It neither embarrasses the original, nor is superior to it in any way.

Though remaining sweet and tasty, Efron, in his first non-singing and dancing feature film proves he has an agreeable and kinetic screen presence, although his ability to convince us he's truly a 37-year-old encased in a 17-year-old's body is dramatically dubious.

Worth a look.

Laughably and knowingly preposterous, cheerfully un-PC, and violent in a way that makes the myriad slaphappy deaths of Wile E. Coyote seem downright dull in comparison.

Filmmakers nicely mix the historical and the tributary, honoring both Bennett's cultural landmark and the dancers who dream of joining its ranks.

On the whole, there are precious few life lessons in Is Anybody There? that haven't been noted before.

The most remarkable aspect of Lemon Tree, however, and the one that's most likely to land this film on many year-end Best Foreign Film lists, is Abbass' devastating and marvelously restrained performance.

Bottom line: costumed Goku and Chi Chi cosplayers may argue the finer points of this adaptation, but it is fairly dazzling it its own overextended, futurist-teenpulp fashion, and Chow makes a vastly more entertaining Roshi than he did a King.

Cornpone caricatures abound (witness "Hoedown Throwdown," in which Miley sunnily urges us to "pop it, lock it, polka dot it"), but so do worthy messages about responsibility – to family, community, even Mother Earth.

Midway through, a character remarks as he leaves the scene of a takedown of Ronnie, "I thought this was going to be funny, but it's just kind of sad." The same thing is true about the movie as a whole.

Lymelife arrives with an impressive pedigree but, unfortunately, little originality.

A confident return to the kind of teen comedy that's funny without being raunchy, youthful without being juvenile, and reflective without hitting you over the head.

Sugar is a curiosity – too somber for a picaresque, too arm's-length for much emotional effect – and while it's interesting, it's never truly absorbing.

This is an impressively realized (and, yes, occasionally, unavoidably humorous) valentine to Hollywood's sci-fi glory days – all heart, no snark, and one big eye.

The stripped-down title gets at what we're really here for: the cars. Are they fast? Check. Are they furious? Yep.

It's just not all that interesting to watch two pretty young things go through the muddled rituals of the pas de duh when I can, you know, do it just as poorly myself.

In the end, it's much ado about nothing. Oh, the ennui, the ennui.

Bahrani's small marvel of a film.

The misfits, as ever, must take a back seat to the morality, and the result – while in no way migraine-inducing – traffics in rote truisms.

I defy you to hate John Cena. Really. You can try all you want, but I don't think you'll make it.

Koteas' overearnest performance almost makes The Haunting in Connecticut worth a look, but ultimately even the star of Cronenberg's "Crash" can't salvage what is essentially a substandard rip-off of "The Amityville Horror."

Painfully dunderheaded about the proclivities of the human heart.

It's just engaging enough to make you accept the possibility that two kids from the Boston suburbs may just be mankind’s only hope for the future, and just exciting enough to make you forget that you're watching a Nicolas Cage movie.

Fukunaga's images are striking, and his storytelling abilities are strong, but his screenwriting skills rely heavily on sappy formulas that add nothing to our understanding of the border-crossing experience.

And like most women in bromance comedies, Jones does exactly what she's supposed to do by doing almost nothing.

Gilroy zings the film with tantalizing bits of absurdity (one wonders, wistfully, what the Coen brothers would have done with this material), but too often he returns to his darker, more ponderous instincts.

The greatest problem with The Great Buck Howard is that writer/director McGinly shapes the story with young Troy as the protagonist, when the really interesting character is the one for whom the movie is named.

Still, every generation deserves its own coming-of-age cinematic snapshot; if this is that, though, things are tougher than I thought.

Ultimately, the film feels as glitzy and superficial as the fashion industry itself, a bauble in full regalia, and it’s likely your interest in the documentary will depend largely on your prior interest in the subject matter.

Sunshine Cleaning doesn't exist in relation to the outside world but only to other movies. Its characters aren't human beings but cultural signifiers and indie-movie stereotypes created to survive in the laboratory safety of the festival circuit but never meant to actually walk the streets or talk to strangers.

As the straight-man virgin, Cregger is almost entirely devoid of personality; as his hyperkinetic sidekick, Moore may have the most unlikable personality in movie history.

