There are no surprises here, just a by-the-numbers comedy that's better, and funnier, than it has a right to be, thanks to the efforts of the actors in it.

In theory, we go to movies for enjoyment. Director Rodrigo Cortés inverts that notion with Buried, a terrific, claustrophobic, fist-clenching film in which he tortures his audience in exquisite fashion.

Although there are moments of humor in the film, many of them supplied by the delightful Jones, there are also long stretches of, um . . . "blah" might be the best word for it.

Affleck is the center of the film. His Doug is, in some respects, rather like Affleck - the director of the elaborate heists, as well as a performer in them.

This is the kind of movie about teenagers that an adult audience should embrace. It's simply that good, and Stone is nothing short of wonderful.

Occasionally cute but not much else, Alpha and Omega is an animated flick that doesn't leave much of an impression.

It is affecting, surprising, heartbreaking.

A quiet character study filled with damaged, insular people who live life in small increments, only occasionally exploding in emotion.

It's effective, entertaining in a remarkably uncomfortable way but entertaining all the same.

An infectiously joyful Australian Aboriginal musical.

It's a tired genre, one that would be greatly improved if, ironically, far younger actors showed the energy and command these two old hands do.

Machete is insanely violent, insanely over-the-top. It's pretty much flat-out insane.

When Going the Distance works, it works well, and it feels genuine. But like a bad relationship, the movie will continually let you down.

As the film comes to an end, more and more of "Blood Simple" is translated directly to China, even to the last drop.

The American is a very . . . patient movie, the inverse of an action thriller to an almost comic degree. With Clooney it's an interesting project. Without him, it would simply be boring.

The Last Exorcism is a good movie that could have been - SHOULD have been - a great one.

The results of her work are predictable yet pleasantly played out.

There are a couple of good performances and a few funny bits, but mostly the film just bounces back and forth until coming to a flat, trite close.

It's hard to know whether to take it to task as a film critic or as a dance critic. It isn't that it fails on either level - it's a serviceable movie - but it neither attempts nor achieves much of value.

Watching the film, emotions range from sadness, of course, to frustration to outright anger.

Two very important things to note about Vampires Suck: The film is a spoof of the "Twilight" movies, and the title is a good indication of where the level of wit lies.

A fanboy's dream come true, a smart take on a smart comic that actually looks the part, with performances that make it worth watching for the rest of us, too.

You see this cast, you expect to see a lot of violent action. And in that regard, The Expendables delivers, and then some. In this case, then, the old saying applies: Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

The general dippiness isn't helped by the dialogue: "Every word in Italian is like a truffle!" Gilbert exclaims as she learns the language. Equally annoying is the gauzy lighting, which gives Roberts a sweetly angelic glow most of the time.

The naturalistic style Michod employs adds to the sense of dread.

A surprising, laugh-out-loud take on the old buddy-cop genre. It's sneaky and smartly funny, offering an almost perfect balance of action and comedy. That's the good news. Then there's the matter of the movie's disheartening final 25 minutes.

A clever, funny movie that will entertain kids and adults.

Guilt, grief and the struggle to move on are big themes, but unfortunately, director Burr Steers and his script writers aren't interested in exploring them.

It's outstanding work (Carell). It's also a really funny movie.

Like its stars, the film's not particularly flashy, it's just good, and it's hard to find fault in that.

True enough, she's trying to do the right thing. But she never quite gets there. And that gets old, making "Ramona" wear out its welcome long before it should have.

Suffice it to say that it's something that would make Austin Powers blush, baby, but it's not supposed to be funny.

As in a Le Carré novel, we're given long doses of the private lives of the protagonists, and we learn their secrets, their insecurities and the toll taken by the necessity of constant lying.

The visuals are stunning, perhaps the most fully realized of any film.

A by-the-numbers, good-vs.-evil tale.

Settles for simply being goofy good fun.

A pretty good action movie for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it lasts 106.

