Opens today

"DOWN TO EARTH" see review page AA-4.

"SWEET NOVEMBER" see review page AA-5.

"RECESS: SCHOOL'S OUT" not reviewed.

Continuing

"ANTITRUST" (PG-13, for some violence and brief language; 1 hour, 48 minutes). Ryan Phillippe plays a brilliant young software programmer who is hired out of his garage lab by a Bill Gatesian villain (Tim Robbins) to work on a program to link every communications device in the world. Soon he realizes the megalithic corporation, which seems a whole lot like Microsoft, will murder for code. Claire Forlani is his loyal girlfriend, Rachel Leigh Cook is a sexy software babe and Yee Jee Tso is his buddy, who may have cracked the problem.

"CAST AWAY" (PG-13, for intense action sequences and some disturbing images; 2 hours, 20 minutes). Tom Hanks stars as a FedEx executive who crash-lands in the Pacific and tries to survive on a deserted island. He builds fire, makes shelter, feeds himself and paints a face on a volleyball and starts to talk to it. All the island scenes are superb, but the opening and closing material is weaker, and the very end is a letdown -- forced whimsy. With Helen Hunt as his fiancee. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, whose approval of the trailer and ads giving away the plot will spoil the suspense for a lot of moviegoers.

"CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON" (PG-13, for martial arts violence and some sexuality; 1 hour, 59 minutes). A film that kicks butt, "Crouching Tiger" features female characters who are everything Aaron Spelling's heroines wish they could be -- and more. They are strong and feminine, beautiful and intelligent, athletic and crafty. But they are only one reason the film has received accolades at festivals worldwide. Director Ang Lee ("The Wedding Banquet," "Sense and Sensibility") astonishes again, with an artist's eye for detail and imagery. He combines a love story with traditional Hong Kong martial arts to create one of this year's most visually memorable films. Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi star.

"DOUBLE TAKE" (PG-13, for violence and language; 1 hour, 28 minutes). Orlando Jones plays a businessman who finds his life has been invaded by an obnoxious pest (Eddie Griffin). But then the pest helps him out of a tight spot by changing identities with him, in a double-triple-reverse movie that jerks the rug out from under us so often we lose patience.. Griffin is obviously talented, but his dated dialogue here seems like a bad blaxpolitation dream, and the movie eventually passes from the frustrating to the unbearable.

"THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE" (G; 1 hour, 18 minutes). Goofy, slapstick animated fun from Disney, which returns here to the style and energy of classic cartoon short subjects and goes for zany gags instead of an uplifting parable.

"THE GIFT" (R, for violence, language and sexuality/nudity; 1 hour, 50 minutes.) Cate Blanchett's performance is the strong center of a Southern Gothic thriller in which a psychic has a vision about murder -- and may be the next victim. Blanchett is the widowed mother of three who reads cards in her kitchen; Oscar winner Hilary Swank is a battered wife, married to Keanu Reeves; Greg Kinnear is the suave high school principal, and Giovanni Ribisi is one of the psychic's troubled clients.

"HANNIBAL" (R, for strong gruesome violence, some nudity and language; 2 hours, 11 minutes). Hannibal Lecter is on the loose -- and that removes part of his charm. By setting him free to roam, the movie diminishes his status from a locus of evil to a mere predator. FBI Agent Clarice Starling is back on the case, as is Lecter's horribly disfigured victim Mason Verger, who wants to feed him to wild boars. In Florence, where Lecter hides in plain view as a wealthy curator, an Italian cop tries to sell him to Verger, but spills his guts instead. Director Ridley Scott uses great craft in fashioning a movie many will find entertaining, but the focus and power of "The Silence of the Lambs" is missing. The movie definitively proves that if a man cutting off his own face and feeding it to his dogs doesn't get the NC-17 rating for violence, nothing ever will. With Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Giancarlo Giannini, Ray Liotta, and a brilliant uncredited performance in the Verger role (study the end credits).

"HEAD OVER HEELS" (PG-13, for sexual content, crude humor and language; 1 hour, 25 minutes). Starts funny, runs out of steam in 15 minutes, turns into a slog through ancient and boring cliches. Monica Potter plays an art restorer who moves in with four models, falls in love with a neighbor (Freddie Prince Jr.), suspects he is a murderer and gets involved in a plot involving the Russian mafia. Shows great promise and sparkling wit before going brain-dead.

"INVISIBLE CIRCUS" (R, for sexuality, language and drug content; 1 hour, 38 minutes). In 1976 an 18-year-old (Jordana Brewster) goes to Europe to discover the truth of the 1969 death of her adored sister (Cameron Diaz). The sister's old boyfriend (Christopher Eccleston) knows more than he's telling, but the mystery is dissipated by a coy flashback structure that's like a march in thick-soled narrative boots through the squishy marsh of contrivance.

"MISS CONGENIALITY" (PG-13, for sexual references and a scene of violence; 1 hour, 50 minutes). Sandra Bullock earns her comedy crown in "Miss Congeniality." A loose mix of quips, slapstick, action and pleas for world peace, "Miss Congeniality" fits Bullock perfectly. Bullock plays gung-ho FBI special agent Gracie Hart. Gracie is not what you'd call feminine.

"O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?" (PG-13, for occasional off-color remark or encounter; 1 hour, 46 minutes). There's much to admire about "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" at its quirkiest, starting with an "Odyssey"-style invocation of the muse. But whereas other Coen brother films have made a cohesive whole out of some highly disparate parts and moods, the new movie can be as wayward as the three escaped criminals at its core. For all its piecemeal charm, "O Brother" is self-conscious and, sometimes, it just doesn't work at all. The jailbirds' leader is Ulysses Everett McGill, played by George Clooney, looking more like Clark Gable than ever. McGill follows an errant path with Pete, played by John Turturro, and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson).

