Peter Hartlaub

There are plenty of bad films to get riled up about in the summer. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters isn't one of them. This is harmless tween-centric fun.

There's so much torture and suffering in this movie, it starts to feel like "Zero Dark Smurfy."

I'd be shocked if we see a better horror film in 2013.

What Sweetgrass lacks in context it makes up for in voyeuristic camera work that reveals a gritty beauty in the landscape, along with the human and livestock characters.

The ending takes an unfortunate detour that stretches the running time, but this is still quality Pixar work.

There are flaws, but also some fun surprises. Much closer to Hitchcock than "Hostel," this is what can happen when a pile of trash falls into the hands of a talented and resourceful director (James DeMonaco).

Well-polished and well-intentioned, this human-among-the-fairies adventure is filled with plenty of rousing action for short attention spans. But the beautiful visuals are paired with a mediocre script. The pacing is off and scenes become repetitive. While Epic has broad appeal, it's hard to imagine this will be anyone's favorite movie in 5 or 10 or 20 years.

It's a homemade protein-and-steroids smoothie of a plot, combining elements of gore, self-parody, 1990s nostalgia overload and an attempt to say something -- while actually saying absolutely nothing -- about the American dream.

Considering the fact that a young girl is picking her nose on the movie poster, The Croods is surprisingly evolved.

The female actors, particularly Hudgens and Ashley Benson, are game for the ride. And Franco is indispensable, bringing humor and pathos to one of the more repulsive cinematic creations in recent memory.

It's a stoner movie all the way, with much deep thought but little active conflict.

As entertainment, this approach might be questionable. As a service, it would be valuable.

By the end, I was adding my own internal "Deadwood"-style profanities to McShane's clean dialogue. "For the sake of the (God-@#$%) kingdom, cut it (the @#$%) down!" Movies about mile-high beanstalks shouldn't require additional audience imagination.

Writer-directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore find a nice balance between the over-the-top high jinks and an emotional core, which unexpectedly crystallizes relatively late in the movie.

The film often stumbles in translation, trying to define too many characters in too little time.

It's Valentine's Day! Unrealistic romantic expectations are in the air! And Safe Haven does the unrealistic romance thing pretty well.

The strength is in the performances and visual detail. The flaws are mostly in the script, which asks the youngest cast member to pull off a near-impossible transformation.

Perhaps anticipating an older audience, most of the lessons are one-sided, with the old-timers seemingly harming the children while actually saving them.

The film Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away highlights both the strains of the franchise and the willingness to promote the brand at any cost - including a coherent narrative. It's a big promo reel, and not a carefully disguised one.

The biggest strength of the movie is the chemistry between Cumming and Isaac Leyva, a first-time feature film actor with Down syndrome, who does as much to make these scenes work as the experienced actors he's sharing scenes with.

Innocence and joy are threatened by the Boogeyman, and from there the plot comes pretty close to mirroring this summer's "The Avengers" movie. Mostly in a good way.

Well written but weakly executed, it's hard to imagine anyone is going to cherish the film, if they even remember it in three months' time.

It would have been enough for The Other Dream Team to simply pay tribute to the tie-dyed underdogs, but the filmmakers strived for more. Adding detailed historical context, the quirky feel-good story becomes a tragedy and a lesson. And that makes the victories resonate even more.

The themes are also dated. There are times when Dredd 3D feels like an escapist companion piece to "The Day After." But there we go again, thinking too much. No sense in ruining such a fine piece of cheap entertainment.

Trouble With the Curve has a problem tipping its pitches.

Bornedal invests so much time in the characters - Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick play the split parents of the girls - that there are times you will forget this is a horror movie. It's Kramer vs. Kramer vs. Lucifer.

Pretty much everything shot by Shepard and co-director David Palmer looks as if it was done in one take. Hit & Run is closest in tone to the Tarantino-penned "True Romance," but it lacks that movie's menace.

Way too serious for its own good. The best vampire movies are some combination of sexy, scary or campy. This one is 100 percent earnest, and the hazy mysteries taken from Rachel Klein's book aren't strong enough to keep the audience engaged.

"Searching" has emotional valleys and zeniths, and gasp-inducing turns, as old friends, fans and Rodriguez's grown daughters are interviewed.

The filmmakers investigate, but can't answer every tough question. There are so many people who could be potentially taking advantage of these players, it's hard to sort out the wrongdoers.

Half of one song is performed with a speck of saliva on the camera. More casual fans will twist in their chairs uncomfortably, wishing that a roadie would walk up and wipe it off. Neil Young die-hards will cherish the spittle.

The stunning and mostly uncompromising visuals more than compensate for the frequent corny turns of phrase.

The high school comedy/drama morphs into a slasher movie, then morphs into a time-traveling/body-switching/world's-about-to-end science fiction story. Everyone on the set must have been chugging Mountain Dew between takes. I suspect that the editor was hooked up to an IV of the beverage.

By the time the ride is over, director Drew Goddard and co-writers Goddard and Joss Whedon will change course three or four times, nodding and winking but never losing momentum.

Kill List has a slow build, but don't be lulled into complacency. This is one of the most violent and disturbing films you'll see in an art house.

