Joe Leydon

A well-crafted and entertaining pic with broad, cross-generational appeal.

A golden opportunity to witness the "unplugged," after-hours George W. Bush at his most congenial. "George" offers a portrait of a gregariously charming and self-mocking fellow who's perfectly at ease in his own skin, and who's no less slick and savvy a politician for being willing to make himself the butt of jokes.

Sandler impressively assumes the Reynolds role here, with strong support by Reynolds himself and a slightly restrained but frequently hilarious Chris Rock.

Lacks focus and momentum as it attempts to interweave diverse story strands into a cautionary tapestry.

Fresh cast, a formulaic but engaging storyline, and a smoking soundtrack from rap and hip-hop luminaries.

This low-key and deeply felt indie is unsentimentally blunt while addressing the humiliating debilitations that often define geriatric life. At the same time, however, it scrupulously eschews excessive grimness and shameless heart-tugging, and elicits more than a few laughs in the bargain, while focusing more often on how the title characters deal with last chances and unfinished business.

Evan Ross impresses with an implosive performance as Tariq Mahdi, a moody young African-American.

Once again displaying the kinetic grace, authoritative physicality and heavy-duty footwear that have made her a cult favorite for fans of the “Underworld” franchise, Beckinsale is fun to watch in both the real and fantasy fight sequences that take up much of the briskly paced Jolt.

An initially intriguing but ultimately exhausting tale of grieving parents left quite literally dazed and confused in the wake of their young son’s death.

Dan Aykroyd and director John Landis take a bumpy trip down memory lane in "Blues Brothers 2000," a sluggishly paced, fitfully funny followup to their 1980 musical comedy extravaganza.

Engaging lead performances and snatches of witty repartee help lubricate the creaky plot mechanics in Weather Girl, a lightly amusing but thoroughly predictable dramedy.

Boasting strong performances by Jeff Bridges and Justin Timberlake.

Sensationally exuberant, imaginatively crafted and intoxicatingly clever.

A tickle-and-tease teen sex comedy that plays like a late-night channel-surf through soft-core sitcoms, "American Pie" wannabes and '80s Brat Pack romances.

Maggio has cobbled together a modestly diverting, effectively atmospheric but blatantly derivative crime drama sprinkled with a few joltingly nasty plot twists.

Luis Guzmán and Edgar Garcia give the project much more than it ever gives them, sustaining audience interest and generating mild amusement more or less through sheer force of will as they amble through a threadbare plot.

Frothy, funny and formulaic, 27 Dresses is a pleasantly predictable romantic comedy that sees Katherine Heigl following “Knocked Up” with smooth moves at the wheel of her first starring vehicle.

Connor and co-director Michael Worth allow Fort McCoy to proceed at an unhurried pace, giving Stoltz ample opportunity to subtly convey undercurrents of guilt and anger percolating beneath his character’s affable exterior.

A pleasingly retro recycling of "The Love Bug."

A genially amusing ensemble farce that doesn't quite achieve enough momentum for liftoff.

Very much in the tradition of "Slap Shot," George Roy Hill's raucously funny and foul-mouthed 1977 laffer about the misadventures of a minor-league hockey team, Semi-Pro scores big laughs with the rowdy play-by-play of hard-luck hoopsters struggling for professional survival.

A sci-fi thriller as generic as its title, Alien Abduction generates only low-voltage shocks.

An extremely enjoyable neo-screwball comedy about attractive opposites on the road.

Francophile film buffs and obsessive deconstructionists might be amused, but less indulgent auds will find derivative pic artificial and mannered.

Amiably slapdash docu about The Comedians of Comedy tour mixes on-stage performances, backstage bull sessions and downtime tomfoolery to generally satisfying and frequently hilarious effect.

Well-cast relationship comedy-drama is played too broadly in the early going, but gradually settles into a more appealing groove as a glossy date-movie.

Simply isn't funny or frightening enough to expand its appeal beyond core fan base.

Manages to amuse as a cleverly concocted hybrid of conventional romantic comedy and mistaken-identity farce.

There is a great deal more style than substance here. The special effects experts and the other members of the technical crew do their considerable best to give their various hacking sequences the look of warp-speed sci-fi fantasy.

Warm-hearted but clear-eyed indie effort richly repays audience patience during deliberately paced and provocatively allusive early scenes with a cumulative emotional impact that is immensely satisfying.

Squeaky-clean, family-friendly opus.

An engaging crazy-quit of comedy.

