The script's failure leaves a heavy burden on the cast, and how well they compensate is both a testament to their talent and a waste of it.

Nicole Kidman tells the ubiquitous Will Farrell, "I think the fact that you're a hopeless mess is very refreshing," but critics are not so charitable about bad movies.

Mike White: 'It's the blend of comedy and pathos or protagonists who can be both sympathetic and then transgressive and have a complicated relationship with the audience.'

Zhang Yimou is back with the latest Chinese competitor in the Opulence Olympics, and not a moment too soon.

Builds up a nice head of steam...as a warm and quirky comedy of men trying to be men in a post-feminist world...also succumbs to niggling artificialities that drain the story of credibility and genuine heft.

Welcome to the Lazarus Rehabilitation Center, where tarts become dear hearts since 2007...Mandinga to Maria--that's our motto.

Nolan's supreme confidence, narrative skill, and taste for complexity make for unusually rich popular entertainment. Where was The Prestige this summer when we needed it most?

Ably performed and effective as an old-fashioned war movie.

While it's intermittently amusing, none of this was appointment television to begin with, so it's hard to imagine big crowds shelling out for it at the multiplex.

The perfect film for all those delusional, self-entitled American Idol rejects...darn it, this is America, where any man can lead a horse around his ranch in a spacesuit...

Though the holes were rather small, I had to count them all. Now we know how many holes it takes to fill The Number 23.

If you've ever stared into the Stepford-blank visage of a beauty-pageant competitor--with its frozen, unyielding smile--you may have some idea of what to expect.

The Bulk(e)ly brothers repeat The Zodiac's famous quotation "I am waiting for a good movie about me" with an ironic lack of self-reflection.

I think it's hard to have a good, healthy image about yourself, sexually...I'd love to see more things out there that are empowering to women.

Meanders at times, and stretches credibility...[but] The Quiet's creepy character study reaches an emotionally satisfying conclusion.

As a look at the injustices blithely wrought in the name of democracy, The Road to Guantanamo comes none too soon.

Ray isn't beyond teasing out implications from his true stories, but he's also smart enough to know where to quit, allowing the viewer to resolve the whys and wherefores.

Call this the Legend of the 500-Mile Pothole.

Undeniably breezy thanks to a quality star pairing.

Sedgwick's thoroughly photographed life would doubtless make an engrossing documentary (a genre to which Hickenlooper ought to stick)...

There's an underlying, unifying power and credibility to Moncrieff's cumulative assertion that degradation is expected of too many women, and too often expected by themselves.

Ioan Gruffudd: 'You can justify anything in times of war. And I think we see that happening today certainly.'

O'Toole gives a magnificent old-lion performance...in a role that allows both subtlety and theatrical vigor.

By the time the mad finale rolls around, the viewer will feel had, for Perfume grasps for significance where there is none to be found.

Labors mightily to present world-famous children's author Beatrix Potter as a preternaturally free spirit.

The film finally resembles nothing so much as its most persistent symbol: an objet d'art crafted to impress with empty trickery.

A fresh opportunity to revel in the darkly beautiful dreamscapes unleashed by the increasingly masterful del Toro.

Like a long-term relationship, The Painted Veil is well-intentioned and not particularly sexy, but understands duties of forgiveness, sacrifice, and commitment.

I suppose there's a place for this studio picture's brand of popcorn catharsis. One just wishes the powerful story at its heart felt more genuine and less manipulative.

Still-relevant political observation...[and] a nifty mystery that's a bit too self-conscious for its own good.

Unfortunately, Letters shares with Flags an awkward flashback structure and a patronizing tone.

Certainly a bad film. But darn it, it ain't a half-bad movie.

Note to self: accept no British imports trying to be American trash.

[This] honest-to-God kid's movie--and a good one, no less...serves up a sweet-natured and reasonably authentic platter of kid culture.

She not only kept coded diaries; she invented the code the code they were written in, which had to be broken and wasn't broken until something like twenty years ago or so.

Competence and a core faithfulness are enough to communicate the simple charms of E.B. White's perennial children's novel.

If you can be satisfied skipping along its surface, Dreamgirls fulfills its splashy, superficial promise of glitter, glamour, and sass.

Guillermo del Toro: 'I see the world like a room where a toddler, a baby, has been surrounded by the most expensive glassware. And those are laws and morality. And then you let him walk.'

As in The Passion of the Christ, Gibson's empathy extends only as far as feeling his characters' pain...It is, however, a rip-roaring, ultraviolent action picture.

Derek Luke on Glory Road: "I had to retrack every step that Bobby took. And it was almost like I was playing against him."

I'll take Blood Diamond over Lethal Weapon 5 any day. Let's call it a flawed gem.

A rather sweet tale about each family member struggling to accept the others on their own terms...provides the sort of heartening, Capraesque movie moment of which we'd all like to believe our lives are capable.

A new generation of kids gets its John Hughes on...surprisingly bearable.

At one point Amanda remarks, 'In the world of love, cheating is not acceptable.' Also no longer acceptable: romantic comedies set in 'the world of love.'