Next Stop Wonderland is charming not because it is a groundbreaking movie (it's not), but because it succeeds so refreshingly and so endearingly despite its unoriginal premise. Where other movies would be cranking up bathos-filled love songs, Next Stop Wonderland plays toe-tapping Brazilian music. When other actresses would be weeping over a picture of their ex, Erin contemplatively stares out at the ocean or reads her late father's poetry. Fate may bring the happy couple together under its wing, but we get the feeling that they would be okay even if they never met. As the Wonderland promo posters say, "Love is the destination." But the journey's pretty wonderful, too. Sarah A. Rodriguez

Rounders

Matt Damon is already being typecast--as a genius, no less. In Rounders, he just sits there, like a poker game that has its ending broadcast in the first hand. Rounders offers convincing evidence that the actors involved should carefully adjust the directions of their careers. John Dahl should return to the genre which made him famous--the sexually charged neo-noir thriller that he basically reinvented. Matt Damon should go for range and dive into a weird character--maybe even a villain. (Sacre bleu!) Gretchen Mol should have a heart-to-heart with Meryl Streep. John Malkovich should just relax. Rounders should be a transition piece for all these artists. Let's hope they move on to bigger and better things.   Soman Chainani

Saving Private Ryan

It seems churlish to take anything away from a film with such a unanimously powerful opening, with two pitch-perfect supporting turns from Jeremy Davies (the milk-livered translator), and an attention to history that is emotionally edifying and alive. Still, the connecting material by which Robert Rodat's script moves from the opening battle sequence to the last is less than wholly compelling, and the framing device of the ex-soldier in the cemetery is maudlin and cumbersome. But Spielberg hasn't gotten an ending right in at least 10 years. Again, disputation seems insolent in the case of this film, but in this mediocre summer, even the best films bore compromises that were hard to ignore.   Nicholas K. Davis

There's Something About Mary

Though outrageous and crude, the jokes in the Farrelly Brothers' most recent sideshow attraction are also intensely predictable, which keeps the movie from lifting off. Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller and Matt Dillon all give their best shot to keeping the ball in the air, but for one thing, their presence is almost arbitrary in many scenes to the extent that Mary's humor is all visual and only rarely connected to dialogue; poor Cameron could be reciting Rilke beneath those "hair gel"-enhanced bangs and no one would know the difference. Then again, everyone else seems to have had a ball. Whatever there is about Mary, I didn't really get it.   Nicholas K. Davis

Permanent Midnight

The aptly-titled Permanent Midnight is not a movie about things that thappen so much as it is a movie about a movie. The scenes exist independently of one another, rarely referring to each other. They are strung along the same thread, but could all exist as shorts, or be reshuffled and a drastically different film would not have been created. Jerry Stahl (played by the ubiquitous Ben Stiller) does not follow his own advice and belt out any gospel, but by all means he could do so without causing the film any disruption. The real life Jerry Stahl was shooting up and working as a highly paid writer for "Alf." The movie Jerry Stahl works as a writer for an "alien puppet show" called "Mr. Chompers," who is green instead of orange. As Jerry becomes more adicted, he becomes ore L.A., foregoing real food in favor of shots of wheatgrass and running five miles every day (after a quick pick-me-up). We watch Jerry's appetite for smack turn to one for cuddling.   Lauren Mechling

What Dreams May Come

Robin Williams, fresh from his Academy Award, again leaves his comedic training behind him in his role as Chris Nielsen, who dies in a car accident and must travel from heaven to hell to save his wife (Annabella Sciorra) after she commits suicide in her despair over his death. Although the plot is the standard quest situation, it demands that the film deal with the question of religion, God and the afterlife. Somehow they drop God from the plot. They're good. How's God just going to be absent from heaven? A better question is how Robin Williams can become sullen and morose in a place decorated in grand color by number style where a person's every wish is fulfilled? Cuba Gooding, Jr. breathes some life into the story. His enery actually recalls some of Williams early comedic work, and serves as a constant reminder of what Williams lacks in What Dreams May Come.   Jeremy Ross

One True Thing

In the days of "Size Does Matter" and "Bigger is Better" can a pure human drama still affect us? Leave it to Meryl Streep to squash all doubts about that. Her latest acting showcase, One True Thing, tells such an incredibly small story that it puts all the vast, sweeping movies of recent memory to shame. The film tells the story of a single family and manages to weave a stunningly intricate emotional epic. The main narrative unfolds in a flashback. Reporter Ellen Gulden is being questioned by a district attorney about assisting in her cancer-stricken mother's death. Using characters grounded in the simplicities of life, One True Thing gives us something almost unparalleled in recent cinematic memory--the triumph of the ordinary.   Soman Chainani

Urban Legend

When a string of violent and bizarre murders occur on the campus of Pendleton College, spunky and independent student Natalie (Alicia Witt) realizes that a psychopath has decided to turn urban legends into reality. Her friends are predictably skeptical and go on to die in ways corresponding to how nasty they have been. There, the plot: now you don't have to see it. Maybe, you say, "Given that its is a horror film, I really would like to see a bit of mild violence and creative forms of slaughter." I'll tell you. There's a drive-by hanging, an in-bed strangulation, an over-the-radio death chase. Now you don't need to see this. Or do you?   Phua Mei Pin

Antz

From the Manhattan skyline to Woody driveling anxiety to his shrink, the first moments of Antz suggest a film destined to become another prototypical Woody Allen movie. Until Woody (now an ant named "Z") gets off the psychoanalyst's couch and walks into "The Colony." The makers of Antz seem particularly interested in demonstrating their ability to depict water and human movement, disregarding the fact that the plot must make some rather forced detours in order to accommodate these animated showpieces. Though the character of Allen as well as those of the other actors (voiced by Dan Akroyd, Anne Bancroft, Sylvester Stalone and Jennifer Lopez among others) take some off the edge of the hackneyed plot, Antz fails to fully engage.   Carla Blackmar