CAPSULE REVIEWS AND SUMMARIES BY TT CLINKSCALES, RODGER PILLE AND STEVE RAMOS

AMÉLIE -- (Grade: A) The most magical film this year is French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet's playful fantasy Amélie. This eye-popping tale follows the adventures of a pixyish waitress named Amélie (Audrey Tautou) in Paris' Montmartre neighborhood. Amélie watches movies with wide--eyed amazement, oblivious to the packed Parisian theater audience around her. She catches small details that ordinary moviegoers would ordinarily miss. She loves movies, and the movies seem to love Amélie right back. Dizzy photography and slapstick comedy keep the film moving. Amélie has more than enough trick shots to keep Jeunet's long-time fans happy. -- SR (Rated R.)

A BEAUTIFUL MIND -- (Grade: A) Russell Crowe's characters have heretofore been manly men. He's played tough men of loyalty who'd rather fight than have their honor questioned. In A Beautiful Mind, Crowe plays troubled John Forbes Nash Jr., a man who wants to be a strong intellect. A Beautiful Mind is a loose biopic that follows Nash's journey from his break-though mathematical discovery and acceptance into top-secret government work to his eventual breakdown. Jennifer Connelly continues her comeback with a fine performance as Nash's unfailing wife. In this Oscar hopeful season, A Beautiful Mind is one film that completely deserves its accolades. -- RP (Rated PG-13.)

BIG FAT LIAR -- (Grade: D) Hollywood producer Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti) and 14-year-old Jason Shepherd (Frankie Muniz) are the two truth-impaired guys who cross paths when Shepard's school assignment turns into Wolf's pitch for a summer blockbuster. By the end of Big Fat Liar, Wolf receives his comeuppance for stealing Shepherd's paper, and Shepherd experiences redemption. Big Fat Liar springs from Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids mold, but TV director Shawn Levy (The Adventures of Jett Jackson) is no Rodriguez. It's too bad the film ends up feeling like a reunion special for a show that never was, thanks to a supporting role from Lee Majors (Six Million Dollar Man). -- ttc (Rated PG.)

BLADE II -- (Grade: A) The vampire world is threatened by a dangerous strain of über-vampires known as Reapers. Our bloodsucking hero, the "Daywalker" named Blade (Wesley Snipes) is on a quest to find his mentor Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) who may be batting for the other team, if he's batting at all. The fight sequences effectively combine just a dash of the Matrix-inspired wire-fu techniques with old school martial artistry and a little WWF smackdown frenzy for fun. Queen of the Damned meets Aliens is how some Hollywood types might describe Blade II. The Aliens franchise would do well to have del Toro added to its directors' club, although it looks like he's going to be busy getting ready for another Blade installment. -- ttc (Rated R.)

THE CAT'S MEOW -- (Grade: D) In director Peter Bogdanovich's period mystery, Kirsten Dunst plays Marion Davies, golden-age actress and girlfriend to newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, with a zest equal to Davies' best comic performances. Dunst is the best thing about The Cat's Meow. Writer Steven Peros adapted his screenplay of an unsolved murder aboard Hearst's (Edward Herrmann) private yacht in November 1924 into a successful stage play before Bogdanovich finally turned his Hollywood scandal tale into a movie. Eddie Izzard makes little impact as Charlie Chaplin, despite appearing in many of the film's key scenes. Jennifer Tilly is grating as newspaper columnist Louella Parsons. What's lacking is the sufficient drama and suspense necessary to make an engaging murder mystery. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

CHANGING LANES -- (Grade:D) Imagine a Charles Bronson revenge fantasy with Samuel L. Jackson as the fiery ball of righteous fury. Add Ben Affleck as a Tom Cruise stand-in caught up in a legal/moral logjam a la The Firm. Doyle Gipson (Jackson) finalizes a loan to purchase a house to keep his ex-wife and sons from leaving him as part of a custody plan he has prepared to present. Hotshot Wall Street lawyer Gavin Banek (Affleck) seeks to wrestle sole control of a multimillion dollar philanthropic fund from a community board. An accident on the freeway between Gipson and Banek alters their plans and uncorks their all-too-human rage. In an attempt to restrain it's own lust for revenge, the story succumbs to its own highly implausible pretzel logic. This day-on-the-road-to-hell is too full of good intentions for its own good. --- ttc (Rated R.)

ENIGMA -- (Grade: A) The egghead cometh! Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible 2) plays Tom Jericho, a code-breaker for England during WWII, whose fling with a mysterious compatriot indicts him in a sticky web of treason and murder. Jericho must crack the German code to win the war and solve his lover's disappearance to save himself. Kate Winslet is along for the ride as the homely Hester Wallace, Jericho's only friend. Enigma is a whip-smart mystery and perfect counter-programming to the whiz-bang summer blockbuster. It's a film built on a snappy script by the brilliant Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) and able direction from Michael Apted (Enough). Watching the war plotline escalate just as Jericho's personal mystery becomes unraveled is one of the more engaging moments in film this year. -- RP (Rated R.)

ESPN'S ULTIMATE X -- (Grade: B) With the help of skateboader Tony Hawk and Moto X rider Carey Hart, writer/director Bruce Hendricks creates that rare Large Format film that breaks out of the hum-drum, educational film genre. Stuffed with dazzling photography of the 2001 Summer X Games in Philadelphia, a fast-paced showcase of skateboarding, BMX biking, Moto X and street luge competitions, and a thumping soundtrack that mixes Rock classics from Black Sabbath with songs from Alternative bands like Sum 41 and Foo Fighters, ESPN's Ultimate X is a fast and fun chronicle of the world's top actions sports athletes. -- SR (Rated PG.)

