repulsion .
3 ||| Only an epic documentary could get it all down , and Spike Lee 's Jim Brown : All American at long last gives its subject a movie worthy of his talents .
3 ||| ... as the story congeals you feel the pieces of the Star Wars saga falling into place in a way that makes your spine tingle with revelation and excitement .
3 ||| A great comedy filmmaker knows great comedy need n't always make us laugh .
2 ||| Tim Story 's not there yet - but ` Barbershop ' shows he 's on his way .
4 ||| The movie is one of the best examples of artful Large Format filmmaking you are likely to see anytime soon .
1 ||| Lends itself to the narcotizing bland -LRB- sinister , though not nearly so sinister as the biennial Disney girl movie -RRB- machinations of the biennial Disney boy movie .
4 ||| Well-written , nicely acted and beautifully shot and scored , the film works on several levels , openly questioning social mores while ensnaring the audience with its emotional pull .
2 ||| Jason X has cheesy effects and a hoary plot , but its macabre , self-deprecating sense of humor makes up for a lot .
4 ||| An impressive if flawed effort that indicates real talent .
4 ||| Two generations within one family test boundaries in this intelligent and restrained coming-of-age drama .
3 ||| it sounds sick and twisted , but the miracle of Shainberg 's film is that it truly is romance
4 ||| Disturbing and brilliant documentary .
4 ||| ... mesmerizing , an eye-opening tour of modern Beijing culture in a journey of rebellion , retreat into oblivion and return .
1 ||| One of the best examples of how to treat a subject , you 're not fully aware is being examined , much like a photo of yourself you did n't know was being taken .
3 ||| Not too far below the gloss you can still feel director Denis Villeneuve 's beating heart and the fondness he has for his characters .
1 ||| As if to prove a female director can make a movie with no soft edges , Kathryn Bigelow offers no sugar-coating or interludes of lightness .
0 ||| Her film is unrelentingly claustrophobic and unpleasant .
2 ||| -LRB- Villeneuve -RRB- seems to realize intuitively that even morality is reduced to an option by the ultimate mysteries of life and death .
4 ||| The result is mesmerizing -- filled with menace and squalor .
3 ||| Fisher has bared his soul and confronted his own shortcomings here in a way ... that feels very human and very true to life .
3 ||| It 's fun , but the code-talk will fly right over everyone 's head
2 ||| Bourne , Jason Bourne .
1 ||| He can scale a building like a super hero , he can out-stealth any agent , he 'll get the girl .
2 ||| He 's Super Spy !
1 ||| What makes the movie a comedy is the way it avoids the more serious emotions involved .
1 ||| This cuddly sequel to the 1999 hit is a little more visually polished , a little funnier , and a little more madcap .
3 ||| The pleasures of Super Troopers may be fleeting , but they 'll register strongly with anybody who still retains a soft spot for precollegiate humor .
3 ||| The film is exhilarating to watch because Sandler , liberated from the constraints of formula , reveals unexpected depths as an actor .
3 ||| A distant , even sterile , yet compulsively watchable look at the sordid life of Hogan 's Heroes star Bob Crane .
3 ||| The film delivers not just the full assault of Reno 's immense wit and insight , but a time travel back to what it felt like during those unforgettably uncertain days .
3 ||| What might have been a predictably heartwarming tale is suffused with complexity .
1 ||| Sound the trumpets : For the first time since Desperately Seeking Susan , Madonna does n't suck as an actress .
4 ||| Although very much like the first movie based on J.K. Rowling 's phenomenal fantasy best sellers , this second go-round possesses a quite pleasing , headlong thrust and a likably delinquent attitude .
4 ||| As the story moves inexorably through its seven day timeframe , the picture becomes increasingly mesmerizing .
3 ||| Maguire is a surprisingly effective Peter\/Spider-Man .
3 ||| Not a cozy or ingratiating work , but it 's challenging , sometimes clever , and always interesting , and those are reasons enough to see it .
3 ||| The film runs on equal parts of innocence and wisdom -- wisdom that comes with experience .
3 ||| It has fun being grown up .
3 ||| Like old myths and wonder tales spun afresh .
4 ||| Rarely do films come along that are as intelligent , exuberant , and moving as Monsoon Wedding .
3 ||| One scarcely needs the subtitles to enjoy this colorful action farce .
3 ||| Quite funny for the type of movie it is ...
4 ||| It 's often infuriatingly glib and posturing , and yet it has been made with great evident care and manages to deliver up the man in a way to arouse further curiosity in even the most unknowing viewer .
3 ||| One of -LRB- Herzog 's -RRB- least inspired works .
2 ||| This boisterous comedy serves up a cruel reminder of the fate of hundreds of thousands of Chinese , one which can only qualify as a terrible tragedy .
3 ||| Elling really is about a couple of crazy guys , and it 's therapeutic to laugh along with them .
4 ||| An irresistible combination of a rousing good story set on a truly grand scale .
3 ||| There 's no denying the physically spectacular qualities of the film ... or the emotional integrity of the performances .
3 ||| Few films this year have been as resolute in their emotional nakedness .
4 ||| Exquisitely acted and masterfully if preciously interwoven ... -LRB- the film -RRB- addresses in a fascinating , intelligent manner the intermingling of race , politics and local commerce .
3 ||| Stevenson 's performance is at once clueless and fiercely committed , a volatile combination .
4 ||| This is a very fine movie -- go see it .
2 ||| As shaky as the plot is , Kaufman 's script is still memorable for some great one-liners .
3 ||| Despite its flaws , Secretary stays in your head and makes you question your own firmly held positions .
4 ||| One of those rare , exhilarating cinematic delights that gets even better in hindsight , as you mull over its every nuance in your mind .
3 ||| Not everything works , but the average is higher than in Mary and most other recent comedies .
2 ||| A byzantine melodrama that stimulates the higher brain functions as well as the libido .
4 ||| A sensitive and expertly acted crowd-pleaser that is n't above a little broad comedy and a few unabashedly sentimental tears .
3 ||| The film 's sharp , often mischievous sense of humor will catch some off guard ...
4 ||| Does what a fine documentary does best : It extends a warm invitation into an unfamiliar world , then illuminates it fully and allows the larger implications of the journey to sink in unobtrusively .
4 ||| Almost every scene in this film is a gem that could stand alone , a perfectly realized observation of mood , behavior and intent .
4 ||| A psychologically rich and suspenseful moral thriller with a stellar performance by Al Pacino .
2 ||| You wo n't believe much of it , but you will laugh at the audacity , at the who 's who casting and the sheer insanity of it all .
3 ||| This version 's no classic like its predecessor , but its pleasures are still plentiful .
1 ||| The Bourne Identity is what summer screen escapism used to be in the decades when it was geared more to grownups .
1 ||| Provide -LRB- s -RRB- nail-biting suspense and credible characters without relying on technology-of-the-moment technique or pretentious dialogue .
1 ||| If it tried to do anything more , it would fail and perhaps explode , but at this level of manic whimsy , it is just about right .
1 ||| Too sincere to exploit its subjects and too honest to manipulate its audience .
3 ||| The saturation bombing of Reggio 's images and Glass ' evocative music ... ultimately leaves viewers with the task of divining meaning .
3 ||| For all its serious sense of purpose ... -LRB- it -RRB- finds a way to lay bare the tragedies of its setting with a good deal of warmth and humor .
1 ||| A depressing confirmation of everything those of us who do n't object to the description `` unelected '' have suspected all along : George W. Bush is an incurious , uncharismatic , overgrown frat boy with a mean streak a mile wide .
4 ||| This road movie gives you emotional whiplash , and you 'll be glad you went along for the ride .
3 ||| Sure , it 's more of the same , but as the film proves , that 's not always a bad thing .
4 ||| A lighthearted , feel-good film that embraces the time-honored truth that the most powerful thing in life is love .
4 ||| A bowel-curdling , heart-stopping recipe for terror .
3 ||| Daughter from Danang is a film that should be seen by all , especially those who are n't aware of , or have forgotten about the unmentioned victims of war .
4 ||| Zhang Yimou delivers warm , genuine characters who lie not through dishonesty , but because they genuinely believe it 's the only way to bring happiness to their loved ones .
3 ||| ... breathes surprising new life into the familiar by amalgamating genres and adding true human complexity to its not-so-stock characters . '
2 ||| ... both hokey and super-cool , and definitely not in a hurry , so sit back , relax and have a few laughs while the little ones get a fuzzy treat . '
3 ||| A pleasant romantic comedy .
3 ||| It 's a Count for our times .
4 ||| Greengrass has delivered an undoubted stylistic tour-de-force , and has managed elements such as sound and cinematography with skill
3 ||| Smith 's point is simple and obvious -- people 's homes are extensions of themselves , and particularly eccentric people have particularly eccentric living spaces -- but his subjects are charmers .
1 ||| A romantic comedy , yes , but one with characters who think and talk about their goals , and are working on hard decisions .
4 ||| Vividly conveys both the pitfalls and the pleasures of over-the-top love .
3 ||| ... a weak , manipulative , pencil-thin story that is miraculously able to entertain anyway .
3 ||| A pro-fat farce that overcomes much of its excessive moral baggage thanks to two appealing lead performances .
4 ||| For the first two-thirds of this sparklingly inventive and artful , always fast and furious tale , kids will go happily along for the ride .
3 ||| Majidi 's poetic love story is a ravishing consciousness-raiser , if a bit draggy at times .
3 ||| The smartest bonehead comedy of the summer .
3 ||| Effectively feeds our senses with the chilling sights and sounds from within the camp to create a completely numbing experience .
3 ||| I love the way that it took chances and really asks you to take these great leaps of faith and pays off .
3 ||| In his debut as a film director , Denzel Washington delivers a lean and engaging work .
2 ||| Only two words will tell you what you know when deciding to see it : Anthony .
2 ||| Hopkins .
3 ||| The movie 's quiet affirmation of neighborhood values gives it an honest , lived-in glow .
1 ||| A teasing drama whose relentless good-deed\/bad-deed reversals are just interesting enough to make a sinner like me pray for an even more interesting , less symmetrical , less obviously cross-shaped creation .
4 ||| Hayek is stunning as Frida and ... a star-making project .
3 ||| It 's both a necessary political work and a fascinating documentary ...
4 ||| Hilarious , acidic Brit comedy .
3 ||| As a revenge thriller , the movie is serviceable , but it does n't really deliver the delicious guilty pleasure of the better film versions .
3 ||| An ironic speculation on democracy in a culture unaccustomed to it .
2 ||| Several degrees shy of the gross-out contests one expects from current teen fare .
3 ||| The inherent strength of the material as well as the integrity of the filmmakers gives this coming-of-age story restraint as well as warmth .
4 ||| Led by Griffin 's smartly nuanced performance and enthusiasm , the cast has a lot of fun with the material .
3 ||| Tuck Everlasting achieves a delicate balance of romantic innocence and philosophical depth .
3 ||| A gentle blend of present day testimonials , surviving footage of Burstein and his family performing , historical archives , and telling stills .
3 ||| A Generation X artifact , capturing a brief era of insanity in the sports arena that surely can not last .
1 ||| Possession is Elizabeth Barrett Browning meets Nancy Drew , and it 's directed by ... Neil LaBute .
2 ||| Hmm .
4 ||| An uneven but intriguing drama that is part homage and part remake of the Italian masterpiece .
3 ||| Windtalkers celebrates the human spirit and packs an emotional wallop .
3 ||| Having never been a huge fan of Dickens ' 800-page novel , it surprised me how much pleasure I had watching McGrath 's version .
4 ||| The best thing the film does is to show us not only what that mind looks like , but how the creative process itself operates .
1 ||| For all its failed connections , Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is nurturing , in a gauzy , dithering way .
3 ||| This is pretty dicey material .
2 ||| But some unexpected zigs and zags help .
3 ||| The filmmakers skillfully evoke the sense of menace that nature holds for many urban dwellers .
4 ||| The laser-projected paintings provide a spell-casting beauty , while Russell and Dreyfus are a romantic pairing of hearts , preciously exposed as history corners them .
2 ||| You do n't have to be an especially tough grader to give a charitable B-minus to The Emperor 's Club .
3 ||| This romantic thriller is steeped in the atmosphere of wartime England , and ably captures the speech patterns , moral codes and ideals of the 1940s .
4 ||| Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood may not be exactly divine , but it 's definitely -- defiantly -- ya ya , what with all of those terrific songs and spirited performances .
2 ||| Viewed on its own terms , Treasure Planet is better-than-average family entertainment , but true fans of the Stevenson 's novel will likely prefer Disney 's more faithful 1950 live-action swashbuckling classic .
4 ||| A journey through memory , a celebration of living , and a sobering rumination on fatality , classism , and ignorance .
4 ||| Resourceful and ingenious entertainment .
2 ||| `` Antwone Fisher '' is an earnest , by-the-numbers effort by Washington .
2 ||| It wo n't rock any boats but is solid meat-and-potatoes filmmaking .
3 ||| A historical epic with the courage of its convictions about both scope and detail .
1 ||| We need -LRB- Moore 's -RRB- noisy , cocky energy , his passion and class consciousness ; we need his shticks , we need his stones .
1 ||| Although the editing might have been tighter , Hush !
3 ||| sympathetically captures the often futile lifestyle of young people in modern Japan .
1 ||| -LRB- Gai -RRB- comes closer to any actress I can remember to personifying independence in its purest and , yes , most intimidating form .
4 ||| These are lives worth watching , paths worth following .
1 ||| It 's rather like a Lifetime special -- pleasant , sweet and forgettable .
3 ||| A moody horror\/thriller elevated by deft staging and the director 's well-known narrative gamesmanship .
3 ||| As a singular character study , it 's perfect .
4 ||| It 's also the year 's sweetest movie .
4 ||| A graceful , contemplative film that gradually and artfully draws us into a world where the personal and the political get fatally intertwined .
3 ||| While not as aggressively impressive as its American counterpart , `` In the Bedroom , '' Moretti 's film makes its own , quieter observations
3 ||| The experience of watching blobby old-school CGI animation in this superlarge format is just surreal enough to be diverting .
3 ||| Time Changer may not be the most memorable cinema session but its profound self-evaluation message about our fragile existence and the absence of spiritual guidance should at least invade an abundance of mindsets
3 ||| `` The Emperor 's New Clothes '' begins with a simple plan ... Well , at least that 's the plan .
1 ||| Haynes has so fanatically fetishized every bizarre old-movie idiosyncrasy with such monastic devotion you 're not sure if you should applaud or look into having him committed .
1 ||| -LRB- Director Peter -RRB- Jackson and his crew have so steeped themselves in the majesty of Tolkien 's writing that every frame produces new joys , whether you 're a fan of the books or not .
1 ||| While the glass slipper does n't quite fit , Pumpkin is definitely a unique modern fairytale .
3 ||| The drama is played out with such aching beauty and truth that it brings tears to your eyes .
4 ||| An exciting and involving rock music doc , a smart and satisfying look inside that tumultuous world .
3 ||| An offbeat , sometimes gross and surprisingly appealing animated film about the true meaning of the holidays .
2 ||| This version incarnates the prophetic book in a way even its exacting author might admire .
1 ||| Sometimes , nothing satisfies like old-fashioned swashbuckling .
3 ||| And in this regard , On Guard delivers .
3 ||| ... ambition is in short supply in the cinema , and Egoyan tackles his themes and explores his characters ' crises with seriousness and compassion .
1 ||| An impossible romance , but we root for the patronized Iranian lad .
4 ||| Like Dickens with his passages , McGrath crafts quite moving scenes throughout his resolutely dramatic variation on the novel .
3 ||| There 's a disreputable air about the whole thing , and that 's what makes it irresistible .
3 ||| an exceedingly clever piece of cinema .
4 ||| another great ` what you do n't see ' is much more terrifying than what you do see thriller , coupled with some arresting effects , incandescent tones and stupendous performances
3 ||| A carefully structured scream of consciousness that is tortured and unsettling -- but unquestionably alive .
4 ||| A quietly reflective and melancholy New Zealand film about an eventful summer in a 13-year-old girl 's life .
4 ||| Cute , funny , heartwarming digitally animated feature film with plenty of slapstick humor for the kids , lots of in-jokes for the adults and heart enough for everyone .
3 ||| very solid , very watchable first feature for director Peter Sheridan
3 ||| a budget affair that exposes the generally sad existence of the Bedouins while providing a precious twinkle of insight into their lives .
2 ||| It suggests the wide-ranging effects of media manipulation , from the kind of reporting that is done by the supposedly liberal media ... to the intimate and ultimately tragic heartache of maverick individuals like Hatfield and Hicks .
3 ||| Workmanlike , maybe , but still a film with all the elements that made the other three great , scary times at the movies .
3 ||| A pleasant enough comedy that should have found a summer place .
1 ||| Branagh , in his most forceful non-Shakespeare screen performance , grounds even the softest moments in the angry revolt of his wit .
1 ||| Though the violence is far less sadistic than usual , the film is typical Miike : fast , furious and full of off-the-cuff imaginative flourishes .
3 ||| Compelling as it is exotic , Fast Runner has a plot that rivals Shakespeare for intrigue , treachery and murder .
3 ||| What it lacks in originality it makes up for in intelligence and B-grade stylishness .
2 ||| The warm presence of Zhao Benshan makes the preposterous lying hero into something more than he reasonably should be .
4 ||| This is as powerful a set of evidence as you 'll ever find of why art matters , and how it can resonate far beyond museum walls and through to the most painfully marginal lives .
3 ||| Director Rob Marshall went out gunning to make a great one .
1 ||| Skip work to see it at the first opportunity .
2 ||| Bow 's best moments are when he 's getting busy on the basketball court because that 's when he really scores .
3 ||| Offers enough playful fun to entertain the preschool set while embracing a wholesome attitude .
2 ||| In the end , Punch-Drunk Love is one of those films that I wanted to like much more than I actually did .
2 ||| Sometimes , that 's enough .
3 ||| An intimate , good-humored ethnic comedy like numerous others but cuts deeper than expected .
4 ||| Ice Cube holds the film together with an engaging and warm performance ...
3 ||| Both deeply weird and charmingly dear .
3 ||| As blunt as it is in depicting child abuse , El Bola is a movie steeped in an ambiguity that lends its conflicts a symbolic resonance .
1 ||| Despite a story predictable enough to make The Sound of Music play like a nail-biting thriller , its heart is so much in the right place it is difficult to get really peeved at it .
3 ||| An incredibly low-rent Danish film , it brings a group of people together in a sweet and charming way , if a little convenient
3 ||| It 's the cinematic equivalent of a good page-turner , and even if it 's nonsense , its claws dig surprisingly deep .
1 ||| Director Nalin Pan does n't do much to weigh any arguments one way or the other .
3 ||| He simply presents his point of view that Ayurveda works .
1 ||| No question .
3 ||| Claude Miller airs out a tight plot with an easy pace and a focus on character drama over crime-film complications .
1 ||| What Full Frontal lacks in thematic coherence it largely makes up for as loosey-goosey , experimental entertainment .
2 ||| Still , I 'm not quite sure what the point is ...
4 ||| Rich in detail , gorgeously shot and beautifully acted , Les Destinees is , in its quiet , epic way , daring , inventive and refreshingly unusual .
4 ||| -LRB- A -RRB- Hollywood sheen bedevils the film from the very beginning ... -LRB- but -RRB- Lohman 's moist , deeply emotional eyes shine through this bogus veneer ...
1 ||| Do we really need a 77-minute film to tell us exactly why a romantic relationship between a 15-year-old boy and a 40-year-old woman does n't work ?
4 ||| Ford deserves to be remembered at Oscar time for crafting this wonderful portrait of a conflicted soldier .
1 ||| The film 's 45-minute running time stops shy of overkill , though viewers may be more exhausted than the athletes onscreen .
1 ||| Do n't expect any surprises in this checklist of teamwork cliches ...
3 ||| As adapted by Kevin Molony from Simon Leys ' novel `` The Death of Napoleon '' and directed by Alan Taylor , Napoleon 's journey is interesting but his Parisian rebirth is stillborn
1 ||| The movie addresses a hungry need for PG-rated , nonthreatening family movies , but it does n't go too much further .
4 ||| This warm and gentle romantic comedy has enough interesting characters to fill several movies , and its ample charms should win over the most hard-hearted cynics .
1 ||| A yarn that respects the Marvel version without becoming ensnared by it .
1 ||| This is a happy throwback to the time when cartoons were cinema 's most idiosyncratic form instead of one of its most predictable .
3 ||| Complex , affecting and uniquely Almodóvar , the film evokes strong emotions and pushes viewers to question their deepest notions of moral right and wrong .
3 ||| Good ol' urban legend stuff .
1 ||| Not so much a movie as a picture book for the big screen .
3 ||| This is n't my favorite in the series , still I enjoyed it enough to recommend .
4 ||| It 's one of the most honest films ever made about Hollywood .
4 ||| It is a film that will have people walking out halfway through , will encourage others to stand up and applaud , and will , undoubtedly , leave both camps engaged in a ferocious debate for years to come .
3 ||| On its own cinematic terms , it successfully showcases the passions of both the director and novelist Byatt .
3 ||| Pray 's film works well and will appeal even to those who are n't too familiar with turntablism .
3 ||| Good movie .
4 ||| Good actress .
3 ||| But if you expect light romantic comedy , good gosh , will you be shocked .
4 ||| It has the courage to wonder about big questions with sincerity and devotion .
3 ||| It risks seeming slow and pretentious , because it thinks the gamble is worth the promise .
4 ||| With youthful high spirits , Tautou remains captivating throughout Michele 's religious and romantic quests , and she is backed by a likable cast .
