Amy Biancolli

There aren't that many songs this time - just a handful, reprised ad infinitum. You get to sing most of them, so I'm sure you've noticed how bland they are.

Rodrick Rules has a brighter comic edge than its predecessor - and a bit more spunk.

Even his wife barely knew him, recalling for her son the peculiarities of raising a family amid Daddy's cloak and dagger - and if she's baffled by his behavior, what hope is there for anyone else?

An imperfect, fascinating film about an imperfect, fascinating man.

The film's editing and pacing are appealingly straightforward, not to say blunt, and the humor runs from dry to bone-dry to parched.

The film isn't half as deep as intended, but parts of it are very funny - someone actually barfs onto a stack of art books - and the parts that aren't may as well be.

In creating his modern homage to the classic film, Im has twisted all the heated melodrama into a satiric - and in the end, surrealist - attack on the terrors of the polished upper class.

Given the number of real-world cults that have ended in major bloodshed, there's some irony - and no small narrative coquetry - in any drama on the subject that ducks out so pointedly at the finish.

If the movie packs a weaker punch than the original, it has less to do with the action sequences than the script (by Edmond Wong, son of Raymond, who wrote the first), a flimsy affair with subpar villains.

The story gets away from itself as it barrels forward. The tiny bit of sense it makes at the beginning is quickly sacrificed in a conclusion so facile, illogical and cheap that it could use a dose of NZT itself.

Like most ruckuses, it is frequently loud and not always intelligible.

Many scenes in Outrage are crisply filmed and stylish enough, as serial assassinations go. But the film doesn't add up to much.

The less-good stuff: the pirates, who are so blandly and predictably drawn that they sap all the personality out of Peter Dinklage (as an ugly ape skipper), which isn't easy. And the plot, which just barrels forward with very few surprises.

An artfully depraved piece of South Korean torture porn directed by Kim Ji-woon, is a skillful serial-killer thriller in keeping with the likes of "Saw."

A typical vehicle for Ferrell's atypical humor.

The combative, off-putting Dark Horse features many of writer-director Todd Solondz's usual preoccupations: misery, complexity, stunted emotions, misplaced dreams.

In its most touching moments, the film achieves a kind of sad and waltzing rhythm all its own. In its least, it's precious and plodding; the metaphoric link between grief and housework drags like a mop on a bathroom floor.

Another innocuous film about another unusual girl.

All in all, the 3-D animations wow without gimmickry, Banderas purrs without peer - and it's a cheerful movie.

A tonally confused, fitfully entertaining film about a pathologically two-faced man.

After sitting through Takers with my stomach rearranged by hyperactive camera spazzing, I hereby formally request all directors and cinematographers to just get a grip already and STOP. WIGGLING. THE CAMERA.

Uneven, occasionally silly, true, but it's also an improvement over 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand."

An arty, ruminative and slow-paced film that's being marketed as a big ol' alien-invasion flick. Just don't expect an invasion flick.

The film is a vehement drama and a fitfully amusing snark fest set to Nicola Piovani's jaunty circus music. It winds up only half-succeeding at both.

For all of its transgressive plush-toy sex and screw-'em humor, the plot is pretty standard stuff.

If, in the end, the movie fails to generate much beyond several crackling jump scares and a nicely gothic mise-en-scene, it has enough mood, and enough Radcliffe, to carry us through the mist.

May be Disney's most pointedly feminist effort since "Mulan."

In its way, the film is more concerned with the love between friends than the sex between strangers.