40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS -- (Grade: B) It's official: Josh Hartnett can do comedy. In 40 Days, Hartnett is Matt Sullivan, a hip and oversexed San Francisco 20-something, trying desperately to shake his obsession with an ex-girlfriend. So Matt vows to refrain from sex for 40 long days. Enter Erica (Shannyn Sossamon), an attractive single woman. Can Matt make it? In terms of weighty films, 40 Days is helium. It's a total romp, broad and generic enough to appeal to the masses. And yet, thanks almost completely to Hartnett, the film rises above the remedial level of Tomcats, the American Pie franchise and other mostly tasteless sex comedies that have surfaced in the last couple of years. -- RP (Rated R.)

GOSFORD PARK -- (Grade: B) On paper, Robert Altman's Gosford Park sounds like an Agatha Christie remake. Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) and his young wife, Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas), have invited family and assorted friends to their country estate for a genteel shooting party. When a murder disrupts the elegant gathering, it's Constance's maid, Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald), who begins to unravel the source of the foul play. Altman's smug and cynical film stands on its own merits. -- SR (Rated PG.)

HIGH CRIMES -- (Grade: D) High Crimes marks the emergence of a new Hollywood power couple. Actors Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd team up for a follow-up to their 1997 suspense film Kiss the Girls. Their collaboration is a major disappointment. Adapted from Joseph Finder's novel, High Crimes tells the story of high-powered lawyer Claire Kubik (Judd), who discovers that her husband Tom (Jim Caviezel) was a covert military operative in El Salvador back in 1988. Claire seeks the assistance of wild card military lawyer Charles Grimes (Freeman) to clear Tom's name. Freeman and Judd's lead performances are little more than exercises on the rules of attraction. One more project together and they'll be ready to be spoofed by National Lampoon or the Wayans Brothers. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

ICE AGE -- (Grade: A) Of all the contemporary movie types, the animated feature is the one that's enjoying the biggest heyday. Director Chris Wedge continues the trend with the laugh-out-loud funny Ice Age, a tale of a woolly mammoth (voice of Ray Romano), an annoying sloth (voice of John Leguizamo) and a saber-toothed tiger (voice of Denis Leary) who team up to return a human baby to its tribe. Ice Age is that rare movie which captures the physical language of silent comedy. What's even more impressive is how it captures the clownish slapstick of silent comedy's bygone era. -- SR

JOHN Q. -- (Grade: F) The first half of John Q. is an enjoyable blue-collar drama. The second half of John Q. is so relentless in its attempts to generate audience tears that you can't help but laugh out loud. Denzel Washington is John Q. Archibald, a factory worker struggling to make ends meet for his family on his downsized salary. When his son Michael (Daniel E. Smith) becomes ill, John discovers that his insurance won't cover the bills. John Q. packs some appealing messages about the country's health care system. Unfortunately, these messages are soon washed over by the film's unintentional comedy. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

KISSING JESSICA STEIN -- (Grade: B) Meet Jessica (Jennifer Westfeldt). She's very single, very Jewish and very unfulfilled with her life. As those around her tell her, she just needs a man. But the merry-go-round of available men in New York offers jerks and not-yet-out gay men. Enter Helen (Heather Juergensen). Jessica reads her woman-seeking-woman personals ad and feels that spark. They meet, they click, they become great friends -- and then they try to be lovers. Kissing Jessica Stein is an odd little lark, a good old-fashioned story-driven flick that manages to entertain and challenge its audience at the same time. Both actresses, who also wrote the film together, sparkle with real-life charm. Their sass and easygoing personalities keep Kissing Jessica Stein from turning into a cheap When Sally Meets Sally. -- RP (Rated R.)

LIFE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT -- (Grade: D) As Seattle TV reporter Lanie Kerrigan, actress Angelina Jolie has all the marks of a classic comic heroine. On looks alone, Jolie's Life or Something Like It character inhabits a universe populated by past comediennes like Judy Holliday and Jayne Mansfield. Jolie's screwball potential is squashed by Life or Something Like It's haphazard storytelling. Desperate to get a network job, Kerrigan's career plans go amuck after a homeless prophet (Tony Shalhoub) tells Kerrigan that she only has one week to live. Too foolish to be taken seriously, and without enough laughs to be considered a winning comedy, Life or Something Like It dissolves into a muddled mess. Based on Life or Something Like It, I'm not convinced that Jolie has a knack for comedy. On this occasion, I'm willing to blame the filmmaker. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING -- (Grade: A) Director Peter Jackson tackles J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy books set in Middle-earth with a creative force. The results are extraordinary. The film tells the story of hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and the powerful Ruling Ring he inherits from his Uncle Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm). There is plenty of showmanship in Fellowship, but there is also substantive storytelling. Fellowship of the Ring is so good that I imagine high-brow audiences who normally avoid these types of films will find themselves having a great time if they give the film a chance. ­ SR (Rated PG-13.)

MONSOON WEDDING -- (Grade: A) The chaotic planning of a Punjabi wedding is the colorful backdrop for director Mira Nair's (Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala) joyful drama. Aditi (pop singer Vasundhara Das) is the daughter of Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah) and Pimmi (Lillete Dubey), who hastily agrees to marry Hemant (Parvin Dabas), an engineer from Houston. Despite the culture clashes between Aditi's New Delhi family and her Americanized groom, Pimmi manages to keep his mind focused on the extravagant reception. A soundtrack of traditional music and contemporary Pop songs helps Nair portray Aditi's struggle to embrace her Punjabi past as well look towards her future. Comparisons to Robert Altman's The Wedding are unfair. Monsoon Wedding is too joyful to be considered an Altman-inspired film. In Nair's heartfelt tale, the monsoon rains may threaten, but love conquers just the same. -- SR (Rated R.)