1 ||| It 's an example of sophisticated , challenging filmmaking that stands , despite its noticeable lack of emotional heft , in welcome contrast to the indulgent dead-end experimentation of the director 's previous Full Frontal .
3 ||| A very funny look at how another culture handles the process of courting and marriage .
3 ||| Anchored by a terrific performance by Abbass , Satin Rouge shows that the idea of women 's self-actualization knows few continental divides .
3 ||| Awkward but sincere and , ultimately , it wins you over .
3 ||| Smith profiles five extraordinary American homes , and because the owners seem fully aware of the uses and abuses of fame , it 's a pleasure to enjoy their eccentricities .
3 ||| Though the plot is predictable , the movie never feels formulaic , because the attention is on the nuances of the emotional development of the delicate characters .
1 ||| Sam Jones became a very lucky filmmaker the day Wilco got dropped from their record label , proving that one man 's ruin may be another 's fortune .
4 ||| Goyer 's screenplay and direction are thankfully understated , and he has drawn excellent performances from his cast .
4 ||| Binoche and Magimel are perfect in these roles .
1 ||| When your leading ladies are a couple of screen-eating dominatrixes like Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon at their raunchy best , even hokum goes down easily .
3 ||| While Undercover Brother is definitely one for the masses , it 's also full of sharp , smart satire .
1 ||| Gets under the skin of a man who has just lost his wife .
1 ||| No wonder they 're talking about `` Talk to Her . ''
3 ||| It 's astonishing .
1 ||| For its seriousness , high literary aspirations and stunning acting , the film can only be applauded .
4 ||| Look , this is a terrific flick replete with dazzling camera-work , dancing and music .
2 ||| It is inspirational in characterizing how people from such diverse cultures share the same human and spiritual needs .
1 ||| It 's fairly self-aware in its dumbness .
3 ||| A triumph , relentless and beautiful in its downbeat darkness .
3 ||| Tailored to entertain !
4 ||| A compelling , moving film that respects its audience and its source material .
2 ||| has a plot full of twists upon knots ... and a nonstop parade of mock-Tarantino scuzbag types that starts out clever but veers into overkill .
4 ||| A work of astonishing delicacy and force .
1 ||| The film benefits greatly from a less manic tone than its predecessor , as Cho appears to have settled comfortably into her skin .
1 ||| For the first time in several years , Mr. Allen has surpassed himself with the magic he 's spun with the Hollywood empress of Ms. Leoni 's Ellie .
2 ||| Is n't quite the equal of Woo 's best earlier work , but it 's easily his finest American film ... comes close to recapturing the brilliance of his Hong Kong films .
3 ||| The film hinges on its performances , and both leads are up to the task .
3 ||| An intelligent , earnest , intimate film that drops the ball only when it pauses for blunt exposition to make sure you 're getting its metaphysical point .
3 ||| A modest pleasure that accomplishes its goals with ease and confidence .
1 ||| A breezy , diverting , conventional , well-acted tale of two men locked in an ongoing game of cat-and-cat .
4 ||| What Jackson has accomplished here is amazing on a technical level .
4 ||| As teen movies go , `` Orange County '' is a refreshing change
3 ||| Makes S&M seem very romantic , and Maggie Gyllenhaal is a delight .
3 ||| A deliciously mordant , bitter black comedy .
4 ||| Although Life or Something Like It is very much in the mold of feel-good movies , the cast and director Stephen Herek 's polished direction pour delightfully piquant wine from aged bottles .
3 ||| It is risky , intelligent , romantic and rapturous from start to finish .
1 ||| The movie sticks much closer to Hornby 's drop-dead confessional tone than the film version of High Fidelity did .
3 ||| A pleasant ramble through the sort of idoosyncratic terrain that Errol Morris has often dealt with ... it does possess a loose , lackadaisical charm .
4 ||| This is a raw and disturbing tale that took five years to make , and the trio 's absorbing narrative is a heart-wrenching showcase indeed .
4 ||| A beautiful and haunting examination of the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the mundane horrors of the world .
4 ||| Aside from being the funniest movie of the year , Simone , Andrew Niccol 's brilliant anti-Hollywood satire , has a wickedly eccentric enchantment to it .
3 ||| Watstein handily directs and edits around his screenplay 's sappier elements ... and sustains Off the Hook 's buildup with remarkable assuredness for a first-timer .
1 ||| Just another fish-out-of-water story that barely stays afloat .
1 ||| It 's the kind of pigeonhole-resisting romp that Hollywood too rarely provides .
4 ||| Reinforces the often forgotten fact of the world 's remarkably varying human population and mindset , and its capacity to heal using creative , natural and ancient antidotes .
3 ||| You can feel the heat that ignites this gripping tale , and the humor and humanity that root it in feeling .
3 ||| It 's hard not to be seduced by -LRB- Witherspoon 's -RRB- charisma , even in this run-of-the-mill vehicle , because this girl knows how to drive it to the max .
3 ||| A movie for 11-year-old boys with sports dreams of their own and the preteen girls who worship Lil ' Bow Wow .
4 ||| A refreshingly authentic coming-of-age tale .
2 ||| If you 're not into the Pokemon franchise , this fourth animated movie in four years wo n't convert you -- or even keep your eyes open .
3 ||| But fans should have fun meeting a brand-new Pokemon called Celebi .
3 ||| From the big giant titles of the opening credits to Elmer Bernstein 's perfectly melodic score , Haynes gets just about everything right .
1 ||| Whether seen on a 10-inch television screen or at your local multiplex , the edge-of-your-seat , educational antics of Steve Irwin are priceless entertainment .
4 ||| Has a shambling charm ... a cheerfully inconsequential diversion .
4 ||| Ferrara directs the entire film with the kind of detachment that makes any given frame look like a family 's custom-made Christmas card .
4 ||| The movie has lots of dancing and fabulous music .
3 ||| There are slow and repetitive parts , but it has just enough spice to keep it interesting .
3 ||| An incredibly clever and superbly paced caper filled with scams within scams within scams .
0 ||| There 's not much more to this adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel than charm -- effortless , pleasurable , featherweight charm .
4 ||| As a belated nod to some neglected all-stars , Standing in the Shadows of Motown is cultural history of the best kind : informative , revealing and richly entertaining .
2 ||| Even if the ride 's a little bumpy , with a final lap that 's all too suspiciously smooth , you gotta give director Roger Michell , best known for the superfluous Notting Hill , credit for trying .
3 ||| Not as distinctive or even as humorous as its needs to be to stand out , but it has clearly been made with affection and care .
3 ||| This is Carion 's debut feature but his script and direction hums with a confidence that many spend entire careers trying to reach .
4 ||| An intelligent , moving and invigorating film .
4 ||| ... one of the most ingenious and entertaining thrillers I 've seen in quite a long time .
4 ||| A clever blend of fact and fiction .
3 ||| A vivid cinematic portrait .
4 ||| Hilarious , touching and wonderfully dyspeptic .
4 ||| Theirs is a simple and heart-warming story , full of mirth that should charm all but the most cynical .
3 ||| The film is an enjoyable family film -- pretty much aimed at any youngster who loves horses .
3 ||| A frisky and fresh romantic comedy exporing sexual politics and the challenges of friendships between women .
3 ||| It 's a good film -- not a classic , but odd , entertaining and authentic .
4 ||| Flavorful and romantic , you could call this How Martha Got Her Groove Back -- assuming , that is , she ever had one to begin with .
1 ||| Happily for Mr. Chin -- though unhappily for his subjects -- the invisible hand of the marketplace wrote a script that no human screenwriter could have hoped to match .
4 ||| Thurman and Lewis are hilarious throughout .
1 ||| the plot is so amusingly contrived and outlandish in its coincidences that no one could ever mistake it for anything resembling reality
1 ||| Hits one out of the park for the ` they do n't make 'em like that anymore ' department .
3 ||| It dares to be a little different , and that shading is what makes it worthwhile .
1 ||| -LRB- Fessenden -RRB- is much more into ambiguity and creating mood than he is for on screen thrills
3 ||| The comic performances are all spot on , especially Lee Ross 's turn as Ken .
4 ||| a compelling journey ... and `` His Best Friend Remembers '' is up there with the finest of specials .
2 ||| At nearly three hours , the whole of Safe Conduct is less than the sum of its parts .
3 ||| The Hours makes you examine your own life in much the same way its characters do , and the experience is profound .
1 ||| The Hours is what movies are supposed to be ...
4 ||| A bold and subversive film that cuts across the grain of what is popular and powerful in this high-tech age , speaking its truths with spellbinding imagery and the entrancing music of Philip Glass .
3 ||| Pretty darn good , despite its smarty-pants aura .
4 ||| So young , so smart , such talent , such a wise \*\*\* .
2 ||| Woo 's fights have a distinct flair .
3 ||| His warriors collide in balletic explosion that implies an underlying order throughout the chaos .
3 ||| Barney has created a tour de force that is weird , wacky and wonderful .
4 ||| The ending does leave you unfulfilled , but these are performances to enjoy in a memorable ensemble piece .
2 ||| ... an agreeable time-wasting device -- but George Pal 's low-tech 1960 version still rules the epochs .
4 ||| It 's a brave attempt to tap into the heartbeat of the world , a salute to the universal language of rhythm and a zippy sampling of sounds .
3 ||| Offers an unusual opportunity to observe the inequities in the death penalty , not just the inherent immorality but also the haphazard administration of it and public misperception of how the whole thing works .
3 ||| I do n't think I 've been as entranced and appalled by an Asian film since Shinya Tsukamoto 's Iron Man .
3 ||| It is so refreshing to see Robin Williams turn 180 degrees from the string of insultingly innocuous and sappy fiascoes he 's been making for the last several years .
3 ||| Director Benoit Jacquot , making his first opera-to-film translation with Tosca , conveys the heaving passion of Puccini 's famous love-jealousy - murder-suicide fandango with great cinematic innovation .
3 ||| Lilia 's transformation from strict mother to sensual siren is superficially preposterous , but Abbas infuses the role with an unimpeachable core of emotional truth .
4 ||| Frida 's artistic brilliance is undeniable -- it 's among the most breathtakingly designed films I 've ever seen .
3 ||| The perfect film for those who like sick comedies that can be snide .
1 ||| ` Charly ' will divide its audience in two separate groups , those reaching for more tissues and those begging for mercy ...
3 ||| Nervy and sensitive , it taps into genuine artistic befuddlement , and at the same time presents a scathing indictment of what drives Hollywood .
4 ||| A marvellous journey from childhood idealism to adolescent self-absorption .
4 ||| The film is just a big , gorgeous , mind-blowing , breath-taking mess .
4 ||| Sharp , lively , funny and ultimately sobering film .
3 ||| Though the film 's scenario is certainly not earthshaking , this depiction of fluctuating female sexuality has two winning lead performances and charm to spare .
4 ||| A worthy tribute to a great humanitarian and her vibrant ` co-stars . '
3 ||| A recent favourite at Sundance , this white-trash satire will inspire the affection of even those unlucky people who never owned a cassette of Def Leppard 's Pyromania .
4 ||| The recording session is the only part of the film that is enlightening -- and how appreciative you are of this depends on your level of fandom .
4 ||| Occasionally funny and consistently odd , and it works reasonably well as a star vehicle for Zhao .
3 ||| Bright seems alternately amused and disgusted with this material , and he ca n't help throwing in a few of his own touches .
1 ||| The 3D images only enhance the film 's otherworldly quality , giving it a strange combo of you-are-there closeness with the disorienting unreality of the seemingly broken-down fourth wall of the movie screen .
1 ||| Andersson creates a world that 's at once surreal and disturbingly familiar ; absurd , yet tremendously sad .
3 ||| It 's predictable , but it jumps through the expected hoops with style and even some depth .
4 ||| Often hilarious , well-shot and , importantly , entertaining , Hell House is a fascinating document of an event that has to be seen to be believed .
3 ||| De Oliveira creates an emotionally rich , poetically plump and visually fulsome , but never showy , film whose bittersweet themes are reinforced and brilliantly personified by Michel Piccoli .
3 ||| ... an inviting piece of film .
1 ||| The film 's real appeal wo n't be to Clooney fans or adventure buffs , but to moviegoers who enjoy thinking about compelling questions with no easy answers .
4 ||| The fact that The Rookie is a nearly impeccable cinematic experience -- and a wonderful all-ages triumph besides -- is a miracle akin to the story the film portrays .
2 ||| A deviant topical comedy which is funny from start to finish .
3 ||| A startling and fresh examination of how the bike still remains an ambiguous icon in Chinese society .
3 ||| A highly intriguing thriller , coupled with some ingenious plot devices and some lavishly built settings . .
4 ||| it 's a worthwhile tutorial in quantum physics and slash-dash
4 ||| As Hugh Grant says repeatedly throughout the movie , ` Lovely !
2 ||| Brilliant ! '
1 ||| Cho 's fearless in picking apart human foibles , not afraid to lay her life bare in front of an audience .
1 ||| Her delivery and timing are flawless .
3 ||| Works because , for the most part , it avoids the stupid cliches and formulaic potholes that befall its brethren .
4 ||| At its best , The Good Girl is a refreshingly adult take on adultery ...
4 ||| An amazing and incendiary movie that dives straight into the rough waters of contradiction .
1 ||| About nowhere kids who appropriated turfs as they found them and become self-made celebrity athletes -- a low-down version of the American dream .
1 ||| Occasionally , in the course of reviewing art-house obscurities and slam-bam action flicks , a jaded critic smacks into something truly new .
2 ||| A miniscule little bleep on the film radar , but one that many more people should check out
4 ||| A slick , well-oiled machine , exquisitely polished and upholstered .
3 ||| Do n't plan on the perfect ending , but Sweet Home Alabama hits the mark with critics who escaped from a small town life .
3 ||| It has a subtle way of getting under your skin and sticking with you long after it 's over .
3 ||| The movie stays afloat thanks to its hallucinatory production design .
4 ||| It helps that the central performers are experienced actors , and that they know their roles so well .
3 ||| A provocative movie about loss , anger , greed , jealousy , sickness and love .
3 ||| Worth the effort to watch .
4 ||| That rara avis : the intelligent romantic comedy with actual ideas on its mind .
4 ||| Boisterous and daft documentary .
4 ||| Hawke draws out the best from his large cast in beautifully articulated portrayals that are subtle and so expressive they can sustain the poetic flights in Burdette 's dialogue .
3 ||| A work of the utmost subtlety and perception , it marks the outstanding feature debut of writer-director Eric Byler , who understands the power of the implicit and the virtues of simplicity and economy .
1 ||| Full Frontal is the antidote for Soderbergh fans who think he 's gone too commercial since his two Oscar nominated films in 2000
4 ||| It turns out to be a cut above the norm , thanks to some clever writing and sprightly acting .
2 ||| You might not want to hang out with Samantha , but you 'll probably see a bit of yourself in her unfinished story .
3 ||| A work of intricate elegance , literary lyricism and profound common sense .
3 ||| It 's as close as we 'll ever come to looking through a photographer 's viewfinder as he works .
4 ||| Thoughtful , provocative and entertaining .
3 ||| Witty , touching and well paced .
4 ||| Lee Jeong-Hyang tells it so lovingly and films it so beautifully that I could n't help being captivated by it .
1 ||| You have to pay attention to follow all the stories , but they 're each interesting .
3 ||| The movie is well shot and very tragic , and one to ponder after the credits roll .
1 ||| Enjoy it for what it is ; you can hate yourself later .
4 ||| A map of the inner rhythms of love and jealousy and sacrifice drawn with a master 's steady stroke .
4 ||| A psychological thriller with a smart script and an obsessive-compulsive 's attention to detail .
3 ||| Grant gets to display his cadness to perfection , but also to show acting range that may surprise some who thought light-hearted comedy was his forte .
4 ||| At times funny and at other times candidly revealing , it 's an intriguing look at two performers who put themselves out there because they love what they do .
3 ||| Westfeldt and Juergensen exude a chemistry and comfort level that 's both saucy and endearing .
3 ||| Harsh , effective documentary on life in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories .
3 ||| The film is all a little Lit Crit 101 , but it 's extremely well played and often very funny .
2 ||| Earns its laughs from stock redneck ` types ' and from the many , many moments when we recognize even without the Elizabethan prose , the play behind the thing .
2 ||| A real story about real people living their lives concerned about the future of an elderly , mentally handicapped family member .
3 ||| It 's absolutely spooky how Lillard channels the Shagster right down to the original Casey Kasem-furnished voice .
3 ||| A dream cast of solid female talent who build a seamless ensemble .
1 ||| There is n't a weak or careless performance amongst them .
3 ||| Smart science fiction for grown-ups , with only a few false steps along the way .
3 ||| It 's a refreshing change from the self-interest and paranoia that shape most American representations of Castro .
1 ||| Often moving and explores the discomfort inherent in the contacts between the American ` hosts ' and their ` guests . '
4 ||| Though the controversial Korean filmmaker 's latest effort is not for all tastes , it offers gorgeous imagery , effective performances , and an increasingly unsettling sense of foreboding .
3 ||| Lathan and Diggs have considerable personal charm , and their screen rapport makes the old story seem new .
3 ||| The story may not be new , but Australian director John Polson , making his American feature debut , jazzes it up adroitly .
4 ||| It 's endearing to hear Madame D. refer to her husband as ` Jackie ' -- and he does make for excellent company , not least as a self-conscious performer .
4 ||| The film often achieves a mesmerizing poetry .
1 ||| More than makes up for its mawkish posing by offering rousing spates of genuine feeling .
1 ||| It 's neither as romantic nor as thrilling as it should be .
3 ||| But it offers plenty to ponder and chew on as its unusual relationship slowly unfolds .
4 ||| Occasionally funny , always very colorful and enjoyably overblown in the traditional Almodóvar style .
3 ||| Merchant effectively translates Naipaul 's lively mix of characters from the page to screen .
4 ||| Some movies are like a tasty hors-d'oeuvre ; this one is a feast .
3 ||| What could have become just another cautionary fable is allowed to play out as a clever , charming tale -- as pleasantly in its own way as its self-dramatizing characters .
3 ||| Davis has filled out his cast with appealing fresh faces .
3 ||| Achieves a sort of filmic epiphany that revels in the true potential of the medium .
3 ||| Once you get into its rhythm ... the movie becomes a heady experience .
4 ||| A fast-moving and remarkable film that appears destined to become a landmark in Japanese animation .
3 ||| A worthy entry into a very difficult genre .
3 ||| -LRB- Broomfield -RRB- uncovers a story powerful enough to leave the screen sizzling with intrigue .
1 ||| Eight Crazy Nights is a showcase for Sandler 's many talents .
3 ||| A sweet-natured reconsideration of one of San Francisco 's most vital , if least widely recognized , creative fountainheads .
4 ||| This is one of the most visually stunning and thematically moving epics in recent memory , and in spite of numerous minor flaws , Scorsese 's best in more than a decade .
4 ||| Everywhere the camera looks there is something worth seeing .
4 ||| A richly imagined and admirably mature work from a gifted director who definitely has something on his mind .
1 ||| It 's a nicely detailed world of pawns , bishops and kings , of wagers in dingy backrooms or pristine forests .
4 ||| A charming , quirky and leisurely paced Scottish comedy -- except with an outrageous central gimmick that could have been a reject from Monty Python 's Meaning of Life .
1 ||| It never fails to engage us .
3 ||| Its direction , its script , and Weaver 's performance as a vaguely discontented woman of substance make for a mildly entertaining 77 minutes , if that 's what you 're in the mood for .
4 ||| A charming romantic comedy that is by far the lightest Dogme film and among the most enjoyable .
2 ||| This is the kind of movie that used to be right at home at the Saturday matinee , and it still is .
3 ||| The spark of special anime magic here is unmistakable and hard to resist .
2 ||| Like its two predecessors , 1983 's Koyaanisqatsi and 1988 's Powaqqatsi , the cinematic collage Naqoyqatsi could be the most navel-gazing film ever .
3 ||| Baran is n't the most transporting or gripping film from Iran -- or , indeed , by its director -- but it 's a worthy companion to the many fine , focused films emerging from that most surprising of nations .
4 ||| The visuals alone make Metropolis worth seeing .
4 ||| Dark , resonant , inventively detailed and packed with fleet turns of plot and a feast of visual amazement .
4 ||| A picture that extols the virtues of comradeship and community in a spunky , spirited fashion .
3 ||| A resonant tale of racism , revenge and retribution .
3 ||| Noyce 's film is contemplative and mournfully reflective .
1 ||| Here , Adrian Lyne comes as close to profundity as he is likely to get .
3 ||| Evokes a little of the fear that parents have for the possible futures of their children -- and the sometimes bad choices mothers and fathers make in the interests of doing them good .
1 ||| Rain is a small treasure , enveloping the viewer in a literal and spiritual torpor that is anything but cathartic .
4 ||| An elegant , exquisitely modulated psychological thriller .
4 ||| This concoction , so bizarre to the adult mind , is actually a charming triumph where its intended under-12 audience is concerned .
1 ||| Droll caper-comedy remake of `` Big Deal on Madonna Street '' that 's a sly , amusing , laugh-filled little gem in which the ultimate `` Bellini '' begins to look like a `` real Kaputschnik . ''
3 ||| It 's a beautifully accomplished lyrical meditation on a bunch of despondent and vulnerable characters living in the renown Chelsea Hotel ...
1 ||| Is it a total success ?
1 ||| No. .
1 ||| Is it something any true film addict will want to check out ?
2 ||| You bet .
3 ||| Zany , exuberantly irreverent animated space adventure .
4 ||| Dolgin and Franco fashion a fascinating portrait of a Vietnamese-born youngster who eagerly and easily assimilated as an all-American girl with a brand new name in southern Tennessee .