Agreeably amusing but unduly extended, Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola suggests what might have resulted had Rodgers and Hammerstein lived long enough to attempt a Broadway musical about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

It may be tempting, and not entirely inaccurate, to describe Christopher Smith’s Detour as “Sliding Doors” reimagined by Quentin Tarantino, but this cleverly twisty neo-noir thriller turns out to be more substantial and surprising than such logline shorthand might suggest.

Too mild-mannered and fuzzily focused for its own good.

Lightweight but likable romantic comedy about two mismatched gay singletons who are, of course, made for each other.

A solidly crafted piece of work that, despite its leisurely pacing, manages to infuse a respectable amount of fresh vigor into clichés and conventions common to shoot-’em-ups set during the post-Civil War era.

Indie effort evidences more energy than wit, and spends too much time on set-up before a slam-bang pay-off.

With Davi and Chazz Palminteri fronting a first-rate ensemble cast, and a tasty soundtrack of golden oldies, this unpretentious indie dramedy has much to recommend.

Scripter Wittliff and Spanish helmer Emilio Aragon (“Paper Birds”) hit the sweet spot between galloping and sauntering while unfolding the movie’s plot, an interlocking chain of coincidences, encounters and colorful supporting characters that often recalls the twisty storylines of Elmore Leonard.

A stunningly unfunny farce that makes the worst of a stale concept.

Admirably ambitious but ultimately frustrating musical dramedy.

Kakkar and Pastides generate a rooting interest in their characters, with compellingly persuasive performances.

Yes, the film overall is more diverting than stirring. Still, there is a good deal more than novelty value going for this group effort.

Another lumpy mix of broadly played ethnic comedy, deadly serious soap operatics, and aggressively rousing religious uplift. Picture may help him reconnect with faithful fans.

[An] uneven but ultimately winning comedy.

Junky, jokey and sometimes both at once, pic marks yet another attempt by World Wrestling Entertainment to establish one of its burly superstars as a movie lead.

This family affair is a squeaky-clean cable-ready comedy, unabashedly retro fluff.

The predictability of events during the film’s first hour of gothic-thriller setup is all the more annoying because of the plodding pace. Evie finally stands up for herself during some modestly clever third-act turnabouts, but, really, that’s not quite enough to regenerate a rooting interest in the character.

Director Richard Gray’s well-crafted and handsomely mounted indie is as much a solidly constructed mystery as it is it a conventionally satisfying oater, with much to recommend to fans of either genre who rarely get to sample such a mix.

Often plays more like "Tyler Perry's Greatest Hits" as it recycles various elements from the writer-director's earlier works.

Tyler Perry offers another blithely unbalanced mix of low comedy, sudsy sentiment and spiritual uplift in Madea's Family Reunion.

Keitel . . . infuses his performance here with more than enough lion-in-winter gravitas to dominate every moment he is on screen, and quite a few when he isn’t, which in turn is sufficient to propel Lansky through stretches when the passing of time is felt, and the budgetary limitations are obvious.

A modestly amusing family-friendly comedy about a miniature car race that brings out the worst in overzealous fathers who compete with each other through their children.

A slickly produced, unabashedly celebratory picture about professional skateboarder Danny Way.

There’s really nothing new here. Still, it’s hard to deny the sporadically satisfying nostalgic appeal of this dash down memory lane.

A visually inspired multi-genre amalgamation, a borderline-surreal folly that suggests a martial-arts action-adventure co-directed by Sergio Leone and Federico Fellini.

Neatly balancing brightly sentimental comedy with slightly edgier funny business, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone pulls off the impressive trick of generating laughs on a consistent basis while spinning a clever scenario about rival magicians waging a Las Vegas turf war with a wide multi-demographic appeal.

Only small children with limited attention spans will be impressed by the lackluster kung-foolishness in 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain.

More apolitical moviegoers are likely to simply enjoy the runaway train of action set pieces that Wu propels with his flimsy but serviceable plot, and dismiss all the jingoist chest-thumping as roughly akin to John Rambo’s stated desire to refight the Vietnam War — and, dammit, win this time! — in “Rambo: First Blood Part II.”

The lead characters are well-cast across the board, with Chase and McDonough especially effective as complex, unpredictable characters whose sporadic conflicts go a long way toward developing a rooting interest in both men.

Tonally dissonant and narratively disjointed, Wild Horses plays like a patchwork quilt of scenes excerpted from a much longer movie, or maybe even a miniseries.