MURDER BY NUMBERS -- (Grade: D) Sandra Bullock is dreadfully miscast as a forensics detective on the trail of two teen-age murderers (Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt) in director Barbet Schroeder's lumbering mystery. Exchanging her playful personality for something decidedly dark and somber, Bullock is never believable or engaging as the film's troubled lead. Gosling is the only thing worth recommending in the film. His performance, playing a smart-ass teen with bedroom eyes, is a worthy companion to his lead role in the under-seen drama, The Believer. As a follow up to Schroeder's brilliant Columbian drama, Our Lady of the Assassins, Murder By Numbers is a huge disappointment. -- SR (Rated R.)

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER -- (Grade: D) Director Walt Becker's collegiate comedy stumbles in the footsteps of its gross-out predecessor, National Lampoon's Animal House. Its namesake hero, Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds), a slackerish student entering his eighth year at Coolidge College, is agreeable enough. Unfortunately, Van Wilder writers Brent Goldberg and David T. Wagner fail to build many laugh-out loud gags around its Peter Pan-inspired campus kingpin and his last-ditch efforts to graduate. What National Lampoon's Van Wilder lacks in funny jokes, it overly compensates with gross-out shocks that make recent, gooey films like American Pie and There's Something About Mary look family friendly. -- SR (Rated R.)

THE NEW GUY -- (Grade: F) If the one person in Hollywood who still has a brain were forced to watch The New Guy, maybe, just maybe, there would be no more high school comedies. Void of any funny moments, The New Guy is all about little guys having their one chance to make it big. With DJ Qualls (Road Trip) as Dizzy, a geeky teen who wants to change his image, and Eddie Griffin (Double Take) as Dizzy's street-smart mentor, director Ed Decter has a decent shot at making us laugh. Both Qualls and Griffin have energy to spare, but not even Atlas could hitch this movie onto his broad shoulders and carry it towards a joke. The New Guy is bloated with all-star cameos from people who, the audience is supposed to assume, are poking fun at themselves: Henry Rollins, Kool Mo Dee and David Hasselhoff. Actually, these guys are poking themselves to make sure they're still breathing. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

PANIC ROOM -- (Grade: A) Dark shadows and the sound of heavy breathing help Panic Room tell its crime story well. An old Manhattan townhouse provides the perfect setting for director David Fincher's suspense film. A stormy night seals the creepy mood. Jodie Foster is sweaty and determined as Meg Altman, a recently divorced mom intent on protecting herself and her teenage daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart), from a trio of criminals (Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker and Dwight Yoakam) who've broken into their new house in the dead of night. In interviews, Fincher compares Panic Room with another claustrophobic thriller, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. It's a fair comparison. Panic Room is the type of violent thriller Hitchcock would make if he were alive in these angry, cynical times. More importantly, with the exception of adding drama between Meg and her teen-age daughter, I can't imagine how Hitchcock could have made Panic Room any more enjoyable. -- SR (Rated R.)

RESIDENT EVIL -- (Grade: F) I should begin by saying that I am not familiar with the video game this film is based on. But boy howdy, it just has to be more fun playing it than watching it. An elite assault team led by a pair of female commandos (Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez) is sent into an underground genetics laboratory to find out why all the scientists are dead. After battling the lab's central computer, they find their greatest challenge is still ahead of them. The concept behind Resident Evil isn't bad. Take one part Aliens, three parts Return of the Living Dead, throw in a sexy Lara Croft-like heroine and you have the good parts of Resident Evil. However, those scant assets the film had going for it are hardly visible in the final product. -- RP (Rated R.)

THE ROOKIE -- (Grade: C) Dennis Quaid's easygoing performance as Jim Morris, a high-school science teacher and baseball coach who tries out for the Majors as part of a bet with his team, is the best thing about director John Lee Hancock's baseball drama. Told in a matter-of-fact style, The Rookie drapes its heartfelt themes about fathers, sons and second chances around Texas Big Sky country. The Rookie never manages to tug hard on the heartstrings, despite Hancock's melodramatic effort. As the middle-aged rookie, Quaid is looking weathered and more handsome than ever. Watching him in his worn boots and Wrangler jeans makes you wish Hollywood still made Westerns. -- SR (Rated G.)

THE SCORPION KING -- (Grade: D) The Scorpion King is ready to take center stage, rewarding wrestling actor The Rock for his popular walk-on role in The Mummy Returns. Too bad there's not enough heat in The Scorpion King to get things cooking. Mathayus (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) is the last of a tribe of assassins charged to dispatch the sorceress Cassandra (Kelly Hu), whose advice has allowed the warlord Memnon (Steven Brand) to conquer the scattered tribal nations. Although King is full of anachronistic quips and goofy buddy banter, the movie doesn't feel like a breezy romp because it bears the weight of its big-time, action film expectations. Still, Johnson's on-screen appeal forecasts a real Smackdown somewhere in his film acting future, but that future is not now. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

SHACKLETON'S ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE -- (Grade: C) One of the greatest tales of human courage and adventure is shrunk down to a 45-minute, routine OMNIMAX film. Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, a documentary about Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated 1914 journey to Antarctica, replaces interviews with descendants of Shackleton's crew with dramatizations of Shackleton's struggle to rescue his men. Compared to the archival film footage and still photography shot by Frank Hurley, a Shackleton crewmember, the dramatizations are amateurish and uninteresting. -- SR (Unrated.)

