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 A superfluous sequel ... plagued by that old familiar feeling of ' let 's get this thing over with ' : Everyone has shown up at the appointed time and place , but visible enthusiasm is mighty hard to find .	
3 Now as a former Gong Show addict , I 'll admit it , my only complaint is that we did n't get more re-creations of all those famous moments from the show .	
0 In comparison to his earlier films it seems a disappointingly thin slice of lower-class London life ; despite the title ... amounts to surprisingly little .	
2 has -RRB-	
2 The band performances featured in Drumline are red hot ... -LRB- but -RRB- from a mere story point of view , the film 's ice cold .	
1 An unsophisticated sci-fi drama that takes itself all too seriously .	
1 Blue Crush follows the formula , but throws in too many conflicts to keep the story compelling .	
3 And there 's an element of heartbreak to watching it now , with older and wiser eyes , because we know what will happen after Greene 's story ends .	
3 A deeply felt and vividly detailed story about newcomers in a strange new world .	
1 None of Birthday Girl 's calculated events take us by surprise ...	
4 Though few will argue that it ranks with the best of Herzog 's works , Invincible shows he 's back in form , with an astoundingly rich film .	
0 It 's not a motion picture ; it 's an utterly static picture .	
1 With  Ichi the Killer  , Takashi Miike , Japan 's wildest filmmaker gives us a crime fighter carrying more emotional baggage than Batman ...	
3 God bless Crudup and his aversion to taking the easy Hollywood road and cashing in on his movie-star gorgeousness .	
4 Swimming is above all about a young woman 's face , and by casting an actress whose face projects that woman 's doubts and yearnings , it succeeds .	
1 A clash between the artificial structure of the story and the more contemporary , naturalistic tone of the film ...	
0 Is there a group of more self-absorbed women than the mother and daughters featured in this film ?	
3 And it sees those relationships , including that between the son and his wife , and the wife and the father , and between the two brothers , with incredible subtlety and acumen .	
0 This thing is virtually unwatchable .	
1 Talkiness is n't necessarily bad , but the dialogue frequently misses the mark .	
1 There 's an excellent 90-minute film here ; unfortunately , it runs for 170 .	
3  The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys  has flaws , but it also has humor and heart and very talented young actors	
0 ... has about 3 / 4th the fun of its spry 2001 predecessor -- but it 's a rushed , slapdash , sequel-for-the-sake - of-a-sequel with less than half the plot and ingenuity .	
4 The universal theme of becoming a better person through love has never been filmed more irresistibly than in ' Baran . '	
1 Kicks off with an inauspicious premise , mopes through a dreary tract of virtually plotless meanderings and then ends with a whimper .	
2 You just know something terrible is going to happen .	
4 Intriguing and stylish .	
2 Five screenwriters	
2 It 's hard to fairly judge a film like RINGU when you 've seen the remake first .	
4 Real Women may have many agendas , but it also will win you over , in a big way .	
3 A French film with a more down-home flavor .	
2 As Allen 's execution date closes in , the documentary gives an especially poignant portrait of her friendship with the never flagging legal investigator David Presson .	
2 The movie does has some entertainment value - how much depends on how well you like Chris Rock .	
0 There 's already been too many of these films ...	
4 Stanley Kwan has directed not only one of the best gay love stories ever made , but one of the best love stories of any stripe .	
3 Amazingly dopey .	
1 Just when you think you are making sense of it , something happens that tells you there is no sense .	
3 Beresford nicely mixes in as much humor as pathos to take us on his sentimental journey of the heart .	
1 Conforms itself with creating a game of ' who 's who ' ... where the characters ' moves are often more predictable than their consequences .	
4 Great over-the-top moviemaking if you 're in a slap-happy mood .	
1 Why would anyone cast the magnificent Jackie Chan in a movie full of stunt doubles and special effects ?	
3 It ai n't art , by a long shot , but unlike last year 's lame Musketeer , this Dumas adaptation entertains .	
2 Feels slight , as if it were an extended short , albeit one made by the smartest kids in class .	
2 The good is very , very good ... The rest runs from mildly unimpressive to despairingly awful .	
1 From its nauseating spinning credits sequence to a very talented but underutilized supporting cast , Bartleby squanders as much as it gives out .	