A curiously bland drama that fails to fulfill the promise of its early scenes.

Serves up a bland recycling of cliches and archetypes from just about every youth-skewing, dance-centric picture to hit the megaplexes since "Flashdance."

First-time helmer Patrick Tatopoulos (who designed creatures for all three pics) offers a satisfyingly exciting monster rally that often plays like a period swashbuckler.

A slight but lightly amusing sitcom-style comedy, strongly recalls dinner theater fodder of three decades ago.

Wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is the most valuable player here, revealing impressive comic chops and megawatt charisma even while serving as a human punchline for many of the pic's predictable sight gags.

Despite a few continuity problems, this rough-edged, low-budget drama impresses with spot-on performances, perfect-pitch dialogue and an overall sense that something bad might happen at any moment, unless something worse happens first.

Preservation ultimately impresses as an arrestingly suspenseful thriller that takes clever narrative twists and turns while moving through familiar territory.

One of the summer's more pleasant surprises. A silly bit of tiptop tomfoolery with cross-generational appeal.

A lightly enjoyable road picture about a circuitous road to redemption, Black, White and Blues offers simple, down-home pleasures while spinning an undeniably familiar but emotionally satisfying tale.

A loose-knit, character-driven comedy that percolates with good-vibe amusement, often earning industrial-strength guffaws with sneaky one-liners and tossed-off non-sequiturs.

Moderately interesting as a once-over-lightly political history lesson best suited for home-screen consumption.

Frisky and funny enough to please pre-teens, but still witty enough to amuse even those parents who don't recognize Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg and other notables among the unseen vocal talents.

Passably pleasant but thoroughly predictable.

A smart and snappy drama tinged with dark humor and brimming with self-confidence.

A bland slab of sentimental hokum that proves even the most smart-alecky of indie auteurs can turn warm and fuzzy on occasion.

How much mileage can a comedy get from a single joke? Quite a bit, judging from the guffaws-to-groaners ratio in MacGruber.

Hellbenders becomes what it intends to burlesque, and that’s not so damn funny, even with 3D gimmickry.

Peter and Bobby Farrelly aimed low and grossed millions with "Dumb & Dumber," so it shouldn't be surprising that Kingpin, their latest effort, offers a similar mix of pratfalls, gross-out gags and jokes about bodily functions. This time, however, the humor is darker, edgier and occasionally, even more scatological.

An unwieldy mix of self-conscious camp and heavy-handed allegory, Automatons plays like a cheesy '50s no-budget sci-fier with serious delusions of grandeur.

A wildly uneven but compulsively watchable mix of high camp and grand passions, soap opera and softcore sex. Very much in the deliriously lewd style of Pedro Almodovar.

Aimed squarely at the same family audiences that flocked to Murphy's "Doctor Dolittle" comedies, this is a lightly amusing and surprisingly sweet Fox release.

A strident, painfully repetitive and hopelessly stage-bound drama about self-indulgent twentysomethings on the fringes of the L.A. film scene.

There's a provocative premise at the heart of Master of the Game, but uneven acting, indifferent direction and melodramatic dialogue blunt pointed ironies.

Lofty ambitions and unaffected sincerity are not quite enough to sustain The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam, a reverentially pokey drama that plays less like a conventional movie than a lengthy series of hagiographic historical tableaux.

Good Deeds is relentlessly unsurprising in its plotting and borderline comical in its melodramatic flourishes.

Leterrier manages a few modestly exciting chase scenes, including one that begins in a laser tag course, continues through a bowling alley and a go-kart track, and ends in a crowded supermarket. And his two leads are agreeably amusing and for the most part engaging throughout the film.

Blessed with fine performances, credible dialogue and slick production values that belie a reportedly paltry budget, The Grace Card ranks among the better religious-themed indies released in recent years.

The filmmaker also makes effective use of some timeworn narrative conventions to build and sustain suspense.

The narrative itself, however, is not without its bumpy stretches. The Iron Orchard is satisfyingly involving and entertaining as a whole — call it “Giant Lite” and you won’t be far off the mark — and the performances are sufficiently compelling to ease a viewer through some abrupt and elliptical transitions.

Too blandly insubstantial to expand its appeal beyond its target demographic.

The effectively offbeat casting of Paul Hogan and some impressive underwater cinematography do much to enliven Flipper, an otherwise unremarkable attempt to revive the franchise that spawned two features and a popular TV series in the mid-1960s.