3 ||| The disarming cornball atmosphere has a way of infecting the entire crowd as the film rolls on .
4 ||| A refreshingly honest and ultimately touching tale of the sort of people usually ignored in contemporary American film .
1 ||| Search it out .
3 ||| Engrossing and affecting , if ultimately not quite satisfying .
1 ||| The story , like life , refuses to be simple , and the result is a compelling slice of awkward emotions .
1 ||| A sly game of cat and mouse that 's intense and thrilling at times , but occasionally stretches believability to its limits and relies on predictable plot contrivances .
3 ||| Funny and , at times , poignant , the film from director George Hickenlooper all takes place in Pasadena , `` a city where people still read . ''
1 ||| This horror-comedy does n't go for the usual obvious laughs at the expense of cheap-looking monsters -- unless you count Elvira 's hooters .
3 ||| The movie 's eventual success should be credited to Dennis Quaid , in fighting trim shape as an athlete as well as an actor
1 ||| Not a bad journey at all .
1 ||| Sits uneasily as a horror picture ... but finds surprising depth in its look at the binds of a small family .
1 ||| Windtalkers blows this way and that , but there 's no mistaking the filmmaker in the tall grass , true to himself .
4 ||| There is a refreshing absence of cynicism in Stuart Little 2 -- quite a rarity , even in the family film market .
3 ||| Eventually , it wins you over .
1 ||| Noyce films it more as a shocking history lesson than as drama .
2 ||| Like a south-of-the-border Melrose Place .
1 ||| Those with an interest in new or singular sorts of film experiences will find What Time Is It There ?
4 ||| well worth the time .
3 ||| A wildly funny prison caper .
3 ||| Huppert gives Erika a persona that is so intriguing that you find yourself staring hypnotically at her , trying to understand her and wondering if she 'll crack .
3 ||| Despite what anyone believes about the goal of its makers , the show ... represents a spectacular piece of theater , and there 's no denying the talent of the creative forces behind it .
3 ||| You 'll be left with the sensation of having just witnessed a great performance and , perhaps , give in to the urge to get on your feet and shake it .
3 ||| The actors are so terrific at conveying their young angst , we do indeed feel for them .
3 ||| The reason this picture works better than its predecessors is that Myers is no longer simply spoofing the mini-mod-madness of '60s spy movies .
3 ||| It is a kickass , dense sci-fi action thriller hybrid that delivers and then some .
1 ||| I have n't seen one in so long , no wonder I did n't recognize it at first .
4 ||| a compelling portrait of moral emptiness
3 ||| In Adobo , ethnicity is not just the spice , but at the heart of more universal concerns .
3 ||| It is ridiculous , of course ... but it is also refreshing , disarming , and just outright enjoyable despite its ridiculousness .
3 ||| ... Blade II is more enjoyable than the original .
3 ||| A film that takes you inside the rhythms of its subject : You experience it as you watch .
3 ||| The movie exists for its soccer action and its fine acting .
4 ||| The movie is saved from unbearable lightness by the simplicity of the storytelling and the authenticity of the performances .
3 ||| The film starts out as competent but unremarkable ... and gradually grows into something of considerable power .
3 ||| Nothing Denis has made before , like Beau Travil and Nenette et Boni , could prepare us for this gory , perverted , sex-soaked riff on the cannibal genre .
4 ||| Reinforces the talents of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman , creator of Adaptation and Being John Malkovich .
4 ||| Greene delivers a typically solid performance in a role that is a bit of a departure from the noble characters he has played in the past , and he is matched by Schweig , who carries the film on his broad , handsome shoulders .
3 ||| Finds a way to tell a simple story , perhaps the simplest story of all , in a way that seems compelling and even original .
4 ||| A stunning piece of visual poetry that will , hopefully , be remembered as one of the most important stories to be told in Australia 's film history .
1 ||| This is art paying homage to art .
4 ||| ... a joke at once flaky and resonant , lightweight and bizarrely original .
4 ||| Invincible is a wonderful movie .
3 ||| ... a cute and sometimes side-splittingly funny blend of Legally Blonde and Drop Dead Gorgeous , starring Piper Perabo in what could be her breakthrough role .
4 ||| Dazzling and sugar-sweet , a blast of shallow magnificence that only sex , scandal , and a chorus line of dangerous damsels can deliver .
1 ||| Occasionally amateurishly made but a winsome cast and nice dialogue keeps it going .
3 ||| Japan 's premier stylist of sex and blood hits audiences with what may be his most demented film to date .
1 ||| Culkin , who 's in virtually every scene , shines as a young man who uses sarcastic lies like a shield .
2 ||| Cuts right through the B.S. giving a big middle-fingered `` shut up '' to those who talk up what is nothing more than two guys beating the hell outta one another .
1 ||| The AM-radio soundtrack and game cast -- Tierney and the inimitable Walken especially -- keep this unusual comedy from choking on its own conceit .
3 ||| ... does such a fine job of engulfing you in its world and allying you with its characters ' choices , good and ill , that its shortcomings are remembered only as an afterthought .
4 ||| Marvelous , merry and , yes , melancholy film .
3 ||| From spiritual rebirth to bruising defeat , Vincent 's odyssey resonates in a profound way , comparable to the classic films of Jean Renoir .
3 ||| Novak manages to capture a cruelly hilarious vein of black comedy in the situation with his cast of non-actors and a gritty , no-budget approach .
2 ||| Insomnia is involving .
2 ||| Still , I thought it could have been more .
2 ||| There was time on that second round to see the subtleties of Ramsay 's portrait of grief .
3 ||| We can see the wheels turning , and we might resent it sometimes , but this is still a nice little picture , made by bright and friendly souls with a lot of good cheer .
3 ||| A comprehensive and provocative film -- one that pushes the boundaries of biography , and challenges its audience .
4 ||| The way Coppola professes his love for movies -- both colorful pop junk and the classics that unequivocally qualify as art -- is giddily entertaining .
4 ||| A worthwhile way to spend two hours .
1 ||| Francophiles will snicker knowingly and you 'll want to slap them .
4 ||| Sensitive , insightful and beautifully rendered film .
4 ||| One of the best of the year .
4 ||| A love for films shines through each frame and the era is recreated with obvious affection , scored to perfection with some tasty boogaloo beats .
3 ||| Throwing caution to the wind with an invitation to the hedonist in us all , Nair has constructed this motion picture in such a way that even the most cynical curmudgeon with find himself or herself smiling at one time or another .
3 ||| Makes an aborbing if arguable case for the man 's greatness .
4 ||| An endlessly fascinating , landmark movie that is as bold as anything the cinema has seen in years .
1 ||| ... a haunting vision , with images that seem more like disturbing hallucinations .
2 ||| It is not a mass-market entertainment but an uncompromising attempt by one artist to think about another .
1 ||| Frailty is n't as gory or explicit .
2 ||| But in its child-centered , claustrophobic context , it can be just as frightening and disturbing -- even punishing .
4 ||| Mixes likeable personalities , inventive photography and cutting , and wall-to-wall toe-tapping music to paint a picture of a subculture that is at once exhilarating , silly , perverse , hopeful and always fun .
1 ||| The long-range appeal of `` Minority Report '' should transcend any awards it bags .
4 ||| This is one for the ages .
2 ||| -LRB- A -RRB- superbly controlled , passionate adaptation of Graham Greene 's 1955 novel .
1 ||| Much monkeyfun for all .
4 ||| An enchanting film that presents an audacious tour of the past and takes within its warm embrace the bounties of cultural artifacts inside St. Petersburg 's Hermitage Museum .
1 ||| -LRB- Hawn 's character -RRB- is so bluntly written , without a trace of sentimentality , and so blisteringly defined , that every other character seems overlooked and underwritten .
1 ||| The heightened symmetry of this new\/old Cinema Paradiso makes the film a fuller experience , like an old friend haunted by the exigencies of time .
3 ||| The Powers team has fashioned a comedy with more laughs than many , no question .
1 ||| But this time there 's some mold on the gold .
4 ||| While surprisingly sincere , this average little story is adorned with some awesome action photography and surfing .
0 ||| It is far from the worst , thanks to the topical issues it raises , the performances of Stewart and Hardy , and that essential feature -- a decent full-on space battle .
4 ||| A film that is a portrait of grace in an imperfect world .
3 ||| A pleasurably jacked-up piece of action moviemaking .
4 ||| Nicolas Philibert observes life inside a one-room schoolhouse in northern France in his documentary To Be and to Have , easily one of the best films of the year .
3 ||| A perverse little truffle , dainty psychological terror on the outside with a creamy filling of familial jealousy and unrepentant domestic psychopathy .
4 ||| This ecologically minded , wildlife friendly film teaches good ethics while entertaining with its unconventionally wacky but loving family
3 ||| An enjoyably half-wit remake of the venerable Italian comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street .
1 ||| It takes this never-ending confusion and hatred , puts a human face on it , evokes shame among all who are party to it and even promotes understanding .
2 ||| Reign of Fire may be little more than another platter of reheated Aliens , but it 's still pretty tasty .
1 ||| There are times when A Rumor of Angels plays like an extended episode of Touched by an Angel -- a little too much dancing , a few too many weeping scenes -- but I liked its heart and its spirit .
2 ||| Two hours of melodramatic musical married to two hours of underdog sports intrigue , if the picture also shares the weaknesses of both genres , more 's the pity .
4 ||| This cheery , down-to-earth film is warm with the cozy feeling of relaxing around old friends .
4 ||| Thrilling , provocative and darkly funny , this timely sci-fi mystery works on so many different levels that it not only invites , it demands repeated viewings .
3 ||| A tale of horror and revenge that is nearly perfect in its relentless descent to the depths of one man 's tortured soul .
2 ||| An epic of grandeur and scale that 's been decades gone from the popcorn pushing sound stages of Hollywood .
4 ||| Genuinely touching because it 's realistic about all kinds of love .
4 ||| Lauren Ambrose comes alive under the attention from two strangers in town - with honest performances and realistic interaction between the characters , this is a coming-of-age story with a twist .
1 ||| There has been much puzzlement among critics about what the election symbolizes .
1 ||| I believe the message is in the messenger : The agent is a woman .
4 ||| An enjoyable film for the family , amusing and cute for both adults and kids .
2 ||| `` The Mothman Prophecies '' is a difficult film to shake from your conscience when night falls .
4 ||| The second chapter of the Harry Potter series is even more magical than the first and simply the best family film of the year .
2 ||| More honest about Alzheimer 's disease , I think , than Iris .
4 ||| The acting alone is worth the price of admission .
4 ||| An excellent romp that boasts both a heart and a mind .
3 ||| Interacting eyeball-to-eyeball and toe-to-toe , Hopkins and Norton are a winning combination -- but Fiennes steals ` Red Dragon ' right from under their noses .
3 ||| This is a terrific character study , a probe into the life of a complex man .
3 ||| Impresses you with its open-endedness and surprises .
1 ||| This is n't a narrative film -- I do n't know if it 's possible to make a narrative film about September 11th , though I 'm sure some will try -- but it 's as close as anyone has dared to come .
3 ||| My oh my , is this an invigorating , electric movie .
1 ||| The two leads chomp considerably more scenery with their acting than fire-breathing monsters barbecue with their breath ...
4 ||| Cedar takes a very open-minded approach to this sensitive material , showing impressive control , both visually and in the writing .
3 ||| Biggie and Tupac is so single-mindedly daring , it puts far more polished documentaries to shame .
4 ||| So many documentaries like this presuppose religious bigotry or zealous nuttiness of its antagonists , but Family Fundamentals displays a rare gift for unflinching impartiality .
4 ||| The cast is uniformly excellent and relaxed .
3 ||| After making several adaptations of other writers ' work , Armenian-Canadian director Atom Egoyan broached an original treatment of a deeply personal subject .
3 ||| The film is painfully authentic , and the performances of the young players are utterly convincing .
3 ||| If it seems like a minor miracle that its septuagenarian star is young enough to be the nonagenarian filmmaker 's son , more incredible still are the clear-eyed boldness and quiet irony with which actor and director take on life 's urgent questions .
3 ||| A candid and often fascinating documentary about a Pentecostal church in Dallas that assembles an elaborate haunted house each year to scare teenagers into attending services .
3 ||| Fans of the animated wildlife adventure show will be in warthog heaven ; others need not necessarily apply .
4 ||| Without resorting to hyperbole , I can state that Kissing Jessica Stein may be the best same-sex romance I have seen .
3 ||| Nolan bravely treads where few American films dare to delve -- into the world of ambivalence and ambiguity ...
3 ||| Unlike the nauseating fictions peddled by such ` Have-yourself-a-happy-little-Holocaust ' movies as Life Is Beautiful and Jakob the Liar , The Grey Zone is honest enough to deny the possibility of hope in Auschwitz .
3 ||| A potent allegorical love story .
1 ||| Even those who would like to dismiss the film outright should find much to mull and debate .
1 ||| This is cool , slick stuff , ready to quench the thirst of an audience that misses the summer blockbusters .
3 ||| The movie is full of fine performances , led by Josef Bierbichler as Brecht and Monica Bleibtreu as Helene Weigel , his wife .
3 ||| A captivating cross-cultural comedy of manners .
4 ||| Andy Garcia enjoys one of his richest roles in years and Mick Jagger gives his best movie performance since , well , Performance .
1 ||| The movie is n't always easy to look at .
4 ||| But if it is indeed a duty of art to reflect life , than Leigh has created a masterful piece of artistry right here .
3 ||| It 's -LRB- Ricci 's -RRB- best work yet , this girl-woman who sincerely believes she can thwart the world 's misery with blind good will .
3 ||| Highlights are the terrific performances by Christopher Plummer , as the prime villain , and Nathan Lane as Vincent Crummles , the eccentric theater company manager .
3 ||| -LRB- Howard -RRB- so good as Leon Barlow ... that he hardly seems to be acting .
1 ||| Superior genre storytelling , which gets under our skin simply by crossing the nuclear line .
3 ||| By taking Entertainment Tonight subject matter and giving it humor and poignancy , Auto Focus becomes both gut-bustingly funny and crushingly depressing .
3 ||| It 's a bittersweet and lyrical mix of elements .
3 ||| Subversive , meditative , clinical and poetic , The Piano Teacher is a daring work of genius .
1 ||| The weakest of the four Harry Potter books has been transformed into the stronger of the two films by the thinnest of margins .
1 ||| Its gross-out gags and colorful set pieces ... are of course stultifyingly contrived and too stylized by half .
3 ||| Still , it gets the job done -- a sleepy afternoon rental .
3 ||| It further declares its director , Zhang Yang of Shower , as a boldly experimental , contemporary stylist with a bright future .
3 ||| Smith 's approach is never to tease , except gently and in that way that makes us consider our own eccentricities and how they are expressed through our homes .
4 ||| Full of profound , real-life moments that anyone can relate to , it deserves a wide audience .
3 ||| A movie that will touch the hearts of both children and adults , as well as bring audiences to the edge of their seats .
4 ||| Leave it to Rohmer , now 82 , to find a way to bend current technique to the service of a vision of the past that is faithful to both architectural glories and commanding open spaces of the city as it was more than two centuries ago .
1 ||| Fine acting but there is no sense of connecting the dots , just dots .
4 ||| An extraordinary Swedish film about the soul adventure of marriage -- the kind of intimate and character-driven film that Bille August does best .
3 ||| A blessed gift to film geeks and historians .
3 ||| If the ' 70 's were your idea of a good time at the movies , this will make you very happy .
3 ||| It took 19 predecessors to get THIS ?
3 ||| Thoughtful , even stinging at times , and lots of fun .
4 ||| One of the most haunting , viciously honest coming-of-age films in recent memory .
4 ||| The WWII drama is well plotted , visually striking and filled with enjoyably complex characters who are never what they first appear .
3 ||| It 's a pleasure to see Seinfeld griping about the biz with buddies Chris Rock , Garry Shandling and Colin Quinn .
3 ||| If you love Motown music , you 'll love this documentary .
1 ||| This time out , -LRB- Sade -RRB- is an unsettlingly familiar figure -- in turns loyal and deceitful , responsible and reckless , idealistically selfless and coldly self-interested .
3 ||| Human Resources was a good , straightforward tale , but Time Out is better .
2 ||| It 's haunting .
3 ||| It 's like a poem .
3 ||| To the film 's credit , the acting is fresh and unselfconscious , and Munch is a marvel of reality versus sappy sentiment .
4 ||| Chicago is , in many ways , an admirable achievement .
3 ||| Shainberg weaves a carefully balanced scenario that is controlled by neither character , is weirdly sympathetic to both and manages to be tender and darkly comic .
3 ||| Even when foreign directors ... borrow stuff from Hollywood , they invariably shake up the formula and make it more interesting .
3 ||| A cockamamie tone poem pitched precipitously between swoony lyricism and violent catastrophe ... the most aggressively nerve-wracking and screamingly neurotic romantic comedy in cinema history .
3 ||| Sturdy , entertaining period drama ... both Caine and Fraser have their moments .
4 ||| Whether -LRB- Binoche and Magimel -RRB- are being charming or angst-ridden , they easily fill their scenes and , fine judges both , never overcook the hysteria .
4 ||| A spunky , original take on a theme that will resonate with singles of many ages .
3 ||| It 's a glorious groove that leaves you wanting more .
3 ||| Majidi gets uniformly engaging performances from his largely amateur cast .
3 ||| ... a well-observed and disturbing little movie
3 ||| Fans of Nijinsky will savor every minute of Cox 's work .
3 ||| Everything you loved about it in 1982 is still there , for everybody who wants to be a kid again , or show it to their own kids .
3 ||| Jagger the actor is someone you want to see again .
1 ||| Escapism in its purest form .
3 ||| There is a kind of attentive concern that Hoffman brings to his characters , as if he has been giving them private lessons , and now it is time for their first public recital .
3 ||| A comic gem with some serious sparkles .
3 ||| U.S. audiences may find -LRB- Attal and Gainsbourg 's -RRB- unfamiliar personas give the film an intimate and quaint reality that is a little closer to human nature than what Hollywood typically concocts .
4 ||| Once again , director Jackson strikes a rewarding balance between emotion on the human scale and action\/effects on the spectacular scale .
4 ||| A loving little film of considerable appeal .
3 ||| Although it 's a bit smug and repetitive , this documentary engages your brain in a way few current films do .
2 ||| Flawed but worthy look at life in U.S. relocation camps .
1 ||| Demands too much of most viewers .
2 ||| The story drifts so inexorably into cliches about tortured -LRB- and torturing -RRB- artists and consuming but impossible love that you ca n't help but become more disappointed as each overwrought new sequence plods on .
1 ||| It should be mentioned that the set design and interiors of the haunted vessel are more than effectively creepy and moodily lit .
1 ||| So I just did .
1 ||| Shamelessly sappy and , worse , runs away from its own provocative theme .
1 ||| The Ring just left me cold and wet like I was out in the Seattle drizzle without rainwear .
1 ||| The film seems a dead weight .
1 ||| The lack of pace kills it , although , in a movie about cancer , this might be apt .
1 ||| For anyone who grew up on Disney 's 1950 Treasure Island , or remembers the 1934 Victor Fleming classic , this one feels like an impostor .
1 ||| A clutchy , indulgent and pretentious travelogue and diatribe against ... well , just stuff .
1 ||| Watching Scarlet Diva , one is poised for titillation , raw insight or both .
1 ||| Instead , we just get messy anger , a movie as personal therapy .
1 ||| Meandering , sub-aquatic mess : It 's so bad it 's good , but only if you slide in on a freebie .
3 ||| The ending is a cop-out .
2 ||| What happens to John Q ?
1 ||| I do n't have an I Am Sam clue .
3 ||| Has the feel of an unedited personal journal .
2 ||| Remember when Bond had more glamour than clamor ?
1 ||| No more .
1 ||| Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of cheese , indeed .
1 ||| This charmless nonsense ensues amid clanging film references that make Jay and Silent Bob 's Excellent Adventure seem understated .
2 ||| It does n't quite deserve the gong , but there are more fascinating acts than `` Confessions of a Dangerous Mind . ''
1 ||| The subject of swinging still seems ripe for a documentary -- just not this one .
1 ||| ... Hudlin is stuck trying to light a fire with soggy leaves .
3 ||| Unlike his directorial efforts , La Femme Nikita and The Professional , The Transporter lacks Besson 's perspective as a storyteller .
1 ||| The overall effect is so completely inane that one would have to be mighty bored to even think of staying with this for more than , say , ten ... make that three minutes .
1 ||| Most of the supporting characters in Eastwood films are weak , as are most of the subplots .
1 ||| This one 's weaker than most .
1 ||| Audiences will find no mention of political prisoners or persecutions that might paint the Castro regime in less than saintly tones .
1 ||| The film takes too long getting to the good stuff , then takes too long figuring out what to do next .
3 ||| You can practically smell the patchouli oil .
4 ||| To say Analyze That is De Niro 's best film since Meet the Parents sums up the sad state of his recent career .
1 ||| The actors do n't inhabit their roles -- they 're trapped by them , forced to change behavior in bizarre unjustified fashion and spout dialog that consists mostly of platitudes .
3 ||| An often-deadly boring , strange reading of a classic whose witty dialogue is treated with a baffling casual approach
0 ||| This film was made to get laughs from the slowest person in the audience -- just pure slapstick with lots of inane , inoffensive screaming and exaggerated facial expressions .
1 ||| Consists of a plot and jokes done too often by people far more talented than Ali G
1 ||| Moderately involving despite bargain-basement photography and hackneyed romance .
