It's pithy and funny in that continuous smile kind of way that you don't notice until you're half way through it.

With bubbles of nascent arousal frothing at the film's feminine surface, Moth Diaries' commercial potential is likely to hinge on whether or not audiences can stand to be confronted with the confusion they felt as adolescents.

Director Douglas McGrath's empathy rescues it from the brink of disaster porn - it's so good-hearted and optimistic that a swath of stressed out moms will feel the flick speaks directly to them, which it does.

Shadyac spins cooperation in a different direction. I Am takes the sharing instinct as proof that all living beings are interconnected.

The Words is a movie for people who buy their novels at Starbucks, made by people who write their novels at Starbucks.

Too introverted and gimmicky for its own good.

It's never boring but the relentless twists do get a bit tedious.

Jovovich is on cruise control here and she fails to bring any kind of new life to a character that has been very good to her.

This ho-hum offshoot of Megan McDonald's book series earns negative "thrill points" as it chronicles the mirthless backyard shenanigans of a suburban Pippi Longstocking.

A throwback to classic movies like Charade and North by Northwest where beautiful, sophisticated people answer life-threatening danger with bon mots and ingenuity.

There's nothing more irritating than a piece that strains to be kooky and eccentric, yet one reason The Living Wake ultimately gets to you is that O'Connell is not trying too hard.

Wrath of the Titans delivers blockbuster bluster with single-minded blandness.

A squishy Hallmark Channel-level melodrama that rarely bothers to mask its propagandistic intentions.

The surprises really do surprise but often because they're remarkably stupid and poorly explained.

Far more charming, quick-witted and high spirited than anyone could have expected...for a film that didn't screen for press. It's gimmicky up the wazoo (not just 3D, but scratch-and-sniff "Aroma-Scope" cards handed out at screenings) and it's all the better for it.

It becomes a parade of interpersonal conflict and miserable circumstances that adds up to nothing less than angst-porn.

Fun Size isn't good enough to ascend to those John Hughesian ranks, and its small holiday window means it won't scarf much box office. But at least first time feature director Josh Schwartz can expect a minor slumber party hit on DVD.

Love Ranch proves to be a provocative, highly entertaining and surprisingly touching peek into a unique world movies don't often explore.

The movie's true horror isn't the murderous extraterrestrials, but the lame script.

Too silly to be confusing and too flaccid to reach potboiler status, the convoluted spy-thriller The Double is a tossed-off theatrical release that lands with a resounding thud.

The result is an odd, very personal film that the pop star-turned-director has made with tender loving care, but the results of the final final film are mixed.

Neeson’s austere, meticulous turn is the best reason to see After.Life. He’s cinema’s most soft-spoken, high-toned boogeyman since Anthony Hopkins opened his first can of fava beans.

Strictly for 6 year olds, this uninspired, one-joke comedy is full of too many misfired gags and weak comic setups to cross over to anyone whose head reaches above the seat back.

This Arthur feels flat and lifeless, especially when compared to its highly successful predecessor.

A formula picture made by someone who doesn't even believe in the formula - he knows it all has to work out, we know it all has to work out, and he can't even muster an ironic wink for our trouble.

Gone starts off as a character study about a woman struggling to regain control of her world in the wake of a horribly intrusive event, but that sort of thing doesn't make for a fun night at the movies, so it quickly concedes to a Hitchcockian "wrong woman" riff, in which sexually motivated abduction serves as the worst MacGuffin in movie history.

The bigger problem is that the action literally bleeds together and there's no sense of pacing.

As broad as a barn yet as thin as paper, The Watch is a summertime action-comedy that works almost in spite of its overcrowded cast and loose, pulpy spitball of a plot.