All told, though, Thor suffers from "Iron Man 2" syndrome: too much backstory, too many subplots and character introductions, and not nearly enough full-frontal nudity from Natalie Portman, who frankly is given very little to work with here.

There's an interesting story here, but Joffe never firmly wraps his arms around it.

Fairly uninspiring, but it still manages to ingratiate itself, largely through the efforts of Krasinski in a secondary part.

The actors, particularly the icy Bassett and the fiery Devine, excel in their roles and drive home the film's multifaceted messages.

It's an ode, of sorts, to Seventies grindhouse cinema, curdled and gooey and tailor-made for midnight showings (preferably with a crowd, preferably intoxicated).

Foster commendably stretches beyond her comfort zone with The Beaver, but in the end the film's high-concept premise is at war with its conventional direction.

This revisionist Western – intellectually, aesthetically, and narratively absorbing – rattles to the bone, but never quite rends the heart.

Rumley has assembled a fine cast; there's not a false step in the film, and while obviously this isn't a film for everyone, these are characters that we come to know, respect, and fall hard for, doomed or not.

It's also a deeply moral antiwar film, if one chooses to view it that way.

There are kernels here of a thoughtful and provocative picture, but they never pop – or POP!, for that matter.

These are boys and girls on their very best behavior, which doesn't sound like any prom you or I remember.

Comes close to overdosing on bone-pulverizing kickassery at the expense of a plot that ricochets from the nationalistically fatuous to the lovestruck, farcical before shutting down completely in favor of punch-drunk loveliness.

Enhanced by stunning cinematography by the film's director Aaron Schock and a soundtrack by indie rockers Calexico, Circo does more than provide an exotic peek at a vanishing way of life.

The languages spoken throughout Certified Copy slide easily amongst Italian, French, and English, further creating the sense of none of them being authentic.

There are no answers in her film, no intractable rights and wrongs. No characters are indicted for their mistakes or misjudgments, yet no one gets off scot-free either.

Worth imbibing, if for no reason other than the bellyache it generates.

No one would mistake the Benzini Bros. Circus for the greatest show on earth – the Depression-era traveling troupe is a junker compared to the gold-standard Ringling Bros. – but still, a film has to try pretty hard to render lions and tigers and trapeze artists so uniformly underwhelming.

Deathbed scenes and colonoscopy humor, Bible quotations and Maury Povich "Who Is the Real Baby Daddy" episodes: All cohabit with equal relevance in the world of Tyler Perry.

This Earth Day release has honorable intentions, but it imbues the animals with human emotions and motives, which only muddies our understanding of these ferocious feline species.

So does Rio measure up to the insanely great standard set by Pixar? Visually, yes.

Too self-referential for its own good by half.

A lightweight confection, this French import slides down easily even though it never truly satisfies.

It's hard to decide what rankles most: what an astonishing monument to Shadyac's self-absorption I Am is, or how flat-out bad – incompetent, even – the filmmaking is.

Talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.

The film has little flash of life and energy.

So potent it nearly succeeds even as a vacuum sits squarely at its center.

Your Highness is awfully vulgar fun when it works, which is much of the time (although it could've benefited from a few judicious cuts here and there).

In his short career (The Station Agent, The Visitor), McCarthy has established himself as a craftsman of conventionally quirky pictures that are ENTIRELY about ingratiating themselves with the audience.