It’s impossible to know how much of Tonto’s story is tall tale or historical fact. The tactic undercuts the film’s attempt at revisionism or at best equalizes men of all races as untrustworthy tellers of of their own history. The Lone Ranger stokes the legend but its smoke signals only add to the haze.

Given the outlandish premise, you'll wish the film twinkled with a more savvy sense of humor and adventure, like the chapters of the "Toy Story" series, for example.

When the gut-wrenching conclusion of A Hijacking comes in the form of a single, random act, it’s only then you realize how far you’ve been pulled into its emotional core. It’s a staggering moment, one for which you may not be fully prepared. It’s a moment that differentiates the merely good from the very good.

Although the film is never fully convincing about this rock band’s overlooked potential – despite testimonials from the likes of Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra, and Elijah Wood – the story of Death sure adds an interesting and virtually unknown footnote to the annals of punk rock.

This is a film you skip seeing at your own risk.

Somm doesn’t try to write the book on wine connoisseurship, but it does give good CliffsNotes.

White House Down is amply endowed with enough tension, humor, and calamitous action to ensure it a solid berth in the summer box-office sweepstakes. Channing Tatum comes into his own as a leading man in this picture, proving himself as a beefy yet agile action star and not just the pure beefcake of "Magic Mike."

More often than not The Heat is just stupid-funny, which circles us back to McCarthy, motor-mouthing four-letter fury like an operatic aria. She sells Mullins as delightfully unhinged and fairly radiating with rage, and it’s irresistible.

Fillion’s performance as the constable Dogberry in this section is the film’s comic highlight. Wounded by an insult, his ass-backward indignation achieves a droll momentum that will have you chuckling. All’s well that ends well, indeed.

The problem with The Bling Ring is that it feels as soulless as its young protagonists, and of course there’s little sympathy to be found either for the story’s über-rich victims like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

An amazing argument no matter which side of the debate you favor, Stone’s film manages to restock and bring a fresh voice to an old controversy. The documentary is well-made and articulately argued, although that doesn't mean it isn't going to have as many adversaries as champions.

It’s not like Monsters University is a bad movie. It’s just not a terribly interesting one.

World War Z comes across as a smart and ambitious horror movie, a bio-disaster film along the lines of "Contagion" or "28 Days Later." It’s nail-bitingly tense at times, although these well-executed moments mix with others that are too much of a murky jumble to follow with any precision.

The film looks good (nod to cinematographer Roman Vasyanov). The images are sharp even when the film’s ideas are not.

Maybe it has something to do with Jewish writers riffing on the apocalypse, but This Is the End doesn’t really know how to end.

Snyder has cast Man of Steel with dramatic actors, not action stars, and it pays off.

After establishing this interesting premise, writer/director James DeMonaco only scratches the surface of its implications before devolving into a creepy roundelay of murders and deaths averted.

It’s Robinson’s tender portrayal of Joe that sticks in your mind. He and Tye Sheridan from "Mud" are the summer’s real finds: young actors with promising futures.

Product placement aside, there’s an admirable, even sweet, message about fellowship and misfit pride shot through the whole script, and Vaughn is rather touching as a kind of cuddly uncle figure to his fellow interns.

As with her other films, when Sarah Polley takes it upon herself to tell us a story, you can bet it’s a tale well-told and one that you’ll want to hear.

Funny and touching, Frances Ha may very well be the most eloquent take yet on a generation in flux – a cinematic talk-back to so many Atlantic articles, minus the scolding and the statistics, and uncharacteristically (for Baumbach) uncynical.

Director Leterrier keeps the camera moving and swooping throughout the film as if the Steadicam were another device in the magicians’ tool belt. A clear sense of space and sleight-of-hand is rarely achieved.

As romantic comedies go, Danish helmer Susanne Bier’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning "In a Better World," percolates more than it froths – but that’s a good thing.

Although a Norwegian production, the film has a muted Hollywood sensibility that keeps things real. It’s an absorbing and often lyrical piece of storytelling that doesn’t overembellish the facts or rely on a pumped-up score or whiplash editing to heighten the dramatic action.

Given its many failings, nothing short of an extreme makeover could save American Mary. Scalpel, please.

The film is repetitive and not as suspenseful at it tries to be. Often gorgeous, sometimes fascinating, it is ultimately unwieldy and unsurprising. It fails as a Smith-family project. Jaden Smith, who was fine in "The Karate Kid," is flat here.

Everybody’s tantalized by the store’s exclusivity because next to nobody makes the cut. Thus the title’s morbid connotation rears its ugly head: Having somebody sprinkle your mortal remains on the marble floor is the only way you’d ever fit in.

This is in fact the end – it is what is. We’ve had some good laughs. Let’s part amicably.