Treasure Planet / ***1/2 (2002)

If Robert Louis Stevenson had lived long enough to see his creative flair dispatched into the mighty cosmos, he would have undoubtedly been overjoyed by any result. But in the latest Disney animated feature, the ambitious and exciting "Treasure Planet," the compelling scope of his most unforgettable written work is set against one of the most bright and rousing canvases seen in standard feature animation since "Titan A.E.", a look that doesn't simply flood the screen with its color and energy, but pulls the viewer into the experience. This isn't a product in the grand tradition of the best Disney cartoons, mind you, because it follows no tradition but its own. Like last year's "Atlantis," only on a much wider scale, the movie is in complete awe of itself, devised from no direct pattern or formula, and yet crafted with the most essential pleasures in mind.

Ghost Ship / * (2002)

The cycle of cheesy but artsy old horror film remakes that Dark Castle Entertainment initiated three years ago has finally descended to the bottom. And that metaphor couldn't be any more appropriate for a film like "Ghost Ship," the third and clumsiest release under the studio's name, which treads the familiar lines of its predecessors without actually delivering on many of the promises. What promises do I speak of, though? Consider the source before you ask that question; this is, after all, the same production company behind updates of "House on Haunted Hill" and "Thirteen Ghosts," films that are generally remembered as being very flashy in special effects but not very gutsy (or interesting) in writing.

The Grey Zone / *** (2002)

The most familiar stories in history tend to be those that result in widespread catastrophe, but even that doesn't begin to describe the horrors that resulted from Nazi Germany in the early 1940s, when Adolf Hitler's rise to power resulted in the merciless slaying of over 6 million Jews in Europe. It has always been said that war is hell, but just how close can one possibly get to that realization? The countless innocent lives that were tragically cut short by gas chambers, ovens, firing squads and twisted forms of medical experimentation are probably the only people who can answer that question, and yet any attempts for us to imagine those horrors are virtually impossible.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets / **1/2 (2002)

There is a certain nostalgic potency to how the "Harry Potter" stories are launched, as if they've been modeled after every great childhood fantasy of the past without actually indicating it specifically. In them, the hero of the hour, one Harry James Potter, is anchored into unfair obscurity by his nearest relatives, treated like a slave day and night, and watched over like the most unwanted son of the already-dysfunctional family unit. And yet no one ever quite realizes just how smart, how charming and how brilliant he is beneath the quiet facade; they sort of just follow the pattern as if he's a hood ornament rather than a personality, unaware that they are merely spectators in his complex and exciting growth as someone whose differences can be embraced rather than exploited.

Punch Drunk Love / ***1/2 (2002)

Somewhere outside the familiar little corners of Hollywood, director Paul Thomas Anderson is meticulously adding new threads onto his elaborate fabric of quirky but jarring Southern California life. His ever-growing opus, founded on the drug-ridden labor of porn from "Boogie Nights" and evolved by the highly-compassed human vignettes of "Magnolia," is not merely a giant art project he tinkers with ever so often, but more like a rich alternate reality that is being discovered little by little with each new endeavor. His movies have all the symbolism and intricacy of the great American motion pictures, and yet they exist on a plane laced with fantasy rather than ordinary thought. Consider the jolting shock of "Magnolia"s climax, or the cartoonishly large "instrument" that everyone is converged on in "Boogie Nights"—once these devices are removed from the equation, the results occupy all the ordinary values and traits of the most classic human dramas of our time. The fact that Anderson is able to anchor these elements in a dimension bound by very few laws of realism suggests just how capable he is as a director.

Formula 51 / zero stars (2002)

A series of new words need to be invented just to describe how wretchedly awful "Formula 51" really is, the new vehicle starring one the box office's most relentless legends, Samuel L. Jackson. This isn't just your standard bad movie, but one that abandons every established rule of a repulsive endeavor and creates a chain of new ones simply for itself. The movie is a sad, sorry, contemptible pile of garbage, and how any studio has the balls to back it in a major market, I will never understand.

Knockaround Guys / 1/2* (2002)

So there it was, the single most joyless film of the year, ejecting its pitiful energies off the screen in the same revolting way that I was staring at it. When the lights finally went up and the closing credits began to roll, the feeling of frustration polluted the air like expired milk, and I remember wondering how, just how, it was possible for any sane human being to unleash this kind of garbage on unsuspecting moviegoers in the hopes that someone would find it amusing. "Well that was dumb!", one of my colleagues remarked at the theater exit. Close call, but not quite an appropriate one; after all, even dumb movies are at least ambitious enough to be negative. When it comes to "Knockaround Guys," the latest clone to the ongoing "Reservoir Dogs" legacy, the only remotely energetic aspect of the project is the fact that characters occasionally use words with more than two syllables.

Moonlight Mile / ** (2002)

The earliest sign that Brad Silberling's "Moonlight Mile" won't be anything close to what other film writers are saying about it comes in during the movie's critical first few minutes, where characters are sleepwalking through an indecisive reality in search of a logical response towards the death of a family member. We watch on as Joe (Jake Gyllenhaal) is invited by the girlfriends of his deceased fiancee to a local bar for some time "away from it all." He pops a coin into the jukebox in the back room, and heads turn at his song of choice. Out from the back enters Bertie (Ellen Pompeo), a fetching young woman whom Joe met a day before at the post office (she helped him retrieve all of his wedding invitations before they were mailed). They notice each other instantly, but not a word is said; instead, she approaches him, falls into his arms, and they dance to the music. The awkwardness of the scene is immediately identifiable—our familiarity with the characters and their situations is very rough at this point, and nothing is explained of their reactions or their feelings until much later in the cycle. No, this isn't one of those sweet and tender moments that most would have you believe; reflecting the picture as a whole, the moment feels rather labored.

