Shopgirl (2005)

Drama Rated R

Most romantic comedies bury the loneliness and disappointment that is inevitably a part of any romance in one tidy sequence, usually involving the hero or heroine walking despondently in the rain. Shopgirl – adapted from Steve Martin’s novella about a love triangle involving a drifting Los Angeles sales clerk (Claire Danes, sad and sweet), a

Treasure Planet (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated PG

Itself a source of classics, Disney brings a respectful touch to this animated, interstellar version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s revered “Treasure Island.” The story still focuses on the moral education of young Jim Hawkins, while the wonderfully inventive visual palette retains plenty of nautical details. It’s an anachronistic approach that leaves room for both pirates

Cinderella Man (2005)

Drama Rated PG-13

Director Ron Howard’s period drama takes an undeniably inspiring based-on-fact story – that of Depression-era boxer James Braddock (Russell Crowe), whose career saw an unlikely resurgence when fighting became the only way he could feed his family – and admirably lets the story tell itself. The facts have enough uplift here to override the need

Chronicles of Riddick, The (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

You would never guess this is a sequel to the modestly budgeted 2000 science-fiction fright-fest Pitch Black, starring Vin Diesel as an ex-con and reluctant hero who can see in the dark. Chronicles bloats before your eyes – in terms of sets, special effects, narrative – as if it wanted to be another entry in

Dragonfly (2002)

Drama Rated PG-13

It’s hard to decide who’s more dull here: Kevin Costner or his movie. Costner stars as a doctor whose late pediatrician wife tries to contact him through her former patients, but the film can’t manage either the open-hearted romanticism of Ghost or the subtle spookiness of The Sixth Sense. Instead, director Tom Shadyac proves to

Cradle 2 the Grave (2003)

Action/Adventure Rated R

The creative team behind Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds – namely director Andrzej Bartkowiak and star DMX – return for this crime thriller, and despite the fact that Exit Wounds co-star Steven Seagal is nowhere to be found, the air of silliness he projects still lingers. The unintentionally comedic lowlight? When Hong Kong action

Equilibrium (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Matrix-style massacres erupt throughout Equilibrium, yet unlike its predecessor, the movie has a tougher time balancing its violence with Kafka-inspired philosophy. Christian Bale stars as a futuristic government official hunting down those who express emotions, which have been outlawed. After shooting his own partner for reading Yeats, he begins to question his vocation. The film

Eye of the Beholder (1999)

Thriller Rated R

Another ludicrous Ashley Judd thriller, and one that makes Double Jeopardy look like a model of logic. This time Judd plays a disturbed seductress who murders men because she was abandoned by her dad as a little girl. Ewan McGregor plays the high-tech detective who chases down Judd and who also happens to have lost

Four Feathers, The (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Broad themes – courage, patriotism, warfare – dressed up in Lawrence of Arabia finery. Heath Ledger stars as a British officer who suddenly quits his post on the eve of an 1898 mission to the English colony of the Sudan, while the likes of Wes Bentley and Kate Hudson lend solid support as the fiance

Great Raid, The (2005)

Action/Adventure Rated R

The Great Raid yearns to be epic, but the movie can’t measure up to its remarkable true story: the rescue of more than 500 American detainees from a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines during the final days of World War II. The cast is lightweight – Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes and James Franco play