1 A series of escapades demonstrating the adage that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander , some of which occasionally amuses but none of which amounts to much of a story . 4 This quiet , introspective and entertaining independent is worth seeking . 1 Even fans of Ismail Merchant 's work , I suspect , would have a hard time sitting through this one . 3 A positively thrilling combination of ethnography and all the intrigue , betrayal , deceit and murder of a Shakespearean tragedy or a juicy soap opera . 1 Aggressive self-glorification and a manipulative whitewash . 4 A comedy-drama of nearly epic proportions rooted in a sincere performance by the title character undergoing midlife crisis . 1 Narratively , Trouble Every Day is a plodding mess . 3 The Importance of Being Earnest , so thick with wit it plays like a reading from Bartlett 's Familiar Quotations 1 But it does n't leave you with much . 1 You could hate it for the same reason . 1 There 's little to recommend Snow Dogs , unless one considers cliched dialogue and perverse escapism a source of high hilarity . 1 Kung Pow is Oedekerk 's realization of his childhood dream to be in a martial-arts flick , and proves that sometimes the dreams of youth should remain just that . 4 The performances are an absolute joy . 3 Fresnadillo has something serious to say about the ways in which extravagant chance can distort our perspective and throw us off the path of good sense . 3 I still like Moonlight Mile , better judgment be damned . 3 A welcome relief from baseball movies that try too hard to be mythic , this one is a sweet and modest and ultimately winning story . 3 a bilingual charmer , just like the woman who inspired it 2 Like a less dizzily gorgeous companion to Mr. Wong 's In the Mood for Love -- very much a Hong Kong movie despite its mainland setting . 1 As inept as big-screen remakes of The Avengers and The Wild Wild West . 2 It 's everything you 'd expect -- but nothing more . 4 Best indie of the year , so far . 3 Hatfield and Hicks make the oddest of couples , and in this sense the movie becomes a study of the gambles of the publishing world , offering a case study that exists apart from all the movie 's political ramifications . 1 It 's like going to a house party and watching the host defend himself against a frothing ex-girlfriend . 2 That the Chuck Norris `` grenade gag '' occurs about 7 times during Windtalkers is a good indication of how serious-minded the film is . 2 The plot is romantic comedy boilerplate from start to finish . 2 It arrives with an impeccable pedigree , mongrel pep , and almost indecipherable plot complications . 2 A film that clearly means to preach exclusively to the converted . 1 While The Importance of Being Earnest offers opportunities for occasional smiles and chuckles , it does n't give us a reason to be in the theater beyond Wilde 's wit and the actors ' performances . 1 The latest vapid actor 's exercise to appropriate the structure of Arthur Schnitzler 's Reigen . 2 More vaudeville show than well-constructed narrative , but on those terms it 's inoffensive and actually rather sweet . 2 Nothing more than a run-of-the-mill action flick . 0 Hampered -- no , paralyzed -- by a self-indulgent script ... that aims for poetry and ends up sounding like satire . 2 Ice Age is the first computer-generated feature cartoon to feel like other movies , and that makes for some glacial pacing early on . 2 There 's very little sense to what 's going on here , but the makers serve up the cliches with considerable dash . 2 Cattaneo should have followed the runaway success of his first film , The Full Monty , with something different . 1 They 're the unnamed , easily substitutable forces that serve as whatever terror the heroes of horror movies try to avoid . 1 It almost feels as if the movie is more interested in entertaining itself than in amusing us . 0 The movie 's progression into rambling incoherence gives new meaning to the phrase ` fatal script error . ' 3 Do n't judge this one too soon - it 's a dark , gritty story but it takes off in totally unexpected directions and keeps on going . 3 So could young romantics out on a date . 0 Tartakovsky 's team has some freakish powers of visual charm , but the five writers slip into the modern rut of narrative banality . 3 Vincent Gallo is right at home in this French shocker playing his usual bad boy weirdo role . 4 If a horror movie 's primary goal is to frighten and disturb , then They works spectacularly well ... A shiver-inducing , nerve-rattling ride . 1 This 100-minute movie only has about 25 minutes of decent material . 2 Fortunately , you still have that option . 3 Less the sensational true-crime hell-jaunt purists might like and more experimental in its storytelling -LRB- though no less horrifying for it -RRB- . 3 As tricky and satisfying as any of David Mamet 's airless cinematic shell games . 1 I 'm sure the filmmaker would disagree , but , honestly , I do n't see the point . 4 Jones has tackled a meaty subject and drawn engaging characters while peppering the pages with memorable zingers . 4 Bloody Sunday has the grace to call for prevention rather than to place blame , making it one of the best war movies ever made . 