An intriguing look at the effects on one man's life; whether they're worth the cost is something Steinbauer leaves up to us.

Mark Ruffalo, in just the right amount of stubble, grease and leather, plays Paul, about as cool an instant dad as a SoCal kid named Laser could hope for.

Despite the lethal force that inevitably gets applied to poor Lisbeth, we never really fear for her safety, but we do fear for her future happiness. That is where the real drama lies.

While the special effects are impressive enough, M. Night Shyamalan's film doesn't make a lick of sense.

Forget Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. I'm backing Team David, as in David Slade, the director who has finally managed to breathe some life into the "Twilight" series, heretofore a deadly dull undead undertaking.

There's a great film hiding somewhere in the wreckage of "Love Ranch."

Dumb, lazy, obvious and largely pointless.

Offers valuable historical, social and political context, particularly if you aren't an international-news junkie.

Engagement with the enemy isn't a possibility here. It's a certainty. The unit will face fire daily, sometimes as often as four or five times. The stress is incredible, the courage displayed even more so.

Wild Grass retains a literary feel with the help of an unseen narrator, who offers intriguing poetic observations. And Resnais' visuals are equally lyrical. What can you say: The French sure know how to make pretty pictures.

How you feel about Knight and Day will depend largely on your feelings about Cruise. If you can't divorce his performance from his off-screen antics, well, that's a problem, here and elsewhere. If you're willing to watch what's on-screen and leave it at that, there's fun to be had.

Toy Story 3 is very much a worthy entry in the series, a movie well worth making (and seeing). It continues the legacy. It just doesn't expand upon it.

Jonah Hex somehow manages to waste the talents of Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Aidan Quinn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in a story that combines vengeance, the occult and an Old West war on terror (really).

The interviews throughout are the best part of the movie - the least heavy-handed, yet most effective, element. There is a message here of the necessity for tolerance, but 8: The Mormon Proposition would have been better had its makers presented it in a more consistent, artful fashion.

Although Jonah Hill has been sweetly, profanely funny in such films as "Superbad" and "Get Him to the Greek," in Cyrus he's a revelation.

You can read Emma's affair and its eventual effect on Edoardo as an inverted oedipal thing, or perhaps as a metaphor for decadence, the embodiment of a family that subconsciously realizes it's in decline and must fight to warm its blood.

Does the movie have anything new to say, anything different from John G. Avildsen's 1984 original, with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita? Not particularly.

If you are a stickler for movies that follow the laws of, say, physics, nature and common sense, The A-Team might not be for you. If, on the other hand, you get a kick out of exchanges like this - "Are they trying to shoot down that other drone?" "No. They're trying to fly that tank" - then you're in for a treat.

A compulsively watchable look at Rivers.

Two narcissists do not a couple make, and without any actual relationship, there really isn't a movie.

A genuine triumph, a great movie with astounding performances so natural, so genuine, that you forget it's a movie.

An unruly mix of science, morality, family dysfunction, horror and finger-down-the-throat gross-out ridiculousness.

As an encore for Brand's Aldous, it's a welcome return. And for Hill, it's a chance to really shine.

For the most part the jokes here are tired. William H. Macy is a welcome presence in the small role of Phil's offbeat-but- intense boss.

A documentary that delves into what happens when the ghost stories you told as kids, the stuff of urban legends, seem to come true.

The audience should be given game controllers upon entering the theater. It wouldn't mean the film would make any more sense, but at least you'd feel like you had some say in the matter.

Jeunet's new film, Micmacs, mixes the dark, claustrophobic world of "Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children," with the happy-ending optimism of "Amélie" and "A Very Long Engagement." It isn't a convincing graft of moods.

Sex and the City 2 isn't a feature film as much as it is consumer porn. The audience is not asked to relate to the characters, or at least what we remember of them, as much as to their shoes, their bags, their apartments, their couture, their stuff.

