Search for 2004

I have never been a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber's phenomenally popular stage musical version of The Phantom of the Opera, so it will probably come as no surprise that the film adaptation, which is faithful to its inspiration, left me feeling underwh...

The Polar Express is cinematic magic - a delightful tale guaranteed to enthrall viewers of all ages. Does that sound like advertising hype, or the words of a publicist? Perhaps, but it's a reflection of how strongly this film pulled me under its ...

Jonathan Hensleigh's directorial debut is the second movie to be based on the Marvel Comics character of The Punisher. The first film, released in 1989, stars Dolph Lundgren in the role essayed here by Thomas Jane. The earlier picture is rarely ci...

Taylor Hackford's Ray has a tremendous performance by Jamie Foxx and a soundtrack that is jammed with recordings by the late Ray Charles, but both work in service of a paint-by-numbers screenplay that runs too long and could have been developed in ...

15 years ago, this is the kind of chilling, gripping thriller that a hungry distributor like Miramax would have snapped up. Now, it's up to a small company like Wellspring to find these gems in the rough and bring them to our attention. Red Light...

Rory O'Shea Was Here treads a fine line between offering an unvarnished look at the tribulations of being disabled and stumbling into the realm of Hollywood-inspired claptrap. At its best, Damien O'Donnell's film peers into aspects of the lives of...

Saw is for hard-gore horror aficionados only. To appreciate Saw in its full gory, you have to have a penchant for productions that bask in the traditions of the Grand Guignol. While most of the film relies more on psychological tension and terror...

At the age of 26, Ramon Sampedro misjudged the depth of water he was diving into and broke his neck. For the next 29 years, he lived the life of a quadriplegic - one that he considered not worth living. Despite having lost the use of his body bel...

Shall We Dance? is a remake of the 1997 Japanese feature by the same name. Penned and directed by Masayuki Suo, that film was an unexpected pleasure - a feel-good feature that wasn't weighed down by the unnecessarily cloying melodrama and manipula...

The first salvo in the battle of the would-be autumn family blockbusters has been fired by Dreamworks. Beating The Incredibles to the screen by more than a month, Shark Tale represents the fourth digitally animated feature to come from the studio ...