Joe Williams

The most exhilarating film of the year is also the most exhausting.

A bit undernourished to fit into the crown of a comedy classic. But the sharp wit, soft-focus cinematography and slow-motion lyricism lift it into the realm of this summer’s nicest surprises.

There’s plenty of talk about sex — even from Brandy’s supportive mom (Connie Britton), who offers her lubricant — but not much nudity or consequence. In The To Do List, sex is just another dubious achievement to outgrow.

This movie, which was made by an animation studio in Spain, isn't trying to make a social statement; it speaks in the international language of lightweight comedy.

With stingy portions and plenty of filler, Magic Mike XXL is the worst sausage party ever.

In place of a rousing adventure, Blackthorn is a haunting ode.

Moore's voice is weak and fuzzy, directed at a choir that should already know the words by heart.

For better or worse, the whole exercise in lurid leg-pulling goes out with a bang.

How you feel about Fast & Furious 6 is a matter of perspective. While a middle-age egghead might note that a series that started out as a harmless cars-and-girls fantasy has devolved into a full-blown assault on human intelligence.

Penn has created a colorful tour guide, but in This Must Be the Place, there's no there there.

The way that Muppets Most Wanted grabs for the green is criminal.

Extract has some flavor, but the comedic kick is diluted by flat characters and a thin story.

The wrinkles between reality and illusion soon become irritating.

In getting so many of the Midwestern details wrong, worldly director Bahrani (“Chop Shop”) teaches an inadvertent lesson to aspiring filmmakers who want to follow his footsteps to the festival circuit: Grow where you’re planted.

It bodes well for the future of the franchise that Renner and Weisz share not only a gripping predicament but something more important: chemistry.

This vision of a violent future makes Elysium well worth seeing, even as the conventional violence of the thriller finale makes it a missed opportunity.

The mediocre mushy stuff isn’t alleviated by enough action.

The kids in the movie, from musicians to marital artists, are unusually skillful, and Smith seems assured of more starring roles. By the end of The Karate Kid, we can't help cheering, even when we know we've been sucker-punched.

Kingsman is like a high-speed collision between a Jaguar and a jaywalking soccer hooligan. It’s ridiculously out of balance, and when you’re stuck in the middle, it doesn’t seem so funny.

The sharpest parts of the movie hack through the Hollywood jungle with an insider's certitude. But Apatow is so grounded in the comedy circuit that he can't quite capture the emotional wavelength of the life-and-death drama.

With elements of a musical, a melodrama and a multicultural romance, Where Do We Go Now? is as hard to define as the crossroads region where it's set. But even without a clear signal, it sometimes seems miraculous.

While the chronological details and social significance of the story Webb reported get shortchanged, Kill the Messenger is a vital reminder that a free press must be free to press the powerful for answers.

A high-wire act that could crash if the actors were out of sync, but under this big top, the never-better Segel keeps everyone aloft.

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

Builds beautifully from a farcical premise that requires a suspension of disbelief to a musical climax that washes away our cynicism in a wave of honest tears.

After watching the trailers, I was expecting torture, but this smart, subversive movie made me laugh. So shoot me.

Disney’s gimmick of naming movies for its theme-park attractions crashes and burns in Tomorrowland, a here-and-now caper that will confuse children, bore adults and offend anyone who’s ever taken a science class.

While the underrated Brosnan is effective as the cold-hearted produce mogul, the character starts as such a sourpuss that after he softens in the Sorrento lemon groves, it’s still hard to root for his inevitable hookup with Ida.

A road-trip comedy that somehow renders both promiscuity and racism harmless. While we're soaking up the sunny surroundings, we're getting nowhere.

A good and necessary film, but like the man himself it’s not immune to scrutiny.

Red is an insult to our memories and to our intelligence, an unfunny farce whose veteran cast is cashing a retirement check.

Happy, Happy has the makings of a Norwegian "Ice Storm," but it goes out with a whimper.

A medical drama that pays lip service to the healing power of music but never finds the rhythm.

Because the sociopath at the center of this family portrait never asks for forgiveness, The Iceman is truly chilling.

It's a compelling tale of surf and survival.

Thin Ice resides just slightly south of "Fargo."

To its credit, Celeste and Jesse Forever wants to be more than a formulaic farce. It succeeds to the extent that the neighbors keep up with Jones.

If you can take it, Unbroken will lift you like the classics of adventure cinema.

Back when it was planned as an African-American "Ocean's Eleven," this project might have been edgy, but the script has been whitewashed into a generic caper comedy with pretensions of timeliness.

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.

Whose story is this? There’s an old saying that history is written by the winners. The screenplay for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies must have been written by elves.

The larger-than-life actor is as emblematic of his country as Tom Hanks is of ours, and My Afternoons With Margueritte is his "Forrest Gump." Only better.

Like a taxidermied owl, Stoker is lovely to look at, but in the end it’s hard to give a hoot.