2 Ultimately , Jane learns her place as a girl , softens up and loses some of the intensity that made her an interesting character to begin with .	
1 Although sensitive to a fault , it 's often overwritten , with a surfeit of weighty revelations , flowery dialogue , and nostalgia for the past and roads not taken .	
4 An action / thriller of the finest kind , evoking memories of Day of the Jackal , The French Connection , and Heat .	
1 Snow Dogs finds its humour in a black man getting humiliated by a pack of dogs who are smarter than him	
2 Would I see it again ?	
1 There 's more repetition than creativity throughout the movie .	
0 The problem is the needlessly poor quality of its archival prints and film footage .	
2 Every five minutes or so , someone gets clocked .	
1 You do n't know whether to admire the film 's stately nature and call it classicism or be exasperated by a noticeable lack of pace .	
1 A hit - and-miss affair , consistently amusing but not as outrageous or funny as Cho may have intended or as imaginative as one might have hoped .	
4 On that score , the film certainly does n't disappoint .	
1 Too silly to take seriously .	
0 once she lets her love depraved leads meet , -LRB- Denis ' -RRB- story becomes a hopeless , unsatisfying muddle	
4 Australian filmmaker David Flatman uses the huge-screen format to make an old-fashioned nature film that educates viewers with words and pictures while entertaining them .	
3 For proof of that on the cinematic front , look no further than this 20th anniversary edition of the film that Spielberg calls , retrospectively , his most personal work yet .	
2 Calculated swill .	
3 While the film is not entirely successful , it still manages to string together enough charming moments to work .	
3 A movie that will thrill you , touch you and make you laugh as well .	
2 has some visual wit ... but little imagination elsewhere .	
4 Birthday Girl walks a tricky tightrope between being wickedly funny and just plain wicked .	
1 Silly stuff , all mixed up together like a term paper from a kid who ca n't quite distinguish one sci-fi work from another .	
2 The cast has a high time , but de Broca has little enthusiasm for such antique pulp .	
2 An uplifting drama ... What Antwone Fisher is n't , however , is original .	
4 Amid the new populist comedies that underscore the importance of family tradition and familial community , one would be hard-pressed to find a movie with a bigger , fatter heart than Barbershop .	
4 I encourage young and old alike to go see this unique and entertaining twist on the classic whale 's tale -- you wo n't be sorry !	
1 Grating and tedious .	
3 Although it includes a fair share of dumb drug jokes and predictable slapstick ,  Orange County  is far funnier than it would seem to have any right to be .	
1 This u-boat does n't have a captain .	
4 ... plenty of warmth to go around , with music and laughter and the love of family .	
3 All leather pants & augmented boobs , Hawn is hilarious as she tries to resuscitate the fun-loving libertine lost somewhere inside the conservative , handbag-clutching Sarandon .	
4 A thought-provoking picture .	
2 This film was made by and for those folks who collect the serial killer cards and are fascinated by the mere suggestion of serial killers .	
1 even after 90 minutes of playing opposite each other Bullock and Grant still look ill at ease sharing the same scene .	
2 A movie that at its best does n't just make the most out of its characters ' flaws but insists on the virtue of imperfection .	
0 Do n't even bother to rent this on video .	
0 They were afraid to show this movie to reviewers before its opening , afraid of the bad reviews they thought they 'd earn .	
1 This is an exercise not in biography but in hero worship .	
1 Blue Crush has all the trappings of an energetic , extreme-sports adventure , but ends up more of a creaky  Pretty Woman  retread , with the emphasis on self-empowering schmaltz and big-wave surfing that gives pic its title an afterthought .	
3 More of the same from Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang , which is good news to anyone who 's fallen under the sweet , melancholy spell of this unique director 's previous films .	
