Scott Bowles

While Challenge makes for a pretty dull glimpse into the inner workings of the sea, it provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of Cameron, whose obsessive and demanding personality translated to movies that included "Titanic" and "Avatar."

Had Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch made a movie together, it might have looked something like The Signal.

July is solid throwback storytelling, a crime yarn that may not blow you away but can cut to the bone.

A slow-cooked film that's one of the most heartwarming of the young year.

And that's Fed Up's ultimate, if not fatal, weakness: The movie seems to acquit consumers of any culpability in our health crisis.

Draft's reverence for the gridiron, its heroes and the cities that worship them (particularly Cleveland) will make the movie a first-round pick of diehards.

Hart is much like Murphy: fast-talking, mischievous and irresistible. He's so confident and good-natured that we see how Angela fell for her pint-sized slacker.

Survivor is a pummeling, frenzied ride, one of fall's most charged action films. The gunfights and rocket-propelled grenades are palpable, and Berg manages to make the chaos followable.

Rude, wrong and laugh-till-you-snort funny, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa not only stands as the best installment (by bounds) of Johnny Knoxville's hidden-camera franchise; it's one of the sharpest comedies of the year.

While not as revelatory as Al Gore's 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, Inequality makes a resounding case that the middle class is facing its own planetary crisis: becoming an endangered species.

If you rely on films to keep your kids entertained and distracted for an hour and a half, Meatballs is a masterwork, a visual stunner that manages to break from animation's current 3-D rut.

Inspired and inspiring, this documentary about 7- and 8-year-olds competing for the U.S. Kids Golf World Championship is too fawning to be consistently gifted, but it manages to be occasionally, perhaps accidentally, profound.

It's no "Taxi Driver" or even "Open Water," but Route has enough attractions to warrant the trip.

An historical opus that is equal parts ballet and biography, though the second component pales in comparison with the first.

Red 2 is one of those sequels that's easier to follow if you've seen the original but more entertaining if you haven't.

This comedy deserves credit for taking a decided viewpoint — and delivering a heartfelt if occasionally misguided message.

A more sure-footed shoot-'em-up that finds some heart, wit and perhaps enough momentum to spawn a formidable action franchise.

Preposterous, goofy and a clear ripoff of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” Identity still manages to make off with just enough laughs to work, thanks to the wondrous McCarthy, one of the few actresses in Hollywood allowed to showcase her wit and charisma as much as her physique.

When the comedy connects, it can deliver with funny force

The first half of Taken 2 is a serviceable action flick, but the second half descends into cliches.

Despite an abrupt ending and the worst title of the year, Arbitrage manages to leverage real tension from its veteran stars in one of Hollywood's first pedigreed films of the fall.

Maintains the franchise's knack for getting kids right.

A stylish slasher of a movie, a monster flick that does its vampires right, if not their real-life counterparts.

One of those movies that makes for a fantastic trailer. Much beyond that can feel like repeat viewing.

Sprinkled with riffs, concert footage and home videos, the family-authorized documentary does what the artist usually did: When in doubt, return to the beat.

Visually stunning and narratively stunted, this IMAX documentary is the family version of 2006's "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary on global warming.

Just earnest enough to blend its religious theme with a beer-chugging hero for a surprisingly contemporary look at faith.

The action is brisk, the acting is solid, and barring an unlikely failure at the box office, a franchise is born. Let the games begin.