Michael Phillips

As Vaughn's therapist mother, Sissy Spacek comes off best. But she's a rare bird of whom it truly can be said: She's always good. No matter how grim the material.

The film has one objective: to smack its audience in the face with fleeting, competing wows, over and over.

The latest, Untraceable, owes everything to “Lambs,” and to “Se7en,” and to all the “Lambs” and “Se7en” knockoffs made by directors less talented than Jonathan Demme and David Fincher. In addition to being dull, the Portland, Ore. -set Untraceable is a monster hypocrite, wagging its finger at the mass audience’s appetite for strictly regimented, “creative” torture scenarios.

Well, it’s a dud. Nothing quite clicks.

Director Burr Steers milks them dry, like an overeager farmer at milking time, which is a paradox since this is the wettest picture of 2010, what with the sea spray and Efron's tear ducts and the general metaphysical mist.

Fox's cleavage is the only camera object that catches Bay's attention for more than a millisecond.

It's Bay World. And after an hour of Pain & Gain, it felt more like "Pain & Pain."

The actors take your mind off things when they can: I like the way Hathaway jabs her elbow at the elevator buttons for punctuation, and the ardent commitment to language Ejiofor brings to his character’s public poetry readings. But a movie shouldn’t rely on Hathaway and Ejiofor to shell-game your attention away from the movie itself.

It is, for what it is, a work of considerable care and craft. And it's completely soulless.

A half-silly, half-earnest indie with the soul of a John Hughes-era sex comedy.

To become a true screen action hero outside the “Wonder Woman” realm, Gadot needs better material than this, and only when she gets to square off with Bhatt’s increasingly conflicted superhacker does Heart of Stone suggest a human pulse.

A sleek, tight, fastidiously executed nothing.

The film may as well be titled "Stephenie Meyer's Waiting Around."

Most of the ingredients for a strong, tough film are there, and they have been sadly botched by a few key collaborators.

A misjudgment from metallic head to titanium toe.

The screenplay by Dana Fox (she was one of the rewriters of "27 Dresses") devolves into a series of humiliating pranks that always give the upper narrative hand to the male lead. Talk about depressing. I mean, that's what male screenwriters are for--to unfairly stack the deck against the female leads.

In A Thousand Words the camera stays about two inches from Murphy's hyperactive face, and you start to see the strain and desperation in the actor's eyes.

I find Lars and the Real Girl adorable in the worst way, bailed out only by most every member of its excellent cast.

Stranded in this charmless fantasy, Stiller is reduced to his old halting, squirming tricks.

Staggers and wanders and feels far longer than its 85 minutes, and it's best considered a calling card for better things to come.

Raiff most likely wanted to make a movie about a well-intentioned guy in his early 20s who gradually finds his way to a better life. What undermines his efforts is a creeping smugness and self-regard, positioning every side character as an intern in the Andrew Improvement Program.

Reynolds retains his skittery comic timing, and Jackman (while tonally a little lost here) certainly put in his time with a personal trainer. But there isn’t a single shot in Levy’s film that flows excitingly into the next one.

Hanna presents the problem of the well-made diversion that is, at its core, repellent.

It's a seriously withholding action comedy, stingy on the wit, charm, jokes, narrative satisfactions and animals with personalities sharp enough for the big screen, either in 2-D or 3-D.

It's all very "Scarface"--the De Palma remake of "Scarface," not the Hawks original. In other words, it doesn't feel modern at all. It feels about a generation late and 400 years short.

The film is a fancy-pants muddle in terms of technique. And if Bloom doesn't do something about his smirky tendency to troll for audience approval, his career may be severely limited.

It may well be a hit, but me, I'm waiting for "Iron Man 2."

Pure, witless discombobulation.