J. Edgar is the kind of prestige production that apologists will call polished, but even the technical attributes are tinny. In the gay-geezers scenes, Hammer wears terrible old-age makeup, and the entire film is bathed in sepia tones as weak as its convictions.

In my old New Jersey public school, the first thing we learned was the smell of baloney.

If the world were really coming to an end, we'd spend it with Knightley and tell her tag-along friend that there's not enough food for a 50-year-old virgin.

Colin Firth is an Academy Award winner, so perhaps his lack of chemistry with fellow honoree Nicole Kidman is a carefully laid clue that his middle-aged newlywed Eric Lomax is damaged goods. Yet to the drama’s detriment, Lomax is about as poisonous as a week-old crumpet.

The premise is pure formula.

If you’re a fan of the “Taken” movies and tend to give action-hero Neeson the benefit of the doubt, our advice here is simple: Run away!

At the confluence of altered states and state-sanctioned violence, this drug-fueled thriller is Stone's most successfully provocative picture since "JFK."

Surviving Progress reiterates arguments made in movies such as "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Inside Job," it marshals minds such as Jane Goodall and Stephen Hawking, and it utilizes artful imagery reminiscent of films such as "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Up the Yangtze."

But even without world-class smarts or amusing mutations, the next generation of “Jurassic” is an enjoyable ride.

It's a wholly successful sequel - audacious, entertaining and bracingly pertinent.

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.

Unfortunately, producers (including James) went for the easy layup, showing so much on-court action instead of trying to hustle for insights about sports and society.

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

Old Dogs is so oafish, when it tosses us a biscuit, it feels like we've been smacked with a newspaper.

Apatow still hasn't set the table for a meaty drama, but making us laugh is a piece of cake.

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

Maybe in his native language, Dujardin is no funnier than Steve Martin's "Pink Panther." But with subtitles, his deadpan delivery is hard to resist.

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

A family flick that punches the right buttons like a trained seal.

For those who appreciate fiery dialogue delivered by fine actors, August: Osage County is heaven-sent.

The rapid dialogue is dry and mannered, like a David Mamet play, there's virtually no story and Cronenberg's visual scheme is cold and claustrophobic.

Footloose poses as a bold update, but it's shockingly out of step with the times.

Be forewarned: The 100-Year-Old Man is edgier than its title would lead you to believe. Bad guys are bludgeoned, blown up and even crushed by an elephant, and the two duffers take a lassez-faire attitude toward disposing of them.

It's a calculated crowd-pleaser that skims over the surface of the era like a cruise-ship production of "American Graffiti."

Everything about Trouble With the Curve is as streamlined and hollow as a Wiffle Ball bat.

It's no classic, but Shrek Forever After is a pleasant reminder that every time a cash register rings, this ogre turns angelic.

The saving grace of Biutiful is Bardem.

Too short and undisciplined to be a world-class comedy, but its chutzpah deserves respect.

It's a comedic dramatization with a looming shadow of the surreal.

The lesson of this likable little movie is that it’s never too late to reclaim your integrity.

It still has cool creatures and 1960s set design, and the 3-D is the best of the season, but if you try to remember the story or jokes, you'll find that you've been hit by a neuralyzer beam.

Despite some gruesome images and the psychotic fervor of Rakes, it's a frustratingly slow boil.

At nearly three hours long, "An Unexpected Journey" has moments when the caravan seems both overstuffed and out of balance, but it's such a scenic trip that only a stubborn homebody could complain.

Fading Gigolo is like two different movies on an awkward blind date at a jazz club. While Allen charms us with a parody of “Broadway Danny Rose,” Turturro is off-key in his lounge-lizard riff on “The Piano.”

This meta movie even has fun with faulty translations between French and English. To paraphrase Gemma as she conjugates verbs on the treadmill, “J’ai adorée.”

This topsy-turvy flick is fitfully funny, but more often it's just odd, like the first draft of a "Twilight Zone" episode that's missing its moral.

There's a fascinating story here for a bolder filmmaker, but after so much meandering it's a relief that "All Good Things" must come to an end.

Even as Bard, filmmaker Milos Forman and Ferrara himself bemoan the changes, the lobby is filled with fine art -- and guests who aren't likely to harm you.

Scabrously funny yet essentially gentle, as the main thing that it's probing is our collective ignorance.

A bizarre buffet of buffoonery, brutality and beautiful landscapes.

It's the kind of movie that inspires word-of-mouth recommendations by speaking the international language of culture clash.

With its references to other properties in the Marvel universe and to classic tales of redemption, this no-surprises summer movie might appeal to those who've been bitten by radioactive spiders or the Shakespeare bug.

Weaving between freshness and formula, The Boys Are Back earns a gentle pat on the head.

Bad Words is often very funny, thanks to Bateman’s brick-wall malevolence and screenwriter Andrew Dodge’s inventively rude dialogue.

Snark is not art. In the evolutionary spectrum of cinema, Natural Selection is like the duck-billed platypus, pretending to be warm-blooded but more than a little fowl.