Overall Take Me Home Tonight represents a lateral move at best for its 24-hour party people, a step back at worst, and not worth your time either way.

What results, against some odds, is an intriguing entertainment. Adjustment Bureau's central concept is certainly ingenious, but the details are a little wonky and don't stand up to too much scrutiny.

The movie achieves its own nervy sensitivity about youthful urban despair.

The idea of transformation, that people can change and learn from their mistakes, growing to be better, makes Beastly not just sweetly romantic but also quietly hopeful.

Fun for fans and a healthy primer for those previously unaware, the film's overall air of fawning worship makes it feel softer than befits such a gruff, roguish figure.

It all hangs together, more or less, which seems like enough.

An unexpectedly rich exploration of family bonds, blood rituals and the oftentimes zombie-like desire to assume the roles proscribed to each of us, played out with a sharp undertow of political allegory and darkly comic sensibility.

Brotherhood isn't badly acted or without some skillfully tense moments, but it doesn't have much in the way of entertainment value either.

The Grace Card becomes increasingly involving and assured, yet when the inevitable moment of truth arrives for the coming-apart Mac, the film lapses into melodrama, contrivance and improbability.

The clumsily shot and scripted Now & Later is a hollow concoction of sex, politics and endless chatter that's just a few camera angles short of hard-core porn.

Anderson spends most of his energy creating a mood - making "Vanishing" more cerebral than white-knuckle, though a few more shrieks (mine) might have been nice.

A thrilling adventure of the spirit. Austere yet provocative, this is not only a film about faith, it also has faith that the power generated by complex moral decisions can be as unstoppable as any runaway locomotive.

After scoring big in 1998 with "Mary" - the zipper issue, the "hair gel" mix-up, the roving troubadours - their (Farrelly brothers) raw inventive edge has never been quite as sharp. Hall Pass, starring Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis, continues that creative slide into everyday crude.

A film so drained of entertainment or simple humanity it is difficult to relate to as anything other than industrial artifact.

Beyond the love fest of talking heads is a compelling life story that courses through the Depression, World War II and swinging London, all evoked in well-curated archival footage.

Although it contains its moments of doom and gloom about the potential effects of climate change, the excellent documentary Carbon Nation is an inspiring look at the many recent advances in clean energy and green technologies.

Eventually, Immigration Tango throws away what little credibility it has in going for a finish of total improbability and silliness.

Levesque has rough, in-the-moment charm but paltry characterization skills, Corrigan's natural edge feels out of place as a Disney-esque hoodlum and Winter seems hamstrung playing an adolescent only a fraction as compelling as her hilariously bookish daughter on the ABC sitcom "Modern Family."

Mightily impressive to look at. What it's like to listen to is somewhat different.

The appealing new kid-on-the-teen-angst block, reverberates with much of the same dark combustible mix of action and romance that's been fueling the "Twilight" vampire mega-franchise for a while now.

A nifty international thriller of the "what if?" variety.

Having created rich roles for his actors, Basir elicits from them inspired portrayals. Well-crafted in all aspects, Mooz-lum is not only rich in nuance, but also an engrossing entertainment made with skill and passion.

Like an exquisite minimalist painting - its beauty will move you, its simplicity will fool you. For there are layers and complexities to be found in the film, like the many mysteries it slowly exposes.

If that all sounds like a lot of good, clean fun, a word of warning. In what seems to have become the genre's raison d'etre, the dialogue is so blue at times that you'll probably feel the heat of the blushing cheeks on either side of you, especially whenever Reilly's fast-talking savant of smut shows up.

Plays it straight down the middle, neither pushing its contemporary vantage point nor embracing the chance for B-movie glory.

If you're a Sandler film buff, the comedy is classic Sandler and will probably satisfy. Still, the best thing about the movie remains Aniston - she is reason enough to just go with it.

This gently amusing, genuinely sweet animated film makes you smile from start to finish?

Strictly as a piece of filmmaking, Never Say Never is a bit of a mess.

With two gorgeous, compulsively watchable stars doing their best to rise above middling material that often proves more a hindrance than support, Chen has perhaps inadvertently created a faithful Hollywood remake after all.

The Roommate proves that the one thing worse than a crazy, stalker roommate is one that's boring, predictable and no fun.

It's rare to find a movie protagonist who singularly fails on every count to be a compelling, sympathetic or even understandable figure.

aAn ambitious ensemble piece in which every actor is able to shine and every character is a master of the well-turned phrase.

This soapy drama manages to be both half-baked and overcooked.

Araki lets his absurdist imagination run wild, and Kaboom takes the time-honored gambit of gradually revealing that nothing is as it seems to delightfully cockamamie extremes.

The regrettably titled From Prada to Nada has more in common with a slapped-together TV movie than a timeless comedy of manners.

