Amy Biancolli

Those who should go near The Big Year, if not flock to it, are fans of avians, mild PG comedy and gorgeously shot travel footage dotted with humans.

If the movie ends too abruptly, it still gives plenty of screen time to its nicely screwed-up central character. And it's still a solid, assured feature debut from the latest brothers to watch.

Director-co-writer Gary McKendry seems to know a thing or two about hard-fisted fight scenes, but he muddies up the visuals with obligatory spasms of shaky-cam.

Because Benavides is a south Texas town, the screenplay touches inevitably on the flow of immigrants at the border - and resentment at their presence. But All She Can puts a new face on this resentment, highlighting the frustration of legal Mexican Americans.

Rod Lurie's heated but empty-headed remake re-creates the original's trudge toward savagery but can't re-create its social context - and doesn't bring anything new to the table.

Spiffy-looking, well-intentioned but ultimately witless film.

This is brutish, visceral stuff - a type of raw-meat violence that's undeniably cinematic but seems, to this worried parent, ill-fitted for PG-13.

Until its final seconds, Seven Days in Utopia is just a piece of gee-whiz, G-rated, nicely shot evangelism outfitted as a golf movie. Then it cuts away at the pivotal moment that's normally the life's blood of inspirational sports dramas - and becomes something vastly more obnoxious.

Richard Attenborough nailed that purity 64 years ago, and Sam Riley nails it now. His Pinkie is a slim, mesmerizing package of immaculate and undiluted evil, clear as a stick of Brighton Rock candy.

All of this amounts to so much stylish nostalgia - not half as repulsive as the splatterific torture porn currently dominating the horror genre, and not half as cynical, either.

The protagonists and their idle dreams of a fiery wasteland may well be nihilistic. But the movie - with its stunning cinematography and lingering aftertaste of old-school heartbreak - most assuredly is not.

It's a celebration of nerd pride in all its many-feathered glory.

Good story, great characters, a setting plucked from history - and a multiracial, multigenerational ensemble cast stacked with fabulous actresses. But the thing that makes The Help such a rousing crowd-pleaser is its generous helping of baked goods.

Crisp, acid-tongued and sharply acted, it's the sort of exercise in tangy Celtic cynicism that's become one of the Emerald Isle's most reliable exports.

The film is often funny and even more frequently vulgar, exploiting every last chance for raunch in the full-chassis exchange of two grown men. The only thing missing: male nudity.

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.

Some of the film is imaginatively put together. But the melodrama feels forced - manipulated by filmmakers hell-bent on teaching its main character a lesson or two about life and the need to seize it.

What matters most in this sad, sobering movie is not what anyone says; it's what goes unsaid for most of the running time.

What distinguishes Cap is his humble backstory, which involves neither hairy gods nor hot-dogging test pilots but a kid from Brooklyn who just wants to fight for freedom.

After watching Project Nim, a distressing portrait of a misguided 1970s language experiment, you'll be glad you're not a chimp in a cage. But you might want to revoke your membership in the human race, which comes across as a narcissistic, hedonistic, self-absorbed, neglectful, anthropomorphizing and arrogant bunch of hippie-dippy know-it-alls.

The epic and impassioned close that the saga deserves, a sweeping Wagnerian finish that's taut with suspense and wet with emotion.

A Better Life isn't an instant classic, but it tells its story with a simplicity and compassion that other urban dramas would be wise to emulate.

Its urban devastation knows no peer. Robots smash into each other with steely ferocity, and the humans - well, they do a fine job providing comic relief.

Most of the cast doesn't know what to do with their shallow characterizations and lackluster dialogue. The best lines were harvested for the trailer - so if you've seen that, you've seen it all.

The movie turns lighter and less morose as it rolls along, which is good for viewers who prefer a bit of honey to offset the bitter taste of hormones.

There are pros and cons to this Green Lantern, a half-campy, half-compelling adaptation of the superheroic DC comic books.

It looks like an exploding art project - but fails to capture the books' childlike voice and charm.

Ayoade is well known to British viewers for his role as a coddled nerd in the sitcom "The IT Crowd," so it's fair to expect laughs from his directorial debut feature. But much depends on your mind-set; U.S. audiences could have trouble with the movie's less-than-sunny worldview.