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50 FIRST DATES Even many of the folks who don't like Adam Sandler have conceded that The Wedding Singer is fairly decent, with cinema's top-earning frat boy ably subverting his obnoxiousness in pursuit of a sweet romance with Drew Barrymore. This new film features an even more intense love story between the pair, yet this winning hand is repeatedly set down in order to make more room for the sort of juvenile antics that will remind Sandler bashers why they hate this kid in the first place. Meshing Groundhog Day with Memento, this Hawaii-set comedy casts Sandler as an aquarium vet who falls for a school teacher (Barrymore) who suffers from short-term memory loss. Lowbrow antics repeatedly get in the way of the agreeable love story. 
1/2
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING Pulling off a successful threepeat, director Peter Jackson wraps up J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy saga with a dazzling chapter guaranteed to please true believers. At 200 minutes, the movie is long but not necessarily overlong: The super-sized length allows many cast members to strut their stuff, and several new creatures, from an army of ghostly marauders to a gigantic spider in the best Harryhausen tradition, are staggering to behold. Ultimately, though, this final act belongs to the ringbearer Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his companions, faithful Sam (Sean Astin) and treacherous Gollum (the brilliant CGI creation voiced by Andy Serkis). This is a movie of expensive visual effects and expansive battle scenes, but when it comes to truly making its mark, we have to thank all the little people. 1/2
MIRACLE This Disney release is being promoted as "From The Studio That Brought You The Rookie and Remember The Titans," and that's clearly the best way to market this piece. Like those sports-illustrated endeavors, this one's also an acceptably middlebrow drama that asks nothing more of its audience members than to cheer at the appropriate moments and, if theater management doesn't mind, get a "Wave" going during the climactic Big Game. Here, the focus is on coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) and the 20 kids who formed the US Ice Hockey team that somehow managed to beat the formidable Russian squad during the 1980 Olympics. 1/2
MONSTER Anyone who's been paying attention knows that Charlize Theron is more than just a pretty face, yet her mesmerizing turn in writer-director Patty Jenkins' fact-based drama will finally allow the rest of the world to catch up. It isn't simply that Theron gained weight and thoroughly deglamorized herself to play the part of Aileen Wuornos, the prostitute who killed several men in Florida before finally being caught and executed. It's that she so completely buries herself in this woman's impetuousness, rage and vulnerability that she simply ceases to exist; it's a galvanizing performance in a difficult yet important film that manages to present Wuornos as both monster and victim. 1/2
SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE Those of us who fell in love with Diane Keaton in Annie Hall now have an opportunity to rekindle that romance. She's simply smashing as a playwright not particularly fond of her daughter's new boyfriend, a 63-year-old bachelor (Jack Nicholson) who only dates women under 30. But eventually the pair find themselves overcoming their antagonism, leading to a rocky romance that's complicated by his womanizing ways and her burgeoning relationship with a boyish doctor (Keanu Reeves, never more appealing). For most of its length, this emerges as one of the premiere romantic comedies of recent years, but a disastrous, tacked-on ending hangs from the rest of the picture as awkwardly as a Florida chad.
THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE This animated treat from France makes Finding Nemo look about as cutting-edge as an old Tom & Jerry cartoon. Its jumping-off point is a lonely little boy who, thanks to the support of his kindly grandmother, grows up to become an accomplished cyclist set to take part in the Tour de France. But after the lad gets kidnapped by the French Mafia, it's up to his granny and their aging pooch Bruno to rescue him; along the way, they receive unexpected aid from the title trio, elderly singing sisters who used to perform with Fred Astaire and Josephine Baker back in the day. Mere words cannot convey the sheer inventiveness of this enterprise, a melting pot of styles and storylines borrowed from (among others) Buster Keaton, Tex Avery and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. 1/2
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