For with songs like "You Can Close Your Eyes," "You've Got a Friend" and numerous others on the soundtrack, this is finally a film hard not to enjoy.

More slick mainland melodrama than rough-and-ready chop-socky picture, Ip Man 2 often finds itself struggling to reconcile those conflicting impulses between drizzly emotional moments and slap-happy frenzy.

Like the Coen brothers at their least convincing, the mix of low-grade depression and amped quirkiness never shakes off the feel of self-conscious posturing.

Sleek, erotic and suspenseful, at least for the first hour, and even with the piece wobbling between dark psychology and campy soap, the cast is compelling as it navigates the uncertainty.

For the most part, this is the kind of immersive fanboy experience that doesn't suffer wandering attention spans.

Gone is the scrappy, brutal wit of the original - nothing more than an unfettered showcase for Jaa's talents - and in its place is more of the overwrought myth making that sunk "Ong Bak 2: The Beginning."

It marks a subtle, assured and altogether distinctive feature debut for writer-director Rao and its radiant leading lady, rock star and stage performer Monica Dogra.

It is a singular performance and a deeply affecting if imperfect film.

Sadly, an obsession with raunchy one-liners trips everything up, turning a clever conceit into something closer to a sleazy, cheesy affair.

My Dog Tulip is as disconcerting and unusual a piece of animation as the 1956 memoir that inspired it, and that is saying a lot.

In its best moments is as big as a movie can be, as big as life itself.

May not be the most tedious superhero movie ever - the competition is admittedly tough - but it is certainly in the running.

Landon's sardonic view of human nature and deft filmmaking skills - plus a raft of sharp portrayals - keep the viewer from pondering the preposterousness of certain situations and instead encourages going along with the fun.

What makes this intriguing, yet woefully uneven film so relatable is that there is nothing about Ned's experience that seems extreme.

Whatever the film's flaws, and like its protagonist, there are times when things get a bit out of control, watching Giamatti use Barney to wrestle with success, failure, friendship, love and increasingly with time is exhilarating.

What The Dilemma ultimately does best is create a platform for Vaughn to drag that iconic character of his into full-blown adulthood.

Season of the Witch is at its worst when it tries to be a straight-ahead action-adventure film. The early sequence set against the epic battles of the Crusades is almost brazenly bad with its unconvincing "300"-style special effects.

Hosoda, who directed the cult film "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," has made a sophisticated yet poignant family entertainment with an appeal beyond Japanese animation buffs.

Though its elusive character is undoubtedly part of its strength, Dogtooth ends up feeling somehow like a dodge and a sidestep. As a film, it's pure and singular, but it's not quite fully formed enough to be what one could call truly visionary.

Sometimes it seems as if Iñárritu is literally carving out his actor's heart, so tangible does Bardem make Uxbal's fears. Iñárritu has so much that he wants to say - too much, in fact, and the film's central weakness - that he has created an emotional tsunami for both the actors and the audience.

That meandering dialogue can be difficult to control, and at times the film feels as if the director has stepped away from the vehicle, leaving it to veer off the path. Still, it's an experiment that works more than it fails by giving Gosling and Williams both the motive and the means to create something extraordinary, a valentine that actually says something true about being in love.

It may sound commonplace, but in the hands of master filmmaker Mike Leigh, the everyday becomes extraordinary.

There is something magical about The Illusionist's world, and that's as it should be.

Oone of those movies that falls between complete disaster and loads of fun. Mild amusement is probably about right.

Country Strong is Feste's second film, and she infuses it with an earnestness that swings between too too much and appealing, the same earnestness that swamped her filmmaker debut last year with "The Greatest."

Slight but often seductive and so deliberately not in a hurry it periodically threatens to dissolve right in front of our eyes, Somewhere is more successful in creating ambience and visual imagery than it is in telling its story of a movie star bonding with his 11-year-old daughter.

It is incredibly tempting to resort to the implied off-color word play made possible by the Focker name and suggest that this third edition is totally - but I won't.

When Iris DeMent's impeccable version of the hymn is heard on the soundtrack as the final credits roll, it's the perfect touch to end a film whose aim is always true.

From its title, Alien Girl seems to promise some kind of playful intergalactic adventure. That, it is not. Rather the film is a grim, artless Russian-made gangster picture that is neither stylish nor fun.

Though the film is peppered with one-liners tailor-made for Spacey to sling with stinging effect, it doesn't so much leave you laughing as just weary, and wishing this weren't a true story at all.

If, as someone says in one of Brooks' trademark excellent lines, we all feel we're "one small adjustment away from making our lives work," this film is one small adjustment away as well.

A tragedy devastating to experience can feel generic when transferred to the screen, and that, despite everyone's best intentions and an outstanding performance by Nicole Kidman, is what happens with Rabbit Hole.