1 Takes a clunky TV-movie approach to detailing a chapter in the life of the celebrated Irish playwright , poet and drinker . 2 Finally coming down off of Miramax 's deep shelves after a couple of aborted attempts , Waking Up in Reno makes a strong case for letting sleeping dogs lie . 0 Thanks largely to Williams , all the interesting developments are processed in 60 minutes -- the rest is just an overexposed waste of film . 0 Comes across as a relic from a bygone era , and its convolutions ... feel silly rather than plausible . 4 Perhaps it 's cliche to call the film ` refreshing , ' but it is . 4 Both lead performances are Oscar-size . 0 Run for your lives ! 3 Mark Pellington 's latest pop thriller is as kooky and overeager as it is spooky and subtly in love with myth . 3 Claude Chabrol 's camera has a way of gently swaying back and forth as it cradles its characters , veiling tension beneath otherwise tender movements . 3 Transforms one of -LRB- Shakespeare 's -RRB- deepest tragedies into a smart new comedy . 1 The screenplay by James Eric , James Horton and director Peter O'Fallon ... is so pat it makes your teeth hurt . 3 But arriving at a particularly dark moment in history , it offers flickering reminders of the ties that bind us . 1 Its generic villains lack any intrigue -LRB- other than their funny accents -RRB- and the action scenes are poorly delivered . 3 The characters are more deeply thought through than in most ` right-thinking ' films . 3 The film , despite the gratuitous cinematic distractions impressed upon it , is still good fun . 0 Downright transparent is the script 's endless assault of embarrassingly ham-fisted sex jokes that reek of a script rewrite designed to garner the film a `` cooler '' PG-13 rating . 4 A smart , provocative drama that does the nearly impossible : It gets under the skin of a man we only know as an evil , monstrous lunatic . 1 It 's like a drive-by . 3 is many things -- stoner midnight flick , sci-fi deconstruction , gay fantasia -- but above all it 's a love story as sanguine as its title . 3 A very funny romantic comedy about two skittish New York middle-agers who stumble into a relationship and then struggle furiously with their fears and foibles . 1 But it has an ambition to say something about its subjects , but not a willingness . 3 -LRB- Scherfig -RRB- has made a movie that will leave you wondering about the characters ' lives after the clever credits roll . 3 -LRB- An -RRB- absorbing documentary . 2 Reeks of rot and hack work from start to finish . 1 Plays like a series of vignettes -- clips of a film that are still looking for a common through-line . 1 1 The major problem with Windtalkers is that the bulk of the movie centers on the wrong character . 2 Swimfan , like Fatal Attraction , eventually goes overboard with a loony melodramatic denouement in which a high school swimming pool substitutes for a bathtub . 1 This is a heartfelt story ... it just is n't a very involving one . 4 An unsettling , memorable cinematic experience that does its predecessors proud . 3 All in all , it 's a pretty good execution of a story that 's a lot richer than the ones Hollywood action screenwriters usually come up with on their own . 3 Phillip Noyce and all of his actors -- as well as his cinematographer , Christopher Doyle -- understand the delicate forcefulness of Greene 's prose , and it 's there on the screen in their version of The Quiet American . 2 The Pianist lacks the quick emotional connections of Steven Spielberg 's Schindler 's List . 3 Inventive , fun , intoxicatingly sexy , violent , self-indulgent and maddening . 4 Tells a fascinating , compelling story . 1 Written , flatly , by David Kendall and directed , barely , by There 's Something About Mary co-writer Ed Decter . 4 Highly recommended viewing for its courage , ideas , technical proficiency and great acting . 4 In IMAX in short , it 's just as wonderful on the big screen . 3 It shows us a slice of life that 's very different from our own and yet instantly recognizable . 1 Amid the shock and curiosity factors , the film is just a corny examination of a young actress trying to find her way . 2 It 's lazy for a movie to avoid solving one problem by trying to distract us with the solution to another . 3 ... it 's as comprehensible as any Dummies guide , something even non-techies can enjoy . 1 Entertains not so much because of its music or comic antics , but through the perverse pleasure of watching Disney scrape the bottom of its own cracker barrel . 3 Writer\/director Burr Steers emphasizes the Q in Quirky , with mixed results . 0 Scarcely worth a mention apart from reporting on the number of tumbleweeds blowing through the empty theatres graced with its company . 4 Invigorating , surreal , and resonant with a rainbow of emotion . 0 `` Analyze That '' is one of those crass , contrived sequels that not only fails on its own , but makes you second-guess your affection for the original . 1 Report card : Does n't live up to the exalted tagline - there 's definite room for improvement . 2 It 's not a particularly good film , but neither is it a monsterous one . 2 Tsai may be ploughing the same furrow once too often .