Mike Scott

Maybe it's a touch twee, but Curtis' film is far too uplifting, too life-affirming and too good-natured to do anything but embrace.

None of that is to say that Thor: The Dark World is a bad movie, necessarily. I would never speak ill of a man with a giant, magical hammer. At the same time, hammer or no hammer, it doesn't quite nail it, either.

In the final analysis, that's the real endgame here: to get people into theaters and build a film franchise. For all of their film's flaws, Hood and company do that well, as Ender's Game shapes up as a decent franchise starter -- and a film that makes it hard not to be intrigued by what will come next.

There's something Shakespearean about it. From the case of mistaken identity (though willfully mistaken) to the formal, old-fashioned language to the tragic tone in which it is all swaddled, this is Shakespeare by way of the Deep South.

It won't stick to your ribs in the way, say, a shank will -- but it probably won't leave you looking for a way to escape the theater, either.

The surprise is that Captain Phillips is a surprise in the first place, pitching and rolling tirelessly like the sea on which it is set and, in the process, becoming one of the most enjoyable and well-made movies to hit theaters this year.

Gravity, it turns out, is a great film, a technical and storytelling masterpiece that is buoyed by stunning visuals and which functions both as a ripping, tension-filled yarn and as a profound and life-affirming work of art.

Enough Said isn't without the occasional minor formulaic element or the odd narrative contrivance here and there (starting, it must be said, with its very setup). It is, after all, a romantic comedy.

That's perhaps the best word to describe Baggage Claim: contrived. And predictable, as it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which tall, dark and handsome fellow she'll end up with.

Rush is just that -- a rush, and a film that is sure to get audiences' engines going.

It aims to entertain, to offer a few tame chuckles for parents and children to enjoy in a purely Saturday-morning way. And it accomplishes that.

It's that sort of singular imagery that ultimately rescues Lowery's film. Yes, it's a flawed movie, but it also is a downright lovely one.

While it's enjoyable enough to watch, there's no slam-dunk takeaway here.

This much is sure: Salinger would have hated this movie. But he would have hated it for the very reason that others will like it: because it takes an honest-to-goodness crack at unlocking that mystery of a man and at answering key questions the publishing world and the reading public have been asking ever since he forsook them. Nothing phony about that.

Thanks to Rochefort and Folch, as well as Trueba's delicate direction, it still manages to be an embraceable journey, one with its own quiet -- and artistic -- rewards.

What they're missing here is a story good enough to warrant visiting the same uncomfortably dark place and characters worth caring about. Instead, what we get is a film that boasts tons of atmosphere and flashes of Refn's visual style -- as well as an admirably unhinged performance from Kristen Scott Thomas -- but little else.

A crowd-pleaser, through and through.

The end result feels like only half a movie. That half -- the technical half, with Wong's stylistic flourishes and the film's lush technical elements -- is a heck of a film. The rest of The Grandmaster, however -- the storytelling -- is anything but grand.

It's that end -- the film's final sobering five minutes -- in which Blue Jasmine is at its most effective. Credit is due there to Blanchett's table-setting performance in it and in the hour and half preceding it. It's also due to the courage Allen displays as a storyteller in ending this particular story in the way it has to end.

Also helping to sell it all is the fact that these films, goofy though they may be, feature a consistently high level of acting. In addition to Pegg, we get Martin Freeman ("The Hobbit"), Paddy Considine ("Red Riding"), Eddie Marsan ("Sherlock Holmes") and Bill Nighy ("Love Actually"), all of whom have appeared previously in the trilogy.

It's also a touch tedious at times, as it's not always clear where Oppenheimer is going.

Imbued as it is with a sense of discomforting truth, it is a worthwhile examination of human nature -- and one with a message well worth heeding.

He was a charismatic leader and the greatest salesman the industry ever saw. He also was a very vocal spokesman for the graying counterculture -- crediting his high-tech success to Zen Buddhism, Dylan songs and acid trips.

Making it even more intriguing is the fact that the whole thing is, extraordinarily, inspired by a true story.

Director Klay Hall's embraceable, overachieving romp plays nicely as a big-screen feature.

The stakes in this latest, disappointing Harry Potter wannabe never feel as high as they should, or as important as its characters seem to think they are.

Granted, Elysium could be more clever as it goes about its business. This is smart sci-fi, but it's not as smart as it could have been -- or as many "District 9" fans were probably hoping it would be.

While Washington and Wahlberg help make sure the flawed 2 Guns isn't too bad, it's hard not to think that it could have been better.