If you found "Shrek the Third," the third film in the "Shrek" franchise, tired, it will probably come as no surprise that Shrek Forever After is downright exhausted.

It's Douglas' movie - and you've got a fine movie.

Scott's epic - and it's hard to think of anything this big, this elaborate and, no doubt, this expensive as anything but - is very much an origination story, a prequel, if you will.

Put this title on your Netflix queue in the first place. Just give your own Mr. Right a break and don't waste your date-night dollars on the big screen.

Nothing seems real here, with everything too broadly drawn.

Bigger, louder and dumber than its predecessor, Iron Man 2 is still a lot of fun.

An enjoyable movie, in many ways a beautiful movie to look at. One only wishes he'd been a little more ambitious.

What's breathtaking here is the scope of greed, corruption, arrogance and above all cynicism on display, not just regarding the system of government but the people it ostensibly serves.

Eventually, all of the stories will come together in a somewhat contrived way. The film's parts are greater than the whole. But the parts are worth the effort.

Timothy Hutton is a good actor. So whom to blame for Multiple Sarcasms?

This is a challenging, brilliantly constructed film that, despite its patience and quiet tone, is engrossing from its first moments, especially an opening scene that encapsulates Jandal's poignant contradictions.

The humor here is on the dry side of zany, and it won't tickle every funny bone, any more than Mike Myers does, or - perhaps a more apt comparison - Terry Gilliam's tart filmic fantasies. But no matter what, you have to admit this mix of lowbrow humor and French erudition has a style of its own.

Call it what you want, but the best word to describe it is: unnecessary.

Maybe your kids will insist that you see Furry Vengeance. Then again, wouldn't this be the perfect time to let them test their independence and sit through it alone? Otherwise, good luck. You have my condolences.

Barber uses various stylistic devices - hand-held cameras, cellphone cameras, etc. - that make a somewhat slow story seem to move at a brisker pace.

Please Give is an almost perfectly rendered slice of life, buoyant with wonderful performances.

The Losers does a perfectly serviceable job of achieving its low ambitions.

It's not as if every funny movie has to offer something in the way of social commentary or greater insight. Sometimes funny is just funny. Sometimes, as is too often the case here, it's not.

A documentary so enthusiastic, good-natured and sweet about such an abject disaster that it almost makes "Troll 2" worthwhile. Almost.

It's also perfectly content to be an insanely violent, funny take on an established genre. And in that respect, Kick-Ass lives up to its name.

A sparkling documentary in which we can't trust that anything in it is true. And yet you would never call it a hoax.

His (Borte) film would have been much better had it stuck to its guns as social commentary and not lapsed into a predictable, and predictably lame, love story.

The Secret in Their Eyes never lets you forget that you're watching a movie - and never lets you wish you were doing anything else.

It's an uneven proposition, veering wildly from genuinely funny scenes directly into ridiculousness and back again. But every time Shawn Levy's movie makes that journey, it's harder to get back on solid footing.

Neeson's performance is so eerie, in a buttoned-down sort of way.

It offers Bratt maybe his best role ever as Che, a tough-guy neighborhood personality struggling to come to grips with his son's homosexuality.

A perverse delight, the rare film that makes you feel good about feeling bad (or at least watching others do so).

It seduces us with imagery and metaphor.

Most of all, though, it's a welcome, offbeat look at a couple of originals, something that's in woefully short supply.

Charm, alas, is the one thing lost in all the banging and clanging of the remake.

It is a question that has vexed lovers of fine cinema for years: What if you made a teen sex comedy with grown-ups? And now, thanks to Hot Tub Time Machine, we have our answer: It would be pretty cool.

The story is the problem here, devolving into a ridiculous situation that produces far more groans than chills or thrills.

Baruchel is outstanding, giving Hiccup just the right amount of confidence buried several layers beneath the shame he feels in not continuing the family business. Butler's a head-banger from way back, so he's convincing. And Ferrera gets the grrl-power vibe just right.