SHOWTIME -- (Grade: D) No-nonsense veteran detective Mitch Preston (Robert DeNiro) and media-savvy Patrol Officer 'Ice' Trey Sellars (Eddie Murphy) are forced to team up to investigate a powerful new weapon unleashed on the streets after a sting operation by Preston goes awry. This "odd couple" pairing becomes the basis of a reality cop show concept pitched by television producer Chase Renzi (Rene Russo). Showtime, an amiable spoof of cop films, TV cops and reality shows, is high-concept Hollywood. Think Lethal Weapon meets 48 Hours with a healthy dose of Get Shorty. Unfortunately, it's far better if you don't think since the movie completely lacks even an ounce of common sense or intelligence. Showtime sells itself short and never makes a meaningful observation or achieves big time laughs. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

SNOW DOGS -- (Grade: D) The closing credits of Snow Dogs reveal that the story was suggested by the book Winterdance by Gary Paulsen. Snow Dogs presents animals manipulated into exhibiting more human characteristics. I'm sure the kids might get something out of the good messages, but Snow Dogs offers far less than animated features like Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Monsters, Inc. I might have been far more inclined to go along with the "hokey black guy from Florida inherits a dog sled team in Alaska" story if the producers had gone the animated route. -- ttc (Rated PG.)

SPIDER-MAN -- (Grade: C) As Spider-Man's costumed nemesis, the Green Goblin, Willem Dafoe's creepy grin is more entertaining than all of Spider-Man's explosions and digital effects. Tobey Maguire is given the body-hugging Spider-Man costume, and it looks good on him. As the boy hero of director Sam Raimi's sloppy blockbuster, Maguire is getting all the attention. Still, actioners like Spider-Man are all about its villains, and Dafoe is the best thing in an otherwise disappointing film. Spider-Man's best scene occurs early in the movie, when Parker loses control of his newfound super powers in his high school cafeteria. Later in the film, Spider-Man's origin story breaks down while Raimi crams in as much action as possible. Stylish images turn cluttered. The action becomes chaotic instead of engaging. Making dramatic matters worse, Maguire's emotional depth plummets every time he puts on his Spider-Man mask. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

STAR WARS: EPISODE II -- ATTACK OF THE CONES -- (Grade: B) Attack of the Clones stays close to the pulpy spirit of 1930s space hero serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, and is better off for it. Free of the extended setup that bogged down the recent blockbuster Spider-Man, Attack of the Clones dives straight into its boy's life adventure, set 10 years after the most recent Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace. Two stories divide Attack of the Clones equally. One is the growing romance between Jedi-knight-in-training Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Queen-turned-Senator Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman). The other is a more straightforward adventure where Obi Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) discovers a plot by enemy forces to attack the Republic with a clone army. To say anything more would give the impression that Attack of the Clones is more Robert Louis Stevenson adventure than a collection of lavish cliffhangers. Like most Star Wars movies, in-depth storytelling is not Attack of the Clones' greatest asset. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN -- (Grade: A) Mexican-born director Alfonso Cuarón makes a heady impact on American cinema with his fast-moving road movie Y Tu Mamá También. Y Tu Mamá También follows the roadside adventures of two teen-age friends, Tenoch (Diago Luna) and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Tenoch's cousin, Luisa (Maribel Verdu), as they leave Mexico City in search for the perfect beach on the Oaxacan coast. Luna and Bernal are heartfelt as the friends who find themselves starry-eyed over the beautiful Luisa. But it's Verdu's passionate performance that ultimately sends Y Tu Mamá También spinning. As engaging as it is erotic, Y Tu Mamá También became the highest grossing film in Mexican history. One viewing and it's easy to understand why. -- SR (Rated R.)

TRIUMPH OF LOVE -- (Grade: C)In director Clare Peploe's adaptation of Marivaux's 1732 comic play, Le Triomphe de l'amour, Mira Sorvino makes the most of her false identities performance. Sorvino plays Princess Leonide, who wants to restore the royal crown to its rightful owner, her sworn enemy, a handsome prince named Agis (Jay Rodan) who lives with the philosopher Hermocrates (Ben Kingsley) and his sister Leontine (Fiona Shaw). In order to reach Agis, Leonide and her maid disguise themselves as male students. It's not long before everything turns upside-down. Sorvino is just as good-looking as a man as she is as a woman. Still, her comic spark pales compared to the clownish antics of Kingsley and Shaw. Despite their spirited performances and the film's beautiful Tuscany backdrop, Triumph of Love never breaks the stuffy confines of a filmed stage play. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

UNFAITHFUL -- (Grade: C) A changed ending gives Adrian Lyne's new adultery drama a more ambiguous ending. Still, Unfaithful, about a wife who goes astray, fails to match the dramatic intensity of Lyne's 1987 film, Fatal Attraction. As an English-language remake to Claude Chabrol's 1968 film La Femme Infidèle, Lyne makes no improvements on Chabrol's original movie. Diane Lane plays Connie (Diane Lane), the suburban New York City housewife who stumbles into an affair with a younger man (Olivier Martinez). Lane is believable as the pretty infidel, but it's a role she played better in A Walk on the Moon. Richard Gere, as Edward Sumner, a Manhattan businessman and loving father who discovers his wife's deceit, is saddled with the task of turning the movie from a family drama to a revenge tale. Lyne creates a slick veneer for the movie, but without an engaging story, it's not long before Unfaithful's characters cease to matter. -- SR (Rated R.)