2 ||| There is no insight into the anguish of Heidi 's life -- only a depiction of pain , today 's version of Greek tragedy , the talk-show guest decrying her fate .
1 ||| The editing is chaotic , the photography grainy and badly focused , the writing unintentionally hilarious , the direction unfocused , the performances as wooden .
0 ||| When -LRB- De Palma 's -RRB- bad , he 's really bad , and Femme Fatale ranks with the worst he has done .
1 ||| Tadpole is emblematic of the witless ageism afflicting films : Young is cool , and too young is too cool .
2 ||| I doubt anyone will remember the picture by the time Christmas really rolls around , but maybe it 'll be on video by then .
1 ||| Uncertain in tone ... a garbled exercise in sexual politics , a junior varsity Short Cuts by way of Very Bad Things .
1 ||| All 's well that ends well , and rest assured , the consciousness-raising lessons are cloaked in gross-out gags .
1 ||| The only thing worse than your substandard , run-of-the-mill Hollywood picture is an angst-ridden attempt to be profound .
0 ||| If you think that Jennifer Lopez has shown poor judgment in planning to marry Ben Affleck , wait till you see Maid in Manhattan .
1 ||| Stars Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley illicit more than a chuckle , and more jokes land than crash , but ultimately Serving Sara does n't distinguish itself from the herd .
1 ||| It 's best to avoid imprisonment with the dull , nerdy folks that inhabit Cherish .
1 ||| Culkin exudes none of the charm or charisma that might keep a more general audience even vaguely interested in his bratty character .
3 ||| In the end , Ted Bundy 's only justification is the director 's common but unexplored fascination with the frustrated maniac ; there 's no larger point , and little social context .
4 ||| ... -LRB- like -RRB- channel surfing between the Discovery Channel and a late-night made-for-cable action movie .
0 ||| A movie that , rather than skip along the Seine , more or less slogs its way through soggy Paris , tongue uncomfortably in cheek .
1 ||| Shot perhaps ` artistically ' with handheld cameras and apparently no movie lights by Joaquin Baca-Asay , the low-budget production swings annoyingly between vertigo and opacity .
0 ||| Imagine a really bad community theater production of West Side Story without the songs .
1 ||| Soul is what 's lacking in every character in this movie and , subsequently , the movie itself .
1 ||| A one-trick pony whose few T&A bits still ca n't save itself from being unoriginal , unfunny and unrecommendable .
1 ||| The worst kind of independent ; the one where actors play dress down hicks and ponderously mope around trying to strike lightning as captured by their 1970s predecessors
3 ||| It may be a prize winner , but Teacher is a bomb .
3 ||| The production values are up there .
3 ||| The use of CGI and digital ink-and-paint make the thing look really slick .
3 ||| The voices are fine as well .
1 ||| The problem , it is with most of these things , is the script .
2 ||| It 's got its heart in the right place , but it also wilts after awhile .
0 ||| Proves that a movie about goodness is not the same thing as a good movie .
3 ||| Well , it does go on forever .
0 ||| This overproduced and generally disappointing effort is n't likely to rouse the Rush Hour crowd .
2 ||| Topkapi this is not .
1 ||| If Shayamalan wanted to tell a story about a man who loses his faith , why did n't he just do it , instead of using bad sci-fi as window dressing ?
2 ||| Ethan Hawke has always fancied himself the bastard child of the Beatnik generation and it 's all over his Chelsea Walls .
2 ||| Equal parts bodice-ripper and plodding costume drama .
2 ||| I 'm not suggesting that you actually see it , unless you 're the kind of person who has seen every Wim Wenders film of the '70s .
1 ||| While the film misfires at every level , the biggest downside is the paucity of laughter in what 's supposed to be a comedy .
3 ||| If you liked the 1982 film then , you 'll still like it now .
3 ||| A 93-minute condensation of a 26-episode TV series , with all of the pitfalls of such you 'd expect .
1 ||| Guillen rarely gets beneath the surface of things .
2 ||| She lists ingredients , but never mixes and stirs .
2 ||| Audiences can be expected to suspend their disbelief only so far -- and that does not include the 5 o'clock shadow on the tall wooden kid as he skips off to school .
1 ||| To imagine the life of Harry Potter as a martial arts adventure told by a lobotomized Woody Allen is to have some idea of the fate that lies in store for moviegoers lured to the mediocrity that is Kung Pow : Enter the Fist .
2 ||| It delivers some chills and sustained unease , but flounders in its quest for Deeper Meaning .
3 ||| Credibility levels are low and character development a non-starter .
3 ||| I would have preferred a transfer down the hall to Mr. Holland 's class for the music , or to Robin Williams 's lecture so I could listen to a teacher with humor , passion , and verve .
2 ||| For the most part , the ingredients are there .
3 ||| But an unwillingness to explore beyond the surfaces of her characters prevents Nettelbeck 's film from coming together .
4 ||| An earnest , heartrending look at the divide between religious fundamentalists and their gay relatives .
2 ||| It 's also heavy-handed and devotes too much time to bigoted views .
0 ||| A mawkish , implausible platonic romance that makes Chaplin 's City Lights seem dispassionate by comparison .
2 ||| Yes , one enjoys seeing Joan grow from awkward young woman to strong , determined monarch , but her love for the philandering Philip only diminishes her stature .
1 ||| It 's a film that hinges on its casting , and Glover really does n't fit the part .
1 ||| This is a throwaway , junk-food movie whose rap soundtrack was better tended to than the film itself .
1 ||| ... with the candy-like taste of it fading faster than 25-cent bubble gum , I realized this is a throwaway movie that wo n't stand the test of time .
2 ||| It 's a trifle .
2 ||| Literally nothing in The Pool is new , but if you grew up on the stalker flicks of the 1980 's this one should appease you for 90 minutes .
0 ||| Arguably the year 's silliest and most incoherent movie .
1 ||| Anyway , for one reason or another , Crush turns into a dire drama partway through .
0 ||| After that , it just gets stupid and maudlin .
1 ||| Too bad , but thanks to some lovely comedic moments and several fine performances , it 's not a total loss .
3 ||| Chao was Chen Kaige 's assistant for years in China .
1 ||| He has not learnt that storytelling is what the movies are about .
1 ||| A mixed bag of a comedy that ca n't really be described as out of this world .
1 ||| The film is a travesty of the genre and even as spoof takes itself too seriously .
1 ||| Marries the amateurishness of The Blair Witch Project with the illogic of Series 7 : The Contenders to create a completely crass and forgettable movie .
3 ||| The Piano Teacher is the sort of movie that discourages American audiences from ever wanting to see another foreign film .
1 ||| If it 's another regurgitated action movie you 're after , there 's no better film than Half Past Dead .
2 ||| So what is the point ?
1 ||| Lovingly choreographed bloodshed taking place in a pristine movie neverland , basically .
0 ||| This is junk food cinema at its greasiest .
3 ||| When it 's all wet , Blue Crush is highly enjoyable .
1 ||| When it 's on dry land , though , this surfer-girl melodrama starts gasping like a beached grouper .
3 ||| Most new movies have a bright sheen .
2 ||| Some , like Ballistic , arrive stillborn ... looking like the beaten , well-worn video box cover of seven years into the future .
2 ||| The story is naturally poignant , but first-time screenwriter Paul Pender overloads it with sugary bits of business .
4 ||| You see Robert De Niro singing - and dancing to - West Side Story show tunes .
3 ||| Choose your reaction : A. -RRB- That sure is funny !
1 ||| B. -RRB- That sure is pathetic !
0 ||| A sermonizing and lifeless paean to teenage dullards .
1 ||| This dramatically shaky contest of wills only reiterates the old Hollywood saw : Evil is interesting and good is boring .
1 ||| Before long , the film starts playing like General Hospital crossed with a Saturday Night Live spoof of Dog Day Afternoon .
3 ||| The charms of willful eccentricity , at least as evidenced by this latest cinematic essay , are beginning to wear a bit thin .
1 ||| Instead of accurately accounting a terrible true story , the film 's more determined to become the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre .
3 ||| But what about the countless other people who 'd merely like to watch a solid tale about a universally interesting soul ?
2 ||| A silly , self-indulgent film about a silly , self-indulgent filmmaker .
1 ||| Scarlet Diva has a voyeuristic tug , but all in all it 's a lot less sensational than it wants to be .
1 ||| The character is too forced and overwritten to be funny or believable much of the time , and Clayburgh does n't always improve the over-the-top mix .
3 ||| Flashy , pretentious and as impenetrable as Morvern 's thick , working-class Scottish accent .
1 ||| Lame , haphazard teen comedy .
3 ||| It 's the kind of movie that ends up festooning U.S. art house screens for no reason other than the fact that it 's in French -LRB- well , mostly -RRB- with English subtitles and is magically ` significant ' because of that .
0 ||| This miserable excuse of a movie runs on empty , believing Flatbush machismo will get it through .
2 ||| Expect to be reminded of other , better films , especially Seven , which director William Malone slavishly copies .
1 ||| Nair stuffs the film with dancing , henna , ornamentation , and group song , but her narrative clichés and telegraphed episodes smell of old soap opera .
1 ||| It 's getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that Hollywood is n't laughing with us , folks .
2 ||| It 's laughing at us .
3 ||| Might have been better off as a documentary , with less of Mr. Eyre 's uninspired dramatics and more of his sense of observation and outrage .
3 ||| Every good actor needs to do his or her own Hamlet .
1 ||| For Benigni it was n't Shakespeare whom he wanted to define his career with but Pinocchio .
1 ||| It might as well have been Problem Child IV .
1 ||| Arnold 's jump from little screen to big will leave frowns on more than a few faces .
0 ||| Both awful and appealing .
1 ||| The lack of opposing viewpoints soon grows tiresome -- the film feels more like a series of toasts at a testimonial dinner than a documentary .
1 ||| Nothing plot-wise is worth e-mailing home about .
3 ||| We are left with a superficial snapshot that , however engaging , is insufficiently enlightening and inviting .
1 ||| Helmer DeVito ... attempts to do too many things in this story about ethics , payola , vice , murder , kids ' TV and revenge .
1 ||| It would n't be my preferred way of spending 100 minutes or $ 7.00 .
1 ||| I hated every minute of it .
1 ||| -LRB- T -RRB- hose same extremes prevent us from taking its message seriously , and the Stepford Wives mentality does n't work in a modern context .
2 ||| Obvious politics and rudimentary animation reduce the chances that the appeal of Hey Arnold !
3 ||| The Movie will reach far beyond its core demographic .
2 ||| There 's no mistaking the fact that this hybrid misses the impact of the Disney classic , and even that of the excellent 1934 MGM version .
1 ||| A simple , sometimes maddeningly slow film that has just enough charm and good acting to make it interesting , but is ultimately pulled under by the pacing and lack of creativity within .
3 ||| Roger Michell , who did an appealing job directing Persuasion and Notting Hill in England , gets too artsy in his American debut .
1 ||| There is an almost poignant dimension to the way that every major stunt Seagal 's character ... performs is shot from behind , as if it could fool us into thinking that we 're not watching a double .
2 ||| Anthony Hopkins ?
2 ||| Big deal !
1 ||| We 've already seen the prequel to The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal -- and it was better the first time .
3 ||| Ostensibly celebrates middle-aged girl power , even as it presents friendship between women as pathetic , dysfunctional and destructive .
3 ||| If this is an example of the type of project that Robert Redford 's lab is willing to lend its imprimatur to , then perhaps it 's time to rethink independent films .
1 ||| Pumpkin sits in a patch somewhere between mirthless Todd Solondzian satire and callow student film .
1 ||| Not so much funny as aggressively sitcom-cute , it 's full of throwaway one-liners , not-quite jokes , and a determined TV amiability that Allen personifies .
0 ||| It 's not that Waiting For Happiness is a bad film , because it is n't .
0 ||| It 's just incredibly dull .
1 ||| The sad thing about Knockaround Guys is its lame aspiration for grasping the coolness vibes when in fact the film is n't as flippant or slick as it thinks it is .
1 ||| A cumbersome and cliche-ridden movie greased with every emotional device known to man .
3 ||| Director Ferzan Ozpetek creates an interesting dynamic with the members of this group , who live in the same apartment building .
1 ||| But he loses his focus when he concentrates on any single person .
0 ||| Egoyan 's movie is too complicated to sustain involvement , and , if you 'll excuse a little critical heresy , too intellectually ambitious .
2 ||| It wants to be thought of as a subversive little indie film , but it has all the qualities of a modern situation comedy .
1 ||| Despite apparent motives to the contrary , it ends up being , like -LRB- Seinfeld 's -RRB- revered TV show , about pretty much nothing .
1 ||| Shadyac shoots his film like an M. Night Shyamalan movie , and he frequently maintains the same snail 's pace ; he just forgot to add any genuine tension .
1 ||| Plays less like a coming-of-age romance than an infomercial .
1 ||| There are a few laughs and clever sight gags scattered about , but not enough to make this anything more than another big-budget bust .
1 ||| The story 's so preposterous that I did n't believe it for a second , despite the best efforts of everyone involved .
1 ||| I 've heard that the fans of the first Men in Black have come away hating the second one .
2 ||| I wonder why .
1 ||| They felt like the same movie to me .
1 ||| Despite her relentless vim and winsome facial symmetry , Witherspoon is just too dialed-up to be America 's Sweetheart .
1 ||| An ultra-low-budget indie debut that smacks more of good intentions than talent .
1 ||| Birot is a competent enough filmmaker , but her story has nothing fresh or very exciting about it .
1 ||| De Niro and McDormand give solid performances , but their screen time is sabotaged by the story 's inability to create interest .
1 ||| Even those of a single digit age will be able to recognize that this story is too goofy ... even for Disney .
1 ||| That is essentially what 's missing from Blackboards -- the sense of something bigger , some ultimate point .
1 ||| A compendium of Solondz 's own worst instincts in under 90 minutes .
0 ||| It is a comedy that 's not very funny and an action movie that is not very thrilling -LRB- and an uneasy alliance , at that -RRB- .
3 ||| The story is familiar from its many predecessors ; like them , it eventually culminates in the not-exactly - stunning insight that crime does n't pay .
1 ||| You 'll have more fun setting fire to yourself in the parking lot .
3 ||| You 'll be more entertained getting hit by a bus .
1 ||| Dissing a Bond movie is quite like calling a dog stupid , but when it has the temerity to run over two hours , you feel like winding up with a kick .
1 ||| Ritchie 's treatment of the class reversal is majorly ham-fisted , from the repetitive manifestos that keep getting thrown in people 's faces to the fact Amber is such a joke .
3 ||| Flat , but with a revelatory performance by Michelle Williams .
1 ||| Little more than a frothy vanity project .
3 ||| The film goes from being an unusual sci-fi character study to a chase flick that detracts from its ending .
3 ||| Verbinski substitutes atmosphere for action , tedium for thrills .
3 ||| For all its surface frenzy , High Crimes should be charged with loitering -- so much on view , so little to offer .
1 ||| The Sum of All Fears is almost impossible to follow -- and there 's something cringe-inducing about seeing an American football stadium nuked as pop entertainment .
1 ||| Alex Nohe 's documentary plays like a travelogue for what mostly resembles a real-life , big-budget NC-17 version of Tank Girl .
3 ||| The title Trapped turns out to be a pretty fair description of how you feel while you 're watching this ultra-manipulative thriller .
1 ||| IHOPs do n't pile on this much syrup .
1 ||| For the most part , I Spy was an amusing lark that will probably rank as one of Murphy 's better performances in one of his lesser-praised movies .
1 ||| focuses on Joan 's raging hormones and sledgehammers the audience with Spanish inquisitions about her `` madness '' so much that I became mad that I wasted 123 minutes and $ 9.50 on this 21st century torture device .
1 ||| This series should have died long ago , but they keep bringing it back another day as punishment for paying money to see the last James Bond movie .
1 ||| A bit of an unwieldy mess .
3 ||| With a story as bizarre and mysterious as this , you do n't want to be worrying about whether the ineffectual Broomfield is going to have the courage to knock on that door .
2 ||| The filmmakers juggle and juxtapose three story lines but fail to come up with one cogent point , unless it 's that life stinks , especially for sensitive married women who really love other women .
2 ||| The movie feels like it 's going to be great , and it carries on feeling that way for a long time , but takeoff just never happens .
1 ||| A gimmick in search of a movie : how to get Carvey into as many silly costumes and deliver as many silly voices as possible , plot mechanics be damned .
1 ||| ... the last time I saw a theater full of people constantly checking their watches was during my SATs .
1 ||| ... fifty minutes of tedious adolescent melodramatics followed by thirty-five minutes of inflated nonsense .
1 ||| ... lacks the punch and verve needed to make this genre soar .
2 ||| It 's often faintly amusing , but the problems of the characters never become important to us , and the story never takes hold .
3 ||| It 's tough , astringent , darkly funny and ... well , it 's also generic , untidy , condescending and mild of impact rather than stunning .
1 ||| Largely a for-fans artifact .
2 ||| There 's no denying the elaborateness of the artist 's conceptions , nor his ability to depict them with outrageous elan , but really the whole series is so much pretentious nonsense , lavishly praised by those who equate obscurity with profundity .
3 ||| Characters wander into predictably treacherous situations even though they should know better .
1 ||| There 's plenty of style in Guillermo Del Toro 's sequel to the 1998 hit but why do we need 117 minutes to tell a tale that simply ca n't sustain more than 90 minutes .
2 ||| -LRB- I -RRB- f you 've been to more than one indie flick in your life , chances are you 've already seen this kind of thing .
1 ||| No reason for anyone to invest their hard-earned bucks into a movie which obviously did n't invest much into itself either .
3 ||| A strong first quarter , slightly less so second quarter , and average second half .
1 ||| A boring , wincingly cute and nauseatingly politically correct cartoon guaranteed to drive anyone much over age 4 screaming from the theater .
3 ||| The vampire thriller Blade II starts off as a wild hoot and then sucks the blood out of its fun -- toward the end , you can feel your veins cringing from the workout .
3 ||| When the first few villians are introduced as `` Spider '' and `` Snake '' you know you 're in for a real winner , creativity at its peak .
1 ||| An Afterschool Special without the courage of its convictions .
2 ||| The final result makes for adequate entertainment , I suppose , but anyone who has seen Chicago on stage will leave the theater feeling they 've watched nothing but a pale imitation of the real deal .
1 ||| -LRB- Director -RRB- Byler may yet have a great movie in him , but Charlotte Sometimes is only half of one .
1 ||| So few movies explore religion that it 's disappointing to see one reduce it to an idea that fits in a sampler .
3 ||| It 's also clear from the start that The Transporter is running purely on adrenaline , and once the initial high wears off , the film 's shortcomings start to shine through .
1 ||| Watching it is rather like viewing a long soap opera in which only the first episode was any good .
1 ||| It 's fun , but a psychological mess , with Austin Powers bumping his head on the way out of the closet .
3 ||| There are touching moments in Etoiles , but for the most part this is a dull , dour documentary on what ought to be a joyful or at least fascinating subject .
1 ||| Could the whole plan here have been to produce something that makes Fatal Attraction look like a classic by comparison ?
1 ||| That 's the only sane rationale I can think of for Swimfan 's existence .
1 ||| I did n't laugh at the ongoing efforts of Cube , and his skinny buddy Mike Epps , to make like Laurel and Hardy 'n the hood .
1 ||| The only way this supernatural snore-fest could give anyone a case of the frights is if they were put to sleep by the movie and had a nightmare .
2 ||| I wonder what the reaction of Israelis will be to this supposedly evenhanded presentation .
1 ||| The film would work much better as a video installation in a museum , where viewers would be free to leave .
3 ||| Immediately .
3 ||| Human Nature initially succeeds by allowing itself to go crazy , but ultimately fails by spinning out of control .
1 ||| -LRB- It 's -RRB- a prison soccer movie starring charismatic tough guy Vinnie Jones , but it had too much spitting for me to enjoy .
1 ||| Not even the Hanson Brothers can save it
0 ||| The thriller side of this movie is falling flat , as the stalker does n't do much stalking , and no cop or lawyer grasps the concept of actually investigating the case .
1 ||| ... -LRB- a -RRB- strained comedy that jettisons all opportunities for Rock to make his mark by serving up the usual chaotic nonsense .
1 ||| A sour , nasty offering .
1 ||| Feels like one of those contrived , only-in - Hollywood productions where name actors deliver big performances created for the sole purpose of generating Oscar talk .
1 ||| Obstacles are too easily overcome and there is n't much in the way of character development in the script .
2 ||| It tells more than it shows .
1 ||| Earnest falls short of its Ideal predecessor largely due to Parker 's ill-advised meddling with the timeless source material .
1 ||| The film might have been more satisfying if it had , in fact , been fleshed out a little more instead of going for easy smiles .
1 ||| Pretentious editing ruins a potentially terrific flick .
2 ||| Not every animated film from Disney will become a classic , but forgive me if I 've come to expect more from this studio than some 79-minute after-school `` cartoon '' .
1 ||| Do not , under any circumstances , consider taking a child younger than middle school age to this wallow in crude humor .
1 ||| Nothing debases a concept comedy quite like the grinding of bad ideas , and Showtime is crammed full of them .
1 ||| Much-anticipated and ultimately lackluster movie .
1 ||| This is really just another genre picture .
1 ||| Each story on its own could have been expanded and worked into a compelling single feature , but in its current incarnation , Storytelling never quite gets over its rather lopsided conception .
3 ||| William Shatner , as a pompous professor , is the sole bright spot ...
3 ||| A trite psychological thriller designed to keep the audience guessing and guessing -- which is not to be confused with suspecting -- until it comes time to wrap things up and send the viewers home .
2 ||| Neither funny nor suspenseful nor particularly well-drawn .