1 I felt trapped and with no obvious escape for the entire 100 minutes .	
3 It is philosophy , illustrated through everyday events .	
2 Walsh ca n't quite negotiate the many inconsistencies in Janice 's behavior or compensate for them by sheer force of charm .	
1 Mediocre fable from Burkina Faso .	
4 The soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission .	
3 It 's very Beavis and Butthead , yet always seems to elicit a chuckle .	
0 A low-budget affair , Tadpole was shot on digital video , and the images often look smeary and blurry , to the point of distraction .	
2 Observant intelligence constantly vies with pretension -- and sometimes plain wacky implausibility -- throughout Maelstrom .	
4 A beautifully tooled action thriller about love and terrorism in Korea .	
1 An affable but undernourished romantic comedy that fails to match the freshness of the actress-producer and writer 's previous collaboration , Miss Congeniality .	
3 It all plays out ... like a high-end John Hughes comedy , a kind of Elder Bueller 's Time Out .	
2 In a strange way , Egoyan has done too much .	
0 The biggest problem with Roger Avary 's uproar against the MPAA is that , even in all its director 's cut glory , he 's made a film that 's barely shocking , barely interesting and most of all , barely anything .	
4 Secret Ballot is a funny , puzzling movie ambiguous enough to be engaging and oddly moving .	
0 If you go , pack your knitting needles .	
4 Director Lee has a true cinematic knack , but it 's also nice to see a movie with its heart so thoroughly , unabashedly on its sleeve .	
4 Morvern Callar confirms Lynne Ramsay as an important , original talent in international cinema .	
2 But if you 've paid a matinee price and bought a big tub of popcorn , there 's guilty fun to be had here .	
4 Solaris is rigid and evasive in ways that Soderbergh 's best films ,  Erin Brockovich ,   Out of Sight  and  Ocean 's Eleven ,  never were .	
2  The Kid Stays in the Picture  is a great story , terrifically told by the man who wrote it but this Cliff Notes edition is a cheat .	
0 Nothing about this movie works .	
3 You 'll know a star when you see one .	
3 Dark and unrepentant , this excursion into the epicenter of percolating mental instability is not easily dismissed or forgotten .	
2 The plot plummets into a comedy graveyard before Janice comes racing to the rescue in the final reel .	
3 Hoffman 's performance is authentic to the core of his being .	
1 A big fat pain .	
2 The farcical elements seemed too pat and familiar to hold my interest , yet its diverting grim message is a good one .	
2 To some eyes	
3 It 's a satisfying summer blockbuster and worth a look .	
4 The story itself it mostly told through on-camera interviews with several survivors , whose riveting memories are rendered with such clarity that it 's as if it all happened only yesterday .	
2 Wraps itself in the guise of a dark and quirky comedy , but it is n't as quirky as it thinks it is and its comedy is generally mean-spirited .	
3 a cruelly funny twist on teen comedy packed with inventive cinematic tricks and an ironically killer soundtrack	
3 -LRB- Caine -RRB- proves once again he has n't lost his touch , bringing off a superb performance in an admittedly middling film .	
1 It 's hard to care about a film that proposes as epic tragedy the plight of a callow rich boy who is forced to choose between his beautiful , self-satisfied 22-year-old girlfriend and an equally beautiful , self-satisfied 18-year-old mistress .	
2 While certain cues , like the happy music , suggest that this movie is supposed to warm our hearts , Jeong-Hyang Lee 's film is just as likely to blacken that organ with cold vengefulness .	
0 What an embarrassment .	
1 Jacobi , the most fluent of actors , is given relatively dry material from Nijinsky 's writings to perform , and the visuals , even erotically frank ones , become dullingly repetitive .	
3 Foster breathes life into a roll that could have otherwise been bland and run of the mill .	
1 Though it pretends to expose the life of male hustlers , it 's exploitive without being insightful .	
4 are both superb , while Huppert ... is magnificent .	