Why remake Craven's original at all? Oh, yeah, I forgot: Reheated depravity sells. To avoid existential despair, keep repeating: It's only a remake; it's only a remake; it's only a remake.

Fans of the original films will dig Richards and Eisenmann's cameo appearances.

Watchmen is worth seeing, fan or no, for Haley's squirmy presence alone, and all the other characters are also well-served.

Leisurely unfolding, much like a fat novel, this turn-of-the-century Swedish drama has a warm, enveloping feel. It's flawlessly steeped in early 20th century atmosphere, costumes, and culture, but a gripping page-turner this family saga is not.

Falling somewhere between the horrors of Three … Extremes and the beauties of Eros, this triptych of short films set in and underscored by the titular megalopolis is a gorgeous, sprawling mess.

12 is every bit as much of a moral powerhouse as its predecessors but with the added bonus of being simultaneously intellectually riveting and, at times, almost indescribably poetic.

The latticework of social meaning that makes up Crossing Over is ultimately a flimsy structure that pays lip service to liberal values while only occasionally inventing anything of dramatic significance.

They are all part of a great American tradition. Hate them if you want to, but you might as well hate gated communities, "The Real World," and the war on terror while you're at it.

It boggles the mind that The Legend of Chun-Li is as vapid and dull as it is.

I've been watching movies my entire life, and I can honestly say I've never been more confused in a theatre than I was while watching Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail.

If you loved "Wedding Crashers," then, for all intents and purposes, you've already seen Fired Up – because this new movie borrows from the 2005 Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson hit with such utter shamelessness, you have to wonder if royalty checks are already in the mail.

This isn't some pomo arthouse picture looking to score points by subverting the gangster paradigm; it's a killer film about killers who idolize film but are unable or unwilling to parse the doom that always crops up come Act III.

Two Lovers is an intensely felt, character-driven film, and there's no stronger character onscreen – not even Leonard – than Leonard's wise, Jewish mother, Ruth, played with effortless, pure perfection by Rossellini.

But bad, this film's so bad! To flub the fans' most beloved butcher boy.

Stays remarkably true to a kid's-eye perspective and dormant fears.

There's some funny stuff here that doesn't involve degrading its female protagonists, and the cast, by and large, is appealing.

What I can't accept, however, is talents such as Reno, Garcia, Tomlin, and Molina wasting away in a movie like this. As punishment for their complete lack of artistic integrity, all four of them should be forced to sit in a room for all eternity watching The Pink Panther 2 over and over.

I saw the original version of this same story 28 years ago. It was called "Scanners" and it blew my mind for real. Push just blows.

The problem nipping at the designer heels of Confessions is not the state of the economy but, rather, the film's predictability.

I couldn't help feeling that The International was stuck in second gear, like it couldn't decide whether to be fun or meaningful and so settled for being neither.

It comes as no surprise that the film is less about fandom as it is about the community fans create with one another – who else to turn to when the object of your affection, your enduring obsession, blows big chunks? – and Fanboys, a likable, shaggy picture, pays nice tribute to that community.

Taken moves so fast and with such single-minded, vindictive energy, there's no time for moral ambivalence.

Once spoiled by the gossamer disquietude of Kim Jee-woon's original Tale, it's difficult to view this Americanized version in anything but the blandest light.

New in Town might have better played on the less demanding stage of, say, a Lifetime made-for-TV movie.

It's a testament to Bill Nighy's cadaverous panache that this third entry in the ongoing exsanguinators vs. lycanthropes franchise (that's vampires and werewolves to anyone not weaned on Famous Monsters) is as tolerable as it is.

Inkheart was shot in and around Liguria on the Italian Riviera, and it looks absolutely ravishing.

It's chop-socky vindaloo, pleasing on a platter but awfully difficult to swallow whole.

Hotel for Dogs is a decent family film, sure to please animal-loving kids and their parents alike. Well-acted, the movie also looks good and is stocked with lots of goofy gadgetry.

MBV 3D is full-on, old-school, Fangoria-approved, gorehound heaven – a supersaturated arterial goregasm with zero socially redeeming values for anyone other than first-year med students.

Bassett as Voletta is her usual captivating self.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop deserves to be cited for loitering.

I'd be hard-pressed to name another recent film so deeply noxious, soul-sick, and unfunny.

It's fascinating how an innocuous film can suddenly flare up into offensive claptrap.

