Four Christmases: No holiday treat
Susan Walker  
It's Four Christmases in need of a wedding, or maybe a funeral.

Restless: Redemption tale told in rhyming couplets
Jason Anderson  
Moshe, the boozy, scruffy small-timer at the centre of Restless , is author Charles Bukowski reincarnated as a middle-aged Israeli in New York.

Transporter 3: A love story of a man and his car
Peter Howell  
The Transporter franchise is going nowhere fast in the action department, but a category switch might be just the tune-up to get this series moving again.

Bolt: A fun family flick
Peter Howell  
The Disney-Pixar canine comedy Bolt is a case of the tail wagging the dog, but that's nothing to bark about.

Twilight: Love bites
Peter Howell  
Wondrous are the ways of vampires in Twilight , a tale of undead adoration where sharp teeth and cold hands are no impediment to romance.

Repo! The Genetic Opera: Guts and gusto
Susan Walker  
It's not hard to imagine that the sorry state of the American healthcare system could have provided Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich with the premise for their 10-minute club musical, The Necro-Merchant's Debt, ...

Ballast: Weight of the world
Peter Howell  
Ballast takes us to a forgotten corner of the Mississippi Delta, where the colour grey seeps into the soul, and even the hands of the clock seem too tired to move.

I Can't Think Straight: Nothing subtle about this script
Susan Walker  
British director Shamim Sarif is making a cottage industry cranking out lesbian romances. First she writes the novels – with a touch that might be appreciated by Harlequin readers. Then she and her ...

Growing Op: Unfunny flick bit of a buzz killer
Jason Anderson  
Since puns are the second lowest form of comedy next to jokes about airplane food, the title of this innocuous Canadian teen movie is a pretty accurate indication of the quality of the humour contained within.

Print & save: Our holiday movie guide
The holiday movie season offers a bounty of new releases vying for your attention. Like everyone else at this time of year, each movie has its own hopes and dreams.

JCVD: Van Damme, he can act!
ROB SALEM  
It is, in every sense, the role of a lifetime.

Died Young Stayed Pretty: Poster posers get graphic
Jason Anderson  
The text on one of the many concert posters displayed in Died Young Stayed Pretty is so hard to read, even the designers can barely figure out what the poster was meant to advertise.

No solace in new Bond film
Peter Howell  
While most James Bond fans would acknowledge the franchise needed renewing, Quantum of Solace takes innovation a bit too far, writes Peter Howell.

Slumdog Millionaire an engaging love story
Peter Howell  
That any kind of cohesive narrative could emerge from Slumdog Millionaire 's burst of brilliant images is reason enough for applause.

Madagascar sequel packed with genuine laughs
Peter Howell  
The animated comedy Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa succeeds where the original failed, with enlivened characters and a fine sense of the absurd, writes Peter Howell.

I've Loved You So Long: Superbly haunting
Linda Barnard  
It's more than 30 minutes into the superbly haunting French film I've Loved You So Long ( Il y a longtemps que je t'aime ) before the word "prison" is mentioned.

Soul Men: Mac and Hayes leave on a sour note
Peter Howell  
If anything good might be said about the untimely passing this past summer of comedian Bernie Mac and singer Isaac Hayes, it's that they didn't live to see the crude farce that is Soul Men.

Role Models relentlessly funny, surprisingly sweet
JASON ANDERSON  
There are three things that every modern screen comedy needs: references to old KISS songs, guys dressed as knights whacking each other with foam swords, and a potty-mouthed 10-year-old. That Role Models ...

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: Children's view of evil
Susan Walker  
You have to wonder whether the children watching The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas , adapted from the young-adult novel by John Boyne, will be a tad confused by this historical fable.

Synecdoche, New York: A headscratcher
Peter Howell  
Just as Philip Seymour Hoffman finds his senses fragmenting in Charlie Kaufman's surreal Synecdoche, New York , so must the truthful critic admit to having split synapses over this movie.

The World Unseen: Soap opera-ish romance
Susan Walker  
"Nothing can stop you from falling in love," a tagline that is lame even by the standards of movie promotional language, is your clue that The World Unseen is less an account of hatred and injustice ...

Triage: Lesson in human darkness
PATRICIA HLUCHY  
Dr. James Orbinski's memory must be a minefield. As a physician with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) during the 1990s, he worked in hell zones including Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

Real Time: Wears thin quickly
Linda Barnard  
Scruffy gambling addict Andy hops over sidewalk cracks and shuns karma-killing looks he swears are shot his way from bad-luck dispensing old ladies, knowing if he can only wake up with "the feeling" his fortunes ...

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Neither sexy nor funny
Linda Barnard  
If Kevin Smith was counting on using his new movie to gain entrance to the Judd Apatow school of grossly funny flick-making, he'd better start dusting off his convenience-store resumé.

Swedish vampire flick unsettling and beautiful
Peter Howell  
The exceptional Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In warms your heart as it chills your blood, and that's the most disturbing thing about it.

Ashes of Time Redux: A very Zen Western
Peter Howell  
The reinvention that is Ashes of Time Redux proudly presents itself as a paradox: a martial arts movie by Wong Kar-wai, the action-averse Hong Kong auteur. The kicks are more to the head and heart than to the body.

Made in Jamaica: A look at music born though turmoil
Tony Wong  
Made in Jamaica opens with the death of Kingston dancehall icon Bogle, as ministers, warlords and musicians attend his funeral, his body carried in an Escalade hearse.

The Other End of the Line: Hang up and try again
Jason Anderson  
A feather-light romantic comedy that's laborious when it ought to be effervescent; The Other End of the Line is the latest exchange in an awkward conversation between two film industries.

What Just Happened: More pathetic than comic
Peter Howell  
You'd probably need a veteran Hollywood psychiatrist to explain Tinseltown's fascination with its own muck.

Filth and Wisdom: Madonna's flick tame, lame
Peter Howell  
Neither filthy nor wise, Madonna's directing debut looks like a weekend project she and Guy Ritchie might have hatched up when they were busily pretending to be London's happiest couple.

Changeling: An emotional motherlode
Peter Howell  
Clint Eastwood wants us to know his film is based on the truth, but some aspects of Changeling are so hard to fathom, the movie seems like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone.