Kimberley Jones

The space prison set-pieces get the job done; only in the film's terrestrial bookends does this nuts-and-bolts action film show its rust.

This is fussy filmmaking, overly made-up (the costume mandate seems to include the buzzwords "coffee filters," "croquembouche," and "Day-Glo paint") and bereft of wit.

After a sparky first half greatly aided by Kristin Scott Thomas' devilish turn as an unsentimental press secretary, Salmon Fishing grows soggier. It's such a pretty, witty gloss of a picture, it hardly knows what to do with real-world terror, hence the Snidely Whiplash-like limning of Muslim extremists.

The Duplass brothers have an exceptional eye for microexpressions (yes, they're still zoom-happy), and there's something to be admired in this new interest in a macro lens on the universe's workings. If only it didn't take wading through so much drear to get to that divine.

If A Thousand Words' formula seems familiar, that's because writer Steve Koren has tripped down this quasi-metaphysical path before in "Bruce Almighty" and "Click."

The very best animation can excite the senses and inflame the imagination. But Chico & Rito's charmless line drawings just made me wish the film was live-action instead.

Wanderlust is flawed, too, but for its exploration of financial ruin and alternative lifestyles, it shows once again that Aniston, at the very least, knows which way the wind is blowing.

Perhaps Sucsy was overwhelmed by his immersion in such colorful and outré material; he's chosen for his followup, the I Can't Believe It's Not Nicholas Sparks weepie The Vow, the cinematic equivalent of a lie-down.

While Man on a Mission doesn't precisely neuter Garriott's weirder ways, it does push them aside for a more boilerplate message of the father/son bond.

Excepting the occasional shot that forces the eye on a particular dancer, Wenders largely films the action in a way that re-creates the effect of attending a performance in a proscenium theatre – only without having to scrabble for the best seat in the house. No matter where you are, you're already in it.

Big Miracle is all formula, but with just enough savvy to temper the gentle-spiritedness and qualify it as that rare family film with an emotional manipulativeness that doesn't leave a sick slick in the mouth.

Wouldn't it make more sense on basic cable? Plum screen incarnate (and film producer) Katherine Heigl got her start in TV, on Roswell and Grey's Anatomy, and her public persona – a combination of prickliness and adoration-seeking that has famously grated on viewers' and critics' nerves alike – has historically played better there.

There is running, hiding, fighting, shooting, bleeding, biting, slicing, dicing, and damnably little entertainment value in any of it.

As a portrait of what happens to a family when its glue disappears, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close wrung a bucket of tears out of me.

If I may presume: Thatcher probably would have preferred more action, less talk.

The script is chockablock with al dente amusements – obvious targets still make for wickedly funny one-liners – and the German actor Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) is terrific as the only parent unburdened by decorum.

It's a period piece about the origins of psychoanalysis and the sexual confusions of its progenitors that is eloquent and handsomely made, if never quite revelatory.

One wishes for a chewier whodunit – there just aren't enough clues for the viewer to work with – and the reveal of the mole is perversely anticlimactic. But maybe that's just stickling. We always knew Smiley'd get his man.

Equally harrowing and heartrending, Shame is a film that feels akin to going into battle, and I for one didn't emerge unscathed.

For a comedy, The Sitter is frightfully spare on full-bodied laughs.

Mostly, New Year's Eve is appalling stuff, a poorly constructed, sentimental sham. Auld lang suck.

Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Chicago, Gods and Monsters) takes over the directing reins for these final two parts; his most noteworthy contribution to the series so far is a terrifyingly staged birth scene that should turn the teen fan base off of sex altogether … which is precisely what this whole dumb, punishing series has been gunning for from the start.

The Descendants is beautifully shot (by Phedon Papamichael) and compellingly performed, especially by its young stars, and it has moments of startling tenderness. If only it didn't feel phony to its bones.

The Greek myths, of course, will endure. The same cannot be said for Singh's silly, self-serious, instantly forgettable, and inaptly named Immortals.

A grinning but toothless comedy, this Christmas-themed outing pales in inventiveness compared to the original, which brought sweet, silly anarchy to its one-thing-leads-to-another plotting.

There's no question that the actors and filmmakers have fashioned a compelling (if unformed) love story of a certain age – which is not to be confused for a love story for the ages.

To a one, they nail the humor, all right, but they also, quite crucially, humanize the high concept.

They have some fun playacting at class warriors on the lam – and Seyfriend, it must be said, rocks a killer bob – but it's all just big-budget dress-up in a futurescape that reeks of phoniness.