"THE PLEDGE" (R, for strong violence and language; 2 hours, 4 minutes). Jack Nicholson plays a retired cop who has made a pledge "by his soul's salvation" that he will find the killer of a little girl. Moving to a district where he thinks the killer might still be operating, he opens a gas station, and (to his surprise) begins a relationship with a younger woman (Robin Wright Penn).

"PROOF OF LIFE" (R, for violence, language and some drug material; 2 hours, 15 minutes). American dam-builder David Morse is kidnapped for ransom in a Latin American country, and his wife, Meg Ryan, who has just had a big fight with him, depends on a professional kidnap and ransom expert (Russell Crowe), who is drawn to the case because of her.

"SAVE THE LAST DANCE" (PG-13, for violence, sexual content, language and brief drug references; 1 hour, 52 minutes). Rising young actress Julia Stiles as a ballet student whose mother is killed, ending her dreams of Julliard. She goes to live with her dad, a musician who lives in a gritty Chicago neighborhood, and enrolls in a mostly black high school, where she meets a bright student named Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas). They share dance moves and ideas, in a surprisingly intelligent movie that's as much about relationships as romance. With Kerry Washington as Derek's sister and Fredro Starr as his trouble-prone best friend.

"SAVING SILVERMAN" (PG-13, for crude and sexual humor, language and thematic material; 1 hour, 30 minutes). Jaw-droppingly bad. Jason Biggs, Steve Zahn and Jack Black idolize Neil Diamond and perform his songs in a sidewalk band until the man-eating Amanda Peet snatches Biggs for a march to the altar. Aghast, the other two kidnap her and try to substitute his first love, Amanda Detmer, now studying to be a nun. Former drill sergeant R. Lee Ermey plays the high school coach, and Neil Diamond plays himself. In a movie this bad, that ranks somewhere between being a good sport and professional suicide.

"SNATCH" (R, for strong violence, language and some nudity; 1 hour, 43 minutes). Guy Ritchie returns to the formula of "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" for a lesser retread of similar material. Crooks are after a stolen diamond while lowlife boxing promoters recruit a mumble-mouthed Gypsy bare-knuckle champion played by Brad Pitt. Once again we descend into a London underworld that has less to do with English criminals than with Dick Tracy. Titles and narration are used to identify characters and underline developments. The plot assembles its lowlifes in interlocking stories involving crooked boxing, stolen diamonds and pigs. Ritchie is a zany, high-energy director. He isn't interested in crime; he's interested in voltage. As an unfolding event, "Snatch" is fun to watch, even if no reasonable person could hope to understand the plot in one viewing.

"SUGAR SPICE" (PG-13, for language, sex-related humor and some thematic elements; 1 hour, 33 minutes). "Sugar Spice" puts your average cheerleader movie to shame. It's sassy and satirical, closer in spirit to "But I'm a Cheerleader" than to "Bring It On." With its shameless pop culture references, wicked satire and a cheerleader with the hots for Conan O'Brien, it's more proof that not all movie teen-agers have to be dumb. (All right, these cheerleaders ARE dumb -- but in a smart movie.) The cast reads like an anthology of previous teen-ager beauties: Mena Suvari ("American Beauty"), Marley Shelton ("Never Been Kissed"), Marla Sokoloff ("Whatever It Takes"), Rachel Blanchard ("Road Trip").

"TRAFFIC" (R, for pervasive drug content, strong language, violence and some sexuality; 2 hours, 27 minutes). In his latest film, the gripping drug-war drama "Traffic," Steven Soderbergh juggles several complex story lines and a huge, big-name cast and makes it all look effortless. The film at first seems like one long, beautifully shot public service announcement for the "Just-Say-No" movement. But it eventually reveals itself as an indictment of the war on drugs. While the whole film packs a punch, the plight of Caroline (Erika Christensen) is the most devastating. She starts using drugs recreationally with her rich, bored friends, but quickly delves into the harder stuff.

"VERTICAL LIMIT" (PG-13, for intense life/death situations and brief strong language; 2 hours, 6 minutes). Three mountain climbers are trapped in an ice cave near the summit of K-2, and a rescue party tries to save them. Good stunt and effects work, some fine action sequences, but the plot is cobbled out of old pulp stories.

"THE WEDDING PLANNER" (PG-13, for language and some sexual humor; 1 hour, 40 minutes). Jennifer Lopez is a wedding planner who encounters Matthew McConaughey in a Meet Cute. It's love at first sight -- until she discovers that the rat is engaged to marry her current client, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras. Will the marriage go through? Will Lopez obey the wishes of her father (Alex Rocco) and marry her childhood sweetheart from Italy? Do we care? There is an astonishing scene where McConaughey gets a statue's marble genitals stuck to his hand with super glue. If he had gone through the whole movie like that, it might have helped.

"WHAT WOMEN WANT" (PG-13, for sexual content and language; 1 hour, 50 minutes). Mel Gibson magically develops the ability to read women's minds and bamboozles Helen Hunt, his rival at an ad agency. He also discovers everything he ever wanted to know about what women want, and more, in his first romantic comedy. Plot meanders toward the end, but there are many good scenes as he experiments with female beauty products and fun chemistry between Hunt and Gibson.

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