2 ||| Acting , particularly by Tambor , almost makes `` Never Again '' worthwhile , but -LRB- writer\/director -RRB- Schaeffer should follow his titular advice
2 ||| Both stars manage to be funny , but , like the recent I Spy , the star chemistry begs the question of whether random gags add up to a movie .
1 ||| `` Collateral Damage '' goes by the numbers and reps decent action entertainment -- until the silly showdown ending that forces the viewer to totally suspend disbelief
3 ||| ` Enigma ' is a good name for a movie this delibrately obtuse and unapproachable .
0 ||| A waste of good performances .
1 ||| A dreary , incoherent , self-indulgent mess of a movie in which a bunch of pompous windbags drone on inanely for two hours ... a cacophony of pretentious , meaningless prattle .
3 ||| I kept thinking over and over again , ' I should be enjoying this . '
1 ||| But I was n't .
1 ||| As conceived by Mr. Schaeffer , Christopher and Grace are little more than collections of quirky traits lifted from a screenwriter 's outline and thrown at actors charged with the impossible task of making them jell .
1 ||| Like so many other allegedly scary movies , it gets so tangled up in The Twist that it chokes the energy right out of the very audience it seeks to frighten .
1 ||| The essential problem in Orange County is that , having created an unusually vivid set of characters worthy of its strong cast , the film flounders when it comes to giving them something to do .
1 ||| Just like Hearst 's enormous yacht , it 's slow and unwieldy and takes a long time to reach its destination .
1 ||| There is not a character in the movie with a shred of plausibility , not an event that is believable , not a confrontation that is not staged , not a moment that is not false .
3 ||| Where last time jokes flowed out of Cho 's life story , which provided an engrossing dramatic through line , here the comedian hides behind obviously constructed routines .
1 ||| Why come up with something even quasi-original , when you can pillage from Shirley Jackson , Richard Matheson ... and puke up something like ROSE RED ?
1 ||| A broadly played , lowbrow comedy in which the cast delivers mildly amusing performances and no farm animals were injured by any of the gags .
1 ||| ... too gory to be a comedy and too silly to be an effective horror film .
3 ||| Lacks heart , depth and , most of all , purpose .
3 ||| Though a bit of a patchwork in script and production , a glossy , rich green , environment almost makes the picture work .
3 ||| perfectly enjoyable , instantly forgettable , nothing to write home about .
3 ||| Wasabi is slight fare indeed , with the entire project having the feel of something tossed off quickly -LRB- like one of Hubert 's punches -RRB- , but it should go down smoothly enough with popcorn .
2 ||| Somehow both wildly implausible and strangely conventional .
1 ||| This ill-fitting Tuxedo is strictly off-the-rack .
0 ||| The premise is in extremely bad taste , and the film 's supposed insights are so poorly thought-out and substance-free that even a high school senior taking his or her first psychology class could dismiss them .
2 ||| Sets up a nice concept for its fiftysomething leading ladies , but fails loudly in execution .
3 ||| Kidman is really the only thing that 's worth watching in Birthday Girl , a film by the stage-trained Jez Butterworth -LRB- Mojo -RRB- that serves as yet another example of the sad decline of British comedies in the post-Full Monty world .
3 ||| Imagine the James Woods character from Videodrome making a home movie of Audrey Rose and showing it to the kid from The Sixth Sense and you 've imagined The Ring .
1 ||| This time Kaufman 's imagination has failed him .
3 ||| An intermittently pleasing but mostly routine effort .
1 ||| It becomes gimmicky instead of compelling .
1 ||| Frenetic but not really funny .
1 ||| Taken individually or collectively , the stories never add up to as much as they promise .
3 ||| If you 're not a prepubescent girl , you 'll be laughing at Britney Spears ' movie-starring debut whenever it does n't have you impatiently squinting at your watch .
0 ||| A didactic and dull documentary glorifying software anarchy .
1 ||| Sluggishly directed by episodic TV veteran Joe Zwick , it 's a sitcom without the snap-crackle .
3 ||| You could nap for an hour and not miss a thing .
1 ||| Director Clare Kilner 's debut is never as daft as it should have been .
1 ||| New Best Friend should n't have gone straight to video ; it should have gone straight to a Mystery Science Theater 3000 video .
1 ||| Wallace seems less like he 's been burning to tell a war story than he 's been itching to somehow tack one together
2 ||| The thrill is -LRB- long -RRB- gone .
0 ||| Began life as a computer game , then morphed into a movie -- a bad one , of course .
4 ||| Part comedy , part drama , the movie winds up accomplishing neither in full , and leaves us feeling touched and amused by several moments and ideas , but nevertheless dissatisfied with the movie as a whole .
1 ||| Godawful boring slug of a movie .
2 ||| Dull , if not devoid of wit , this shaggy dog longs to frisk through the back alleys of history , but scarcely manages more than a modest , snoozy charm .
2 ||| Scene-by-scene , things happen , but you 'd be hard-pressed to say what or why .
1 ||| ... an unimaginative , nasty , glibly cynical piece of work .
2 ||| It is , by conventional standards , a fairly terrible movie ... but it is also weirdly fascinating , a ready-made Eurotrash cult object .
3 ||| It is also , at times , curiously moving .
3 ||| The tug-of-war at the core of Beijing Bicycle becomes weighed down with agonizing contrivances , overheated pathos and long , wistful gazes .
4 ||| Vile and tacky are the two best adjectives to describe Ghost Ship .
1 ||| Some decent actors inflict big damage upon their reputations .
3 ||| Being author Wells ' great-grandson , you 'd think filmmaker Simon Wells would have more reverence for the material .
1 ||| But this costly dud is a far cry from either the book or the beloved film .
1 ||| Offensive in the way it exploits the hot-button issue of domestic abuse for cheap thrills and disgusting in the manner it repeatedly puts a small child in jeopardy , treating her as little more than a prop to be cruelly tormented .
1 ||| Mark me down as a non-believer in werewolf films that are not serious and rely on stupidity as a substitute for humor .
1 ||| Aspires for the piquant but only really achieves a sort of ridiculous sourness .
1 ||| Accuracy and realism are terrific , but if your film becomes boring , and your dialogue is n't smart , then you need to use more poetic license .
1 ||| For all its highfalutin title and corkscrew narrative , the movie turns out to be not much more than a shaggy human tale .
1 ||| A soggy , cliche-bound epic-horror yarn that ends up being even dumber than its title .
2 ||| One groan-inducing familiarity begets another .
1 ||| Although based on a real-life person , John , in the movie , is a rather dull person to be stuck with for two hours .
0 ||| Great story , bad idea for a movie .
1 ||| With Spy Kids 2 : The Island of Lost Dreams writer\/director\/producer Robert Rodriguez has cobbled together a film that feels like a sugar high gone awry .
0 ||| There is no entry portal in The Rules of Attraction , and I spent most of the movie feeling depressed by the shallow , selfish , greedy characters .
1 ||| It 's hard to tell with all the crashing and banging where the salesmanship ends and the movie begins .
2 ||| `` My god , I 'm behaving like an idiot ! ''
2 ||| Yes , you are , Ben Kingsley .
1 ||| A dreadful live-action movie .
1 ||| Divertingly ridiculous , headbangingly noisy .
3 ||| An earnest racial-issues picture that might have gotten respectful critical praise in a different era -- say , the '60s .
3 ||| A hideous , confusing spectacle , one that may well put the nail in the coffin of any future Rice adaptations .
1 ||| All I can say is fuhgeddaboutit .
1 ||| Between bedroom scenes , viewers may find themselves wishing they could roll over and take a nap .
1 ||| If you collected all the moments of coherent dialogue , they still would n't add up to the time required to boil a four - minute egg .
1 ||| Despite all the talking , by the time the bloody climax arrives we still do n't feel enough of an attachment to these guys to care one way or another .
1 ||| Every bit as bogus as most Disney live action family movies are -- no real plot , no real conflict , no real point .
3 ||| A sensual performance from Abbass buoys the flimsy story , but her inner journey is largely unexplored and we 're left wondering about this exotic-looking woman whose emotional depths are only hinted at .
1 ||| Never engaging , utterly predictable and completely void of anything remotely interesting or suspenseful .
2 ||| Spousal abuse is a major problem in contemporary society , but the film reduces this domestic tragedy to florid melodrama .
1 ||| Oedekerk wrote Patch Adams , for which he should not be forgiven .
1 ||| Why he was given free reign over this project -- he wrote , directed , starred and produced -- is beyond me .
3 ||| The creaking , rusty ship makes a fine backdrop , but the ghosts ' haunting is routine .
3 ||| Whatever Eyre 's failings as a dramatist , he deserves credit for bringing audiences into this hard and bitter place .
2 ||| Scotland , PA. blurs the line between black comedy and black hole .
1 ||| It tries too hard , and overreaches the logic of its own world .
3 ||| The whole damn thing is ripe for the Jerry Springer crowd .
1 ||| It 's all pretty cynical and condescending , too .
2 ||| I cry for I Spy -- or I would if this latest and laziest imaginable of all vintage-TV spinoffs were capable of engendering an emotional response of any kind .
0 ||| A boring , formulaic mix of serial killers and stalk 'n' slash .
3 ||| What you would end up with if you took Orwell , Bradbury , Kafka , George Lucas and the Wachowski Brothers and threw them into a blender .
1 ||| But that 's just the problem with it - the director has n't added enough of his own ingredients .
4 ||| With recent tensions rekindled by the Kathleen Soliah trial and the upcoming trial of SLA members Emily and William Harris , not to mention Sept. 11 , its difficult these days to appreciate Fire 's bright side .
1 ||| Flaunts its quirky excesses like a New Year 's Eve drunk sporting a paper party hat .
3 ||| Writhing under dialogue like ` You 're from two different worlds ' and ` Tonight the maid is a lie and this , this is who you are , ' this schlock-filled fairy tale hits new depths of unoriginality and predictability .
1 ||| ... too slow , too boring , and occasionally annoying .
1 ||| Is there enough material to merit a documentary on the making of Wilco 's last album ?
1 ||| Faultlessly professional but finally slight .
0 ||| Schmaltzy and unfunny , Adam Sandler 's cartoon about Hanukkah is numbingly bad , Little Nicky bad , 10 Worst List bad .
1 ||| It 's really yet another anemic and formulaic Lethal Weapon-derived buddy-cop movie , trying to pass off its lack of imagination as hip knowingness .
3 ||| Scotland , Pa. is a strangely drab romp .
1 ||| Some studio pizazz might have helped .
1 ||| When Perry fists a bull at the Moore Farm , it 's only a matter of time before he gets the upper hand in matters of the heart .
1 ||| There 's more scatological action in 8 Crazy Nights than a proctologist is apt to encounter in an entire career .
1 ||| Too loud , too long and too frantic by half , Die Another Day suggests that the Bond franchise has run into a creative wall that 007 can not fly over , tunnel under or barrel through .
3 ||| The cartoon is about as true to the spirit of the Festival of Lights as Mr. Deeds was to that of Frank Capra .
2 ||| ... the sum of the parts equals largely a confused mediocrity .
1 ||| The tone shifts abruptly from tense to celebratory to soppy .
2 ||| If we do n't demand a standard of quality for the art that we choose , we deserve the trash that we get .
3 ||| A modest and messy metaphysical thriller offering more questions than answers .
1 ||| Julia is played with exasperating blandness by Laura Regan .
1 ||| Morrissette 's script and direction show a fair amount of intelligence and wit -- but it does n't signify a whole lot either .
0 ||| There 's suspension of disbelief and then there 's bad screenwriting ... this film packs a wallop of the latter .
1 ||| All Ms. Jovovich , as the sanctified heroine , has to do is look radiant , grimly purposeful and mildly alarmed while forcing open doors , wielding wrenches and fleeing monsters .
1 ||| Mocking kung fu pictures when they were a staple of exploitation theater programming was witty .
1 ||| Mocking them now is an exercise in pointlessness .
1 ||| This is a particularly toxic little bonbon , palatable to only a chosen and very jaundiced few .
1 ||| This is n't just the CliffsNotes version of Nicholas Nickleby , it 's the CliffsNotes with pages missing .
2 ||| Considering the harsh locations and demanding stunts , this must have been a difficult shoot , but the movie proves rough going for the audience as well .
1 ||| Better at putting you to sleep than a sound machine .
1 ||| So clichéd that , at one point , they literally upset an apple cart .
3 ||| It 's a decent glimpse into a time period , and an outcast , that is no longer accessible , but it does n't necessarily shed more light on its subject than the popular predecessor .
3 ||| It might be the first sci-fi comedy that could benefit from a Three 's Company-style laugh track .
1 ||| When the plot kicks in , the film loses credibility .
1 ||| Credibility sinks into a mire of sentiment .
1 ||| The movie takes itself too seriously and , as a result , it makes for only intermittent fun .
4 ||| -LRB- Davis -RRB- has a bright , chipper style that keeps things moving , while never quite managing to connect her wish-fulfilling characters to the human race .
1 ||| Does n't amount to much of anything .
1 ||| Bullock 's complete lack of focus and ability quickly derails the film
0 ||| So stupid , so ill-conceived , so badly drawn , it created whole new levels of ugly .
1 ||| The truth is that The Truth About Charlie gets increasingly tiresome .
3 ||| Enduring love but exhausting cinema .
2 ||| Some of Seagal 's action pictures are guilty pleasures , but this one is so formulaic that it seems to be on auto-pilot .
3 ||| A ponderous meditation on love that feels significantly longer than its relatively scant 97 minutes .
1 ||| A long-winded and stagy session of romantic contrivances that never really gels like the shrewd feminist fairy tale it could have been .
1 ||| A little too pat for its own good .
3 ||| There are films that try the patience of even the most cinema-besotted critic -- and this was one of them .
0 ||| Watching Trouble Every Day , at least if you do n't know what 's coming , is like biting into what looks like a juicy , delicious plum on a hot summer day and coming away with your mouth full of rotten pulp and living worms .
1 ||| Well-intentioned though it may be , its soap-opera morality tales have the antiseptic , preprogrammed feel of an after-school special .
3 ||| What would Jesus do if He was a film director ?
1 ||| He 'd create a movie better than this .
1 ||| When a set of pre-shooting guidelines a director came up with for his actors turns out to be cleverer , better written and of considerable more interest than the finished film , that 's a bad sign .
0 ||| A very bad sign .
3 ||| It 's a deeply serious movie that cares passionately about its subject , but too often becomes ponderous in its teaching of history , or lost in the intricate connections and multiple timelines of its story .
3 ||| Ca n't kick about the assembled talent and the Russos show genuine promise as comic filmmakers .
1 ||| Still , this thing feels flimsy and ephemeral .
2 ||| Diane Lane shines in Unfaithful .
1 ||| Almost everything else is wan .
3 ||| I 'm afraid you wo n't get through this frankly fantastical by-the-numbers B-flick with just a suspension of disbelief .
2 ||| Rather , you 'll have to wrestle disbelief to the ground and then apply the chloroform-soaked handkerchief .
1 ||| So relentlessly wholesome it made me want to swipe something .
3 ||| The title helpfully offers the most succinct review of it you 'll read anywhere .
4 ||| The makers of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood should offer a free ticket -LRB- second prize , of course , two free tickets -RRB- to anyone who can locate a genuinely honest moment in their movie .
3 ||| God help the poor woman if Attal is this insecure in real life : his fictional Yvan 's neuroses are aggravating enough to exhaust the patience of even the most understanding spouse .
2 ||| Let 's cut to the consumer-advice bottom line : Stay home .
1 ||| Undercover Brother does n't go far enough .
2 ||| It 's just a silly black genre spoof .
3 ||| The film 's implicit premise is that the faith of the Tonga people is in every way inferior to that of John .
1 ||| Rates an ` E ' for effort -- and a ` B ' for boring .
3 ||| You 've already seen Heartbreak if you 've watched the far superior Nurse Betty or Sunset Boulevard .
1 ||| Even the unwatchable Soapdish is more original .
2 ||| A journey that 's too random and inconclusive to be compelling , but which Hoffman 's brilliance almost makes worth taking .
1 ||| The movie bounces all over the map .
3 ||| But buying into sham truths and routine `` indie '' filmmaking , Freundlich has made just another safe movie .
2 ||| It 's not horrible , just horribly mediocre .
1 ||| Not always too whimsical for its own good -LRB- but enough to do harm -RRB- , this strange hybrid of crime thriller , quirky character study , third-rate romance and female empowerment fantasy never really finds the tonal or thematic glue it needs .
1 ||| It 's a sometimes interesting remake that does n't compare to the brilliant original .
1 ||| You 're too conscious of the effort it takes to be this spontaneous .
0 ||| Feel bad for King , who 's honestly trying , and Schwartzman , who 's shot himself in the foot .
3 ||| Some actors steal scenes .
0 ||| Tom Green just gives them a bad odor .
2 ||| This self-infatuated goofball is far from the only thing wrong with the clumsy comedy Stealing Harvard , but he 's the most obvious one .
1 ||| Sometimes , fond memories should stay in the past : a lesson this film teaches all too well .
1 ||| The enormous comic potential of an oafish idiot impersonating an aristocrat remains sadly unrealized .
3 ||| Begins as a promising meditation on one of America 's most durable obsessions but winds up as a slender cinematic stunt .
1 ||| A monster combat thriller as impersonal in its relentlessness as the videogame series that inspired it .
3 ||| Proof that a thriller can be sleekly shot , expertly cast , paced with crisp professionalism ... and still be a letdown if its twists and turns hold no more surprise than yesterday 's weather report .
3 ||| The reason we keep seeing the same movie with roughly the same people every year is because so many of us keep going and then , out of embarrassment or stupidity , not warning anyone .
0 ||| There 's not much going on in this movie unless you simply decide to buy into the notion that something inexplicably strange once happened in Point Pleasant .
1 ||| In the second half of the film , Frei 's control loosens in direct proportion to the amount of screen time he gives Nachtwey for self-analysis .
1 ||| Director Barry Skolnick and his screenwriters glibly tick off every point of `` The Longest Yard '' playbook like a checklist .
2 ||| The furious coherence that -LRB- DeNiro -RRB- brings to this part only underscores the fuzzy sentimentality of the movie itself , which feels , as it plods toward the end , less like a movie than like the filmed reading of a script in need of polishing .
3 ||| Oh , it 's extreme , all right .
3 ||| Extremely dumb .
3 ||| Extremely confusing .
3 ||| Extremely boring .
1 ||| We never really feel involved with the story , as all of its ideas remain just that : abstract ideas .
1 ||| For a shoot - 'em - up , Ballistic is oddly lifeless .
3 ||| One minute , you think you 're watching a serious actioner ; the next , it 's as though clips from The Pink Panther Strikes Again and\/or Sailor Moon have been spliced in .
2 ||| What happened with Pluto Nash ?
1 ||| How did it ever get made ?
1 ||| We may never think of band camp as a geeky or nerdy thing again .
3 ||| Opens as promising as any war\/adventure film you 'll ever see and dissolves into a routine courtroom drama , better suited for a movie titled `` Glory : A Soldier 's Story . ''
3 ||| The result is solemn and horrifying , yet strangely detached .
1 ||| These spiders can outrun a motorcycle and wrap a person in a sticky cocoon in seconds , but they fall short of being interesting or entertaining .
1 ||| A long slog for anyone but the most committed Pokemon fan .
3 ||| Matthew McConaughey tries , and fails , to control the screen with swaggering machismo and over-the-top lunacy .
1 ||| How on earth , or anywhere else , did director Ron Underwood manage to blow $ 100 million on this ?
1 ||| Everyone connected to this movie seems to be part of an insider clique , which tends to breed formulaic films rather than fresh ones .
1 ||| With a story inspired by the tumultuous surroundings of Los Angeles , where feelings of marginalization loom for every dreamer with a burst bubble , The Dogwalker has a few characters and ideas , but it never manages to put them on the same path .
1 ||| Its lack of quality earns it a place alongside those other two recent Dumas botch-jobs , The Man in the Iron Mask and The Musketeer .
2 ||| A benign but forgettable sci-fi diversion .
0 ||| The plot grinds on with yawn-provoking dullness .
1 ||| It 's never a good sign when a film 's star spends the entirety of the film in a coma .
1 ||| It 's a worse sign when you begin to envy her condition .
0 ||| It does n't help that the director and cinematographer Stephen Kazmierski shoot on grungy video , giving the whole thing a dirty , tasteless feel .
1 ||| Desperately unfunny when it tries to makes us laugh and desperately unsuspenseful when it tries to make us jump out of our seats .
1 ||| This film 's relationship to actual tension is the same as what Christmas-tree flocking in a spray can is to actual snow : a poor -- if durable -- imitation .
2 ||| John McTiernan 's botched remake may be subtler than Norman Jewison 's 1975 ultraviolent futuristic corporate-sports saga .
2 ||| It 's also stupider .
1 ||| Director Dirk Shafer and co-writer Greg Hinton ride the dubious divide where gay porn reaches for serious drama .
3 ||| Borrows from so many literary and cinematic sources that this future world feels absolutely deja vu .
1 ||| As -LRB- the characters -RRB- get more depressed , the story gets more tiresome , especially as it continues to mount a conspicuous effort to be profound .
1 ||| The acting by the over-25s lacks spark , with Csokas particularly unconnected .
1 ||| Though Howard demonstrates a great eye as a director , this Southern Gothic drama is sadly a tough sit , with an undeveloped narrative and enough flashbacks and heavy-handed metaphors to choke a horse -- or at least slow him down to a canter .
1 ||| Falters when it takes itself too seriously and when it depends too heavily on its otherwise talented cast to clown in situations that are n't funny .
