Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

Romantic Comedy Rated R

This often plays like what Bridget Jones’s Diary, the 2001 adaptation of Helen Fielding’s novel, threatened to be: a cartoonish, dumbed-down version of a book that was ruthlessly honest. Yet it still charms thanks to the return of Renee Zellweger, who manages to exude both grace and gravity while baring a self-doubting woman’s body and

Queen of the Damned (2002)

Horror Rated R

Pop star Aaliyah reportedly completed all of her scenes before her death in a plane crash, but you wouldn’t know it from the finished film. As the title character, an ancient vampire bent on devouring everyone in sight, she has about 20 minutes of screen time. The rest of this goth-rock take on the vampire

Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

Drama Rated R

Surpassing his own Taxi Driver in execution and theme, director Martin Scorsese revisits the mean streets of New York – this time behind the wheel with Nicolas Cage’s strung-out ambulance paramedic – to see just how bad things can get before a chance at redemption runs out. The result is a gorgeous nightmare about what

Troy (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated R

“A gargantuan depiction of the Trojan War…”

The Country Bears (2002)

Family Rated G

“Like a bedtime story on acid, or a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant that’s been commandeered by teen ravers…”

Unleashed (2005)

Action/Adventure Rated R

Hong Kong action star Jet Li (Hero) usually projects a serene, passionless aura, but here he showcases an appropriate sense of rage. Li plays a near-mute who wears a dog collar and attacks with animalistic ferocity when his “owner,” a sadistic loan shark (Bob Hoskins), takes it off. This is terrifying stuff, except for a

Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, The (2002)

Action/Adventure Rated PG

A dim-witted and lazy spinoff of the Animal Planet documentary series, Crocodile Hunter is entertainment opportunism at its most glaring. Writer-director-producer John Stainton doesn’t even bother presenting the segments involving animal antagonizer Steve Irwin in 35 mm, leaving ugly black bars on either side of the theater screen.

Upside of Anger, The (2005)

Drama Rated R

Joan Allen acts up a storm as Terry, an abandoned wife and mother of four daughters, but thankfully it is of the authentic, rather than Oscar-baiting, variety. Kevin Costner also makes a welcome appearance as a retired baseball player who lives in the neighborhood and becomes Terry’s drinking buddy. The movie tiptoes between tragedy and

Elektra (2005)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

From its costumes to its weaponry to its production design, this Marvel Comics adaptation wants all of the surface style of an Asian martial-arts movie without any of the authenticity. A joyless Jennifer Garner reprises her role from Daredevil as a kung-fu trained assassin, but this is a rote Hollywood action flick through and through

Willard (2003)

Horror Rated PG-13

The reliably odd Crispin Glover – who played the fitfully nerdy George McFly in Back to the Future and the hair-sniffing assassin in Charlie’s Angels – gets neutralized by the overwhelming oddness of Willard, a remake of a 1971 horror flick about a social misfit who befriends a colony of rats. By the time the