WHEN WE WERE SOLDIERS -- (Grade: D) Mel Gibson plays heroic soldier and dutiful father in writer/director Randall Wallace's Vietnam War drama, the latest entry in Hollywood's post Sept. 11 wave of patriotism. We Were Soldiers is not the best of the current battle movies. That title still belongs to the gritty Black Hawk Down. It's also not the worst, easily besting the comic-book foolishness of Behind Enemy Lines. Gibson's noble presence, as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, a man who leads 400 Army recruits into an ambush by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, is the saving grace behind Wallace's lumbering film. Still, there is only so much even a hero as likable as Gibson's can do. -- SR (Rated R.) CAPSULE REVIEWS AND SUMMARIES BY TT CLINKSCALES, RODGER PILLE AND STEVE RAMOS

AMÉLIE -- (Grade: A) The most magical film this year is French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet's playful fantasy Amélie. This eye-popping tale follows the adventures of a pixyish waitress named Amélie (Audrey Tautou) in Paris' Montmartre neighborhood. Amélie watches movies with wide--eyed amazement, oblivious to the packed Parisian theater audience around her. She catches small details that ordinary moviegoers would ordinarily miss. She loves movies, and the movies seem to love Amélie right back. Dizzy photography and slapstick comedy keep the film moving. Amélie has more than enough trick shots to keep Jeunet's long-time fans happy. -- SR (Rated R.)

A BEAUTIFUL MIND -- (Grade: A) Russell Crowe's characters have heretofore been manly men. He's played tough men of loyalty who'd rather fight than have their honor questioned. In A Beautiful Mind, Crowe plays troubled John Forbes Nash Jr., a man who wants to be a strong intellect. A Beautiful Mind is a loose biopic that follows Nash's journey from his break-though mathematical discovery and acceptance into top-secret government work to his eventual breakdown. Jennifer Connelly continues her comeback with a fine performance as Nash's unfailing wife. In this Oscar hopeful season, A Beautiful Mind is one film that completely deserves its accolades. -- RP (Rated PG-13.)

BIG FAT LIAR -- (Grade: D) Hollywood producer Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti) and 14-year-old Jason Shepherd (Frankie Muniz) are the two truth-impaired guys who cross paths when Shepard's school assignment turns into Wolf's pitch for a summer blockbuster. By the end of Big Fat Liar, Wolf receives his comeuppance for stealing Shepherd's paper, and Shepherd experiences redemption. Big Fat Liar springs from Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids mold, but TV director Shawn Levy (The Adventures of Jett Jackson) is no Rodriguez. It's too bad the film ends up feeling like a reunion special for a show that never was, thanks to a supporting role from Lee Majors (Six Million Dollar Man). -- ttc (Rated PG.)

BLADE II -- (Grade: A) The vampire world is threatened by a dangerous strain of über-vampires known as Reapers. Our bloodsucking hero, the "Daywalker" named Blade (Wesley Snipes) is on a quest to find his mentor Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) who may be batting for the other team, if he's batting at all. The fight sequences effectively combine just a dash of the Matrix-inspired wire-fu techniques with old school martial artistry and a little WWF smackdown frenzy for fun. Queen of the Damned meets Aliens is how some Hollywood types might describe Blade II. The Aliens franchise would do well to have del Toro added to its directors' club, although it looks like he's going to be busy getting ready for another Blade installment. -- ttc (Rated R.)

THE CAT'S MEOW -- (Grade: D) In director Peter Bogdanovich's period mystery, Kirsten Dunst plays Marion Davies, golden-age actress and girlfriend to newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, with a zest equal to Davies' best comic performances. Dunst is the best thing about The Cat's Meow. Writer Steven Peros adapted his screenplay of an unsolved murder aboard Hearst's (Edward Herrmann) private yacht in November 1924 into a successful stage play before Bogdanovich finally turned his Hollywood scandal tale into a movie. Eddie Izzard makes little impact as Charlie Chaplin, despite appearing in many of the film's key scenes. Jennifer Tilly is grating as newspaper columnist Louella Parsons. What's lacking is the sufficient drama and suspense necessary to make an engaging murder mystery. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

CHANGING LANES -- (Grade:D) Imagine a Charles Bronson revenge fantasy with Samuel L. Jackson as the fiery ball of righteous fury. Add Ben Affleck as a Tom Cruise stand-in caught up in a legal/moral logjam a la The Firm. Doyle Gipson (Jackson) finalizes a loan to purchase a house to keep his ex-wife and sons from leaving him as part of a custody plan he has prepared to present. Hotshot Wall Street lawyer Gavin Banek (Affleck) seeks to wrestle sole control of a multimillion dollar philanthropic fund from a community board. An accident on the freeway between Gipson and Banek alters their plans and uncorks their all-too-human rage. In an attempt to restrain it's own lust for revenge, the story succumbs to its own highly implausible pretzel logic. This day-on-the-road-to-hell is too full of good intentions for its own good. --- ttc (Rated R.)

ENIGMA -- (Grade: A) The egghead cometh! Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible 2) plays Tom Jericho, a code-breaker for England during WWII, whose fling with a mysterious compatriot indicts him in a sticky web of treason and murder. Jericho must crack the German code to win the war and solve his lover's disappearance to save himself. Kate Winslet is along for the ride as the homely Hester Wallace, Jericho's only friend. Enigma is a whip-smart mystery and perfect counter-programming to the whiz-bang summer blockbuster. It's a film built on a snappy script by the brilliant Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) and able direction from Michael Apted (Enough). Watching the war plotline escalate just as Jericho's personal mystery becomes unraveled is one of the more engaging moments in film this year. -- RP (Rated R.)

ESPN'S ULTIMATE X -- (Grade: B) With the help of skateboader Tony Hawk and Moto X rider Carey Hart, writer/director Bruce Hendricks creates that rare Large Format film that breaks out of the hum-drum, educational film genre. Stuffed with dazzling photography of the 2001 Summer X Games in Philadelphia, a fast-paced showcase of skateboarding, BMX biking, Moto X and street luge competitions, and a thumping soundtrack that mixes Rock classics from Black Sabbath with songs from Alternative bands like Sum 41 and Foo Fighters, ESPN's Ultimate X is a fast and fun chronicle of the world's top actions sports athletes. -- SR (Rated PG.)

