Criminal (R) Gregory Jacobs’ English-language remake of Fabián Bielinsky’s 2002 Argentinian caper film Nine Queens stars John C. Reilly and Diego Luna as two con artists who run a complicated scheme to sell a forged copy of a rare postage stamp. Also with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Tucker, Malik Yoba, Maeve Quinlan, Laura Cerón, Soledad St. Hilaire, and Peter Mullan. (Opens Friday at UA Hulen)

A Dirty Shame (R) John Waters’ latest film stars Tracey Ullmann as a repressed housewife who becomes a raging nymphomaniac after a head injury and finds a sympathetic community of fellow sex freaks. Also with Johnny Knoxville, Chris Isaak, Selma Blair, Suzanne Shepherd, Mink Stole, Patricia Hearst, Jackie Hoffman, and an uncredited David Hasselhoff. (Opens Friday in Dallas)

Fahrenheit 9/11 (R) Michael Moore’s vicious polemic against the Bush administration’s incompetence and chicanery in the war on terror will make you mad, either at the White House or at the filmmaker, or possibly both. On one hand, Moore grandstands relentlessly and mean-spiritedly exploits his subjects’ misery to further his partisan game of “Gotcha!” On the other, his skills as an entertainer trump his shortcomings as a prosecutor, as his cheeky sense of humor leads him to take some gratifyingly funny swipes at double-dealing politicians. President Bush also gives the film a major lift, repeatedly coming off as mean-spirited himself, or devious, or clueless. (The footage of him looking panicked while continuing to read to schoolkids after being informed of the 9/11 attacks is damning stuff.) An angry and troubling piece of work that’s too hot to miss. (Re-opens Friday)

First Daughter (PG-13) Katie Holmes stars as the daughter of the President of the United States (Michael Keaton) who wants a life as a normal college student. Directed by Forest Whitaker. Also with Marc Blucas, Amerie, Margaret Colin, and Lela Rochon Fuqua. (Opens Friday)

The Forgotten (PG-13) This movie starts out very well as a psychological thriller starring Julianne Moore as a mother who’s either clinging to her grief long after her son’s death in an accident or is suffering from delusions and never had a child. It’s an intriguing premise, but around the half-hour mark, the movie takes a catastrophic turn into incomprehensible plot twists about government agencies, space aliens, and parallel universes. Director Joseph Ruben layers on the bombast in a desperate attempt to brazen things out but only succeeds in making this movie look even more ridiculous. Also with Dominic West, Anthony Edwards, Alfre Woodard, Linus Roache, Robert Wisdom, Jessica Hecht, and Gary Sinise. (Opens Friday)

Reconstruction (NR) Not a film about the post-Civil War South, but Christoffer Boe’s highly allusive romance about a Copenhagen man (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) who falls into an obsessive, possibly imaginary affair with a Swedish woman (Maria Bonnevie). Also with Krister Henriksson, Nicolas Bro, Helle Fagralid, and Peter Steen. (Opens Friday in Dallas)

Taegukgi (R) The title is the name of South Korea’s flag. This war epic by Kang Je-gyu (Shiri) is about two brothers (Jang Dong-kun and Won Bin) in 1950 who are sent to the front in the Korean War and are scarred differently by their experiences. Also with Lee Eun-ju, Kong Hyeong-jin, Lee Yeong-ran, and Jo Yun-hie. (Opens Friday in Dallas)

The Cookout (PG-13) Rapper Storm P stars in this agonizingly unfunny comedy as a basketball player who throws a giant backyard barbecue to celebrate being drafted by the NBA. The comic material misfires repeatedly. There’s a lame subplot with Ja Rule as a ghetto thug and a very sad one involving Danny Glover as a white-bread suburban neighbor who winds up in hip-hop clothes at the film’s end — I haven’t felt this sorry for him since Operation Dumbo Drop. Watch for a cameo by Mark Cuban early on. Then walk out before the movie wastes any more of your time. Also with Frankie Faison, Jenifer Lewis, Meaghan Good, Tim Meadows, Eve, Jonathan Silverman, Ruperto Vanderpool, Farrah Fawcett, and Queen Latifah.

