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.

As formula films go, The Bounty Hunter is more enjoyable than most, even if it packs in as many cliches as any.

There's not a lot of humor here, just violence and more violence. The acting is fine enough - Whitaker, of the talented bunch, seems to be having the best time - but the slicing and dicing overpowers the cast, the story and everything else.

A funny, heartfelt look at families, relationships and the lies that prop them up as much as tear them down.

A mean-spirited little movie, investing its limited charms in all the wrong characters.

The feminist subtext should come as no surprise given Larsson's lifelong advocacy on social-justice issues, but it also is a refreshing slant on the familiar character dynamics of crime fiction.

There's no hard-and-fast rule that says you have to like the main character in a movie. It's more a custom, really - a custom that Ben Stiller stretches nearly to the breaking point in Greenberg.

The Runaways broke new ground. And if "The Runaways" doesn't, it's still a movie worth watching - and listening to.

The film is a slice of life, and although nothing earthshaking happens, at only 75 minutes long, it never quite tries your patience either.

It may be slow by Hollywood standards, but it's accessible at every moment, and we come away feeling that human character is more complex, and perhaps darker, than any studio is willing to test an audience with.

To pretend that the film doesn't make a political statement is silly. Of course it does. It wouldn't be effective at all if it didn't.