This film is even better if you come in with no spoilers and low expectations.

Undefeated is filled with wonderful narratives, which impressed academy voters enough to garner an Academy Award this week. It's a credit to directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Daniels that the personal stories of the kids and coaches resonate more than the wins and losses.

It's an uninspired and instantly forgettable film. But it completely succeeds by its own standards: an 87-minute rainy-day distraction that will probably make a zillion dollars.

Don't invest too much in the word "Golf" at the beginning of the title. Golf in the Kingdom is arguably less of a sports movie than the first "Harry Potter." (At least someone won that game of quidditch ...)

Patterson's verite style is bettered by the work of cinematographer Eric Koretz, who surrounds the bleak characters with beauty and color.

It's an imperfect facsimile, guilty of borrowing too many ideas from the earlier film, and then executing them with differing results.

Watching this movie is like eating a hot fudge sundae and lasagna in alternating bites.

If you can get past the ridiculousness of the setup - easy to do, because the posters make it clear this isn't a Woody Allen movie - it's pretty much impossible not to have fun.

There's no greater meaning to any of this, and the slapstick turns won't seem particularly ambitious to anyone who grew up on Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Even with the conflict overkill, most of the small moments ring true. Dolphin Tale has more in common with "The Swiss Family Robinson" than most modern live-action family movies, where slapstick and cheap laughs feed short attention spans.

Naysayers have been claiming for years that the "Moneyball" book wouldn't work as a movie. But ultimately, it's the cinematic touches that keep this film version from becoming something exceptional.

Mainstream audiences will probably be confounded by Drive, while lovers of gritty filmmaking will defend every exaggerated shotgun wound as art. Know which camp you're in before you enter the theater.

By the time the sex actually starts, any sense of tension or anticipation is gone. It's the rare orgy that feels like an anticlimax.

Fright Night isn't quite a classic vampire movie, but it's refreshingly straightforward and self-deprecating.

Even if it means blowing more than half the budget on animal wranglers, any movie that profiles Saddam Hussein's eldest son and Iraqi psychopath Uday Hussein is incomplete without the presence of his personal zoo. It's like filming a Michael Jackson biopic and leaving out the chimp, Ferris wheel and kid who played "Webster."

Once you're done trying to conjugate the smurfs, there's a better movie than anyone could have possibly expected, thanks in large part to an honest effort by Harris in a thankless role.

Tribe superfan Rapaport doesn't fawn, but he juggles too much, and the ending feels pat. It's still an outstanding effort, and one of the more honest band biopics in recent years.

The core fan base of this English sword battle drama will pay for the boundary-pushing blood and gore. Why bore them with things like plot and context and production values?

André Øvredal's dry horror-comedy Trollhunter is successful on multiple levels, with a brisk pace, excellent location work and a strong lead performance by Norwegian comedian Otto Jespersen.

An honest, fair and quite voyeuristic look into avatars and the real-life humans who control them in Second Life.

The story is painfully simplistic, and it becomes quickly apparent that the narrative is a crude cement to hold together the carnage.

Dragons may have seemed less out of place three decades ago, but it would have been a bad movie then as well. It's filled with clumsy transitions and erratic performances, and tied together by an awkward framing device.

Bursts with action, ideas and interesting characters.

The need for a sequel was zero - proved by the fact that the characters end the movie pretty much exactly where they started it.

The script is weak, but everyone on the technical side of "Soul Surfer" is a pro. The scenes in the water flow together nicely, and the action is always coherent. Robb's scenes without an arm look seamless throughout the movie.

The visuals are excellent, featuring a refreshingly small dose of forced cuteness, and plenty of the animals' natural movements.

The songs and a couple of strong performances are only good enough to make the film watchable, not exceptional.

It's all very melodramatic, but the Jouberts accompany this story with incredible visuals, with an exceptional level of access. Considering how close they get to the animals, it's a wonder none of the filmmakers got mauled.

It's a disappointment to see the teen pop star hop in a tour bus. This is a boy who should be traveling across rainbows on the back of a unicorn.

If you were ever wondering what "Die Hard" would have been like if Neil LaBute directed it as an art film, prepare to enjoy Lovers of Hate.

The best part about the movie is the way it shifts focus, starting as an observation of the animal and then subtly morphing to the point of view of Nénette, who passively experiences a jumble of voices that start to run together.

It's the kind of fun and quirky film that you don't see very often in art houses this time of year.

A meditative state of a movie. While shorter-attention-spanned moviegoers should stick to "The Fighter," this is an interesting and enjoyable entry on the opposite side of the genre.

Esrick spent 10 years on the film, and the result is a comprehensive portrait.

What Dunham lacks in polish, she makes up for in her ability to observe her generation, with the hardest truths coming at her own expense.

It's clear by the end that one Ruth Gruber is worth more than 100 pundits fighting about partisan politics.

The Nutcracker in 3D will be barely recognizable to fans of the beloved holiday classic. Imagine watching Tchaikovsky's ballet after taking a handful of peyote - on a day when all of the dancers call in sick and the orchestra decides to play a different set of the composer's works.