”The Princess Diaries” is basically the ugly duckling story transported to contemporary San Francisco. It’s a movie aimed at young girls, most of whom can probably identify with Mia’s predicament.

But it is a bit difficult to imagine the reaction of an anonymous teen-ager being told just before her 16th birthday that she is heir to the throne. Hathaway, Caroline Goodall as her mother and Julie Andrews as Queen Clarisse nearly succeed in making this unlikely scenario believable. Truly, though, this is one of the film’s weak points. It is difficult in today’s split-second, Internet, super-electronic age to fathom such a secret being buried for almost 16 years without a leak.

Nevertheless, this sweet confection of a film goes down easily and is filled with many big laughs. It may not be the summer’s most memorable movie, but it is a completely entertaining one. Most amazingly, it is a comedy for the whole family with a refreshing absence of bathroom humor. You can take your 5-year-old and her great-grandmother, and they’ll both enjoy the picture just as much as you do.

The best change from the novel is the expanded role of Larnia, a truly devious villainess played with unbridled enthusiasm by Pfeiffer. This is the third and best of her recent comeback roles, one marked by a nastiness and vanity she’s never shown before. Pfeiffer is good enough to divert attention from Danes, looking a bit too stolid and acting more petulant than divine. Cox makes a strong showing as a naive youth who must mature into a hero.

But ”Stardust” is a little of a throwback to how fantasy movies used to be before the emergence of the multi-part epic serials. It’s a lighter, simpler sort of tale. Despite just cracking the two-hour barrier, the film is paced and edited in such a way that the story always seems to be moving forward and there is no sense of drag or a letdown. ”Stardust” nevertheless honors the illustrations that inspired its appearance. It’s a kinder and gentler achievement but, in the midst of over budgeted, over-hyped sequels, it’s a fresh and welcome entertainment.

As an intriguing, well-written piece of entertainment and a mild social commentary, “The Truman Show” deserves high marks. Not everything in the film works, and the script isn’t perhaps as deep or incisive as it would like us to believe, but there’s enough here to mark “The Truman Show” as a worthwhile motion picture — an appealing, offbeat, one-hundred minute diversion for those who really are tired of monsters tearing down buildings and action heroes saving the world.
It doesn’t take long to appreciate Jim Carrey’s understated lead performance. He does have a few characteristic “wacky” moments, but he also demonstrates admirable restraint — due largely to Peter Weir’s superb direction and a script that requires him to really act for a change.

The underlying ideas made the movie more than just entertainment. It brings into focus the new values that technology is forcing on humanity.

”The Sixth Sense” is wonderfully written and lovingly directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film is set in Philadelphia, a city with a long and often violent history; it’s easy to imagine such a place haunted by the spectres of the dead. Cole and his mother (a fabulous Toni Collette) share one of the best, most loving mother/son relationships I’ve seen on screen — Shyamalan as well as his actors capture the frustration of trying to protect those we love from our awful secrets.
Haley Joel Osment is a very good actor in a film where his character possibly has more lines than anyone else. He’s in most of the scenes, and he has to act in them–this isn’t a role for a cute kid who can stand there and look solemn in reaction shots. There are fairly involved dialogue passages between Willis and Osment that require good timing, reactions and the ability to listen. Osment is more than equal to them.
Those scenes give the movie its weight and make it as convincing as, under the circumstances, it can possibly be.

Minghella doesn’t shy away from overwhelming romance; he runs toward it with a clear head. And clear eyes: photographed by John Seale, this is easily the most ravishing film of the year. The sand seems to drench the actors in deep golden light; the sky is a rich, muted blue, like a still and suspended sea.
The performances are of great clarity, which is a help to us in finding our way through the story. Binoche is a woman whose heart has been so pounded by war that she seems drawn to its wounded, as a distraction from her own hurts. Fiennes, in what is essentially a dual role, plays a man who conceals as much as he can–at first because that is his nature, later because his injuries force him to. Thomas is one of those bright, energetic British women who seem perfectly groomed even in a sandstorm, and whose core is steel and courage.
When the film is mysterious and exotic, and when the characters are allowed to engage each other, “The English Patient” soars. With all the eye-popping scenery and outstanding performances, there is much to recommend. And perhaps we should acknowledge that Minghella has accomplished no small feat in mounting an involving film from such a difficult source.

The relationship between Maggie and Frank is initially tepid at best, but eventually he can’t help being won over by her enthusiasm. As a director, Eastwood is exacting with the pacing, drawing the characters out slowly. This ensures a natural evolution and allows us to accept the transformation of their relationship from a fighter/trainer to familial. These insights in turn provide the film’s most powerful and poignant moments.

Suffice it to say, it offers something for every cinephile: superb direction, a brilliant script, a haunting score, and outstanding performances by a standout cast. In short, it’s wonderful.

