Joe Williams

The best thing you could say about Happy Feet Two is that it doesn't have any product placements or potty jokes. Other than that, this charmless Antarctic cartoon is what it looks like when hell freezes over.

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.

The Women on the 6th Floor shouldn't work, but this efficient flick whisks away our cynicism.

Perhaps the spookiest thing in this slyly scary movie is the word-for-word way that Patrick's followers regurgitate his pablum.

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.

Shannon's powerfully imploded performance ignites one of the best films of the year.

In recording the timeless traditions of Jewry, he created a new one: the identity crisis that rides on the back of laughter.

Even if they don't provide much lift, these boots were made for amusement.

Toast is lovely to look at, evoking both the gray-green milieu of Midlands life and the sensuality of good food, but it's like a whipped topping with no base.

If you haven't seen a wasting disease in real life, you might think Restless is romantic. If you have, you might diagnose it as terminally cute.

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

For anyone expecting the second coming of Clouseau, Johnny English Reborn is a karmic catastrophe.

This true story fills a needed niche, spotlighting women's basketball in the era before Title IX promoted equal treatment.

Margin Call has a spectacular cast, and the 24-hour cycle of events gives the movie the compressed dramatic effect of a fine play.

An art-history lesson and a spiritual exercise disguised as a movie.

A solid sci-fi/horror hybrid, but this iceman doesn't deliver enough to chew on.

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.

The Big Year puts the focus on people who aren't inherently interesting - or funny.

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

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

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.