3 There 's a lot of tooth in Roger Dodger .	
3 Psychologically savvy .	
3 The film 's unhurried pace is actually one of its strengths .	
1 The corpse count ultimately overrides what little we learn along the way about vicarious redemption .	
0 Abysmally pathetic	
3 Smarter than its commercials make it seem .	
2 An average coming-of-age tale elevated by the wholesome twist of a pesky mother interfering during her son 's discovery of his homosexuality .	
2 Freundlich 's made -LRB- Crudup -RRB- a suburban architect , and a cipher .	
4 Consummate actor Barry has done excellent work here .	
0 Horrible .	
2 Weird , vulgar comedy that 's definitely an acquired taste .	
3 Cantet beautifully illuminates what it means sometimes to be inside looking out , and at other times outside looking in .	
4 Funny , somber , absurd , and , finally , achingly sad , Bartleby is a fine , understated piece of filmmaking .	
0 I did go back and check out the last 10 minutes , but these were more repulsive than the first 30 or 40 minutes .	
0 A thoroughly awful movie -- dumb , narratively chaotic , visually sloppy ... a weird amalgam of ' The Thing ' and a geriatric ' Scream . '	
3 The film has several strong performances .	
2 Meyjes focuses too much on Max when he should be filling the screen with this tortured , dull artist and monster-in-the - making .	
3 Though this saga would be terrific to read about , it is dicey screen material that only a genius should touch .	
3 A subtle , humorous , illuminating study of politics , power and social mobility .	
1 And adults will at least have a dream image of the West to savor whenever the film 's lamer instincts are in the saddle .	
2 an 83 minute document of a project which started in a muddle , seesawed back and forth between controlling interests multiple times , then found its sweet spot	
2 It 's too bad that the rest is n't more compelling .	
3 It 's too harsh to work as a piece of storytelling , but as an intellectual exercise -- an unpleasant debate that 's been given the drive of a narrative and that 's been acted out -- The Believer is nothing less than a provocative piece of work .	
0 For a guy who has waited three years with breathless anticipation for a new Hal Hartley movie to pore over , No Such Thing is a big letdown .	
1 Possibly the most irresponsible picture ever released by a major film studio .	
2 Not kids , who do n't need the lesson in repugnance .	
0 Features nonsensical and laughable plotting , wooden performances , ineptly directed action sequences and some of the worst dialogue in recent memory .	
1 The film has a kind of hard , cold effect .	
4 This is an extraordinary film , not least because it is Japanese and yet feels universal .	
3 The film is filled with humorous observations about the general absurdity of modern life as seen through the eyes outsiders , but deftly manages to avoid many of the condescending stereotypes that so often plague films dealing with the mentally ill .	
2 Shanghai Ghetto should be applauded for finding a new angle on a tireless story , but you might want to think twice before booking passage .	
1 Feels like pieces a bunch of other , better movies slapped together .	
2 Summer 's far too fleeting to squander on offal like this .	
4 Darkly funny and frequently insightful .	
2 The power of this script , and the performances that come with it , is that the whole damned thing did n't get our moral hackles up .	
4 Well cast and well directed - a powerful drama with enough sardonic wit to keep it from being maudlin .	
1 Nearly all the fundamentals you take for granted in most films are mishandled here .	
3 Just offbeat enough to keep you interested without coming close to bowling you over .	
1 Deuces Wild treads heavily into Romeo and Juliet / West Side Story territory , where it plainly has no business going .	
3 By and large this is Mr. Kilmer 's movie , and it 's his strongest performance since The Doors .	
0 ... a plotline that 's as lumpy as two-day old porridge ... the filmmakers ' paws , sad to say , were all over this  un-bear-able  project !	
3 By turns pretentious , fascinating , ludicrous , provocative and vainglorious .	
1 The result is an ' action film ' mired in stasis .	
1 It 's such a mechanical endeavor -LRB- that -RRB- it never bothers to question why somebody might devote time to see it .	
4 Devos and Cassel have tremendous chemistry -- their sexual and romantic tension , while never really vocalized , is palpable .	
1 Cheap , vulgar dialogue and a plot that crawls along at a snail 's pace .	
1 Just too silly and sophomoric to ensnare its target audience .