Joe Williams

If you'd pay to see a film called "Hotel Rwanda: Maniac Manager," you might be receptive to this mixed-message movie, but skeptics should keep one eye on the exit.

What it lacks is the human element. Charlie is more of a rat than a rascal, and instead of working hard to build and operate his robots, he's literally going through the motions.

If you want to see a great movie about a political campaign, starring the smartest heartthrob of his era, rent "The Candidate." If you want see a very good one, buy a ticket for The Ides of March.

This affable comedy is a healthy alternative to tearjerkers.

It does induce a few giggles like cheap champagne.

A true story of animal rescue, and it even stars the sea creature to whom it happened. But it's the humans who do the cutesy tricks that make it a mixed blessing.

Although you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it, Moneyball is one of the best baseball movies imaginable.

As Refn is riffing on thriller cliches, he gets solid support from the ensemble. Brooks, a comedic standout since the '70s, makes a sympathetic villain, and Gosling stokes the young-Brando comparisons - instead of settling for Richard Gere.

With such supercharged material under the hood, a magnetic man behind the wheel and a nimble director manning the pits, Senna is simply the greatest sports film I have ever seen.

Neither as magic nor as trippy as the culture quake that it documents, but it's a valuable flashback and a pleasurable contact high.

It's hard to imagine a better movie about corporate-sanctioned sex trafficking than The Whistleblower. But whether you're ready to confront this true story is a trickier question.

Like its neo-noir kin across the pond, The Guard is violent, profane and funny. But McDonagh is interested in more than mockery.

Despite the oddly literate title, Vincent Wants to Sea never deviates from the predictable bonding-through-misadventure script, and it has little to teach us about the nature and treatment of the traveler's respective maladies.

July is a provocative and honorably independent filmmaker, but given the meager rewards of investing our time, The Future wasn't worth the wait.

There's so much higher intelligence in Project Nim that simply digesting it feels like evolutionary progress.

In such a bleak story, the redemptive ending seems rushed and unconvincing, but director Oliver Schmitz has sent us a timely dispatch from a forgotten corner of the world that is honest above all.

This is another one of those phony movies in which a character burrows into someone else's life without telling them she's an axe murderer, a man or a vampire. Not only that, we're supposed to hope that they get it on. I was hoping that everyone involved would get hit by an asteroid.

30 Minutes or Less could have been a guilty pleasure, but the crusty caper is half baked.

It's a credit to the cast and to the worthiness of the idea that this overlong movie works at all. But those of us who already know that racism is bad could use a little more challenge and a little less help.

Here, the scattershot spoofery never rings true.

There are three sides to most love stories: his, hers and the truth. But on London's Fleet Street, the three sides are his, hers and the tabloids'.

It's faint praise to say that this is the best of the "Planet of the Apes" movies, because the evolution of special effects and makeup was predictable. But the unexpected strength of the film is its heart.

I still think it's a funny movie, but given its genes, it's a bit of a slacker.

Once we've quickly digested the fortune-cookie message that modern women are as bound by obligations as their grandmothers were, all we can savor is the scenery.

Although this sober film spares us some of the grim, survivalist details, the harrowing adventure from a girl's perspective is so compelling that Julia's simultaneous sleuthing seems like an unnecessary distraction.

Directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra were weaned on earthy comedies like "Bad Santa," and every moment of mature insight in Crazy, Stupid, Love is answered by a scene of formulaic farce.

A bait-and-switch comedy. It poses as a naughty "no-mance" about friends who use each other for casual sex, but at the moment of truth it goes limp.

The best kind of comic-book movie. It's stylish and spectacular, yet it's rooted in history and human emotions. It's smart yet it's funny. It's wise yet it kicks ass when it has to. Just like the U.S. of A.

Unfolds like a fable instead of a believable slice of life. Mexican TV and film star Bichir gives a poignant performance, but he's distinctly more European than the cholos and Chicano laborers on the sketchy edges of the hero's plight.

If you require a plot, look elsewhere.

Like the previous seven movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 obliviates the line between art and craft, but the witchcraft conjured for this satisfying finale is uniquely generous.

