Eli Rothís $10 million first feature comes bearing a blurby rave from none other than Peter Jackson, who knows a thing or two about freaky grossout horror. Still, and while few would accuse the genre of subtlety, this movieís ungainliness is pronounced. The plot is familiar: five kids vacationing in a remote cabin in North Carolina find themselves beset by a flesh-eating virus and a crew of gnarly locals who blame them for disrupting the peace. The virus first appears in a staggering hermit (Arie Verveen), whom the panicky teens set on fire. He throws himself in a nearby pond, which means everyone who drinks water will be infected. Jammed up with the usual classic references (Romero, Hooper, Craven) and cautionary metaphors (AIDS, drugs, sex, willful ignorance), the movie has the kids paying dearly for their own and othersí sins; perhaps the most grisly moment comes when Rider Strong attempts to put his fingers inside an unconscious (and, unbeknownst to him, already infected) Jordon Ladd, only to find that her nether regions are all bloody pulp and crumbling skin. The nastiness is to be expected; some finesse might have helped. --Cindy Fuchs (AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

Hey, there Sam Jackson,
Milla Jovovich is hot.
You lucky hostage!
(UA Riverview)

Antonio Banderas brings a combination of swaggery action skills, grim humor and fierce vengeance to Robert Rodriguezís last film in the increasingly complex and well-financed Mariachi trilogy. Miserable following the murder of his wife and daughter (Salma Hayek and Natalia Torres, seen in flashbacks), "El (as in "theí)" reluctantly returns to the killing game when pressed by a conflagration of forces, including an evil cartel head (Willem Dafoe), an old archenemy (Gerardo Vigil), fellow Mariachi Enrique Iglesias, puffy Mickey Rourke with Chihuahua, and eccentric CIA Agent Sands, played by the ever inventive Johnny Depp. As the American who would ruin Mexico, he endeavors to set up and doublecross everyone in sight, including his girl Eva Mendes and retired FBI guy Rubèn Blades. When heís not making cell phone jokes or grappling with his fake arm, heís delivering spectacular line readings ("Are you a Mexican or a Mexicant!?" he asks Danny Trejo). While the filmís first half is all cunning entertainment, the second slows a bit, straining to tie multiple subplots together. But if youíre going to keep making the same movie (as many directors do), it should be this one -- Rodriguez knows his business. --Cindy Fuchs (AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

Fear not, Luxembourgian-Americans: Someday, every possible hybrid ethnicity will have a romantic comedy of their very own! The latest in the Greek Wedding-ization of independent film (directed by a founder of the Seattle Film Festival, natch), Passionada gives the Portugese their turn in the dock, as Celia (Sofia Milos) struggles to get over the death of her husband (at sea, yet) and get cozy with the very un-Iberian Jason Isaacs. Thereís something more than vaguely insulting about the notion that a trite story can be made new again simply by switching the charactersí backgrounds, as if the mark of true acceptance was access to mediocrity. In truth, itís probably the people who have seen every previous iteration who will flock to Passionada, willing themselves to believe itís more than a Fadó arrangement of the same old song. --Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

Released in 1961, Jean-Luc Godardís third feature is both an assault on and an homage to the Hollywood musical. In a classically limned love triangle, Angela (Anna Karina) wants a baby, and if her live-in boyfriend ...mile (Jean-Claude Brialy) wonít help her produce one, then perhaps his best friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) will. The scenes constantly threaten to erupt into music, but Godard keeps jerking the wheel, splicing-and-dicing the soundtrack so that lush orchestration (by Michel Legrand) mixes with street sounds; the only time anyone sings (itís Karina, in a none-too-sure voice), the music cuts out underneath her. You can have music or singing, but not both. Especially at first, Godardís technique, and his brazenness with it, is dazzling; think the energy of Breathless coupled with the invention of Week End. But as tempting as it is to share the cameraís infatuation with Karina, Godardís treatment of her as a beautiful, capricious enigma begins to seem patronizing, then worse. (The filmís last line transmutes the title into a pun, rhyming "une femme" with "infame": "woman" with "unspeakable.") Even if Godard doesnít debase his source to the same degree, deconstructing the musical proves as fruitless here as it did in Dancer in the Dark. You can take the musical apart, but itíll take you apart first. --S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse)