Saw II (2005)

Horror Rated R

Like its predecessor, Saw II centers around a serial killer who spends so much time designing complicated torture devices with which to murder his victims that it’s a wonder he ever gets around to the actual killing. This time around, he has filled a booby-trapped house with a group of random people, including the teen

Hellboy (2004)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

A great concept burdened by an unwieldy back story, the comic-book adaptation Hellboy feels like the ponderous prologue to a novel. Ron Perlman nearly saves the movie in the title role. A demon who has been raised by a kindly professor to battle the forces of evil, Hellboy conducts his missions with dripping sarcasm. Hellboy

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Luke Wilson, the straight man of the Wilson brothers, plays second banana once again, this time to Uma Thurman. In this scrambled spoof/romantic comedy/farce (the movie’s own secret identity is never truly revealed), Thurman plays G-Girl, a sort of female Superman and the temperamental girlfriend of Wilson’s Matt. When he tries to end things with

Space Cowboys (2000)

Drama Rated PG-13

Clint Eastwood directs himself, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner as aging pilots with one last chance to travel to space. The geezer gags – charming at first – soon wear thin, and since the movie has nothing else on its mind, all we’re left with is a tired space-disaster flick.

Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Drama Rated NR

Hormonally imbalanced, Splendor in the Grass swoons from dreamy highs to tragic lows over the course of its 124 minutes. Watching the film is like spending a weekend with a lovesick teenager – it’s essentially a movie mood swing. Such was the acting style encouraged by director Elia Kazan, whose movies left the strict formality

Anger Management (2003)

Comedy Rated PG-13

At its best, this traditional Adam Sandler picture -meaning there’s plenty of sexual innuendo, comic violence and moments of absurdism – spoofs the contemporary need to pigeonhole people according to their perceived problems. Sandler plays a mild-mannered corporate lackey who gets mistakenly assigned to an unconventional anger therapist (Jack Nicholson, delightfully mugging his way through

Just My Luck (2006)

Romantic Comedy Rated PG-13

Today’s movie stars – especially those who are prone to appearing in the tabloids for their movie-star antics – often have to work against their off-screen image in their films. In Just My Luck, Lindsay Lohan plays a ridiculously fortunate New York City publicist who always has things go her way, and the movie never

Better Luck Tomorrow (2002)

Drama Rated R

This is consistently in over its head, and not just because it’s an often-amateurish independent drama. As long as this suburban-teens-run-amok story captures the familiar rhythms of high school, the movie is on firm ground. As a nihilistic morality play, however, it stumbles. Parry Shen is likable as an honor student gone bad, but director

Limey, The (1999)

Drama Rated R

Director Steven Soderbergh fillets time and space even more daringly here than he did in Out of Sight, turning the tale of a British thug (Terence Stamp) out for the blood of a Hollywood record producer (Peter Fonda) into a mesmerizing melange of flashbacks, visions and off-screen dialogue. A delightful puzzle for lovers of film

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The (2005)

Action/Adventure Rated PG

At just over 200 brisk pages, C.S. Lewis’ novel invites movie adaptation far more easily than, say, the Harry Potter books, so that a movie version needs only to let its source story breathe. Director Andrew Adamson (Shrek) does that right from the start, expanding on the book’s brief prologue to introduce the four sibling