Betsy Sharkey

In doing a little genre bending of romantic schmaltz and horror cheese - some fundamental zombie mythology is turned on its head - the film breathes amusing new life into both.

At times The Heat gets messy, and the comedy is not always pitch perfect. But they're cops. They're enemies. They're friends. They're opposites. It's funny.

Though Bier isn't as comfortable with the lighter side of life, the film is a lovely little lark with a good head on its shoulders.

Garcia and Farmiga have such an easy, natural chemistry that their on-screen sparkle helps mitigate the film's weaknesses. At others times, it serves to underscore what might have been. It's a feckless conundrum.

At times, Happy, Happy is cutting comedy at its brutal best; at times, it slips on the black ice. Still, the love of life is exuberant, the pain exquisite.

An emotional runaway of a film that carries neither the insight nor the uplift to make the weight of its dark journey worth it.

The humor is sly and not overplayed either. Typical is the English class with Mr. Angelo (Adam Goldberg) trying to prod his bored students into parsing the difference between satire and irony, which is what the filmmakers are up to as well.

The great failing of The Iceman is not in giving us a monster, but in not making us care.

The animation artistry of Madagascar 3 is at its best under the big top, all cotton candy fluff and razzle dazzle. The character development of this edition is the best of the rest as well.

Berg, who wrote and directed, is more interested in how men deal with battle than the ideals or the politics that put them there. What the movie achieves, with a gruesome energy and a remarkable reality, is a firefight.

If you can get past the rough patches - a slightly sluggish start and a coda that feels like one punch line too many - there is some sinister fun to be had in watching Kinnear skating toward disaster on ice that is very thin indeed.

Unlike the teeming world living between the lines in Munro's story, there is not nearly enough in Hateship Loveship to keep you invested.

There are moments when the film is a little too precious, taking time to preen at just how clever it is.

Knowing the outcome behind the true-life tragedy 24 Days doesn't diffuse the horror, the tension or the sadness of watching one family's drama unfold day after agonizing day when a son is kidnapped and hope dies.

A joyous, raucous, righteous film but also a frustrating and disappointing one.

The filmmaker is at his best unspooling the politics of independence, which he does with such confident fervor that you always understand the fight.

Tower Heist might not be a classic (it's not), but at least for a little while it will make you laugh instead of cry about the current state of affairs, which is more than you can say about a lot of things.

The finale is not an all-out disappointment. It should satisfy the franchise's fans, and it does wrap up any loose ends you might be wondering about.

The film is a reminder of the pleasure to be found in simple things - reading a book, sitting on a park bench with a friend, spending an afternoon with Margueritte.

The new thriller from South Korean director Park Chan-Wook is a bizarrely perverse, beautifully rendered mystery that you may or may not care to solve.

The animation style mirrors the original, which is simple in an appealing way. It is particularly effective in the action sequences, which make the most of animation's ability to create a playful reality. But the multi-layered historical references designed to be adroitly wry are a trickier gambit.

Starts imploding long before the massive asteroid hurtling toward Earth is due to deliver annihilation.

Smart isn't all it's cracked up to be and soon the movie is unraveling faster than all of Eddie's grand schemes.

There will be many who won't be able to get past the language in This Is 40. There will be others who will worry that the king of callous has gone soft on them. I'm just happy to see one of this generation's most influential comic minds back on track - the laugh track.

The film has a grand cast, with Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas and Amr Waked at the center of this very clever tale of modern eco-issues intertwined with old-style political intrigues and New Age romance.

I don't know that we actually need Agent OSS 117, but the world is a slightly better place with him around. And the film itself is a harmless trifle -- make that truffle, chocolate of course.

Johnny Depp, back again as the swashbuckling miscreant who favors guy-liner and gold, somehow manages to keep this ship of fools afloat. But just barely.

I found it to be some kind of wonderful, flaws and all. This is one to be taken in like meditation. Clear the mind and let what is in front of you wash over you. Save the contemplation for later.