New players, a new story line, a new director and nearly three decades of improved technology including all the whiz-bang-wow the latest 3-D has to offer. Unfortunately, there's not nearly enough new life.

More impressive than the multi-dimensions is Megamind's minimalist, modernist look. It creates a crispness that feels more contemporary than retro, which not only is very aesthetically pleasing but makes it easier to savor the film's many sight gags.

This is a disappointing turn coming from Phillips, particularly since "The Hangover" was such a fresh, bracing brew of black comic fun.

By bringing in a diverse group of big thinkers to take part in a very animated, sometimes agitated, discussion, the filmmaker has succeeded in bringing what could have been a very dry mountain of data, theories and experimental research to vibrant life.

A runaway train drama that never slows down, it fashions familiarity into a virtue and shows why old-school professionalism never goes out of style.

There's also no point in paying the 3-D ticket price for occasional bits of gristle flying your way, or blurry action shots. Whereas the first "Saw" got marks for originality, the filmmakers have so lost their fastballs that this one's extreme gore provokes either laughter or sleep.

Simultaneously poetic, dramatic and realistic, White Material is an altogether stunning work.

A love story that is actually worth falling for, with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal excellent at steaming up the screen in Love & Other Drugs.

Clearly, the directors have to be Merritt advocates to hang in there that long, but the film that resulted has elements that keep it from being simply a fan's notes.

This compelling psychological horror-thriller contains a tremendous amount of heart. That would be largely thanks to a moving and deeply sensitive lead performance by Jim Sturgess

In the face of The Tempest, the stormy tragicomedy of rage, romance and redemption that is among Shakespeare's last and greatest works, Julie Taymor, a filmmaking savant of extraordinary vision and voice, suddenly and surprisingly folds.

The gift of The King's Speech is that it allows us to look on as a pair of masterful actors re-create a monumental test of wills.

It takes a bit of doing, but when Tangled's core sweetness asserts itself and the film dares to wear its heart on its sleeve in a climactic scene featuring 46,000 paper lanterns, it's been worth the wait.

Should you find yourself in the mood for Big Musical Numbers by the score rather than a film, there's a lot to like about Burlesque.

What unfolds is a dark comic thriller and action-hero send-up, a strange alloy of daredevil helicopter maneuvers and night of the living elves. Captured in atmospheric widescreen camerawork, the end-of-the-world frozen landscape (actually Norway) is spectacular and spooky.

Recently deceased master filmmaker Claude Chabrol's 50th and final feature, Inspector Bellamy, proves a sadly bland footnote to an illustrious and influential career.

Handsomely presented, with locations in Spain and Africa, the film at moments accomplishes its ambitions of being a tart piece of steamed-up Jazz Age storytelling.

You might want to tuck Damien Chazelle's name into your memory bank if his filmmaking debut, the terrific jazz improvisation that is Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, is any indication of what his future might hold.

Manages to be both pertinent and dramatically persuasive. Made like it means something (and it does) by first-time writer-director Tanya Hamilton, it demonstrates that social relevance and emotional connection can be compelling fellow travelers.

I'd like to think the earnest sentiments and machine-tooled dramatic complications of Wells' script could find a receptive audience in late 2010. I'd like to think, too, that the mess we're in demands a gutsier script. Good cast, though.

The rousing The Fighter tries a number of risky maneuvers and manages to make them pay off in the end. The movie initially feels like more of a near thing than the filmmakers anticipated, but as in boxing it's only the final decision that counts.

There is a moment in The Tourist when Johnny Depp turns to Angelina Jolie and asks "Why is all this happening?" It's a question moviegoers will be asking themselves as well.

A poorly structured and even more poorly shot mixture of a gothic suspense thriller with a vanilla romance filmed in Des Moines, Dead Awake never comes close to springing to life.

Oh, there are sword fights aplenty (as bloodless as ever), but instead of a real story, we are left clinging to individual moments.

The good thing about All Good Things - that would be Kirsten Dunst, for if there is one thing this strange and creepy film does well it is remind us of just what a talented actress she is.

To be fair to Deathly Hallows, the filmmakers have tried hard to fill the proceedings with battles and chases and debilitating curses. Genuine filmmaking excitement, however, is harder to provide.

What the film does well is capture the confusion of the identity abyss of twentysomethings of a certain social class.

As for the many loose ends the director leaves, you can either tie them or leave them loose, either way is fine since the experience as much as anything is what Antoniak was after.

A piece filled with well-drawn characters and steadily building tensions, a story told in an economical, unshowy way, but as a whole, the movie never quite builds a solid momentum or finds a true sense of purpose.

South Korean filmmaker Sngmoo Lee's debut feature is less a genre-spanning romp than a tiresome lab experiment in computer-generated tropes and green-screen oppressiveness.

As Bhutto, the thorough and involving documentary on her life conveys, Benazir was a formidable personality all by herself.