M. E. Russell

The cast is almost uniformly spectacular -- particularly Angela Lansbury as a wicked aunt and Raphael Coleman as the sardonic, bespectacled child who delivers hilarious, verbose asides and somehow makes it look effortless.

But if it's going to be diet Pixar, at least it's action-packed diet Pixar -- with overwhelming, detail-choked production design that occasionally had my jaw lowering like a forklift.

Also fun: tiny characters such as Jimmy's surprisingly helpful stalker (Nick Swardson); the film's final moments, which owe more than a little to "Grease"; and the skating costumes, which take their influence from such cultural touchstones as "Tron."

It manages the weird feat of making a flock of sheep bounding across a meadow seem vaguely menacing.

A rough little comedy of tone. White, making his directorial debut, asks if the search for self is still heroic when the discoveries are unpleasant.

This is a violent, romantic, beautifully shot and performed film -- with brutal battle scenes and charisma-bomb performances by Asano as the future Khan and Honglei Sun as a rival chieftain and brother-in-arms.

The surprisingly funny Role Models does three things extremely well. It gives killer roles to comic actors frequently stuck in ensembles. It directs hilariously harsh words at children and lets the children direct even harsher words back at the adults. And it's oddly determined to give a fair shake to fans of both medieval role-playing and the band Kiss.

If you're willing to do the work, Triad Election pays you in tragedy.

This sci-fi thriller -- which is alternately nail-biting, gorgeous and a little silly -- spends most of its time throwing mechanical and human errors at the most important space mission ever.

Kazan has a gift for letting you see her think, even when she's perfectly still; the film's title refers to the ferocious trauma happening between Ivy's ears and her silent struggle to keep it in check.

The movie's biggest charm is its unpredictable, offbeat tone.

It's not perfect or "Shining"-level inspired, but it's solid.

Lumet blatantly, simplistically stacks the decks in favor of the defendants, pitting them against mean, stupid cops and a cartoonishly nasty prosecutor.

Where "United 93" was lean and merciless and got you thinking hard about how you might conduct yourself in a no-win situation, World Trade Center is reassuring.

Never actively unfunny. The cast is far too smart for that. But it never quite pops like it would if it were whittled down to something just a little longer than an "SNL Digital Short."

Often as not, the movie works. Here and there, it works kind of beautifully.

Kids will enjoy the experience overall: It's a little messy and undercooked, but still vastly more imaginative and entertaining than junk like "Fred Claus."

The juxtapositions can be beautiful: haunting music played over a water-streaked windshield, a deaf student awakening to the "feeling" of sound, Glennie staring ferociously at a gong as she extracts its vibrations.

John Carter is too wickedly strange not to recommend. Movies this expensive usually play it much safer.

The movie is plainly entertaining, with a terrific cast and a fast-moving story helping you overlook the dialogue's frequent failure to crackle.

Beyond the lipstick-lesbian twist, this is a formula flick, but the acting is excellent. It also has genuine laughs.

The movie's a ride, basically. It's a slick, funny buddy-flick confection about a dork (Jesse Eisenberg), a Twinkie-loving hick (Harrelson), a hottie (Emma Stone) and a sassy kid (Abigail Breslin) who bicker and bond as they drive cross-country after a zombie plague.

It's frustrating that a movie about a man so deathly serious about music has largely boiled his life down to addiction and adultery.

The Guardian doesn't offer too many surprises. Except for one: it's genuinely well-made and, at least when it comes to the character Ben Randall, kind of moving.

There's something quietly but unmistakably angry underneath all the slapstick.

Vastly entertaining, slightly overlong.

Despite this familiarity-wallow, The Holiday is likable. Really likable, in fact.

The Protector is the nuttiest movie I've seen all year, and I've seen the last 20 minutes of "The Wicker Man."

A charming Rob Reiner film that more or less works as intended.

This is one of those comedies where the humor lies in the audacity of tone and character rather than any particular sight gag or one-liner. Same with "The Foot Fist Way," which is absolutely worth your rental dollar.

Mostly connects with a fairly tight story -- even if it feels less like a movie and more like a really good episode of a "Shrek" TV series.

In their best moments, Hark's action movies have a what-did-I-just-see giddiness, as if their choreography were springing straight from a cartoon id. Though I could have done without much of the film's CGI-heavy fakery, "Detective Dee" finds that giddiness more than a few times.

If I had to pick one word to describe The Great Debaters, it would be "nutritious."

While Wolf Creek has clunky moments, when you want to slap the idiot prey until they wake up, the movie embraces a minimalism that feels refreshingly old-school in a field of slasher films drunk on self-referential wisecracks and narrative tricks. And Jarrat's jolly-creepy performance might place Mick in the pantheon of great movie killers.

Arthur is sort of a dull hero, but the grandfather is classic, hilarious Aardman -- a thoroughly British eccentric prone to weird nostalgic/fatalistic utterances.

What makes Surf's Up stand out is its look and texture.

Surprisingly charming and well-acted.

It's fascinating as an offbeat storytelling exercise.

The romance is the movie's least interesting element. But Heder's low-key, surprising charm and Thorton's gleeful wickedness at least glide the film in for a landing. You'll enjoy yourself.

Waititi is still telling stories of offbeat, semi-delusional New Zealanders, and he's still sprinkling his work with cartoonish flights of fancy -- but this time he grounds the comedy in a big-hearted, bittersweet story about a boy desperate to connect with his father.

Mike Terry's uncompromising fight for his principles makes for a fascinating, beautifully acted study in philosophical tension.

I wish Zenovich wasn't forced to skate surfaces when it comes to Polanski's perspective -- his interviews are vague and archival -- but she skillfully works around him to craft a maddening look at one of Hollywood's most infamous trials.

If you approach First Snow as a straight thriller, it's not terribly satisfying.

A basketball documentary where the climactic game looks like a Hong Kong wire-fu epic.

Make no mistake: This isn't a relentless button-pushing joke machine like the best Apatow schlumpy-man comedies. I guess I'd describe it as "agreeably ribald."

It is provocative, smartly made and truly independent.

After the terrifying grotesques that were the live-action "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "The Cat in the Hat," it was easy to dread a feature-length Horton Hears a Who!. But -- surprise -- the computer-animated "Horton" is largely funny and faithful to the spirit of the Dr. Seuss book.

It should be noted that Walk Hard is aimed at a fairly specific sort of movie subgenre -- it's practically an extended "SNL" sketch -- and it doesn't produce belly laughs so much as steady smiles of recognition over how accurately it's nailing its target. But it really nails that target.

It's fun-dumb and definitely not everyone's cup of tea -- I don't want to oversell it -- but Broken Lizard keeps it interesting by refusing to color inside the lines, creating their own silly little universe.

Fright Night joins "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" as proof that you actually can do this sort of thing correctly.

If you can settle into its odd, low-key groove, I think you'll find it's a light pop beverage that goes down easy during one of the lamest blockbuster summers in recent memory.

A surprisingly fatalistic, way-above-average ski documentary that lays out a 35-year history of the "extreme" end of the sport.

Duplicity is perfectly titled: There isn't a second of this smart, twisty, grown-up thriller in which someone isn't lying, cheating or stealing, often from someone they claim to love.

It works as designed.

This may be the best work we've seen from either actor, which is saying something.

If you're willing to have your patience tested, Twohy and his cast reward it.

I cared enough about these characters to follow "Exorcism" to tense and occasionally goofy places, even if the setup proved a bit stronger than the payoff.

Fassbender plays Magneto as a supercool assassin with a completely understandable set of beefs. I spent most of the movie rooting for him, and would watch a "Magneto, 1960s Nazi Hunter" sequel in a second.

A modest movie full of decent pop songs, three-dimensional humans and sharp observations about the male mind. It's also full of funny little ironies.

I'd argue that a very good movie could have been great if it had kept to subtler psychological tones.

"Fast Five" and Fast & Furious 6 -- the newest, nearly-as-much-dumb-fun sequel -- play more like "The Avengers" than they don't.

You see, in "Jesus Is Magic," Sarah Silverman plays "Sarah," a self-absorbed Jewish American Princess who also happens to be casually, cluelessly racist.

Surprisingly flabby, with lazy writing and some final-act lurches into unironic rom-com that seem at odds with the bizarro premise.

Intriguing, not-terribly-probing documentary.

Travolta does a nice job, but Bolt is of course the most boring, blandly cute character in the movie.

It's a definite crowd-pleaser and a perfectly fun night at the movies.