Both arduous and artful, City of Life and Death is the best imaginable movie about the genocidal siege that's now called the Rape of Nanking. Anything more explicit would be unwatchable; anything more contemplative would be a betrayal of the sustained suffering.

As a critic who complains about painless and brainless action movies, I hoist a glass of mead to the men and maidens of Ironclad.

Spacey evokes memories of other movies in which he's played a shark, and it's inherently fascinating to hear Aniston talking dirty and to see Farrell with a combover, but nothing in the film is genuinely provocative.

Given the turbulent water of world affairs and sea changes in the media, a follow-up a year from now might be titled "Gray Lady Down" if the Times does not chart a new course.

Trollhunter has a lot of down time as the crew treks to the fjords, but it's also got dryly subversive humor and, eventually, some impressive special effects.

When the two men compare impersonations of Michael Caine or Sean Connery, Brydon's version is always slightly better - and Coogan knows it.

One small step for action movies, one giant leap into the abyss of mindlessness.

A tearjerking romance that belongs to another era, when female moviegoers wanted to be transported, not grounded in grim realities.

Beautifully but simply wrought by director Cindy Meehl, this deft documentary is a poignant reappraisal of what it means to be human.

A serviceable behind-the-scenes tour documentary with about as much insight as a talk-show monologue.

Cars 2 is like a gorgeous sports car with a toxic tailpipe, a busted navigation system and a loud stereo that plays only commercials.

Brazenly funny in its own right - until it turns into a goody two-shoes.

As an homage to an influential director, Submarine blows "Super 8" out of the water.

Yet notwithstanding its derivative dolefulness and PG-13 timidity, The Art of Getting By is smart and sweet enough to become the favorite film of some Midwestern adolescent who wrongly believes he's already seen the dark side.

The moral lesson that this movie feeds us smells fishy - because it's not in the book. But the backbone story about a guy who inherits some penguins is enough to tickle the kids.

The spectacular collapse of Green Lantern is bound to be blamed on Reynolds, but the villainy has its origins in an injustice league of TV-trained screenwriters and tin-hearted studio suits.

A fanciful French cousin to Allen's "Zelig" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo," yet the fulfilled wish for a better life is high-concept absurdity without high-anxiety guffaws.

The Tree of Life is a religious experience. Overtly. Audaciously. Unashamedly. No film has ever reached as high toward the face of God and, in our commodified future, few are likely to try.

Such a disarming homage to the cinema of the Reagan era that even grouchy gremlins might feel like it's morning in America. But be forewarned that if this movie is exposed to sunlight, you'll notice the puppet strings.

An artfully observant and unexpectedly moving documentary.

X-Men: First Class is a mutant movie, half fun and half fearsome. For those who have developed an immunity to fanboy hype, the contradictory traits may seem to weaken rather than strengthen this beast, but readers of the "X-Men" comics will hail an origin story as satisfying as "Thor."

L'amour fou means "crazy love," but we don't learn anything crazy about these devoted lovers.

This well-executed sequel is sneaky. While it distracts us with Chinese backdrops and buffoonish humor, it sucker punches us with a message about belonging.

It's clear that Phillips is betting heavily on funnymen Jeong and Galifianakis to hide his creative bankruptcy.

Canadian director Denis Villaneuve knows how to stoke a hot debate about the legacy of violence. But in this case, where there's smoke, there's not enough air.

Although there are gentle detour discussions about advertising in classrooms and school buses, Spurlock's ironic approach can't convince us that ads are toxic. Indeed, when he visits sprawling Sao Paolo, Brazil, where all outdoor advertising has been banned, it seems as sterile as Stalingrad.

On Stranger Tides has the fishy smell of something washed ashore and sold as new. But this shipwreck isn't worth a wooden doubloon.

Notwithstanding exquisite images that evoke Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven," city-slicker audiences may find themselves getting saddle sore. But those with the courage to explore uncharted territory will be rewarded with a rough gem of a movie.

The simmering rivalry between Di and Fiamma, inflamed by the kind of glimpsed indiscretion that makes adolescent melodramas tick, explodes in a thriller ending that turns an observant coming-of-age story into something resembling "The Lord of the Flies."

For the rest of his life, Spencer Susser can brag to the other ditch diggers that he persuaded two of the best young actors in Hollywood to star in one of the worst movies ever made.