1 ||| The fight scenes are fun , but it grows tedious .
1 ||| Anyone who can count to five -LRB- the film 's target market ? -RRB-
1 ||| can see where this dumbed-down concoction is going .
1 ||| All this turns out to be neither funny nor provocative - only dull .
3 ||| Demme 's loose approach kills the suspense .
1 ||| This idea has lost its originality ... and neither star appears very excited at rehashing what was basically a one-joke picture .
1 ||| -LRB- Plays -RRB- in broad outline as pandering middle-age buddy-comedy .
1 ||| The film is itself a sort of cinematic high crime , one that brings military courtroom dramas down very , very low .
1 ||| Nothing more than a mediocre trifle .
1 ||| A turgid little history lesson , humourless and dull .
1 ||| Too silly to be frightening , too stolid to be funny , it projects the same lazy affability as its nominal star , David Arquette .
1 ||| If Kaufman kept Cameron Diaz a prisoner in a cage with her ape , in his latest , he 'd have them mate .
1 ||| Trivial where it should be profound , and hyper-cliched where it should be sincere .
0 ||| It would be hard to think of a recent movie that has worked this hard to achieve this little fun .
1 ||| Theology aside , why put someone who ultimately does n't learn at the center of a kids ' story ?
1 ||| All that -LRB- Powerpuff Girls -RRB- charm is present in the movie , but it 's spread too thin .
3 ||| Sometimes smart but more often sophomoric .
1 ||| The ill-conceived modern-day ending falls flat where it should deliver a moral punch .
1 ||| Collateral Damage is , despite its alleged provocation post-9 \/ 11 , an antique , in the end .
3 ||| As are its star , its attitude and its obliviousness .
1 ||| Dawdles and drags when it should pop ; it does n't even have the virtue of enough mindless violence to break up the tedium of all its generational bonding .
1 ||| Its save-the-planet message clashes with its crass marketing .
1 ||| A great idea becomes a not-great movie .
1 ||| ... watching this film nearly provoked me to take my own life .
3 ||| And if The Hours wins ` Best Picture ' I just might .
1 ||| By the end , I was looking for something hard with which to bludgeon myself unconscious .
1 ||| Not a movie but a live-action agitprop cartoon so shameless and coarse , it 's almost funny .
1 ||| Feels like six different movies fighting each other for attention .
1 ||| Life is a crock -- or something like it .
1 ||| Made by jackasses for jackasses .
2 ||| Despite a powerful portrayal by Binoche , it 's a period romance that suffers from an overly deliberate pace and uneven narrative momentum .
1 ||| The picture is a primer on what happens when lack of know-how mixes with lack of give-a-damn .
0 ||| Bartleby is a one-joke movie , and a bad joke at that .
1 ||| Given that both movies expect us to root for convicted violent felons over those assigned to protect us from same , we need every bit of sympathy the cons can muster ; this time , there is n't much .
3 ||| A bravura exercise in emptiness .
1 ||| Philip K. Dick must be turning in his grave , along with my stomach .
1 ||| Despite the premise of a good story ... it wastes all its star power on cliched or meaningless roles .
1 ||| All prints of this film should be sent to and buried on Pluto .
3 ||| Not only does the movie fail to make us part of its reality , it fails the most basic relevancy test as well .
3 ||| First good , then bothersome .
4 ||| Excellent acting and direction .
1 ||| This goofy gangster yarn never really elevates itself from being yet another earnestly generic crime-busting comic vehicle -- a well-intentioned remake that shows some spunk and promise but fails to register as anything distinctive or daring
1 ||| It 's difficult to say whether The Tuxedo is more boring or embarrassing -- I 'm prepared to call it a draw .
1 ||| Even as lame horror flicks go , this is lame .
3 ||| So routine , familiar and predictable , it raises the possibility that it wrote itself as a newly automated Final Draft computer program .
2 ||| Sunshine State lacks the kind of dynamic that Limbo offers , and in some ways is a rather indulgent piece .
1 ||| Even legends like Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston occasionally directed trifles ... so it 's no surprise to see a world-class filmmaker like Zhang Yimou behind the camera for a yarn that 's ultimately rather inconsequential .
3 ||| A long-winded , predictable scenario .
1 ||| Too close to Phantom Menace for comfort .
2 ||| Although trying to balance self-referential humor and a normal ol' slasher plot seemed like a decent endeavor , the result does n't fully satisfy either the die-hard Jason fans or those who can take a good joke .
1 ||| Too clunky and too busy ribbing itself to be truly entertaining .
3 ||| This movie is about lying , cheating , but loving the friends you betray .
1 ||| It smacks of purely commercial motivation , with no great love for the original .
2 ||| Melanie eventually slugs the Yankee .
1 ||| Too bad the former Murphy Brown does n't pop Reese back .
2 ||| At the bottom rung of the series ' entries .
3 ||| A real clunker .
3 ||| A well-made , thoughtful , well-acted clunker , but a clunker nonetheless .
1 ||| A dreary rip-off of Goodfellas that serves as a muddled and offensive cautionary tale for Hispanic Americans .
3 ||| The picture , scored by a perversely cheerful Marcus Miller accordion\/harmonica\/banjo abomination , is a monument to bad in all its florid variety .
1 ||| Good for a few unintentional laughs , `` Extreme Ops '' was obviously made for the `` XXX '' crowd , people who enjoy mindless action without the benefit of decent acting , writing , and direction .
2 ||| ... a big , baggy , sprawling carnival of a movie , stretching out before us with little rhyme or reason .
1 ||| A frustrating combination of strained humor and heavy-handed sentimentality .
1 ||| Lawrence preaches strictly to the converted .
1 ||| As written by Michael Berg and Michael J. Wilson from a story by Wilson , this relentless , all-wise-guys-all-the-time approach tries way too hard and gets tiring in no time at all .
1 ||| Will probably stay in the shadow of its two older , more accessible Qatsi siblings .
1 ||| Just when the movie seems confident enough to handle subtlety , it dives into soapy bathos .
1 ||| Choppy editing and too many repetitive scenes spoil what could have been an important documentary about stand-up comedy .
1 ||| ... the film falls back on the same old formula of teen sex , outrageous pranks and scenes designed to push the envelope of bad taste for laughs .
1 ||| The only thing in Pauline and Paulette that you have n't seen before is a scene featuring a football field-sized Oriental rug crafted out of millions of vibrant flowers .
1 ||| If you 're looking for comedy to be served up , better look elsewhere .
3 ||| It virtually defines a comedy that 's strongly mediocre , with funny bits surfacing every once in a while .
0 ||| An instant candidate for worst movie of the year .
1 ||| Despite its title , Amy 's Orgasm is not a porno , though it is as tedious as one .
1 ||| Like a tone-deaf singer at a benefit concert , John Q. is a bad movie appearing on behalf of a good cause .
2 ||| Adam Sandler is to Gary Cooper what a gnat is to a racehorse .
3 ||| What kids will discover is a new collectible .
1 ||| What parents will suspect is that they 're watching a 76-minute commercial .
1 ||| Beers , who , when she 's given the right lines , can charm the paint off the wall ... -LRB- but -RRB- the script goes wrong at several key junctures .
0 ||| Without September 11 , Collateral Damage would have been just another bad movie .
0 ||| Now it 's a bad , embarrassing movie .
1 ||| Drags along in a dazed and enervated , drenched-in-the - past numbness .
3 ||| There 's a disturbing ` Great White Hope ' undertone to The Other Side of Heaven that subtly undermines its message of Christian love and compassion .
1 ||| Unless you are in dire need of a Diesel fix , there is no real reason to see it .
1 ||| Wait for video -- and then do n't rent it .
3 ||| The attempt is courageous , even if the result is wildly uneven .
1 ||| There 's something fundamental missing from this story : something or someone to care about .
1 ||| Too much of this well-acted but dangerously slow thriller feels like a preamble to a bigger , more complicated story , one that never materializes .
1 ||| When a film is created SOLELY because it 's a marketable product , soulless and ugly movies like this are the result .
2 ||| Let your silly childhood nostalgia slumber unmolested .
1 ||| Unfortunately , Heartbreak Hospital wants to convey the same kind of haughtiness in its own sketchy material but this territory has already been explored previously with better aplomb and sardonic wit .
1 ||| The more Kevin Costner rests on his pretty-boy laurels , the public is , regrettably , going to have tepid films like Dragonfly tossed at them .
3 ||| -LRB- It 's -RRB- difficult to get beyond the overall blandness of American Chai , despite its likable performances and refreshingly naive point of view .
1 ||| The latest installment in the Pokemon canon , Pokemon 4ever is surprising less moldy and trite than the last two , likely because much of the Japanese anime is set in a scenic forest where Pokemon graze in peace .
1 ||| Taken purely as an exercise in style , this oppressively gloomy techno-horror clambake is impossible to ignore .
0 ||| But as a movie , it 's a humorless , disjointed mess .
2 ||| If Myers decides to make another Austin Powers movie , maybe he should just stick with Austin and Dr Evil .
1 ||| The backyard battles you staged with your green plastic army men were more exciting and almost certainly made more sense .
0 ||| Too stupid to be satire , too obviously hateful to be classified otherwise , Frank Novak 's irritating slice of lumpen life is as reliably soul-killing as its title is nearly meaningless .
1 ||| Overly stylized with lots of flash black - & - white freeze frames reminiscent of a pseudo-hip luxury car commercial , -LRB- it 's -RRB- at its worst when it 's actually inside the ring .
2 ||| What is captured during the conceptual process does n't add up to a sufficient explanation of what the final dance work , The Selection , became in its final form .
1 ||| If this is satire , it 's the smug and self-congratulatory kind that lets the audience completely off the hook .
3 ||| Had the film boasted a clearer , more memorable , the creepiness would have gotten under the skin .
1 ||| These people would n't know subtle characterization if it put on a giant furry monster costume and then gave them a lapdance .
1 ||| Imagine if you will a Tony Hawk skating video interspliced with footage from Behind Enemy Lines and set to Jersey shore techno .
2 ||| It does n't quite work , but there 's enough here to make us look forward to the Russos ' next offering .
1 ||| Any film featuring young children threatened by a terrorist bomb can no longer pass as mere entertainment .
3 ||| The director 's twitchy sketchbook style and adroit perspective shifts grow wearisome amid leaden pacing and indifferent craftsmanship -LRB- most notably wretched sound design -RRB- .
4 ||| About as satisfying and predictable as the fare at your local drive through .
3 ||| Apparently kissing leads to suicide attempts and tragic deaths .
1 ||| Marisa Tomei is good , but Just A Kiss is just a mess .
1 ||| Opens at a funeral , ends on the protagonist 's death bed and does n't get much livelier in the three hours in between .
1 ||| The noble tradition of men in drag hits an all-time low in Sorority Boys , whose makers apparently believe that women 's clothing can cover up any deficiency in acting , writing or direction .
3 ||| To portray modern women the way director Davis has done is just unthinkable .
1 ||| Too simple for its own good .
3 ||| Flaccid drama and exasperatingly slow journey .
1 ||| A chaotic panorama that 's too busy flying a lot of metaphoric flags .
1 ||| Suffers from rambling , repetitive dialogue and the visual drabness endemic to digital video .
3 ||| The screenplay sabotages the movie 's strengths at almost every juncture .
1 ||| All the characters are stereotypes , and their interaction is numbingly predictable .
0 ||| A trashy , exploitative , thoroughly unpleasant experience .
0 ||| The performances are so leaden , Michael Rymer 's direction is so bloodless and the dialogue is so corny that the audience laughs out loud .
3 ||| A subtle variation on I Spit On Your Grave in which our purported heroine pathologically avenges a hatred for men .
1 ||| Reggio 's trippy , ambitious downer can also sometimes come across like nothing more than a glorified Nike ad .
3 ||| As Tweedy talks about canning his stockbroker and repairing his pool , you yearn for a few airborne TV sets or nude groupies on the nod to liven things up .
1 ||| If somebody was bored and ... decided to make a dull , pretentious version of Jesus ' Son , they 'd come up with something like Bart Freundlich 's World Traveler .
1 ||| The best you can say about it is it 's so uninspired , it barely gives one pause when considering some of the other dreck out there right now .
3 ||| A tough go , but Leigh 's depth and rigor , and his skill at inspiring accomplished portrayals that are all the more impressive for their lack of showiness , offsets to a notable degree the film 's often-mined and despairing milieu .
1 ||| An overstuffed compendium of teen-Catholic-movie dogma .
1 ||| Too leisurely paced and visually drab for its own good , it succeeds in being only sporadically amusing .
2 ||| Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan , Tom Clancy 's intrepid hero ?
2 ||| Ridiculous .
2 ||| What 's next ?
2 ||| D.J. Qualls as Indiana Jones ?
2 ||| Or Tom Green as Han Solo ?
1 ||| The movie 's biggest offense is its complete and utter lack of tension .
2 ||| The film is directed by Wally Wolodarsky from a script by Joe Jarvis and Greg Coolidge .
1 ||| These are names to remember , in order to avoid them in the future .
1 ||| If this is the resurrection of the Halloween franchise , it would have been better off dead .
3 ||| This formulaic chiller will do little to boost Stallone 's career .
1 ||| I saw Knockaround Guys yesterday , and already the details have faded like photographs from the Spanish-American War ... It 's so unmemorable that it turned my ballpoint notes to invisible ink .
1 ||| Though Avary has done his best to make something out of Ellis ' nothing novel , in the end , his Rules is barely worth following .
3 ||| The average local news columnist has a bigger rant on the war between modern landscape architecture and small-town America .
1 ||| No worse than a lot of the crap we 've been offered this summer , and slightly better than Men in Black 2 as far as slapdash extraterrestrial comedies go .
1 ||| The plot is so predictable and sentimental that viewers are likely to lose interest before Sandrine and her goats walk off into the sunset .
2 ||| At first , the sight of a blind man directing a film is hilarious , but as the film goes on , the joke wears thin .
0 ||| Never Again swings between false sentiment and unfunny madcap comedy and , along the way , expects the audience to invest in the central relationship as some kind of marriage of true minds .
0 ||| the story itself is uninteresting , and the songs are painfully undistinguished : They Might Be Giants ' So to Be One of Us may be the most tuneless tune ever composed .
1 ||| Technically , the film is about as interesting as an insurance commercial .
0 ||| The title 's lameness should clue you in on how bad the movie is .
3 ||| The parts are better than the whole -LRB- bizarre , funny , tragic - like love in New York -RRB- .
1 ||| While the film shuns the glamour or glitz that an American movie might demand , Scherfig tosses us a romantic scenario that is just as simplistic as a Hollywood production .
3 ||| The humor is hinged on the belief that knees in the crotch , elbows in the face and spit in the eye are inherently funny .
2 ||| It 's a movie forged in the fires of Chick Flick Hell .
1 ||| Its characters are thinner than cardboard -- or even comic-book paper .
1 ||| Any one episode of The Sopranos would send this ill-conceived folly to sleep with the fishes .
1 ||| Feels like the grittiest movie that was ever made for the Lifetime cable television network .
1 ||| Lanie 's professional success means she must be a failure at life , because she 's driven by ambition and Does n't Know How to Have Fun .
3 ||| Credit must be given to Harland Williams , Michael Rosenbaum and Barry Watson , who inject far more good-natured spirit and talent into this project than it deserves
1 ||| Denzel Washington 's efforts are sunk by all the sanctimony .
1 ||| If this holiday movie is supposed to be a gift , somebody unwrapped it early , took out all the good stuff , and left behind the crap -LRB- literally -RRB- .
1 ||| So faithful to the doldrums of the not-quite-urban , not-quite-suburban milieu as to have viewers recoiling from the reality check .
0 ||| Rambles on in a disjointed , substandard fashion from one poorly executed action sequence to the next .
1 ||| There 's an audience for it , but it could have been funnier and more innocent .
1 ||| I can only imagine one thing worse than Kevin Spacey trying on an Irish accent , and that 's sultry Linda Fiorentino doing the same thing .
0 ||| An awkward and indigestible movie .
1 ||| The movie has very little to offer besides unintentional laughs .
1 ||| Haneke keeps us at arm 's length .
1 ||| Guided more by intellect than heart , his story flattens instead of sharpens .
2 ||| All the well-meaningness in the world ca n't erase the fact that The Believer feels like a 12-Step Program for the Jewish Nazi .
1 ||| Like most sequels , it takes what worked last time , repeats it and adds more characters , more stunts , more stuff in attempt to camouflage its sameness .
1 ||| There 's no way to sort out the mess in our heads and deconstruct where it all went wrong .
0 ||| This is an hour and a half of daydreaming .
3 ||| Message movie or an action-packed submarine spectacular ?
1 ||| Alas , it 's neither .
1 ||| No movement , no yuks , not much of anything .
1 ||| ` Dragonfly ' is a movie about a bus wreck that turns into a film wreck .
1 ||| Thirty years ago , it would have been groundbreaking .
1 ||| Now it 's just tired .
1 ||| Heavy-handed exercise in time-vaulting literary pretension .
1 ||| The movie is too cute to take itself too seriously , but it still feels like it was made by some very stoned college students .
1 ||| A thinly veiled excuse for Wilson to play his self-deprecating act against Murphy 's well-honed prima donna shtick .
3 ||| A minor picture with a major identity crisis -- it 's sort of true and it 's sort of bogus and it 's ho-hum all the way through .
1 ||| The movie succumbs to being nothing more than a formulaic chase in the dark .
1 ||| Plays as hollow catharsis , with lots of tears but very little in the way of insights .
1 ||| It will come as no surprise that the movie is n't scary .
1 ||| But here 's the real damn : It is n't funny , either .
2 ||| Quick : who wants to see a comedy about shoddy airport security ?
1 ||| The reason I found myself finally unmoved by this film , which is immaculately produced and has serious things to say , is that it comes across rather too plainly as allegory .
3 ||| What you get with Empire is a movie you 've seen many times before , repackaged as new material because there is a Latino in the lead .
1 ||| Cho 's fans are sure to be entertained ; it 's only fair in the interest of full disclosure to say that -- on the basis of this film alone -- I 'm not one of them .
1 ||| Looks awfully like one long tourist spot for a Mississippi that may never have existed outside of a scriptwriter 's imagination .
1 ||| The period -- swinging London in the time of the mods and the rockers -- gets the once-over once again in Gangster No. 1 , but falls apart long before the end .
1 ||| High Crimes miscasts nearly every leading character .
2 ||| The overall feel of the film is pretty cheesy , but there 's still a real sense that the Star Trek tradition has been honored as best it can , given the embarrassing script and weak direction .
3 ||| De Niro looks bored , Murphy recycles Murphy , and you mentally add Showtime to the pile of Hollywood dreck that represents nothing more than the art of the deal .
1 ||| I did n't believe for a moment in these villains or their plot .
1 ||| Another rent installment for the Ian Fleming estate .
1 ||| With Danilo Donati 's witty designs and Dante Spinotti 's luscious cinematography , this might have made a decent children 's movie -- if only Benigni had n't insisted on casting himself in the title role .
1 ||| So lazy and slipshod it confuses the mere flashing of kinky soft-core imagery with naughty fun .
1 ||| Though it draws several decent laughs , it 's low-cal Woody at best .
2 ||| Has little on its mind aside from scoring points with drag gags .
1 ||| Well-shot but badly written tale set in a future ravaged by dragons .
1 ||| Sadly , Hewitt 's forte is leaning forward while wearing low-cut gowns , not making snappy comebacks .
3 ||| If Melville is creatively a great whale , this film is canned tuna .
1 ||| This film is so slick , superficial and trend-hoppy , that it 's easy to imagine that a new software program spit out the screenplay .
1 ||| Just one more collection of penis , breast and flatulence gags in search of a story .
2 ||| Or a profit .
2 ||| Or some damn thing .
0 ||| The acting is stiff , the story lacks all trace of wit , the sets look like they were borrowed from Gilligan 's Island -- and the CGI Scooby might well be the worst special-effects creation of the year .
1 ||| Enough trivializes an important crisis , reduces it to an almost comic embarrassment .
0 ||| The makers have forsaken the entertaining elements of the original and , instead , rehash old jokes and leave any life at the doorstep .
2 ||| I like Frank the Pug , though .
3 ||| A restrained Ribisi convinces as an Italian , though if ever a movie needed one of the actor 's whiny jags to pump it up , this has to be among the rare ones .
1 ||| Gee , a second assassin shot Kennedy ?
2 ||| Moot point .
1 ||| A hysterical yet humorless disquisition on the thin line between sucking face and literally sucking face .
1 ||| Needless to say , the dramatics that follow are utter hooey .
1 ||| The problem is that rather than dramatizing this premise , Mr. Desplechin is content to state it .
1 ||| Madonna still ca n't act a lick .
1 ||| Even the imaginative gore ca n't hide the musty scent of Todd Farmer 's screenplay , which is a simple retread of the 1979 Alien , with a plucky heroine battling a monster loose in a spaceship .
2 ||| If you pitch your expectations at an all time low , you could do worse than this oddly cheerful -- but not particularly funny -- body-switching farce .
3 ||| The episodic film makes valid points about the depersonalization of modern life .
1 ||| But the characters tend to be cliches whose lives are never fully explored .
1 ||| Serry does a fine job of capturing the climate of the times and , perhaps unwittingly , relating it to what is happening in America in 2002 .
1 ||| But hard-to-believe plot twists force the movie off track in its final half hour .
1 ||| Do n't let your festive spirit go this far .
1 ||| Though the book runs only about 300 pages , it is so densely packed ... that even an ambitious adaptation and elaborate production like Mr. Schepisi 's seems skimpy and unclear .
3 ||| Hey , at least the title of this film lets you know exactly where it 's heading .
