Like the video game series it's based on, Tomb Raider is best enjoyed for its physical strategies, since even casual scrutiny of story details will induce a headache. It's more concerned with puzzles than plot, populated with characters that don't have personalities so much as attitudes. It's silly and somber at the same time, but as a franchise vehicle for Angelina Jolie in the title role of relic hunter Lara Croft, this is packaged entertainment at its most agreeable, ambitious in scope and scale, and filled with the kind of globetrotting adventure that could make Jolie the best thing that's happened to action movies since Indiana Jones. Could being the operative word here, because Tomb Raider can't match any of Steven Spielberg's celebrated joyrides, but the ingredients are there for an exquisitely cinematic meal.

There's a reason why Cindy Crawford was dubbed "Baby Gia" when she first hit the modeling scene. Indeed, Crawford, now the world's best-known supermodel, greatly resembled model Gia Carangi, who went from high school to the cover of British Vogue in less than two years. Carangi appeared on many more covers of Vogue (French, British, Italian, and American) and Cosmopolitan before dying of complications from AIDS (she was an IV heroin user) in 1986. Now most people recognize Carangi's name from this powerful HBO film that stars Golden Globe-winner Angelina Jolie, who comes by her talent honestly. Jolie is the daughter of veteran actor Jon Voight, and her own training as a model serves her well--she has the moves. Throughout, she's heartbreaking--as no doubt the real Carangi was--effective, and stunning.
With good source material (Stephen Fried's A Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia), Jolie's stunning performance, and strong directing by Michael Cristofer, the movie goes beyond the merely sensational. The script was cowritten by Cristofer and novelist Jay McInerney, whose Bright Lights, Big City covers similar territory. As a cautionary tale, Gia works. But to watch Jolie in her character's tragic self-destruction is utterly compelling. --N.F. Mendoza

Blessed by a fantastic cast and slick direction by Mike Newell, Pushing Tin is one of those invigorating movies (like Wall Street or All the President's Men) that takes you behind the scenes of a dramatic profession--in this case, the high-stress world of air-traffic controllers--and throws in a source of conflict to ramp up the tension. For ace "tin-pusher" Nick Falzone (John Cusack), that conflict arrives in the form of Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton), an Irish/Choctaw half-breed whose Zen-like control of air traffic immediately puts Nick on the defensive. Add an incident of infidelity and Nick's subsequent self-loathing and guilt, and Pushing Tin turns into a macho pissing match, with Nick's and Russell's spouses (Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie, respectively) stuck in the middle.
At that point, this otherwise splendid comedy-drama turns almost fatally silly, and it hits additional turbulence by lapsing into a predictable series of pat resolutions. Fortunately, the jazzy cast avoids a nosedive into the tarmac, and if you recall Blanchett's Oscar-nominated performance in Elizabeth, you'll be amazed by her flawless transformation into a smart and sweetly devoted New Jersey housewife. Dialogue is a major asset here, and the script (by TV veterans Glen and Les Charles) gives Cusack & Co. plenty to chew on. That makes Pushing Tin a breezy good time, and its flaws are easily forgiven. --Jeff Shannon

Released in late 1999, The Bone Collector was originally promoted as a thriller in the tradition of The Silence of the Lambs and Seven, suggesting that it would earn a place among those earlier, better films. Nice try, but no cigar. The Bone Collector settles instead for mere competence and the modest rewards of a well-handled formula. With a terrific cast at his service, director Phillip Noyce (Dead Calm, Patriot Games) turns the pulpy indulgence of Jeffery Deaver's novel into a slick potboiler that is grisly fun only if you don't pick it apart.
Noyce expertly builds palpable tension around a series of gruesome murders that lead us into the darkest nooks of New York City. Now a bedridden quadriplegic prone to life-threatening seizures and suicidal depression, forensics detective Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) gets a new lease on life with a sharp young beat cop (Angelina Jolie) who's a wizard at analyzing crime scenes. She does field work while he deciphers clues from his high-tech Manhattan loft, and as they narrow the search their lives are increasingly endangered. As this formulaic plot grows moldy, Noyce resorts to narrative shortcuts, using perfunctory scenes to manipulate the viewer and taking morbid pleasure in his revelation of the murder scenes. And yet it all works, to a point, and the cast (including Queen Latifah and Luiz Guzmán) is much better than the material. If you're looking for a few good thrills, The Bone Collector is a pretty safe bet. --Jeff Shannon

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie smolder in one of the most anticipated, sizzling action films ever made. After five (or six) years of vanilla-wedded bliss, ordinary suburbanites John and Jane Smith (Pitt and Jolie) are stuck in a rut the size of the Grand Canyon?until the truth comes out! Unbeknownst to each other, they are both coolly lethal, highly paid assassins working for rival organizations. And when they discover they're each other's next target, their secret lives collide in a spicy, explosive mix of wicked comedy, pent-up passion, nonstop action and high-tech weaponry that gives an all-new meaning to "Till death do us part!"

Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and Robert De Niro star in this powerful thriller about the birth of the CIA. Edward Wilson (Damon) believes in America, and will sacrifice everything he loves to protect it. But as one of the covert founders of the CIA, Edward's youthful idealism is slowly eroded by his growing suspicion of the people around him. Everybody has secrets…but will Edward's destroy him? With an all-star cast including Alec Baldwin, Billy Crudup, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton and John Turturro, it's the gripping story David Ansen of Newsweek hails as "spellbinding."

Mighty Heart comes at the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl with a de-glamorized intensity: it's not a melodrama about Pearl's kidnapping and killing at the hands of Islamic terrorists, but a near-documentary about the process of trying to find him. Thus the center of the film is not Pearl (Dan Futterman) but his wife Mariane (Angelina Jolie), a cool customer who manages--almost--to maintain her calm throughout the weeks-long ordeal. Director Michael Winterbottom is less overtly political here than in his Road to Guantanamo, although the reactions of various authorities, from U.S. officials to local Pakistani cops, give the flavor of different attitudes and approaches. Jolie, playing the Dutch-Afro-Cuban Mariane Pearl, does nicely at playing her character's control (others marvel at her sangfroid), yet she remains recognizably human throughout. By no means a star turn, the movie leaves Mariane for long stretches, and other actors shine: Irfan Khan as a detective, Denis O'Hare as Daniel Pearl's Washington Post editor, and Will Patton as a stymied diplomat. As engrossing as the movie generally is, the point of emphasizing the police-procedural method is sometimes obscure. Oddly enough, by rejecting the usual string-pulling of conventional Hollywood drama, A Mighty Heart ends up without a strong point of view--as good as its pieces are. --Robert Horton

As the impresario behind gravity-defying Russian blockbuster Night Watch, it's inevitable that Hollywood would come calling for Timur Bekmambetov. With a studio budget and an international cast, including two Oscar winners, Timur cooks up a Hong Kong-styled actioner bursting with fast cars and big guns. Our unlikely hero is mild-mannered Chicago accountant Wesley Gibson (Atonement's James McAvoy), whose father died when he was a tot. Wesley never learned to stand up for himself, and his girlfriend, boss, and best buddy all take advantage until the seductive Fox (Angelina Jolie) rescues him from a sharpshooter named Cross (The Pianist’s Thomas Kretschmann). After which, she whisks him away to a mansion on the edge of town to meet the other members of the Fraternity, where leader Sloan (Morgan Freeman) informs Wesley that Cross, a rogue agent, executed his father. Sloan believes Wesley has the goods to take him out, so he undergoes the Fraternity's brutal training regimen (Marc Warren and Common dish up some of the abuse). When he's ready, Sloan sends him out to fulfill his duty, but matters become complicated when Wesley finds out someone isn't telling the truth, leading our former milquetoast to exact an elaborate revenge. For those who've been following McAvoy's career to date, Wanted will surely come as a surprise. In adapting Mark Millar's comic series, Timur offers buckets of blood and a smidgen of depth, but fans of The Matrix and Mr. and Mrs. Smith will want to give this one a look. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Clint Eastwood’s mastery as a director, established over the past decade and a half with Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, and others, continues with Changeling, a 2008 offering based on a shocking but all-too-true story about child abduction and police corruption in 1920s Los Angeles. Single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie, excellent in a role with somewhat limited parameters) finds her 9-year-old son, Walter, missing when she returns home from work one day. She files a report with the Los Angeles Police Department, an outfit that was wildly unpopular at the time (in his regular radio broadcast, a crusading pastor played by John Malkovich decries the force as "violent and corrupt," adding that "our protectors are our brutalizers"). When a child roughly matching Walter’s description turns up in Illinois five months later, the LAPD, intent on salvaging its tattered reputation, is only too eager to claim that he is Collins’ missing child. Little matters that he’s three inches shorter, is circumcised (Walter wasn’t), and fails to pass muster with Walter’s dentist, schoolteacher, and others; the cops, in particular the odious Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), insist that the mistake is Christine’s, not theirs. What follows is almost too nightmarish to believe--except that it actually happened. Exasperated by Collins’ continued claim that "Walter" is a fraud, they trot out a doctor to reinforce the bogus ID, declare her unfit as a mother, and finally have her committed to a local psychopathic ward. Through it all, Collins, bolstered by the pastor and thousands of outraged Angelenos, refuses to sign a document that would exonerate the police for their egregious error. As for Walter, it’s only when the LAPD’s seemingly only honest detective (Michael Kelly) takes matters into his own hands that the grisly mystery of the child’s fate begins to be solved. That would have been a good place for the film to conclude, too. Unfortunately, it goes on for more than another half hour, with innumerable false endings that add nothing to the story and could just as easily have been summarized with a few sentences before the final credits. That flaw aside (and it’s a major one), Changeling is a powerful film, with a realistic period feel, a wonderfully muted vibe and color palette, and an understated score by Eastwood himself. --Sam Graham

Oliver Stone recreates the towering, true story of Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell), who in the 4th Century BC conquered Greece, Persia, Afghanistan and India- 90% of the known world. Against massive armies of chariots and elephants, he never lost a battle. Visionary, explorer, dreamer- he was also a tender son, torn by his mother's (Angelina Jolie) burning love and ambition and desperate for his father's (Val Kilmer) approval. His dream shaped the world we live in today