A sweet, good-looking film about nice people in a beautiful place, and young John Bell is an appealing performer in the tradition of the Culkins. Quinn and Nielsen are pros who take their roles seriously, and Vic Sarin's direction gets the job done.

Some movies are no better than second-rate sitcoms. Other movies are no better than third-rate sitcoms. The Back-up Plan doesn't deserve comparison with sitcoms. It plays like an unendurable TV commercial about beautiful people with great lifestyles and not a thought in their empty little heads.

This is a documentary about what happens to you when you appear in "Troll 2."

You hear some nostalgia, but with most of them you don't get the idea that if they had the chance they'd do it all again.

Will I seem hopelessly square if I find Kick-Ass morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point? Let’s say you’re a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the move does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in.

I laughed all the way through, in fact. This is the best comedy since "The Hangover," and although it's almost a scene-by-scene remake of a 2007 British movie with the same title, it's funnier than the original.

The widespread speculation that Exit Through the Gift Shop is a hoax only adds to its fascination.

Either this is a tragic family or a satirical one, and the film seems uncertain which way to jump.

It’s not a game anymore. In 1957, these kids were playing. And it was a perfect game.

Juan Jose Campanella is the writer-director, and here is a man who creates a complete, engrossing, lovingly crafted film. He is filled with his stories. The Secret in Their Eyes is a rebuke to formula screenplays. We grow to know the characters, and the story pays due respect to their complexities and needs.

All the time Phil and Claire seem like the kind of people who don't belong in a screwball comedy. That's why it's funny. They're bewildered.

We can enjoy the suspense of the opening scenes, and some of the drama. The performances are in keeping with the material. But toward the end, when we realize that the entire reality of the film is problematical, there is a certain impatience. It's as if our chain is being yanked.

It lovingly, almost sadistically, lays out the situation and deliberately demonstrates all the things that can go wrong. And I mean all the things.

I think more edge is needed, more reality about the racial situation at the time, more insight into how and why R&B and rock ’n’ roll actually did forever transform societies in America and the world.

Here their hearts are in the right place, but the film tries to say too many things for its running time.

So the screenplay is a soap operatic mess, involving distractions, loose ends, and sheer carelessness.

Some kind of sweet, wacky masterpiece.

For its intended audience, I suspect this will play as a great entertainment. I enjoyed myself, particularly after they released the Kraken.

I like Miley Cyrus. I like her in spite of the fact that she's been packaged within an inch of her life. I look forward to the day when she squirms loose from her handlers and records an album of classic songs, performed with the same sincerity as her godmother, Dolly Parton. I think it'll be a long, long time until she plays a movie character like the free-standing, engaging heroines of Ashley Judd, but I can wait.

Succeeds beyond any expectations suggested by the title and extends John Cusack's remarkable run: Since 1983, in 55 films, he's never made a bad one.

It's not the kind of movie that depends on the certainty of an ending. It's more about how things continue.

The Eclipse is needlessly confusing. Is it a ghost story or not? Perhaps this is my problem.

Some movies seem born to inspire video games. All they lack is controllers and a scoring system. How to Train Your Dragon plays more like a game born to inspire a movie.

The most fascinating scenes in Waking Sleeping Beauty involve the infamous Disney work ethic. Friends of mine at the studio said the unofficial motto was, "If you didn't come in on Saturday, don't even bother to come in on Sunday."

Why, oh, why, was this movie necessary?

Repo Men makes sci-fi's strongest possible case for universal health care.

But don't get the idea City Island is a laff riot. For this story about these people, it finds about the right tone. They're silly and foolish, as are we all, but deserve what happiness they can negotiate.

It's nimble, bright and funny. It doesn't dumb down. It doesn't patronize. It knows something about human nature.