Claudia Puig

Despite far-fetched plot points - such as a flash mob of bike messengers ready to rumble and thwart evil - it's easy to get caught up in this life-or-death two-wheeled slalom.

The handsome production design notwithstanding, The Awakening is not an elegant thriller. It's more like solemn drivel.

This fun-loving genre-bender, inspired by "Smokey and the Bandit," opens languidly, then picks up the pace. Even in the midst of cars racing, it's funny and endearing.

Unlike most rom-coms, Celeste and Jesse Forever delves into the complicated heart of relationships, exposes some painful truths and allows melancholy to co-exist alongside breezy humor.

Shines brightest during its musical numbers.

The Expendables 2 is corny, barbaric and sometimes visually murky. But humor and self-deprecating macho charm make this male pattern badness crowd-pleasing fun.

This wryly funny take on the classic ghost story, with its tributes to horror thrillers from "Halloween" to "Friday the 13th" and rich cast of characters, has distinctive Tim Burton-esque visuals, and a welcome dearth of potty humor.

Robert Pattinson must be hellbent on escaping the world of sparkly-skinned undead to take on the starring role in the leaden, obtuse and ultra-pretentious Cosmopolis.

Drama/comedy fables such as "Big" and "13 Going on 30" effectively transported viewers to their whimsical alternate reality. But Timothy Green feels more predictable than other-worldly.

This latest Bourne doesn't send adrenaline surging the way "Ultimatum" did, but it's still a tense, well-acted thrill ride.

"It's a mess" is the campaign slogan of Marty Huggins, played by Galifianakis. He's referring to the state of government. But he might as well be describing the movie in which he co-stars.

It's about as uncomfortable as sitting through an interminable counseling session - involving two people you hardly know and don't much care about.

The bone-crunchingly violent film has luridly entertaining moments. But by its resolution, this sleazy Southern Gothic nightmare has simply gone off the rails.

Instead of drawing the audience in, the action scenes merely blur together. And the intriguing, thoughtful concepts at the story's core are glossed over.

A musical detective story, this enthralling documentary focuses on a little-known American musician whose haunting voice and poetic lyrics were essentially unknown in his own country, but had a massive impact across the globe.

The film is one long Costco joke - but the punch line is never all that funny.

The fictional premise is used cleverly to illuminate the creative process and explore romantic minefields, and the appealing Ruby Sparks has a low-key, polished charm.

The point of the film is not to scorn or mock the Siegels, despite their excesses. They embody the quintessentially American urge to live beyond one's means. Their saga is simply the story of a nation's materialism writ large.

While it's the most ambitious of the three films, it's not as mesmerizing as 2008's "The Dark Knight." The plot is occasionally murky, its archvillain lacks charismatic menace, and the last hour is belabored.

It's mystifying how such a muddled and silly movie drew the talented cast it did.

Much of the action in Ice Age: Continental Drift takes place on an iceberg fashioned into a seagoing vessel. No one seems to be piloting the boat, which is an apt metaphor for the film.

So sobering an example of why crime doesn't pay that it could be shown to petty drug thugs to scare them straight.

Williams is hampered by her character's limitations. What results is a mannered tale of an immature, empty vessel.

Savages comes off as director Oliver Stone trying to rekindle his "Natural Born Killers" mojo from 1994. But when the bigger-name stars show up here in cartoonish roles, things feel more silly than gritty.

As a new chapter in the superpowered arachnid saga, it stands on its own quite nicely, focusing more on human emotions than on a panoply of special effects.

It certainly stays alive in this spare and intriguing film directed by Jonathan Demme, who has helmed two previous Young concert films.

The movie's soap opera quality undermines its efforts to tell a family saga with much believability.

This bromance with rapid-fire quips, however, is undermined by unoriginal scenarios and a long, drawn-out chase scene.