1 ||| Intended to be a comedy about relationships , this wretched work falls flat in just about every conceivable area .
2 ||| Sensitive though not quite revelatory documentary .
1 ||| Director Brian Levant , who never strays far from his sitcom roots , skates blithely from one implausible situation to another , pausing only to tie up loose ends with more bows than you 'll find on a French poodle .
1 ||| ... perhaps the heaviest , most joyless movie ever made about giant dragons taking over the world .
1 ||| Suggests puns about ingredients and soup and somebody being off their noodle , but let 's just say the ingredients do n't quite add up to a meal .
1 ||| I 'd give real money to see the perpetrators of Chicago torn apart by dingoes .
3 ||| Movies like this are selling the old European candor , the old wink of ` bold ' revelation .
1 ||| But in 2002 , such revelations wilt .
1 ||| The timing in nearly every scene seems a half beat off .
3 ||| A fairly by-the-books blend of action and romance with sprinklings of intentional and unintentional comedy .
1 ||| Flounders due to the general sense that no two people working on the production had exactly the same thing in mind .
3 ||| Even if you feel like you 've seen this movie a thousand times before , it is kind of enjoyable thanks mainly to Belushi 's easy-going likableness .
1 ||| The story bogs down in a mess of purposeless violence .
1 ||| Despite some gulps the film is a fuzzy huggy .
2 ||| McKay deflates his piece of puffery with a sour cliche and heavy doses of mean-spiritedness
1 ||| A recipe for cinematic disaster ... part Quentin Tarantino , part Guy Ritchie , and part 1960s spy spoof , it 's all bad .
0 ||| The cumulative effect of the relentless horror on parade numbs the movie 's power as a work of drama .
1 ||| Another big , dumb action movie in the vein of XXX , The Transporter is riddled with plot holes big enough for its titular hero to drive his sleek black BMW through .
3 ||| Aaliyah rarely dampens her diva persona enough to spark genuine chemistry with Townsend .
3 ||| When she speaks , her creepy Egyptian demigod voice is as computer processed and overproduced as it was in her music .
3 ||| Outrageousness is all Plympton seemed to be going for this time .
3 ||| We miss the quirky amazement that used to come along for an integral part of the ride .
3 ||| Much of what is meant to be ` inspirational ' and ` uplifting ' is simply distasteful to audiences not already sharing -LRB- the movie 's -RRB- mindset .
2 ||| Well before it 's over , Beijing Bicycle begins spinning its wheels .
2 ||| Home Alone goes Hollywood , a funny premise until the kids start pulling off stunts not even Steven Spielberg would know how to do .
1 ||| Besides , real movie producers are n't this nice .
1 ||| -LRB- Nelson 's -RRB- movie about morally compromised figures leaves viewers feeling compromised , unable to find their way out of the fog and the ashes .
3 ||| Passion , lip-synching , tragedy , and lots of really really high notes .
0 ||| For me , this opera is n't a favorite , so it 's a long time before the fat lady sings .
1 ||| Looks like a high school film project completed the day before it was due .
1 ||| Truth to tell , if you 've seen more than half-a-dozen horror films , there 's nothing here you have n't seen before .
2 ||| Abandons all pretense of creating historical context and waltzes off into a hectic soap about the ups and downs of the heavy breathing between the two artists .
1 ||| Even die-hard fans of Japanese animation ... will find this one a challenge .
1 ||| Filmmakers have to dig deep to sink this low .
1 ||| Fortunately for all involved , this movie is likely to disappear as quickly as an ice cube thrown into a pot of boiling water .
0 ||| The movie gets muted and routine .
1 ||| The issue of faith is not explored very deeply
1 ||| The situations and jokes are as predictable and as lowbrow as the endless pratfalls the boys take in their high heels .
1 ||| It 's frustrating to see these guys -- who are obviously pretty clever -- waste their talent on parodies of things they probably thought were funniest when they were high .
1 ||| I was perplexed to watch it unfold with an astonishing lack of passion or uniqueness .
1 ||| K-19 may not hold a lot of water as a submarine epic , but it holds even less when it turns into an elegiacally soggy Saving Private Ryanovich .
1 ||| A very stylish but ultimately extremely silly tale ... a slick piece of nonsense but nothing more .
1 ||| Automatically pegs itself for the straight-to-video sci-fi rental shelf .
0 ||| The film is like a series of beginnings and middles that never take off .
1 ||| Feels less like it 's about teenagers , than it was written by teenagers .
0 ||| Ja Rule and Kurupt should have gotten to rap .
1 ||| It would have benefitted the dialogue .
1 ||| A standard haunted house tale transplanted to the high seas .
1 ||| Elicits more groans from the audience than Jar Jar Binks , Scrappy Doo and Scooby Dumb , all wrapped up into one .
0 ||| It 's badly acted , blandly directed , and could have been scripted by someone who just graduated from elementary school .
1 ||| In the end , White Oleander is n't an adaptation of a novel .
3 ||| It 's a flashy , star-splashed reduction .
1 ||| This film , starring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock , is your typical ` fish out of water ' story .
2 ||| You 've seen them a million times .
1 ||| Just one problem : Fish out of water usually die .
1 ||| This one does .
1 ||| The angst-ridden , affluent slacker characters are more grating than engaging .
0 ||| A soggy , shapeless mess ... just a dumb excuse for a waterlogged equivalent of a haunted-house movie .
2 ||| Men in Black II has sequel-itis something fierce .
2 ||| An ungainly , comedy-deficient , B-movie rush job ...
1 ||| A combination of standard , stiff TV-style animation and snazzy-looking digital effects that do little to disguise the fact that the characters barely move .
3 ||| An unsatisfying hybrid of Blair Witch and typical stalk-and-slash fare , where the most conservative protagonist is always the last one living .
1 ||| Say this for the soundtrack , it drowns out the lousy dialogue .
1 ||| After seeing SWEPT AWAY , I feel sorry for Madonna .
1 ||| Instead of kicking off the intrigue and suspense and mystery of the whole thing , Hart 's War , like the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl , waits until after halftime to get started .
1 ||| A gob of drivel so sickly sweet , even the eager consumers of Moore 's pasteurized ditties will retch it up like rancid crème brûlée .
2 ||| Maudlin and melodramatic we expected .
2 ||| Boring we did n't .
1 ||| Never quite transcends jokester status ... and the punchline does n't live up to Barry 's dead-eyed , perfectly chilled delivery .
1 ||| The film 's bathos often overwhelms what could have been a more multifaceted look at this interesting time and place .
1 ||| It almost plays like Solaris , but with guns and jokes .
0 ||| A baffling misfire , and possibly the weakest movie -LRB- Woody Allen -RRB- has made in the last twenty years .
2 ||| It wo n't be long before you 'll spy I Spy at a video store near you .
1 ||| This film looks like it was produced in 1954 , shelved for 48 years , and repackaged for a 2002 audience .
2 ||| Propelled not by characters but by caricatures .
1 ||| There is not an ounce of honesty in the entire production .
1 ||| This extremely unfunny film clocks in at 80 minutes , but feels twice as long .
1 ||| Earnest but earthbound ... a slow , soggy , soporific , visually dank crime melodrama\/character study that would be more at home on the small screen but for its stellar cast .
1 ||| The pivotal narrative point is so ripe the film ca n't help but go soft and stinky .
0 ||| For all its alleged youthful fire , XXX is no less subservient to Bond 's tired formula of guns , girls and gadgets while brandishing a new action hero .
1 ||| A predictable and stereotypical little B-movie .
3 ||| If I Spy were funny -LRB- enough -RRB- or exciting -LRB- enough -RRB- then it would be fairly simple to forgive the financial extortion it 's trying to reap from the moviegoing public .
1 ||| Frustratingly , Dridi tells us nothing about El Gallo other than what emerges through his music .
3 ||| Places a slightly believable love triangle in a difficult-to-swallow setting , and then disappointingly moves the story into the realm of an improbable thriller .
4 ||| A very average science fiction film .
1 ||| Undone by its overly complicated and derivative screenplay , the glacier-paced direction and the stereotypical characters .
2 ||| How anyone over the age of 2 can stomach the touchy-feely message this preachy produce promotes is beyond us .
0 ||| The sort of movie that gives tastelessness a bad rap .
1 ||| The cold and dreary weather is a perfect metaphor for the movie itself , which contains few laughs and not much drama .
1 ||| The plot is straight off the shelf , the performances are television - caliber and the message of providing solace through deception is a little creepy .
2 ||| ordinary melodrama that is heavy on religious symbols but wafer-thin on dramatic substance
3 ||| A whimsical if predictable time-travel fable marred by a willful single-mindedness .
3 ||| Those who managed to avoid the Deconstructionist theorizing of French philosopher Jacques Derrida in college can now take an 85-minute brush-up course with the documentary Derrida .
4 ||| Or , you can do something fun tonight .
2 ||| Jolie 's performance vanishes somewhere between her hair and her lips .
1 ||| As with too many studio pics , plot mechanics get in the way of what should be the lighter-than-air adventure .
1 ||| Static , repetitive , muddy and blurry , Hey Arnold !
1 ||| would seem to have a lock on the title of ugliest movie of the year .
3 ||| For all of the contemporary post-colonialist consciousness that Kapur tries to bring to The Four Feathers , the oddest thing about the movie is how it winds up affirming the same damn moldy values the material has always held dear .
1 ||| When it comes to entertainment , children deserve better than Pokemon 4Ever .
1 ||| What The Four Feathers lacks is genuine sweep or feeling or even a character worth caring about .
1 ||| While Benigni -LRB- who stars and co-wrote -RRB- seems to be having a wonderful time , he might be alone in that .
3 ||| Yes , 4Ever is harmless in the extreme and it 'll mute your kids for nearly 80 minutes , but why not just treat the little yard apes to the real deal and take them to Spirited Away ?
4 ||| Preposterous and tedious , Sonny is spiked with unintentional laughter that , unfortunately , occurs too infrequently to make the film even a guilty pleasure .
1 ||| Calling this movie brainless would be paying it a compliment : it 's more like entertainment for trolls .
1 ||| None of these characters resembles anyone you 've ever met in real life , unless you happen to know annoyingly self-involved people who speak in glib sentences that could have only come from the pen of a screenwriter .
1 ||| ... just a big mess of a movie , full of images and events , but no tension or surprise .
1 ||| As elegantly crafted as it often is , Anderson 's movie is essentially a one-trick pony that , hampered by an undeveloped script , ultimately pulls up lame .
1 ||| Splashes its drama all over the screen , subjecting its audience and characters to action that feels not only manufactured , but also so false you can see the filmmakers ' puppet strings .
1 ||| ... has virtually no script at all ...
0 ||| Will only satisfy those who ca n't tell the difference between the good , the bad and the ugly .
3 ||| This kind of dark comedy requires a delicate , surgical touch .
3 ||| But director Danny DeVito and screenwriter Adam Resnick -LRB- remember Cabin Boy ? -RRB-
1 ||| just pound away .
1 ||| At times , however , Dogtown and Z-Boys lapses into an insider 's lingo and mindset that the uninitiated may find hard to follow , or care about .
1 ||| Rather quickly , the film falls into a soothing formula of brotherly conflict and reconciliation .
1 ||| Screenwriters Scott Abbott and Michael Petroni have turned Rice 's complex Akasha into a cartoon monster .
3 ||| The writers , director Wally Wolodarsky , and all the actors should start their own coeducational fraternity : Kappa Rho Alpha Phi .
0 ||| Bad beyond belief and ridiculous beyond description .
1 ||| The new faces are interesting , but the old story is n't , especially when it starts to seem more improvised than scripted .
0 ||| Most of the action setups are incoherent .
4 ||| Liman , of Swingers and Go , makes his big-budget action film debut something of a clunker as he delivers a long , low-heat chase , interrupted by a middling car chase .
1 ||| ... surprisingly inert for a movie in which the main character travels back and forth between epochs .
1 ||| The problem is n't that the movie hits so close to home so much as that it hits close to home while engaging in such silliness as that snake-down-the-throat business and the inevitable shot of Schwarzenegger outrunning a fireball .
1 ||| Dreary , highly annoying ... ` Some Body ' will appeal to No One .
1 ||| There 's something deeply creepy about Never Again , a new arrow in Schaeffer 's quiver of ineptitudes .
1 ||| The problem with concept films is that if the concept is a poor one , there 's no saving the movie .
1 ||| Sorry , Charlie
3 ||| A painfully leaden film destined for pre-dawn cable television slots .
1 ||| Blessed with immense physical prowess he may well be , but Ahola is simply not an actor .
1 ||| And in truth , cruel as it may sound , he makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Spencer Tracy .
0 ||| The cartoon that is n't really good enough to be on afternoon TV is now a movie that is n't really good enough to be in theaters .
1 ||| Shocking only in that it reveals the filmmaker 's bottomless pit of self-absorption .
3 ||| This pep-talk for faith , hope and charity does little to offend , but if saccharine earnestness were a crime , the film 's producers would be in the clink for life .
2 ||| All ends well , sort of , but the frenzied comic moments never click .
1 ||| If this is the Danish idea of a good time , prospective tourists might want to consider a different destination -- some jolly country embroiled in a bloody civil war , perhaps .
1 ||| Formula 51 is so trite that even Yu 's high-energy action stylings ca n't break through the stupor .
2 ||| Only a few minutes elapse before the daddy of all slashers arrives , still with the boiler suit and white mask , which look remarkably clean for a guy who has been mass-murdering since 1978 but has never been seen doing laundry .
1 ||| When the painted backdrops in a movie are more alive than its characters , you know you 're in trouble .
0 ||| -LRB- Two -RRB- fairly dull -- contrasting and interlocking stories about miserable Scandinavian settlers in 18th-century Canada , and yuppie sailboaters in the here and now .
1 ||| The film is really not so much bad as bland .
1 ||| The central story lacks punch .
1 ||| Though Ganesh is successful in a midlevel sort of way , there 's nothing so striking or fascinating or metaphorically significant about his career as to rate two hours of our attention .
1 ||| This may be the dumbest , sketchiest movie on record about an aspiring writer 's coming-of-age .
2 ||| Succumbs to the same kind of maudlin , sentimental mysticism that mars the Touched by an Angel school of non-God spiritual-uplift movies .
3 ||| A harmless and mildly amusing family comedy .
1 ||| What was subtle and mystifying in the novella is now broad and farcical .
3 ||| The kids often appear to be reading the lines and are incapable of conveying any emotion .
2 ||| `` Men in Black II , '' has all the earmarks of a sequel .
1 ||| The story is less vibrant , the jokes are a little lukewarm , but will anyone really care ?
3 ||| Sucking all the ` classic ' out of Robert Louis Stevenson 's Treasure Island and filling the void with sci-fi video game graphics and Disney-fied adolescent angst ...
1 ||| This 72-minute film does have some exciting scenes , but it 's a tad slow .
3 ||| While Super Troopers is above Academy standards , its quintet of writers could still use some more schooling .
1 ||| A mix of velocity and idiocy , this ruinous remake lacks the brawn -- and the brains -- of the 1970s original .
2 ||| The low-budget Full Frontal was one of the year 's murkiest , intentionally obscure and self-indulgent pictures , and Solaris is its big-budget brother .
1 ||| The plot is very clever , but Boyd weighs it down with too many characters and events , all intertwined and far too complicated to keep track of .
1 ||| The film seems all but destined to pop up on a television screen in the background of a scene in a future Quentin Tarantino picture
1 ||| A free-for-all of half-baked thoughts , clumsily used visual tricks and self-indulgent actor moments .
1 ||| Apallingly absurd ... the chemistry or lack thereof between Newton and Wahlberg could turn an Imax theater into a 9 '' black and white portable TV .
4 ||| A well acted and well intentioned snoozer .
1 ||| The smug , oily demeanor that Donovan adopts throughout the stupidly named Pipe Dream is just repulsive .
3 ||| Must-see viewing for anyone involved in the high-tech industry .
1 ||| Others may find it migraine-inducing , despite Moore 's attempts at whimsy and spoon feeding .
2 ||| Despite its good nature and some genuinely funny moments , Super Troopers suffers from a bad case of arrested development .
2 ||| It 's hard not to feel you 've just watched a feature-length video game with some really heavy back story .
1 ||| I watched the brainless insanity of No Such Thing with mounting disbelief .
1 ||| This limp gender-bender-baller from a first-time director and rookie screenwriter steals wholesale from that 1982 's Tootsie , forgetting only to retain a single laugh .
3 ||| Kwan makes the mix-and - match metaphors intriguing , while lulling us into torpor with his cultivated allergy to action .
3 ||| While obviously an extremely personal work , it remains inextricably stuck in an emotionally unavailable rut .
1 ||| Any movie this boring should be required to have ushers in the theater that hand you a cup of coffee every few minutes .
3 ||| Like a marathon runner trying to finish a race , you need a constant influx of liquid just to get through it .
3 ||| I loved looking at this movie .
1 ||| I just did n't care as much for the story .
1 ||| Has all the poignancy of a Hallmark card and all the comedy of a Gallagher stand-up act .
1 ||| It does n't do the original any particular dishonor , but neither does it exude any charm or personality .
1 ||| fear dot com is so rambling and disconnected it never builds any suspense .
4 ||| A gorgeous , somnolent show that is splendidly mummified and thoroughly unsurprising .
3 ||| It feels like a community theater production of a great Broadway play : Even at its best , it will never hold a candle to the original .
1 ||| The film apparently takes place in a fantasy world where people in hotel hallways recite poetry in voice-over instead of speaking to each other .
1 ||| The element of surprise might be the only thing Femme Fatale has going for it .
1 ||| It 's the kind of movie you ca n't quite recommend because it is all windup and not much of a pitch , yet you ca n't bring yourself to dislike it .
2 ||| Maybe it 's asking too much , but if a movie is truly going to inspire me , I want a little more than this .
1 ||| A graceless , witless attempt at mating Some Like It Hot with the WWII espionage thriller .
1 ||| The story and characters are nowhere near gripping enough .
3 ||| Based on a David Leavitt story , the film shares that writer 's usual blend of observant cleverness , too-facile coincidence and slightly noxious preciousness .
1 ||| Just like every other Seagal movie , only louder and without that silly ponytail .
4 ||| To enjoy this movie 's sharp dialogue and delightful performance by Jolie and Burns , you have to gloss over the no sense ending .
0 ||| National Lampoon 's Van Wilder could be the worst thing to come out of National Lampoon since Class Reunion
4 ||| This is a great subject for a movie , but Hollywood has squandered the opportunity , using it as a prop for warmed-over melodrama and the kind of choreographed mayhem that director John Woo has built his career on .
2 ||| Ecks this one off your must-see list .
1 ||| Overall , the film misses the brilliance of Jelinek 's novel by some way .
1 ||| It settles for being merely grim .
1 ||| The Irwins emerge unscathed , but the fictional footage is unconvincing and criminally badly acted .
2 ||| It 's not thirsty , consuming passion which drives this movie .
0 ||| No , it 's the repetition of said behavior , and so Children of the Century is more mindless love than mad , more grating and boring than anything else .
1 ||| Just because it really happened to you , honey , does n't mean that it 's interesting to anyone else .
1 ||| Just like the deli sandwich : lots of ham , lots of cheese , with a sickly sweet coating to disguise its excrescence until just after -LRB- or during -RRB- consumption of its second half .
0 ||| Every so often a movie comes along that confirms one 's worse fears about civilization as we know it .
4 ||| The New Guy is one of them .
1 ||| This is n't a `` Friday '' worth waiting for .
2 ||| Everything that 's worthwhile about Collision Course can already be seen on television .
1 ||| If this movie belonged to a sorority , it would be called Beta Alpha Delta .
1 ||| Not a cheap slasher flick , as the subject matter would suggest , but is a little like a nature film , showing a patient predator and his foolish prey .
1 ||| Uneasy mishmash of styles and genres .
2 ||| Herzog is obviously looking for a moral to his fable , but the notion that a strong , unified showing among Germany and Eastern European Jews might have changed 20th-Century history is undermined by Ahola 's inadequate performance .
1 ||| All in all , there 's only one thing to root for : expulsion for everyone .
1 ||| Beyond a handful of mildly amusing lines ... there just is n't much to laugh at .
1 ||| Secret Ballot is too contemplative to be really funny .
1 ||| The film 's center will not hold .
1 ||| Myers never knows when to let a gag die ; thus , we 're subjected to one mind-numbingly lengthy riff on poo and pee jokes after another .
1 ||| Too lazy to take advantage of its semi-humorous premise .
0 ||| A great ending does n't make up for a weak movie , and Crazy as Hell does n't even have a great ending .
1 ||| Dialogue-heavy and too cerebral for its own good -- or , at any rate , too cerebral for its racy subject matter .
3 ||| Its over-reliance on genre conventions , character types and formulaic conflict resolutions crushes all the goodwill it otherwise develops .
2 ||| As an actor , The Rock is aptly named .
1 ||| A mostly tired retread of several other mob tales .
3 ||| I wish I could say `` Thank God It 's Friday '' , but the truth of the matter is I was glad when it was over .
1 ||| Nothing about it fits .
2 ||| As it abruptly crosscuts among the five friends , it fails to lend the characters ' individual stories enough dramatic resonance to make us care about them .
2 ||| Somehow we 're meant to buy that this doting mother would shun her kids , travel to one of the most dangerous parts of the world , don fatigues and become G.I. Jane .
1 ||| The cast is so low-wattage that none of the characters comes off as big ... and the setting remains indistinct .
1 ||| Consider the title 's clunk-on-the-head that suggests the overtime someone put in to come up with an irritatingly unimaginative retread concept .