Red Dragon / ***1/2 (2002)

The recent surge of movie villain admiration could not have arrived at a better time than now, as one of the most notorious of his field, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, finds himself worming his way back onto motion picture screens in Brett Ratner's "Red Dragon." In the opening scenes of this "The Silence of the Lambs" prequel, the camera descends into the quiet, ordained audience of a classical music concert like a magnet being drawn to its attraction, a man whose brilliant and cunning psyche spawns the kind of fascination that make his mental corruption seem less distracting than it should be. He's a dark and sinister man at heart, but the calm behavior suggests otherwise; unlike most film antagonists, Lecter realizes the physical limits and works around them, tackling his casualties in ways that no jail cell can barricade. When he is confronted in "Red Dragon" by the man who caught him years before, there is no negative reaction or hatred in the doctor's eyes; he simply smiles, listens to the agenda of his visitor, and then compares himself to him. "Perhaps you're more like me than you care to imagine," he insists with sly enthusiasm.

The Ring / ***1/2 (2002)

"The Ring" is an oasis for audiences dehydrated of creativity in modern movie thrillers, an exciting and often brilliant ghost story that penetrates the core of formula, rips it wide open and erases every trace of cliché like a hit man taking special care to clean up after himself. Most films in this vein work against the mold simply because filmmakers want them to, but seldom do they seem to abolish the standards without even trying, or without so much as a concern of undertaking the task. Don't ask me to explain how or why, but something about this creepy and unnerving suspense vehicle is almost fortuitous about itself, as if the writer never entertains the notion that the script is shattering boundaries almost as easily as it is telling a story.

The Rules of Attraction / *** (2002)

Roger Avery's "The Rules of Attraction" launches with these harsh words of wisdom: the first rule about the rules of attraction is that there are no rules. Indeed, as revealed through the warped character arcs exposed to the audience during the course of this two-hour acid trip, such an announcement couldn't be closer to the truth, especially when it comes to college kids who coexist on a campus that seems to lack everything resembling a reality except for sex, drugs, alcohol, and the occasional frat party. Based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name, the movie is comprised of players who behave, react, detach and negate from the norm like they're part of some gigantic psychological tug-of-war against insanity, disoriented by their own conduct without actually realizing the personal obstacles they're usually up against until it's too late for them to be forgiven.

Tuck Everlasting / *1/2 (2002)

Someone with substantial power inside the executive offices at Disney must be suffering from some serious lack of quality control, otherwise live-action films like "Tuck Everlasting" wouldn't be pumped out by the studio on such a frequent basis. As of late, the same large-scale company that fancies itself the leader in motion picture entertainment for younger audiences has also been one of the most lazy, unleashing projects on us that try so hard to be cutesy and innocent with their viewers that they completely ignore all other potentials. Consider even recent mishaps like "The Princess Diaries" or "Snow Dogs"—how does such a widely-embraced distributor for children find itself saddled with such screen slop? If the animation department can recover from a slump as quickly as theirs, shouldn't that at least be expected of live action as well?

The Banger Sisters / **1/2 (2002)

The women in "The Banger Sisters" are being labeled as modern day versions of Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz by blurbs in promotional spots on television, but somehow I doubt that those two sitcom ladies would ever want to be associated with the bewildering stuff that we witness Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn resort to during the course of this awkward 97-minute sisterhood comedy. In their own warped realities, smoking joint after joint and staring at collections of photos featuring musician genitalia were merely common pastimes, but to those of us on the opposite side of the screen, such incidents almost have to be seen to be believed, especially when they involve actresses who are generally better known for more innocent things in their screen careers. That doesn't mean what they do is exactly crucial enough to tarnish the movie's credibility, but it does tend to make the experience a little too brazen for its own good.

Igby Goes Down / ***1/2 (2002)

The alienation of American youth knows no restrictions when it comes to someone like Jason Slocumb Jr. (Kieran Culkin), a 17-year-old boy who finds himself at the beginning of "Igby Goes Down" in the midst of a messy personal war fueled by family, society and culture, sometimes all in the same breath. What this adolescent but underestimated slacker faces on his trek towards individual freedom isn't necessarily anything out of the norm, but his own twisted interpretation makes it seem that way. Through his eyes, life is made up of countless losers who spend too much of their time pretending to be someone they aren't. Jason's goal (at least during the course of the picture) is simply to sit around and absorb the simplicities laid out at his disposal. The only complex details are the disagreements he faces with those around him, who tilt their heads like they understand his perspective, holding back the hard truths that would no doubt send him hurling obscenities at their seeming disapproval of his choices.

Sweet Home Alabama / **1/2 (2002)

It is often said that certain actors are able to elevate potentially-lethal movie material to a tolerable level simply based on their own screen presence. If that's indeed a true omen, then Reese Witherspoon must be exactly that kind of performer. The sweetness and charm that she exhibits through many of her roles is some of the most infectious since Audrey Hepburn's, even though the roles themselves are nothing to be proud of. When she shows up in the new "Sweet Home Alabama," we don't care about what happens to other characters or how the plot plays out. Good thing, too; minus the vivacious charm of its lead star, the movie would have easily been a waste of celluloid.