Gerry (2002)

Drama Rated R

An experimental exercise from director Gus Van Sant, who wrote the screenplay with stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, Gerry follows two friends as they get lost on a desert trail and encounter thirst, desperation and … ? Well, not exactly transcendence, although that’s clearly what the movie is aiming for. Some moments approach such

No Man’s Land (2001)

Drama Rated R

This Bosnian import, which won the Best Foreign Language Film award at the 2002 Oscars, takes place almost entirely within a battlefield trench where a Bosnian and a Serb find themselves in a tense standoff. The ensuing morality play at times turns preachy, but it also offers a glimpse at the fractious hatred that allowed

Jonah – A Veggie Tales Movie (2002)

Family Rated G

This computer-animated dramatization of the Old Testament tale of the prophet Jonah is a long way from industry giant Pixar, but there’s enough creativity and wit to make something that sounds like Sunday school fun. By recasting Biblical figures as tomatoes, carrots and the like, the filmmakers strip the story of the potential for sanctimoniousness,

Producers, The (2005)

Musical Rated PG-13

The obvious first step in transferring this Broadway musical comedy to the screen would have been to tone things down a notch – to soften material that had been yelled to the back row of a theater for the cozy intimacy of the cinema. Yet Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, reprising their stage roles as

Medallion, The (2003)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

A disposable, slapdash action comedy in which Jackie Chan plays a Hong Kong detective who comes across a mysterious artifact that grants him superhuman powers. The series of bloopers over the end credits feel redundant – the movie is a screwup of its own.

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

Drama Rated PG

In 1931, three biracial girls were removed from their Aboriginal families by the Australian government as part of a program meant to “civilize” them. Escaping from their captors, the children walked more than 1,200 miles back to their home, mostly by following an endless fence meant to keep rabbits out of farmland. Director Phillip Noyce

Pokemon 4ever (2002)

Family Rated G

This installment in the Japanese animated franchise offers elaborate nonsense seemingly designed to torture parents. The animation remains rudimentary – most of the characters look like they’re only half-drawn – while the hammering music and sound effects probably would alarm Amnesty International. As for the overriding concept of the Pokemon universe, in which kids train

Rollerball (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

MGM Pictures repeatedly delayed the release date of this remake, apparently waiting for the movie to become watchable. The studio should have kept waiting. Astonishingly inept, the film is a rushing blur of incoherent action sequences, stilted narrative patches and a chase scene filmed, for no clear reason, in the green tint of night-vision goggles.

Raise Your Voice (2004)

Drama Rated PG

More cable fare from Hilary Duff, Raise Your Voice essentially spends its entire running time trying to convince Duff of her wonderful singing abilities. She plays a sweet-natured teen who loves to belt it out with her school choir until a series of orchestrated tragedies and plot complications strips her of love for music. For

Sahara (2005)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Matthew McConaughey’s modern-day explorer Dirk Pitt – the priceless name and character come from Clive Cussler’s series of novels – is a riff on Indiana Jones, if Indiana Jones had spent three years in the weight room. McConaughey may be weighty, but Sahara – in which the star, Steve Zahn and Penelope Cruz chase a