20th Century Fox

WWE star John Cena headlines his sophomore action picture as a police officer whose wife is kidnapped in New Orleans. Daniel Kunka provides the script, with Deep Blue Sea's Renny Harlin handling the directing duties for the 20-million-dollar Fox Atomic/WWE Films production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

The only thing more terrifying than Snakes on a Plane is "Snakes on a Submarine," and that's exactly what we get in this claustrophobic, sub-aquatic thriller starring Luke Perry. Lieutenant Commander O'Neill (Perry) was piloting a retired submarine to its final port when Admiral Wallace (Tom Berenger) diverted the crew for one last mission: rescue an imperiled army research team before they meet a watery death. In order to reach the researchers and their top secret cargo while avoiding detection by a hostile enemy fleet, Lieutenant Commander O'Neill orders his crew to "run silent" in the depths. That silence is soon broken, however, when the cargo proves to be two genetically altered leviathans. Now, far beneath the ocean floor, a new kind of predator emerges to prove just how vulnerable man truly is when there's nowhere left to run. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Defense attorney Claire Kubik (Ashley Judd) seems to have the perfect life. She has a high profile job at a big firm, a beautiful home outside San Francisco, and a husband, Tom (James Caviezel of The Thin Red Line), who loves her. Claire's biggest problem appears to be that she wants to have a baby, and she's having trouble getting pregnant. But when the police investigate a routine break-in at her home, they uncover the truth about her husband's identity, and her life is thrown into turmoil. Claire finds out that her husband's name is actually Ron Chapman, and that he's an ex-marine accused of murdering seven innocent civilians in El Salvador during a raid in the late '80s. He admits that he was there, and that he changed his identity to escape prosecution for the crimes, but he insists that he's innocent, and that the massacre was committed by another soldier under the orders of a powerful general (Bruce Davison), who is using Ron as a patsy to cover it up. Claire is eventually convinced that Ron's telling the truth. Faced with defending her husband in an unfamiliar military courtroom, Claire enlists the aid of Charles Grimes (Morgan Freeman), an ex-Army judge advocate with an axe to grind. Stonewalled by the military bureaucracy at every turn, they uncover a web of deception and disappearing witnesses, and they soon find their own lives in danger. High Crimes was adapted from Joseph Finder's novel by the husband and wife screenwriting team of Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley. The film was directed by Carl Franklin (One False Move), and co-stars Amanda Peet and Adam Scott. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Tongue-in-cheek humor prevails in Batman, a witty homage to the Dynamic Duo's exaggerated exploits. The Caped Crusaders (Adam West and Burt Ward) are called in as a last resort when the criminal masterminds of the millennium team up to conquer Gotham City by turning the U.N. Security Council into dehydrated dust; among the villains are the Joker (Cesar Romero), Catwoman (Lee Meriwether), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin), and the Penguin (Burgess Meredith). The entire cast is excellent, particularly West and Ward, who distinguish themselves among a standout list with hilariously straight-faced performances. The film includes some truly memorable scenes, highlighted by a particularly tenacious shark with a vertical leap that would put Spud Webb to shame and a bomb on the waterfront with no place to explode (nuns, infants and lovebirds beware!). ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

The third film from pop-music-obsessed director Baz Luhrmann tweaks the conventions of the musical genre by mixing a period romance with anachronistic dialogue and songs in the style of his previous Romeo+Juliet (1996). Ewan McGregor stars as Christian, who leaves behind his bourgeois father during the French belle époque of the late 1890s to seek his fortunes in the bohemian underworld of Montmartre, Paris. Christian meets the absinthe- and alcohol-addicted artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo), who introduces him to a world of sex, drugs, music, theater, and the scandalous dance known as the cancan, all at the Moulin Rouge, a decadent dance hall, brothel, and theater that's the brainchild of Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent). Christian also meets and falls into a tragically doomed romance with the courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman), who becomes the star of the play he's writing, which parallels the couple's romance and utilizes rock music from a century later, including songs by Nirvana, Madonna, the Beatles, and Queen, among others. Loosely based on the opera Orpheus in the Underworld, Moulin Rouge was shown in competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide