M. E. Russell

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.

The King feels like a morality play without any morals.

At its best, Prisoners dwells on the ways the characters affected by the case are held mentally captive -- by conviction, compulsion, procedure, skewed beliefs, rage, and grief -- and how each character's blind spot and/or maniacal focus furthers or frustrates the search for the girls.

It's a brisk, though laugh-imbalanced, B-comedy with a hard R.

The movie's still quite affecting -- in part because of its simple, old-school earnestness, but mostly because Stolzl does white-knuckle work behind the camera to make you feel the height, pain and awe of the grueling ascent, and the bottomless terror and exhaustion after everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Rockwell is spectacular here, infusing Victor with a charm that makes you root for him despite the essentially sleazy con-man emptiness of his existence.

By film's end, you've enjoyed a middle-of-the-road episode of the series, basically. And as usual, Deputy Trudy and Lt. Dangle are getting the best lines while about one-third of the jokes hit their marks.

Has a shocking anger and force.

Horror fans should still seek the film out for Dren -- one of the most striking abominations to hit the big screen in a while.

Turteltaub has a workmanlike touch and an easy sense of humor here, and he and his team do a better-than-expected job of keeping you interested in the story, despite it being yet another Tale of a Reluctant Young Man With A Supernatural Hero's Calling.

It's fun junk. And it doesn't satisfy. Dot the I is a weird, pretty film with a dumb script, a skilled cast and a good twist, plus one hot sex scene and one brilliant scene-chew by D'Arcy.