The film looks at the life of Jane Austen through the prism of her novels. This film is a semi-fictional biography of the esteemed author; although it incorporates people and events from her life, it also takes liberties with known events. Like Shakespeare in Love, this is intended to be a homage, not a serious reconstruction of the factors underlying the development of an icon.

It’s also another good starring vehicle for American actress Anne Hathaway, who adopts a credible British accent to play the younger version of Austen. Hathaway and her co-star McAvoy manage to put over line after line of awful dialogue and to overcome Jarrold’s inability to control the film. Hathaway is at her best when she is alone, writing or playing the piano; in these scenes, she communicates, partly because of her youth but mainly because of her instincts, all the vigor and imagination that Jane Austen must have had at that age.

At its heart, “Becoming Jane” is a costume drama romance. In the end, “Becoming Jane” can be said to capture the spirit of Austen without the sophistication.

“Ratatouille” is a film brave enough to move at a slower pace; even its later moments of comical chaos have something of a refreshing patience to them. This is the third Pixar feature in a row with a running time that bumps rather close against the two hour mark, and how brave of them to realize that children do not need digest adventures thrown at them at the cost of character and story. Kids will indeed sit still for that long if the story’s right – and of course the story is right.

At nearly two hours in length, it rewards those with patience, regardless of age. The movie wisely saves its best and most impressive set pieces for the second half, whether they’re the chase or the sight of hundreds of rats invading a restaurant kitchen. And, while Ratatouille isn’t specifically about the love of food, that’s another ingredient Bird has stirred into the pot.

“Ratatouille” is clearly one of the best of the year’s films. Every time an animated film is successful, you have to read all over again about how animation isn’t “just for children” but “for the whole family,” and “even for adults going on their own.”

Although bathes in grit and was shot in the scuzziest locations New York has to offer, it’s a romantic fantasy, not a realistic crime picture. Besson’s visual approach gives it a European look; he finds Paris in Manhattan. That air of slight displacement helps it get away with various improbabilities, as when Matilda teaches Leon to read (in a few days, apparently), or when Leon is able to foresee the movements of his enemies with almost psychic accuracy.

“The Professional” is a well-directed film, because Besson has a natural gift for plunging into drama with a charged-up visual style. Not only does music play an important role in giving texture to his material, his scenes — especially the violent ones — are presented as arias, chamber pieces, symphonies. Even though its hero is a killer, “The Professional” pays tribute to the simple nobility of his craftsmanship. It’s an evil job that he does, but at least he has standards.

The movie takes place almost entirely under the sea, in the world of colorful tropical fish–the flora and fauna of a shallow warm-water shelf not far from Australia. The use of color, form and movement make the film a delight even apart from its story.

Throughout, the film is absolutely drunk with the hallucinogenic color and infinite variety of its undersea world, and dazzles us with computer-generated animation that has never looked quite so boldly exotic or shimmeringly beautiful.

More or less,”Finding Nemo” is a pleasure for grown-ups. There are jokes we get that the kids don’t, and the complexity of Albert Brooks’ neuroses, and that enormous canvas filled with creatures that have some of the same hypnotic beauty as–well, fish in an aquarium. They may appreciate another novelty: This time the dad is the hero of the story, although in most animation it is almost always the mother.

We see the wondrous workings of the factory in the opening titles, a CGI assembly-line sequence that swoops like a roller-coaster. When the five kids and their adult guardians finally get inside, their first sight is a marvel of imagination: A sugary landscape of chocolate rivers, gumdrop trees and (no doubt) candy mountains. Behind his locked doors, Willy has created this fantastical playground for — himself, apparently. As the tour continues, we learn the secret of his work force: He uses Oompa Loompas, earnest and dedicated workers all looking exactly the same and all played, through a digital miracle, by the vaguely ominous Deep Roy. We’re reminded of Santa’s identical helpers in “The Polar Express.”

For some, this new version might be a little too “out there.” The material definitely plays to Burton’s bizarre, sometimes macabre, sensibilities. And Johnny Depp’s take on Wonka is definitely much creepier than Gene Wilder’s prickly but considerably warmer portrayal.

Yet, in many respects, this inventive, delightful and visually rich fantasy is more faithful to Dahl’s source material (especially in tone). And it’s certainly one of the best summer movies for families (in fact, among other things, the film stresses the importance of family).

Told in flashback, it’s the story of Danny Boodmann TD Lemon 1900 (Roth), so-named because he was found as an infant in 1900, lodged in a crate of lemons aboard a luxury cruise liner. Growing up at sea, it swiftly becomes apparent that 1900 is a gifted – possibly even genius – pianist. His legend spreads and jazz giant Jelly Roll Morton (Williams) even comes aboard to hear him play. Years later and narrator/former band member Max Tooney (Vince) is pawning the trumpet he blew alongside 1900 when he hears the ship is to be sunk. Could it be that 1900 is still somewhere on board, mooning over a mysterious beauty known only as ‘The Girl’ (Thierry) while working up a lonely rag?

Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore’s Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso was one of the surprise hits of the 80s, and here he presents his first English language film, a lavish and unashamedly sentimental fable based on a monologue by Italian writer Alessandro Baricco.

By turns compelling, confounding, and occasionally just downright odd, Tornatore’s ocean-going epic contains much to admire. True, there are moments when it threatens to sink beneath a tide of sentiment, but an understated performance by Tim Roth and the music which forms the film’s heart make this an unusual but worthwhile venture.

Will Smith stars in this futuristic science-fiction thriller as Del Spooner, a Chicago homicide detective who has a prejudice against what he terms needless technology, in particular robotic life forms.
I, Robot features some of the best uses of CGI special effects ever. Put this alongside the Star Wars prequels and The Lord of the Rings as a primer for the seamless incorporation of special effects. There’s a lot of computer work in I, Robot, but it’s never obvious or evident. It rarely calls attention to itself, and it is not clumsily inserted. When Will Smith interacts with a special effect, we forget that it’s an actor posturing with something drawn in by computer. After seeing a lot of cheap effects work that looks like it was exported from a computer game, it’s refreshing to see something of such high quality.
But those expecting a wonderful realization of a brilliant man’s dreams in fancy CGI will be disappointed. Those expecting two hours of fighting robots, big explosions and a few cracking one-liners will get a lot more than they bargained for. Just go for a good time and you’ll have one, as sometimes expectations are a bad thing.

It’s also heartbreaking to be able to appreciate true genius and yet fall just short of it yourself. A man can spend his entire life studying to be a mathematician–and yet watch helplessly while a high school dropout, a janitor, scribbles down the answers to questions the professor is baffled by.

Directed by Gus Van Sant, who sometimes seems to have perfect pitch when it comes to dialogue; look at the scene where Matt and Skylar break up and say hurtful things, and see how clear he makes it that Matt is pushing her away because he doesn’t think he deserves her. “Good Will Hunting” also proves, if nothing else, that Matt and Ben Affleck would have a career in the movie business even if they couldn’t act.

As Louis Armstrong once said, “There’s some folks, that, if they don’t know, you can’t tell ‘em.” This movie is about whether Will is one of those folks. “Good Will Hunting” has been rather inexplicably compared to “Rainman,” although “Rainman” was about an autistic character who cannot and does not change, and “Good Will Hunting” is about a genius who can change, and grow, if he chooses to.

The movie is “inspired by a true story,” that of Chris Gardner, who was among San Francisco’s working homeless in the early ’80s and managed to pull himself and his young son up by the bootstraps. “Inspired by” is an interesting phrase because the movie is more inspiring than inspired. The man’s struggles are emotionally engaging, but dramatically it lacks the layering of a “Kramer vs. Kramer,” which it superficially resembles.

The most effective aspect of the film is the relationship between father and son. It’s a love story in the purest sense as Chris tries to shield Christopher from the hardships they face, and it’s instances like this that makes you think nepotism can be a good thing.

“The Pursuit of Happyness” is an unexceptional film with exceptional performances and, if you’re curious, takes its title’s quirky spelling from a mural outside Christopher’s Chinatown day-care center. There are worse ways to spend the holidays, and, at the least, it will likely make you appreciate your own circumstances.

In the world portrayed in City of Angels, we’re all surrounded by dark-clad individuals who watch over our shoulder, guiding us when we need guidance and taking us away when it’s our time. They’re everywhere and they hear our thoughts. Problem is, they can’t feel what we feel. When Ryan’s character experiences a huge loss in her life, Seth begins to feel more than his dutiful concern for her and slowly he begins to appear to her more and more often in human form…

I suspect City of Angels is going to remind many viewers of Ghost, but there’s a big difference: this film is more true and less manipulative. Ultimately, it is a tear-jerker, but there’s more to it than that. While the movie isn’t as effective as Wings of Desire in developing the angels’ culture and presenting a meditation upon spirituality, it gives us a pair of well- developed protagonists worth caring about and establishes a complex dynamic between them.

City of Angels is more romantic than profound, but Dana Stevens’ script is thoughtful and intelligent, and I never felt insulted by what the characters say, do, or think. Director Brad Silberling, effectively suggests the spiritual/material duality of the world. It’s a subdued motion picture, but the lack of overt melodrama makes for a moving and involving story. Even for those enraptured by Wings of Desire, City of Angels is strong enough to cast its own quietly romantic spell.