0 ||| The movie quickly drags on becoming boring and predictable .
1 ||| I tried to read the time on my watch .
1 ||| The film makes a tragic error by going on for too long , trying to mirror every subsequent event in Chinese history : war , revolution , Communism , etc. .
2 ||| Johnson has , in his first film , set himself a task he is not nearly up to .
1 ||| Ultimately the project comes across as clinical , detached , uninvolving , possibly prompting audience members to wonder , ` What 's the point ? '
3 ||| The two leads are almost good enough to camouflage the dopey plot , but so much naturalistic small talk , delivered in almost muffled exchanges , eventually has a lulling effect .
1 ||| The film meant well in its horse tale about freedom , but was n't able to reach the heart because it was too overbearing .
0 ||| The movie is as far as you can get from racy , to the point where it almost stops the blood flow to your brain ; it has a dull , costumey feel .
3 ||| Once the audience figure out what 's being said , the filmmaker 's relative passivity will make it tough for them to really care .
1 ||| There 's nothing provocative about this film save for the ways in which it studiously avoids provoking thought .
1 ||| It seems just a long , convoluted ploy to get men into drag -- period drag , no less .
3 ||| The premise for this kegger comedy probably sounded brilliant four six-packs and a pitcher of margaritas in , but the film must have been written ... in the thrall of a vicious hangover .
0 ||| Even by dumb action-movie standards , Ballistic : Ecks vs. Sever is a dumb action movie .
1 ||| The film equivalent of a toy chest whose contents get scattered over the course of 80 minutes .
1 ||| Just a bloody mess .
2 ||| Creepy but ultimately unsatisfying thriller .
3 ||| You would be better off investing in the worthy EMI recording that serves as the soundtrack , or the home video of the 1992 Malfitano-Domingo production .
4 ||| Has something to say ... but it is a statement and issue worthy of a much more thoughtfulness and insight than a melodramatic and wholly predictable thriller .
0 ||| Bears is bad .
0 ||| Not ` terrible filmmaking ' bad , but more like , ' I once had a nightmare like this , and it 's now coming true ' bad .
1 ||| As is most commonly case with projects such noble and lofty ambitions , the film is less poetic than simply pretentious .
3 ||| George , hire a real director and good writers for the next installment , please .
1 ||| For a film about two mismatched buddies , Crystal and De Niro share little screen time and even less chemistry .
1 ||| However clever Nelson has been in providing variation within the confines of her structure and staging , the question remains whether this should , indeed , have been presented as a theatrical release .
1 ||| Extreme Oops - oops , ops , no matter how you spell it , it 's still a mistake to go see it .
0 ||| What could and should have been biting and droll is instead a tepid waste of time and talent .
3 ||| What will , most likely , turn out to be the most repellent movie of 2002 .
1 ||| ... too dull to enjoy .
3 ||| A morality tale whose thought-provoking potential is hampered by a made-for-TV look , rigid performances and an asinine ` twist ' that brazenly rips off The Sixth Sense .
1 ||| Here 's a self-congratulatory 3D IMAX rah-rah .
4 ||| Eastwood is an icon of moviemaking , one of the best actors , directors and producers around , responsible for some excellent work .
2 ||| But even a hero can stumble sometimes .
3 ||| A sophomoric exploration of ` life problems ' most people solved long ago -- or at least got tired of hearing people kvetch about .
2 ||| It 's all very cute , though not terribly funny if you 're more than six years old .
1 ||| The impact of the Armenian genocide is diluted by too much stage business in the modern day .
3 ||| Going to the website may be just as fun -LRB- and scary -RRB- as going to the film .
0 ||| Lacking gravitas , MacDowell is a placeholder for grief , and ergo this sloppy drama is an empty vessel .
1 ||| Leave these Flowers unpicked -- they 're dead on the vine .
1 ||| Admirable , certainly , but not much fun to watch .
2 ||| For Caine Lovers only .
1 ||| A shambles of a movie -- visually unattractive , unbearably loud and utterly silly ... its hilarity is completely unintentional .
1 ||| De Niro may enjoy the same free ride from critics afforded to Clint Eastwood in the lazy Bloodwork .
1 ||| But like Bruce Springsteen 's gone-to-pot Asbury Park , New Jersey , this sad-sack waste of a movie is a City of ruins .
1 ||| No , it 's not nearly as good as any of its influences .
1 ||| A reasonably efficient mechanism , but it offers few surprises and finds its stars slumming in territory they should have avoided .
1 ||| The rest of the plot is impossible to explain without blowing whatever tension there is , although it 's more comedy than suspense De Palma creates .
2 ||| Human Nature talks the talk , but it fails to walk the silly walk that distinguishes the merely quirky from the surreal .
3 ||| City by the Sea is the cinematic equivalent of defensive driving : It 's careful , conscientious and makes no major mistakes .
3 ||| But what saves lives on the freeway does not necessarily make for persuasive viewing .
3 ||| The Marquis de Sade could n't have been as dull a person as this film makes him out to be .
1 ||| What could have been a neat little story about believing in yourself is swamped by heavy-handed melodrama .
3 ||| The cast is uniformly excellent ... but the film itself is merely mildly charming .
1 ||| Drives for the same kind of bittersweet , conciliatory tone that Three Seasons achieved but loses its way in rhetorical excess and blatant sentimentality .
1 ||| A bigger holiday downer than your end-of-year 401 -LRB- k -RRB- statement .
1 ||| The whole thing plays out with the drowsy heaviness of synchronized swimmer wearing a wool wetsuit .
1 ||| Fairly successful at faking some pretty cool stunts but a complete failure at trying to create some pretty cool characters .
1 ||| And forget about any attempt at a plot !
3 ||| It will probably prove interesting to Ram Dass fans , but to others it may feel like a parody of the mellow , peace-and-love side of the '60s counterculture .
1 ||| Take away all the cliches and the carbon copy scenes from every drug movie we 've seen and all you have left are John Leguizamo 's cool jackets .
1 ||| It 's so full of wrong choices that all you can do is shake your head in disbelief -- and worry about what classic Oliver Parker intends to mangle next time .
1 ||| Showtime is closer to Slowtime .
2 ||| It may be an easy swipe to take , but this Barbershop just does n't make the cut .
1 ||| The Weight of Water uses water as a metaphor for subconscious desire , but this leaky script barely stays afloat .
2 ||| ` How many more voyages can this limping but dearly-loved franchise survive ? '
1 ||| Despite a blue-chip cast and a provocative title , writer-director Peter Mattei 's first feature microwaves dull leftover romantic motifs basted in faux-contemporary gravy .
1 ||| Fans of the TV series will be disappointed , and everyone else will be slightly bored .
1 ||| The only element of suspense is whether the movie will change titles or distributors again before the closing credits roll .
3 ||| Barely goes beyond comic book status .
1 ||| It 's disappointing when filmmakers throw a few big-name actors and cameos at a hokey script .
1 ||| I Spy is an embarrassment , a monotonous , disjointed jumble of borrowed plot points and situations .
1 ||| It 's as flat as an open can of pop left sitting in the sun .
3 ||| An eccentric little comic\/thriller deeply in love with its own quirky personality .
1 ||| Afraid to pitch into farce , yet only half-hearted in its spy mechanics , All the Queen 's Men is finally just one long drag .
2 ||| Maybe it 's the star power of the cast or the redundant messages , but something aboul `` Full Frontal '' seems , well , contrived .
1 ||| -LRB- Morgan -RRB- , Judd and Franklin ca n't save the script , rooted in a novel by Joseph Finder , from some opportunism .
3 ||| Passably entertaining but also mechanical and joyless .
3 ||| Safe Conduct , however ambitious and well-intentioned , fails to hit the entertainment bull 's - eye .
3 ||| My response to the film is best described as lukewarm .
1 ||| Maybe I found the proceedings a little bit too conventional .
1 ||| Too timid to bring a sense of closure to an ugly chapter of the twentieth century .
1 ||| It 's push-the-limits teen comedy , the type written by people who ca n't come up with legitimate funny , and it 's used so extensively that good bits are hopelessly overshadowed .
1 ||| It 's too long , too repetitive , and takes way too many years to resolve to be a total winner .
3 ||| A sudsy cautionary tale .
1 ||| A movie that tries to fuse the two ` woods ' but winds up a Bolly-Holly masala mess .
1 ||| Mr. Wedge and Mr. Saldanha handle the mix of verbal jokes and slapstick well .
1 ||| Their film falters , however , in its adherence to the Disney philosophy of required poignancy , a salute that I 'd hoped the movie would avoid .
1 ||| Leaves you with a knot in your stomach , its power is undercut by its own head-banging obviousness .
1 ||| Watching it is rather like an overlong visit from a large group of your relatives .
1 ||| As your relatives swap one mundane story after another , you begin to wonder if they are ever going to depart .
1 ||| Unfortunately , as a writer , Mr. Montias is n't nearly as good to his crew as he is as a director or actor .
1 ||| On the right track to something that 's creepy and effective ... It 's just going to take more than a man in a Bullwinkle costume to get there .
1 ||| The only thing that could possibly make them less interesting than they already are is for them to get full montied into a scrappy , jovial team .
1 ||| One of those movies where you walk out of the theater not feeling cheated exactly , but feeling pandered to , which , in the end , might be all the more infuriating .
3 ||| ... this movie has a glossy coat of action movie excess while remaining heartless at its core .
1 ||| Murder By Numbers is like a couple of mediocre TV-movie - of-the-week films clumsily stuck together .
3 ||| The film is surprisingly well-directed by Brett Ratner , who keeps things moving well -- at least until the problematic third act .
3 ||| Warmed-over Tarantino by way of wannabe Elmore Leonard .
1 ||| -LRB- Sen 's -RRB- soap opera-ish approach undermines his good intentions .
3 ||| Showtime is one of the hapless victims of the arrogant `` if we put together a wry white man and a chatty black man and give them guns , the movie will be funny '' syndrome .
1 ||| Sushi for the connoisseurs of the macabre .
1 ||| Do n't waste your money .
3 ||| Though certainly original in form , Altar Boys requires a taste for Swamp Thing-type animation , doubled with a deafening score .
1 ||| There are n't many laughs in this interesting study of the cultural mores of Georgian Jews in Tel Aviv .
1 ||| There 's not enough to sustain the comedy .
2 ||| Like those to Rome , all roads in The Banger Sisters inevitably lead to a joke about Hawn 's breasts , which constantly threaten to upstage the woman sporting them .
1 ||| We may get the full visceral impact of a ruthless army on the warpath but no sense of the devilish complexity of the Balkans conflict .
1 ||| You 're better off staying home and watching The X-Files .
1 ||| Chaotic , self-indulgent and remarkably ugly to look at , it 's ... like a series of pretentiously awful student films strung together into one feature-length horror .
2 ||| Bears resemblance to , and shares the weaknesses of , too many recent action-fantasy extravaganzas in which special effects overpower cogent story-telling and visual clarity during the big action sequences .
3 ||| This is the type of movie best enjoyed by frat boys and college kids while sucking on the bong and downing one alcoholic beverage after another .
1 ||| Friday After Next has the same problem that Next Friday did -- it 's called Where 's Chris Tucker When You Need Him ?
1 ||| This film is full of rabbits .
2 ||| Brimful .
1 ||| But like most rabbits , it seems to lack substance .
3 ||| I weep for the future when a good portion of the respected critical community in this country consider Blue Crush to be an intelligent film about young women .
0 ||| I kept wishing I was watching a documentary about the wartime Navajos and what they accomplished instead of all this specious Hollywood hoo-ha .
4 ||| No number of fantastic sets , extras , costumes and spectacular locales can disguise the emptiness at the center of the story .
1 ||| A movie far more cynical and lazy than anything a fictitious Charlie Kaufman might object to .
0 ||| Could The Country Bears really be as bad as its trailers ?
2 ||| In a word -- yes .
1 ||| If High Crimes were any more generic it would have a universal product code instead of a title .
0 ||| Reggio falls victim to relying on the very digital technology that he fervently scorns , creating a meandering , inarticulate and ultimately disappointing film .
1 ||| The movie makes absolutely no sense .
3 ||| Its underlying mythology is a hodgepodge of inconsistencies that pose the question : Since when did dumb entertainment have to be this dumb ?
1 ||| The problem with this film is that it 's forced to make its characters idiots in order to advance the plot .
1 ||| Had anyone here done anything remotely intelligent , we all could have stopped watching long ago .
1 ||| Despite the authenticity of the trappings , the film is overblown in its plotting , hackneyed in its dialogue and anachronistic in its style .
1 ||| Murder and mayhem of this sort quickly becomes monotonous .
1 ||| The journey toward redemption feels more like a cinematic experiment than a full-blown movie .
1 ||| That Zhang would make such a strainingly cute film -- with a blind orphan at its center , no less -- indicates where his ambitions have wandered .
2 ||| The Gantzes ' interviews tend to let the guys off the hook .
1 ||| The streets , shot by cinematographer Michael Ballhaus , may be as authentic as they are mean , but it is nearly impossible to care about what happens on them .
1 ||| This is a good movie in spurts , but when it does n't work , it 's at important times .
1 ||| Parker probably thinks he 's shaking up a classic the way Kenneth Branagh and Baz Luhrmann have , but this half-hearted messing-about just makes us miss Wilde 's still-contemporary play .
3 ||| Flotsam in the sea of moviemaking , not big enough for us to worry about it causing significant harm and not smelly enough to bother despising .
1 ||| A TV episode inflated past its natural length .
1 ||| Involving at times , but lapses quite casually into the absurd .
1 ||| All these developments and challenges facing Santa weigh down the plot so heavily that they drain all the film of its energy and needlessly strain credibility .
1 ||| There are weird resonances between actor and role here , and they 're not exactly flattering .
1 ||| The unceasing sadism is so graphically excessive , the director just ends up exposing his own obsession .
1 ||| The story ... is moldy and obvious .
0 ||| It 's drained of life in an attempt to be sober and educational , and yet it 's so devoid of realism that its lack of whistles and bells just makes it obnoxious and stiff .
2 ||| Suffocated at conception by its Munchausen-by-proxy mum .
3 ||| Punish the vehicle to adore the star .
0 ||| Even if Britney Spears is really cute , her movie is really bad .
1 ||| Big Fat Liar is just futile silliness looking to tap into the kiddie sensibilities .
2 ||| Usually when I get this much syrup , I like pancakes to go with it .
1 ||| All the necessary exposition prevents the picture from rising above your generic sand 'n' sandal adventure .
4 ||| Glib , satirical documentary that fudges facts , makes facile points and engages in the cinematic equivalent of tabloid journalism .
1 ||| Gangs of New York is an unapologetic mess , whose only saving grace is that it ends by blowing just about everything up .
0 ||| An overblown clunker full of bad jokes , howling cliches and by-the-numbers action sequences .
3 ||| Without a strong script and energetic acting , Dogma films can produce the same sleep-inducing effects as watching your neighbor 's home videos .
2 ||| A mild , reluctant , thumbs down .
3 ||| Strong setup and ambitious goals fade as the film descends into unsophisticated scare tactics and B-film thuggery .
1 ||| Schindler 's List it ai n't .
3 ||| A cinematic sleeping pill of impressive potency .
3 ||| It 's an awfully derivative story .
2 ||| It 's an earnest debut full of heartfelt performances , but is ultimately let down by a story that is all too predictable .
1 ||| About as cutting-edge as Pet Rock : The Movie .
3 ||| With generic sets and B-grade special effects , Jason is about as convincing on the sci-fi front as TV 's defunct Cleopatra 2525 .
1 ||| Not sweet enough to liven up its predictable story and will leave even fans of hip-hop sorely disappointed .
3 ||| Winds up feeling like lots of other quirky movies that try to score hipness points with young adults .
1 ||| Oft-described as the antidote to American Pie-type sex comedies , it actually has a bundle in common with them , as the film diffuses every opportunity for a breakthrough
1 ||| The pacing is glacial , the screenplay is stiff as a board , and things heat up only in the movie 's final scenes .
1 ||| The premise is overshadowed by the uberviolence of the Clericks as this becomes just another kung-fu sci-fi movie with silly action sequences .
1 ||| With its hints of a greater intelligence lurking somewhere , The Ring makes its stupidity more than obvious .
0 ||| It 's painful .
1 ||| An uneven film dealing with too many problems to be taken seriously .
1 ||| Sheridan ... smoothes over sources of conflict that could have lent the film a bit more depth .
3 ||| An atonal estrogen opera that demonizes feminism while gifting the most sympathetic male of the piece with a nice vomit bath at his wedding .
1 ||| Half of it is composed of snappy patter and pseudo-sophisticated cultural observations , while the remainder ... would be more at home on a daytime television serial .
2 ||| Writer\/director John McKay ignites some charming chemistry between Kate and Jed but , when he veers into sodden melodrama , punctuated by violins , it 's disastrous and Kate 's jealous female friends become downright despicable .
3 ||| -LRB- Newton -RRB- wanders through CHARLIE completely unaware she needs to show some presence and star quality .
1 ||| Unfortunately , the picture failed to capture me .
1 ||| I found it slow , drab , and bordering on melodramatic .
1 ||| A lousy movie that 's not merely unwatchable , but also unlistenable .
3 ||| The best way to hope for any chance of enjoying this film is by lowering your expectations .
1 ||| Then lower them a bit more .
2 ||| When not obscured by the booming bass-heavy soundtrack , the conversation presents the kind of linguistic fumbling not heard since Macy Gray 's game of Chinese whispers with Mr Bean .
1 ||| Cliches are as thick as the cigarette smoke .
0 ||| A woozy , roisterous , exhausting mess , and the off-beat casting of its two leads turns out to be as ill-starred as you might expect .
1 ||| ` Abandon all hope , ye who enter here ' ... you should definitely let Dante 's gloomy words be your guide .
1 ||| What begins as a seemingly brainless , bubbly romantic comedy becomes a cliche-drenched melodrama by mid-film and , by film 's end , a feminist action fantasy .
1 ||| A grim , flat and boring werewolf movie that refuses to develop an energy level .
1 ||| Birot 's directorial debut -LRB- she co-wrote the script with Christophe Honoré -RRB- is n't so much bad as it is bland .
2 ||| Watching the film is like reading a Times Portrait of Grief that keeps shifting focus to the journalist who wrote it .
1 ||| Enough similarities to Gymkata and Howie Long 's Firestorm that my fingernails instinctively crawled towards my long-suffering eyeballs .
3 ||| Succeeds in providing a disquiet world the long-dreaded completion of the Police Academy series .
3 ||| Christians sensitive to a reductionist view of their Lord as a luv-spreading Dr. Feelgood or omnipotent slacker will feel vastly more affronted than secularists , who might even praise God for delivering such an instant camp classic .
1 ||| If this dud had been made in the '70s , it would have been called The Hills Have Antlers and played for about three weeks in drive-ins .
1 ||| A frantic search for laughs , with a hit-to-miss ratio that does n't exactly favour the audience .
3 ||| Like a documentary version of Fight Club , shorn of social insight , intellectual pretension and cinematic interest .
3 ||| `` An entire film about researchers quietly reading dusty old letters . ''
1 ||| Pryor Lite , with half the demons , half the daring , much less talent , many fewer laughs .
2 ||| What 's at stake in this film is nothing more than an obsolete , if irritating , notion of class .
1 ||| The stories here suffer from the chosen format .
1 ||| While the mystery surrounding the nature of the boat 's malediction remains intriguing enough to sustain mild interest , the picture refuses to offer much accompanying sustenance in the way of characterization , humor or plain old popcorn fun .
1 ||| Just how extreme are these ops ?
1 ||| I regret to report that these ops are just not extreme enough .
1 ||| The actors are forced to grapple with hazy motivations that never come into focus .
1 ||| John Leguizamo may be a dramatic actor -- just not in this movie .
2 ||| The sequel has turned completely and irrevocably bizarre to the point of utter nonsense .
3 ||| Hardly makes the kind of points Egoyan wanted to make , nor does it exist as the kind of monument he wanted to build , to victims whose voices have never gained the ears of the world .
3 ||| Rainy days and movies about the disintegration of families always get me down .
1 ||| The Master Of Disaster - it 's a piece of dreck disguised as comedy .
2 ||| The film has a few cute ideas and several modest chuckles but it is n't exactly kiddie-friendly ... Alas , Santa is more ho-hum than ho-ho-ho and the Snowman -LRB- who never gets to play that flute -RRB- has all the charm of a meltdown .
0 ||| The stupidest , most insulting movie of 2002 's first quarter .
1 ||| It 's so underwritten that you ca n't figure out just where the other characters , including Ana 's father and grandfather , come down on the issue of Ana 's future .
1 ||| A film so tedious that it is impossible to care whether that boast is true or not .
1 ||| None of this violates the letter of Behan 's book , but missing is its spirit , its ribald , full-throated humor .
0 ||| Bad Company leaves a bad taste , not only because of its bad-luck timing , but also the staleness of its script .
3 ||| Even if it ultimately disappoints , the picture does have about a matinee admission 's worth of funny to keep it afloat .
1 ||| Fails to bring as much to the table .
3 ||| A film made with as little wit , interest , and professionalism as artistically possible for a slummy Hollywood caper flick .
1 ||| Disturbingly superficial in its approach to the material .
3 ||| If you 're not the target demographic ... this movie is one long chick-flick slog .
0 ||| I hate this movie
3 ||| An imaginative comedy\/thriller .
4 ||| -LRB- A -RRB- rare , beautiful film .
3 ||| -LRB- An -RRB- hilarious romantic comedy .
1 ||| Never -LRB- sinks -RRB- into exploitation .
0 ||| -LRB- U -RRB- nrelentingly stupid .