Garden State (R) Writer-director Zach Braff (best known as the star of tv’s Scrubs) shows a real gift for both lyrical and humorous shots and creates one of the years’ most visually striking films. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of thinking that his movie’s actually about something. He stars as a toiling Hollywood actor who goes off his psychiatric medication when he returns home to New Jersey for his mother’s funeral. It’s supposed to be a life-changing experience, but we’re given no clue as to what the character was like on his meds, so we don’t know how he changes. The movie overdoses on quirky behavior and degenerates into a pile of psychobabble at the end. Braff needs to direct music videos or find a better collaborator. Also with Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Method Man, Ron Leibman, Jean Smart, Denis O’Hare, and Ian Holm.

Hero (PG-13) Respected Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, To Live) makes his first martial-arts movie, with a cast of superstars that would reduce any Hong Kong cinema fan to a state of trembling delirium. Jet Li stars as a third-century B.C. swordsman who either has foiled or means to carry out a plot to kill the king (Chen Daoming). The character motivations grow fuzzy, and the movie’s attempts to make a statement on the nature of heroism fall short. Yet the cast’s acting and fighting skills are shown to equally fine effect, and Zhang gives the movie an operatic look, with huge sets and flowing costumes in outrageously saturated colors. His romantic excess is a response to Ang Lee’s classicism and Quentin Tarantino’s postmodernism. Even if you don’t like martial-arts cinema, the amount of eye candy on display is enthralling. Also with Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Donnie Yen, and Zhang Ziyi.

Mr. 3000 (PG-13) The genially swaggering, bellowing standup comic and character actor Bernie Mac proves in his first leading role that he can carry a movie on his own. He plays a selfish former baseball superstar who retired in the belief that he had collected 3,000 career hits, but returns to the game after a nine-year absence when it’s discovered that he’s actually three hits short of that statistical plateau. Mac’s comic instincts serve the movie well — he wrings well-earned laughs from the funny bits and soft-pedals the parts where the movie might have turned mushy. Director Charles Stone III (Drumline) helps his star with some funny visual and musical gags. He and Bernie Mac elevate this formulaic material into something enjoyable. Also with Angela Bassett, Chris Noth, Michael Rispoli, Brian White, Ian Anthony Dale, Amaury Nolasco, Dondré Whitfield, and Paul Sorvino.

Napoleon Dynamite (PG) A Todd Solondz movie for kids. Jon Heder stars as the title character in this comedy as a nerdy high-school kid in rural Idaho who gets involved in a series of misadventures with his surreally dysfunctional family and friends. Some of the material is pretty funny, but both the character of Napoleon and director/co-writer Jared Hess’ structure are too one-note; every episode is set up the same way. The best sequence comes at the end, during the only time that Napoleon shows us a different side of himself. This would have worked better as a daily newspaper comic strip than a movie. Also with Jon Gries, Aaron Ruell, Efren Ramirez, Tina Majorino, Haylie Duff, and Diedrich Bader.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (R) The sequel to the 2002 hit has a bigger budget, a different director, and two smokin’ hot chicks blasting away zombies instead of one (Sienna Guillory joins the star of the original, Milla Jovovich). Yet the result is the same repetitive, joyless, nonsensical mess. Save your money for the video game or for Shaun of the Dead. Also with Oded Fehr, Thomas Kretschmann, Sophie Vavasseur, Jared Harris, Mike Epps, Sandrine Holt, Matthew G. Taylor, and Iain Glen.

