When your film has nothing new to say, it sometimes helps to find a sexy way of saying it. And few directors can elevate style into substance better than Ridley Scott. So when Body of Lies purports to cover the ins and outs of the war on terror, we can be forgiven for accepting it as an amusing little potboiler rather than an incendiary exposé of the U.S. intelligence service. Unfortunately, it doesn't do so well as an amusing little potboiler either. It's basically just an excuse for Leonardo DiCaprio to play Jason Bourne while Scott once again turns his technical expertise towards making Morocco look pretty.

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The Express doesn't exactly trip over its shoelaces, nor does it present anything worthy of harsh criticism. It's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. But it slips far too easily into the preset biopic mold, which greatly diminishes its otherwise honorable assets. It treats its subject -- legendary Syracuse running back Ernie Davis -- with reverence and respect, it hits the preselected marks with nary a missed step, and it never displays any inclination to do anything unexpected or extraordinary with its source material.

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It physically pains me to give Religulous a thumbs down, because I am full-score in its ideological corner. Its stated intention is to show how the evil of organized religion far outweighs the good, and how easily fanaticism can take hold when people are willing to ignore simple, straightforward facts. From that perspective, it has a viable point. It also has an eloquent (if unduly snarky) spokesman in Bill Maher and a refreshingly evenhanded approach to its targets. Buddhism and Hinduism apparently get a pass, but it's open season on everyone else -- Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, even the Mormons take it in the shorts (though they were apparently smart enough not to let any official representatives on-camera).

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o yeah, there's plausibility issues. Giant, rampaging plausibility issues. That's par for the course with movies like Eagle Eye and its profound failure of the reality test theoretically shouldn't interfere with its ability to deliver a good time. And for the first half, it doesn't. Conceived as a riff on the "wrongful man accused" motif -- with wide-eyed copy boy Jerry Shaw (Shia LeBeouf) plunged into a vast conspiracy spanning the globe -- it moves easily through its early paces with a good sense of brainless entertainment.

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One of the biggest complaints leveled against Fight Club -- which, like Choke, is based on a Chuck Palahniuk novel -- was the sheen of smugness to its tone. Though a brilliant film in many ways, it also gave the sense of being a little too cool for its own good: like the smart kid in the back of the classroom who thinks he's put one over on everyone by refusing to take the test. Writer-director Clark Gregg's biggest challenge in Choke is to rein that tendency in -- to interpret Palahniuk's cynical wit without sneering at the world behind his hand.

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Chemistry between co-stars only goes so far. You can slip into a zone with a fellow actor that makes every spoken word a joy, but if your story doesn't lead you anywhere interesting, then eventually people are going to notice. This is particularly true if you're also directing, for you may be more apt to indulge in the thespian give-and-take than the movie merits. So it is with Appaloosa, a not-at-all-bad Western which ultimately wanders too far astray to excuse its copious shortcomings.

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When a filmmaker (or even a pair of them) walks off with a trio of Oscars, they can be forgiven if their next effort feels like a bit of a letdown. Joel and Ethan Coen, having scored the hat trick with No Country for Old Men, wisely decide not to top themselves with their follow-up. Instead they settle for what could charitably called one of their goof-off films: silly, lightweight shaggy dogs which slowly go nowhere and have a lot of fun doing it.

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The disturbing lack of buzz surrounding Righteous Kill gives some indication of the fetid mediocrity on display. Considering that it pairs Al Pacino and Robert De Niro for the first time since Heat -- and considering how lionized their tête-à-tête was in that earlier film -- it's disappointing to watch Righteous Kill slowly squander their talent. Though not strictly bad, it certainly edges towards the perfunctory, a status ill befitting the cinematic legends at its heart. Indeed, were two other actors present in the leads, the film would barely merit mention at all.

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Every drama class has someone like Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan). He's the guy so monumentally in love with the theater that he doesn't see how untalented he is. He goes to bed dreaming of Nathan Detroit, only to end up playing Chorus Gangster #3... a role he performs with disquieting gusto. He's first to arrive at every rehearsal and the last to leave after the set is struck. He gives everyone inappropriate hugs as a part of "cast bonding" -- even people who actively hate his guts. He babbles on about Stanislavsky and refers to acting as "the craft," despite the fact that his tastes run to Andrew Lloyd Webber and that horrendous dinner-theater version of The Sound of Music.

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It's a little bit unsettling to see a Star Wars movie without hearing the 20th Century Fox fanfare to kick it off. So closely is the music identified with George Lucas' space saga that it might as well belong to John Williams rather than its composer Alfred Newman. So when The Clone Wars opens with the Warner Bros. logo and their usual rendition of "As Time Goes By," it lends a strange and unfamiliar air to the proceedings.

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