40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS -- (Grade: B) It's official: Josh Hartnett can do comedy. In 40 Days, Hartnett is Matt Sullivan, a hip and oversexed San Francisco 20-something, trying desperately to shake his obsession with an ex-girlfriend. So Matt vows to refrain from sex for 40 long days. Enter Erica (Shannyn Sossamon), an attractive single woman. Can Matt make it? In terms of weighty films, 40 Days is helium. It's a total romp, broad and generic enough to appeal to the masses. And yet, thanks almost completely to Hartnett, the film rises above the remedial level of Tomcats, the American Pie franchise and other mostly tasteless sex comedies that have surfaced in the last couple of years. -- RP (Rated R.)

GOSFORD PARK -- (Grade: B) On paper, Robert Altman's Gosford Park sounds like an Agatha Christie remake. Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) and his young wife, Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas), have invited family and assorted friends to their country estate for a genteel shooting party. When a murder disrupts the elegant gathering, it's Constance's maid, Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald), who begins to unravel the source of the foul play. Altman's smug and cynical film stands on its own merits. -- SR (Rated PG.)

HIGH CRIMES -- (Grade: D) High Crimes marks the emergence of a new Hollywood power couple. Actors Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd team up for a follow-up to their 1997 suspense film Kiss the Girls. Their collaboration is a major disappointment. Adapted from Joseph Finder's novel, High Crimes tells the story of high-powered lawyer Claire Kubik (Judd), who discovers that her husband Tom (Jim Caviezel) was a covert military operative in El Salvador back in 1988. Claire seeks the assistance of wild card military lawyer Charles Grimes (Freeman) to clear Tom's name. Freeman and Judd's lead performances are little more than exercises on the rules of attraction. One more project together and they'll be ready to be spoofed by National Lampoon or the Wayans Brothers. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

ICE AGE -- (Grade: A) Of all the contemporary movie types, the animated feature is the one that's enjoying the biggest heyday. Director Chris Wedge continues the trend with the laugh-out-loud funny Ice Age, a tale of a woolly mammoth (voice of Ray Romano), an annoying sloth (voice of John Leguizamo) and a saber-toothed tiger (voice of Denis Leary) who team up to return a human baby to its tribe. Ice Age is that rare movie which captures the physical language of silent comedy. What's even more impressive is how it captures the clownish slapstick of silent comedy's bygone era. -- SR

JOHN Q. -- (Grade: F) The first half of John Q. is an enjoyable blue-collar drama. The second half of John Q. is so relentless in its attempts to generate audience tears that you can't help but laugh out loud. Denzel Washington is John Q. Archibald, a factory worker struggling to make ends meet for his family on his downsized salary. When his son Michael (Daniel E. Smith) becomes ill, John discovers that his insurance won't cover the bills. John Q. packs some appealing messages about the country's health care system. Unfortunately, these messages are soon washed over by the film's unintentional comedy. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

KISSING JESSICA STEIN -- (Grade: B) Meet Jessica (Jennifer Westfeldt). She's very single, very Jewish and very unfulfilled with her life. As those around her tell her, she just needs a man. But the merry-go-round of available men in New York offers jerks and not-yet-out gay men. Enter Helen (Heather Juergensen). Jessica reads her woman-seeking-woman personals ad and feels that spark. They meet, they click, they become great friends -- and then they try to be lovers. Kissing Jessica Stein is an odd little lark, a good old-fashioned story-driven flick that manages to entertain and challenge its audience at the same time. Both actresses, who also wrote the film together, sparkle with real-life charm. Their sass and easygoing personalities keep Kissing Jessica Stein from turning into a cheap When Sally Meets Sally. -- RP (Rated R.)

LIFE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT -- (Grade: D) As Seattle TV reporter Lanie Kerrigan, actress Angelina Jolie has all the marks of a classic comic heroine. On looks alone, Jolie's Life or Something Like It character inhabits a universe populated by past comediennes like Judy Holliday and Jayne Mansfield. Jolie's screwball potential is squashed by Life or Something Like It's haphazard storytelling. Desperate to get a network job, Kerrigan's career plans go amuck after a homeless prophet (Tony Shalhoub) tells Kerrigan that she only has one week to live. Too foolish to be taken seriously, and without enough laughs to be considered a winning comedy, Life or Something Like It dissolves into a muddled mess. Based on Life or Something Like It, I'm not convinced that Jolie has a knack for comedy. On this occasion, I'm willing to blame the filmmaker. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING -- (Grade: A) Director Peter Jackson tackles J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy books set in Middle-earth with a creative force. The results are extraordinary. The film tells the story of hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and the powerful Ruling Ring he inherits from his Uncle Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm). There is plenty of showmanship in Fellowship, but there is also substantive storytelling. Fellowship of the Ring is so good that I imagine high-brow audiences who normally avoid these types of films will find themselves having a great time if they give the film a chance. ­ SR (Rated PG-13.)

MONSOON WEDDING -- (Grade: A) The chaotic planning of a Punjabi wedding is the colorful backdrop for director Mira Nair's (Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala) joyful drama. Aditi (pop singer Vasundhara Das) is the daughter of Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah) and Pimmi (Lillete Dubey), who hastily agrees to marry Hemant (Parvin Dabas), an engineer from Houston. Despite the culture clashes between Aditi's New Delhi family and her Americanized groom, Pimmi manages to keep his mind focused on the extravagant reception. A soundtrack of traditional music and contemporary Pop songs helps Nair portray Aditi's struggle to embrace her Punjabi past as well look towards her future. Comparisons to Robert Altman's The Wedding are unfair. Monsoon Wedding is too joyful to be considered an Altman-inspired film. In Nair's heartfelt tale, the monsoon rains may threaten, but love conquers just the same. -- SR (Rated R.)

MURDER BY NUMBERS -- (Grade: D) Sandra Bullock is dreadfully miscast as a forensics detective on the trail of two teen-age murderers (Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt) in director Barbet Schroeder's lumbering mystery. Exchanging her playful personality for something decidedly dark and somber, Bullock is never believable or engaging as the film's troubled lead. Gosling is the only thing worth recommending in the film. His performance, playing a smart-ass teen with bedroom eyes, is a worthy companion to his lead role in the under-seen drama, The Believer. As a follow up to Schroeder's brilliant Columbian drama, Our Lady of the Assassins, Murder By Numbers is a huge disappointment. -- SR (Rated R.)

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER -- (Grade: D) Director Walt Becker's collegiate comedy stumbles in the footsteps of its gross-out predecessor, National Lampoon's Animal House. Its namesake hero, Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds), a slackerish student entering his eighth year at Coolidge College, is agreeable enough. Unfortunately, Van Wilder writers Brent Goldberg and David T. Wagner fail to build many laugh-out loud gags around its Peter Pan-inspired campus kingpin and his last-ditch efforts to graduate. What National Lampoon's Van Wilder lacks in funny jokes, it overly compensates with gross-out shocks that make recent, gooey films like American Pie and There's Something About Mary look family friendly. -- SR (Rated R.)

THE NEW GUY -- (Grade: F) If the one person in Hollywood who still has a brain were forced to watch The New Guy, maybe, just maybe, there would be no more high school comedies. Void of any funny moments, The New Guy is all about little guys having their one chance to make it big. With DJ Qualls (Road Trip) as Dizzy, a geeky teen who wants to change his image, and Eddie Griffin (Double Take) as Dizzy's street-smart mentor, director Ed Decter has a decent shot at making us laugh. Both Qualls and Griffin have energy to spare, but not even Atlas could hitch this movie onto his broad shoulders and carry it towards a joke. The New Guy is bloated with all-star cameos from people who, the audience is supposed to assume, are poking fun at themselves: Henry Rollins, Kool Mo Dee and David Hasselhoff. Actually, these guys are poking themselves to make sure they're still breathing. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

PANIC ROOM -- (Grade: A) Dark shadows and the sound of heavy breathing help Panic Room tell its crime story well. An old Manhattan townhouse provides the perfect setting for director David Fincher's suspense film. A stormy night seals the creepy mood. Jodie Foster is sweaty and determined as Meg Altman, a recently divorced mom intent on protecting herself and her teenage daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart), from a trio of criminals (Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker and Dwight Yoakam) who've broken into their new house in the dead of night. In interviews, Fincher compares Panic Room with another claustrophobic thriller, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. It's a fair comparison. Panic Room is the type of violent thriller Hitchcock would make if he were alive in these angry, cynical times. More importantly, with the exception of adding drama between Meg and her teen-age daughter, I can't imagine how Hitchcock could have made Panic Room any more enjoyable. -- SR (Rated R.)

RESIDENT EVIL -- (Grade: F) I should begin by saying that I am not familiar with the video game this film is based on. But boy howdy, it just has to be more fun playing it than watching it. An elite assault team led by a pair of female commandos (Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez) is sent into an underground genetics laboratory to find out why all the scientists are dead. After battling the lab's central computer, they find their greatest challenge is still ahead of them. The concept behind Resident Evil isn't bad. Take one part Aliens, three parts Return of the Living Dead, throw in a sexy Lara Croft-like heroine and you have the good parts of Resident Evil. However, those scant assets the film had going for it are hardly visible in the final product. -- RP (Rated R.)

THE ROOKIE -- (Grade: C) Dennis Quaid's easygoing performance as Jim Morris, a high-school science teacher and baseball coach who tries out for the Majors as part of a bet with his team, is the best thing about director John Lee Hancock's baseball drama. Told in a matter-of-fact style, The Rookie drapes its heartfelt themes about fathers, sons and second chances around Texas Big Sky country. The Rookie never manages to tug hard on the heartstrings, despite Hancock's melodramatic effort. As the middle-aged rookie, Quaid is looking weathered and more handsome than ever. Watching him in his worn boots and Wrangler jeans makes you wish Hollywood still made Westerns. -- SR (Rated G.)

THE SCORPION KING -- (Grade: D) The Scorpion King is ready to take center stage, rewarding wrestling actor The Rock for his popular walk-on role in The Mummy Returns. Too bad there's not enough heat in The Scorpion King to get things cooking. Mathayus (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) is the last of a tribe of assassins charged to dispatch the sorceress Cassandra (Kelly Hu), whose advice has allowed the warlord Memnon (Steven Brand) to conquer the scattered tribal nations. Although King is full of anachronistic quips and goofy buddy banter, the movie doesn't feel like a breezy romp because it bears the weight of its big-time, action film expectations. Still, Johnson's on-screen appeal forecasts a real Smackdown somewhere in his film acting future, but that future is not now. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

SHACKLETON'S ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE -- (Grade: C) One of the greatest tales of human courage and adventure is shrunk down to a 45-minute, routine OMNIMAX film. Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, a documentary about Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated 1914 journey to Antarctica, replaces interviews with descendants of Shackleton's crew with dramatizations of Shackleton's struggle to rescue his men. Compared to the archival film footage and still photography shot by Frank Hurley, a Shackleton crewmember, the dramatizations are amateurish and uninteresting. -- SR (Unrated.)

SHOWTIME -- (Grade: D) No-nonsense veteran detective Mitch Preston (Robert DeNiro) and media-savvy Patrol Officer 'Ice' Trey Sellars (Eddie Murphy) are forced to team up to investigate a powerful new weapon unleashed on the streets after a sting operation by Preston goes awry. This "odd couple" pairing becomes the basis of a reality cop show concept pitched by television producer Chase Renzi (Rene Russo). Showtime, an amiable spoof of cop films, TV cops and reality shows, is high-concept Hollywood. Think Lethal Weapon meets 48 Hours with a healthy dose of Get Shorty. Unfortunately, it's far better if you don't think since the movie completely lacks even an ounce of common sense or intelligence. Showtime sells itself short and never makes a meaningful observation or achieves big time laughs. -- ttc (Rated PG-13.)