Is it style over substance? Absolutely. But as with "Ocean's Eleven," style wins -- only just barely this time around.

The movie still works as a clever little "Twilight Zone" episode with great production values, and it's an impressively ambitious debut for Barthes.

Lymelife is more shaggy character study than rewarding narrative; its fateful final moments are self-consciously ambiguous in a way that (to me) feel almost flip, given the long dramatic build that preceded those final moments.

A fairly good movie about an evil subject.

Improves on the original in at least one key way: Its lead characters appear to have souls.

Shrek 4 is at its best when it's sadistically doing these character remixes; you can feel the filmmakers' glee at getting to shrug off story continuity and make a mess.

It's an ambitious idea that monkeys with your expectations: make a whole movie about the ugly, hurt-feelings part of the relationship that's usually disposed of in a romantic-comedy musical montage. Unfortunately, like a bad boyfriend, The Break-Up has a problem with consistency.

With his periodic porn-star mustache, shaggy hair and reckless demeanor, the movie Stander embodies a certain brand of brooding outlaw cool that feels increasingly rare.

I was annoyed by Levasseur and Aja's desertion of their tense, simple plot in favor of tedious "plot twists" that could, frankly, use a rest. It's a waste of a good first half. (Grade: A- for first hour, C- thereafter.)

The bright spot, again, is Grant.

While Predators isn't nearly as vivid or fresh as the original, it's certainly its strongest sequel.

The movie is well-acted and a bit frustrating, but also a pleasant little surprise.

When it works, it's decent family fun; the kids are incredibly sharp. But the script's not as sharp as they are, and not everyone brings his A-game.

Surprisingly entertaining.

Ends up feeling like the sort of leisurely man's-man adventure movie you used to be able to catch on Sunday afternoon TV.

Conrad seems to have used whatever clout he got from "The Pursuit of Happyness" to fund something personal and sincere -- a story that's ultimately about victories of character and suppressing your worst impulses.

If I believed in the concept of "guilty pleasures," I'd classify "Centurion" as one, but I think I maybe just kind of enjoyed it.

In a film marketplace where even the best superhero movies tend to do a lot of the same stuff, I really admire Will Smith and bad-boy director Peter Berg for trying something different.

No one joyfully embraces this absurdity better than Michael Sheen. The actor finds a ridiculous-yet-perfect way to deliver every single second of his performance as head of the global vampire council -- He's all over the film's finale. It's fantastic.

The final third...is so overblown and anticlimactic that it finally gets you thinking about empty profundity and loose ends.

This movie is a powerfully silly brain vacation. It's a by-the-numbers underdogs vs. bullies comedy.

Bacon's mature performance serves a story that's considerably less sophisticated than he is, making The Woodsman less "brave" and more a slightly better-made movie of the week.

Enjoys the weird distinction of being one of the year's funniest comedies and one of the best zombie movies ever made.

It's pleasantly funny, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, from start to finish, even when it's staging broad, easy gags about baby barf and fat kids.

It all sort of plays out like "Law and Order: Spiritual Victims Unit," but the movie's stuffed (some might say overstuffed) with wonderfully staged moments and set pieces.

If you find the film's xenophobic undercurrents distasteful, take solace in this: Taken was co-written and directed by the Frenchmen responsible for "District B13," so at least the xenophobia is imported.

The movie is directed with real confidence by Batmanglij. He lets his actors breathe, builds suspense in one group-purge brainwashing scene, and lets the mystery unfold in an immersive way that's probably a bit more compelling than its actual scripted payoff deserves.

Wiseman's PG-13 remake isn't as funny, or vivid, or splatter-tastic. It contains no mutants, inflating heads, trips to Mars, or freaky little psychic dudes named "Kuato" emerging from people's stomachs. But it does a decent job setting up an unsubtle dystopia.

The film sort of loses its touch when it gets "dramatic" toward the end -- it's the type of flick where the sky gets overcast when everyone is sad -- but it's hard to argue with the movie's general good spirits.

It's great to see The Rock re-embracing the action genre, and when his clobbering match with Diesel finally happens, it's as outlandishly room-wrecking as I'd hoped.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, is . . . well . . . not terrible. In fact, "Rise of the Silver Surfer" is roughly 300 percent less cringe-inducing than its predecessor.

It's all mildly uplifting in the way of an unchallenging sermon.