Calling The Unborn a dull, plodding, exposition-crammed slog through a twilight of barely maintained tedium is like calling "Valkyrie" a yawn. It's too easy.

Zwick may be the definition of a modern blockbuster filmmaker, but he's also spent his entire career struggling to find the balance between opposing impulses – the sentimentalist's desire for emotional-historical heft and the artist's fascination with conflicted humanity – a struggle that's all over Defiance.

Shannon is monstrously good – unpredictable where the other actors are clipped and careful – and he steals the whole picture in two short, shattering scenes. When Shannon exits the film, the air gets sucked out again, and you realize the pretty artifice extends to more than just the Wheelers.

Be forewarned: Folman closes his film with a grisly, real-death denouement that may give you some nightmares of your own. As well it should.

Everything that was sharp in the original text has been rounded and buffed.

Ultimately, it's a long, incoherent mess of a film, enlivened only by the sure knowledge that the great Will Eisner's original is available to one and all at your nearest comic-book shop.

After years of wandering in the wilderness of artistic obscurity – like Vincent van Gogh – misunderstood comic genius Adam Sandler has finally found his audience: 3-year-olds. It makes perfect sense, really.

Last Chance Harvey is so much an "actors' film" that the hand of the director seems hidden until it bursts into view with something clunky.

Sweet and wise and often laugh-out-loud funny (just like Grogan's book), Marley & Me isn't just for dog people; it's just not for Cruella De Vil.

We all know how it ends, and that foreknowledge dooms Singer's hotly anticipated and much troubled account of the attempt on Adolf Hitler's life.

The lesson learned from The Tale of Despereaux is that an overabundance of vocal talent does not a good cartoon make.

The keen observations of The Class ultimately become a remedial education in themselves.

Feels not only like a movie from another culture but from another world.

Now, with Seven Pounds, the transformation of Will Smith is complete: Gone is any trace of love-me impishness, replaced by one of the sourest pusses Hollywood has seen since Joaquin Phoenix got his Screen Actors Guild card.

Yes Man proves utterly formulaic.

As far as I'm concerned, you can keep your Sean Penns and your Brad Pitts and your Frank Langellas; if there's any justice in the world, this year's best actor Academy Award will be going home with Rourke.

The elusive musician is in the spotlight, even if he's not that fond of it, and Kijak manages to keep him at a reverent distance, the film padded with gushing interviews from musician fans.

Eastwood finds the humorous aspects of the character as well, no more so than when the appetite of the widower who lives on beef jerky and Pabst Blue Ribbon becomes the center of attention among the Hmong women cooks.

Timecrimes is a tremendously entertaining bit of Kafka that whirlpools down into "The Twilight Zone."

Dull, unnecessary film.

Unfortunately, the actors don't all behave as though they're performing in the same movie.

This overly sentimental family Christmas drama, featuring a veritable checklist of prominent Hispanic actors, falls victim to the shortcoming so prevalent in similarly ethnic-themed movies with similar casts – everything and everyone is so damn serious.

Let no one ever say that Dark Streets doesn't have the perfect title. It may not be much more than a stylized regurgitation of creaky film-noir clichés and crime-fiction conventions … but its streets are undeniably dark.

Delgo is a dud.

There is a sense of ambiguity at the core of The Reader that makes it all the more brutal, all the more honest in its deflowering of love and what one imagines love ought to be instead of what it too often is.

Because Wendy and Lucy is so lean on plot and dialogue, there are long spaces to contemplate Wendy and her situation, and the logistics are mind-boggling.

Cadillac Records bobs and weaves, strides and duckwalks, samples and smiles on the sounds that made urban Chicago such a blues melting pot.

Even the dependable Rickman can't find his footing here. As he lamely hams it up, you can see him trying to rally himself and then deciding it's not worth the effort.

The blood and gore quotients of Punisher: War Zone are extremely high and are sure to sop the appetites of the series' fans and virtual bloodlusters.

Ultimately, Frost/Nixon may be stuck in time – but, oh, what a time it was.

Funny and fierce and deeply moving.

This year's entry in this lowly subgenre is Four Christmases, a D-list comedy with A-list actors.

The deeply heartfelt Milk is more of a surface skim: a fairly standard biopic – if a very fine one, indeed – but never the transcendent work one would have hoped from the filmmaker or his subject.

Transporter 3 is so far over the top that it more than once spills into outright cartoonishness.