SNOW DOGS -- (Grade: D) The closing credits of Snow Dogs reveal that the story was suggested by the book Winterdance by Gary Paulsen. Snow Dogs presents animals manipulated into exhibiting more human characteristics. I'm sure the kids might get something out of the good messages, but Snow Dogs offers far less than animated features like Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Monsters, Inc. I might have been far more inclined to go along with the "hokey black guy from Florida inherits a dog sled team in Alaska" story if the producers had gone the animated route. -- ttc (Rated PG.)

SPIDER-MAN -- (Grade: C) As Spider-Man's costumed nemesis, the Green Goblin, Willem Dafoe's creepy grin is more entertaining than all of Spider-Man's explosions and digital effects. Tobey Maguire is given the body-hugging Spider-Man costume, and it looks good on him. As the boy hero of director Sam Raimi's sloppy blockbuster, Maguire is getting all the attention. Still, actioners like Spider-Man are all about its villains, and Dafoe is the best thing in an otherwise disappointing film. Spider-Man's best scene occurs early in the movie, when Parker loses control of his newfound super powers in his high school cafeteria. Later in the film, Spider-Man's origin story breaks down while Raimi crams in as much action as possible. Stylish images turn cluttered. The action becomes chaotic instead of engaging. Making dramatic matters worse, Maguire's emotional depth plummets every time he puts on his Spider-Man mask. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

STAR WARS: EPISODE II -- ATTACK OF THE CONES -- (Grade: B) Attack of the Clones stays close to the pulpy spirit of 1930s space hero serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, and is better off for it. Free of the extended setup that bogged down the recent blockbuster Spider-Man, Attack of the Clones dives straight into its boy's life adventure, set 10 years after the most recent Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace. Two stories divide Attack of the Clones equally. One is the growing romance between Jedi-knight-in-training Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Queen-turned-Senator Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman). The other is a more straightforward adventure where Obi Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) discovers a plot by enemy forces to attack the Republic with a clone army. To say anything more would give the impression that Attack of the Clones is more Robert Louis Stevenson adventure than a collection of lavish cliffhangers. Like most Star Wars movies, in-depth storytelling is not Attack of the Clones' greatest asset. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN -- (Grade: A) Mexican-born director Alfonso Cuarón makes a heady impact on American cinema with his fast-moving road movie Y Tu Mamá También. Y Tu Mamá También follows the roadside adventures of two teen-age friends, Tenoch (Diago Luna) and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Tenoch's cousin, Luisa (Maribel Verdu), as they leave Mexico City in search for the perfect beach on the Oaxacan coast. Luna and Bernal are heartfelt as the friends who find themselves starry-eyed over the beautiful Luisa. But it's Verdu's passionate performance that ultimately sends Y Tu Mamá También spinning. As engaging as it is erotic, Y Tu Mamá También became the highest grossing film in Mexican history. One viewing and it's easy to understand why. -- SR (Rated R.)

TRIUMPH OF LOVE -- (Grade: C)In director Clare Peploe's adaptation of Marivaux's 1732 comic play, Le Triomphe de l'amour, Mira Sorvino makes the most of her false identities performance. Sorvino plays Princess Leonide, who wants to restore the royal crown to its rightful owner, her sworn enemy, a handsome prince named Agis (Jay Rodan) who lives with the philosopher Hermocrates (Ben Kingsley) and his sister Leontine (Fiona Shaw). In order to reach Agis, Leonide and her maid disguise themselves as male students. It's not long before everything turns upside-down. Sorvino is just as good-looking as a man as she is as a woman. Still, her comic spark pales compared to the clownish antics of Kingsley and Shaw. Despite their spirited performances and the film's beautiful Tuscany backdrop, Triumph of Love never breaks the stuffy confines of a filmed stage play. -- SR (Rated PG-13.)

UNFAITHFUL -- (Grade: C) A changed ending gives Adrian Lyne's new adultery drama a more ambiguous ending. Still, Unfaithful, about a wife who goes astray, fails to match the dramatic intensity of Lyne's 1987 film, Fatal Attraction. As an English-language remake to Claude Chabrol's 1968 film La Femme Infidèle, Lyne makes no improvements on Chabrol's original movie. Diane Lane plays Connie (Diane Lane), the suburban New York City housewife who stumbles into an affair with a younger man (Olivier Martinez). Lane is believable as the pretty infidel, but it's a role she played better in A Walk on the Moon. Richard Gere, as Edward Sumner, a Manhattan businessman and loving father who discovers his wife's deceit, is saddled with the task of turning the movie from a family drama to a revenge tale. Lyne creates a slick veneer for the movie, but without an engaging story, it's not long before Unfaithful's characters cease to matter. -- SR (Rated R.)

WHEN WE WERE SOLDIERS -- (Grade: D) Mel Gibson plays heroic soldier and dutiful father in writer/director Randall Wallace's Vietnam War drama, the latest entry in Hollywood's post Sept. 11 wave of patriotism. We Were Soldiers is not the best of the current battle movies. That title still belongs to the gritty Black Hawk Down. It's also not the worst, easily besting the comic-book foolishness of Behind Enemy Lines. Gibson's noble presence, as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, a man who leads 400 Army recruits into an ambush by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, is the saving grace behind Wallace's lumbering film. Still, there is only so much even a hero as likable as Gibson's can do. -- SR (Rated R.)

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