Behind Enemy Lines (2001)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

Owen Wilson is a comic actor as odd and quirky as his dented nose, but Behind Enemy Lines smooths him out into a generic action figure. He plays a Navy pilot who’s shot down over Bosnia, and even his clever ad libs are drowned out by the roar of jet engines. This is one of

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Horror Rated R

The nightmarish flip side of The Chronicles of Narnia, which also explored how traumatized children seek solace in imagination. Director Guillermo del Toro’s film follows the harrowing adventures of a little girl (Ivana Baquero) caught up in the warfare of 1944 Spain. One evening, she encounters a version of the mythical Pan, who promises that

Hitcher, The (2006)

Horror Rated R

The Hitcher opens in a queasy state of moral unease, as a young couple nearly runs over a hitchhiker and then flees the scene rather than stopping to see if he’s OK. It turns out they made the right decision, for when he catches up with them at a gas station … well, I don’t

Because of Winn-Dixie (2005)

Family Rated PG

The stray dog in this saccharine family drama has an unusual nose: It sniffs out wisdom-spouting adults. And so the lonely 10-year-old who adopts it starts following it from role model to role model, including pop star Dave Matthews as a pet store clerk who serenades the animals. Sentimental director Wayne Wang (Anywhere But Here)

Devil’s Rejects, The (2005)

Horror Rated R

Credit rocker turned horror director Rob Zombie with this: he can film a bloody, naked corpse like no one else. This sequel to Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses has its own distinctive flair, specifically rooted in the grindhouse exploitation flicks of the 1970s. With impulsive freeze-frame shots and a retro, country-rock soundtrack, the movie stands

Fever Pitch (2005)

Romantic Comedy Rated PG-13

Watered-down Farrelly brothers is still good enough to make for a passable romantic comedy. This time the sibling directing team abandons the sort of touchy topics they’ve mined before – schizophrenia, obesity – to follow a rabid Boston Red Sox fan (Jimmy Fallon) who must decide if it is time to change priorities in his

Good Shepherd, The (2006)

Drama Rated R

Matt Damon’s minimalist performance – he hardly flexes a muscle – is the best thing about this ambitious, speculative account of the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency. As Edward Wilson, a fictionalized amalgam of the secretive, paranoid men who started the agency, Damon is in cipher mode (The Talented Mr. Ripley, the Bourne pictures),

Night at the Museum (2006)

Action/Adventure Rated PG

A lot of stampedes take place in Night at the Museum, and the movie itself stampedes over a promising concept, which centers on a security guard (Ben Stiller, very funny at first) who must maintain control at a natural history museum where the exhibits come to life each night. The gags get louder and cruder

Good German, The (2006)

Drama Rated R

An impeccable evocation of an earlier era, but not a freestanding film. The Good German, Steven Soderbergh’s meticulous melding of Casablanca and postwar film noirs, is awash in delectable period detail, from the shadowy black-and-white cinematography (also handled by Soderbergh) to the swooshing font used for the title to Thomas Newman’s music, which recalls the

Matchstick Men (2003)

Drama Rated PG-13

A piffle graced by a cast it doesn’t really deserve. Starring Nicolas Cage as an obsessive-compulsive con man who tracks down his estranged teen daughter (Alison Lohman), the movie’s most endearing aspect is that it is one of those instances in which Cage leaves behind the action idiocy of Con Air and The Rock for