Silver City (R) Danny Huston stars in John Sayles’ latest effort as an investigator who meets a typically Saylesian panorama of characters while working for a folksy, airheaded politician (Chris Cooper) who’s running for governor of Colorado. Huston is excellent, and his fellow cast members rise to meet him — Miguel Ferrer is particularly scary and funny as a psychotic right-wing radio shock-jock. Yet Sayles explains the workings of this world in laborious detail, and his political convictions overwhelm his artistic touch, especially in the movie’s final sequence. His passion notwithstanding, you walk away from this film wishing he’d lighten up a little. Also with Maria Bello, Richard Dreyfuss, Daryl Hannah, Sal Lopez, Tim Roth, Mary Kay Place, Billy Zane, Thora Birch, James Gammon, Luis Saguar, Ralph Waite, and Kris Kristofferson.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (PG) This retro science fiction epic was shot entirely in front of blue screens, with computers filling in all the scenery and sets around the actors. To this movie’s credit, it never feels like a mere technical exercise. The plot involves a fighter pilot (Jude Law) and a reporter (Gwyneth Paltrow) trying to solve the mystery of flying robots who are attacking world cities. Lumpy dialogue aside, writer-director Kerry Conran seamlessly evokes the style and sensibility of 1930s Hollywood movies, and the two well-cast leads do much better than the Star Wars actors at acting in front of blue screens (though Angelina Jolie seems to be channeling Julie Andrews). This film will go down in history as a technological breakthrough, but it’s a decent piece of escapism on its own merits. Also with Giovanni Ribisi, Bai Ling, Omid Djalili, and Michael Gambon.

Vanity Fair (PG-13) Mira Nair’s adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s classic novel looks good and wears its 137-minute running time lightly. Reese Witherspoon plays the scheming Becky Sharp, a con artist who finagles her way into the upper reaches of 19th-century English society. The movie truncates many plotlines in the huge novel, and it softens the character of Becky, which renders punchless much of its satire on human hypocrisy, materialism, and greed. Still, the cast is high-level (especially Eileen Atkins as a society matron and an atypically polished Rhys Ifans as a lovelorn army officer), and Nair makes much of the book’s Indian connections, including a dance number that’s pure Bollywood. Also with Romola Garai, James Purefoy, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, and Gabriel Byrne.

What the #$*! Do We Know? (NR) This highly unusual film wants to be a religious experience, which hardly makes it unique among movies, except that its religion is quantum physics. Computer-animated sequences, interview footage with scientific and spiritual experts, and a fictional storyline starring Marlee Matlin illustrate the movie’s points about how scientific principles can help a person lead a fulfilling life as well as scripture. The fictional stuff is on the cheesy side, and the tones of the different parts of the film aren’t well integrated. Still, the movie usefully tries to reconcile science and religion, and it has just enough intellectual food for thought to be worth sitting through. Also with Elaine Hendrix, Robert Bailey Jr., Armin Shimerman, and Barry Newman.

Wicker Park (PG-13) Try to follow the approximately 23 plot twists too many in this Vertigo wannabe, and you’ll go insane. Josh Hartnett plays a photographer whose obsessive search for an ex-girlfriend (Diane Kruger) who ran out on him leads to a mousy actress (Rose Byrne) with the same name who may have had something to do with her disappearance. Kruger is alluring enough to make you see why she might haunt a man’s dreams, and an uncommonly subdued Matthew Lillard injects a refreshing comic perspective into the proceedings. Director Paul McGuigan (Gangster No. 1) breaks out the visual gimmicks — split-screens, mirrors, and frames within frames — but can’t find a way to apply the look to the movie as a whole. It’s not offensively bad, just exhausting. Also with Christopher Cousins and Jessica Paré.

Wimbledon (PG-13) This romantic comedy is about an aging journeyman tennis pro (Paul Bettany) who makes an unlikely run at the Grand Slam tournament’s finals after falling in love with an American phenom (Kirsten Dunst). Bettany works the diffidently charming Englishman act to good effect, and Dunst is starchier than usual playing a bratty but lovable jockette. The movie loses a step near the end just when it should be picking up steam, but the chemistry between the leads and the sharpness of the dialogue generate enough good will to make this an agreeable diversion. Also with Sam Neill, Bernard Hill, Eleanor Bron, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, James McAvoy, Austin Nichols, Celia Imrie, Robert Lindsay, and Jon Favreau.