For its first hour or so, Oblivion is a visually mesmerizing, intriguing picture that doesn’t feel like the same-old: It engages your eyes and piques your curiosity. Then, gradually, the novelty wears off, the clichés start to pile up and we’re back to Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia 101.

Blancanieves is funny, inventive and daring enough to change the story’s ending, going out on a note of bittersweet, unexpected melancholy.

While the scope of the movie is bigger, its impact is smaller. "Blue Valentine" was a precise, heartrending portrait of a marriage coming apart at the seams. The theme of his new movie is a lot harder to discern.

Ascher treats all these insane theories seriously, but that doesn’t mean you have to.

And still 42 persists in entertaining you, even when you’re cringing, because the real story is so compelling.

This mostly upbeat crowd-pleaser soothes the audience with glistening harmonies and familiar songs and doesn’t always handle the ugly past simmering just below its surface gracefully.

Evil Dead is just a well-made gross-out, and it's kind of a bummer.

An invasion of the body snatchers is preferable to realizing that the true horror perpetrated here is not on the characters but on the audience.

No is an exploration of the power of the media to manipulate hearts and minds. The moral of the story: Always go positive.

Stoker is the sort of stylish, cerebral movie that engages your brain instead of your emotions, and yet you’re never less than intrigued by the breathtaking visual artistry of this slow-burn thriller.

The movie is wild, but not in the ways that you expect, and it’s also surprisingly chaste — you think you see a lot more than you actually do.

Despite its astronomical body count, John Dies at the End never takes itself seriously, and neither should you.

Oz the Great and Powerful is an oppressive, bloated bore.

A competent but utterly unnecessary retelling of the story.

The movie leaves you feeling angry and frustrated anyway. And justice for all? Hardly.

The film isn’t overlong. But it tries to fit so many themes into its brief running time — that it merely touches on most conflicts instead of exploring them in depth or with any delicacy.

There’s potential here, a decent story and a cast well-stocked with grownup cinematic luminaries. But this supernatural Gothic romance is a prisoner of its own demons, which include sketchy Southern accents, tacky and tired stereotypes and faux homespun dialogue in the wrong mouths.

A sentimental romantic thriller. But it’s a well-made sentimental romantic thriller, and that makes all the difference.

Time to give the shoot-’em-up thing a rest, guys: It’s tired and played out, and so are you.

The main thing to keep in mind while watching Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Side Effects is not to take the movie too seriously or else you’ll feel betrayed by the end.

An unsalvageable wreck.

An excruciating and melodramatic comedy.

Zombie lore doesn't allow for redemption, only head shots, and Levine's film, amusing though it may be, is never gory enough to truly become a classic zombie movie. It also ignores the one basic necessity of monster films, even the funny ones: It really ought to be creepy or scary or gross, at least once or twice.

Bullet in the Head is a throwback to the past with its eyes trained on the present, and it proves Hill has kept up with the times.

Grohl's appreciation for the inhabitants of this dingy demimonde, from the artists to the secretaries at the front desk, makes Sound City an infectious and sincere Valentine to a rapidly disappearing art form.

Even the people who griped about Tom Cruise being cast as the towering Jack Reacher will have to admit Statham fits nicely in Parker's shoes.

Quartet is truly an actor's film.

This is the sort of small, intimate drama about unpleasant subject matter Hollywood rarely deals with, but Haneke isn't worried about turning off his audience, because death is something everyone has in common. It fascinates us, the way it also scares us.

If nothing else, Broken City manages to pull off a difficult feat: It's too convoluted to follow and simultaneously too simplistic to be believed.

It digs deep into the heart and soul of its lovers, who are idealistic, intelligent and passionate - and yet still risk everything they might gain for stolen moments together.

The idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a small town sheriff is ludicrous, but then that's the whole point of his new movie: It's dumb fun, emphasis on the dumb.

The movie wanders off course in the final act, as if none of its three screenwriters could quite figure out how to end it.

It's the cinematic equivalent of Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name: You know in your heart it's a crappy song, and every wince-inducing line is an affront to your intelligence, but hey, it's on the radio, so you turn up the volume and sing along anyway.

Bayona is restrained here in terms of gore, but his landscape is a realistic vision of a hell we never hope to visit.

The characters drive this story, not ideology. Damon and McDormand are terrific as co-workers seeking the same goal, though they see their work from different points of view.

Maybe there's a good movie to be made about the affair between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a distant cousin. I wouldn't bet on it, and Hyde Park on Hudson isn't it in any case.

Maya is as consumed with finding bin Laden as Jake Gyllenhaal was obsessed with finding a serial killer in "Zodiac," only he was doing it as a hobby.

Django Unchained is the most brutal film Quentin Tarantino has ever made. Unlike "Kill Bill" or "Inglourious Basterds," where the violence was thrilling and carried a visceral kick, the carnage here is often ugly and difficult to watch.

The movie is visually stunning, expansive yet intimate.

Reacher is so good at everything he does, and Cruise plays him in such a robotic manner, that the movie becomes a bit of a bore: The hero is practically omnipotent.

This is 40 is crude and dull, with a supporting cast that reminds you how utterly uninteresting the main characters are.

The technically well-made movie simply can't replicate the live experience of a Cirque show, and at just over 90 minutes, Worlds Away still feels long.

The humor is mostly gentle in nature; The Guilt Trip is clearly targeted at older audiences less than receptive to the crude jokes that made Rogen famous in movies like "Knocked Up" and "Zack and Miri Make a Porno."

These Fitzgeralds are loud, selfish and often maddening, but they're a loving group, and you wouldn't mind spending more time with them.

There will be opportunities to see the picture in regular 24 frames per second, but I recommend going the whole hog and sampling what Jackson has come up with - a new way to watch movies and a new take on a universe that seemed to have exhausted its narrative possibilities.

Hitchcock spends too much time off the set of Psycho, where the real story was, and focuses instead on incidental matters that feel like outtakes. Mother would not have been pleased.

There isn't a moment in the entire picture in which you will recognize an element of your own life.

Wright's film is visually stimulating to be sure, but he never loses sight of the raw human emotions that make Anna Karenina a classic.

Life of Pi works seamlessly on two levels. With grace, imagination and stunning visual acuity, it explores Martel's twin themes of faith and the power of storytelling. It's also a thrilling action adventure.

Holy Motors is wild and unfettered and playful - the work of an artist who carries his love of cinema in his bones, and knows how to share that affection with the audience.

This Must Be the Place is as emotionally zonked-out as its protagonist, and just as difficult to warm up to.

This is writer-director David O. Russell's idea of a romantic comedy, and it's terrific - one of the freshest, funniest, most elevating crowd-pleasers of the year.

Watching A Late Quartet feels more like sitting through a Classical Music 101 lecture than entertainment.

The House I Live In is a work of journalism, not propaganda: Jarecki has done his research and leaves it to you to decide what to make of it.

Mendes' approach to action is classical and elegant - no manic editing and blurry unintelligible images here - but what makes the movie truly special is the attention he gives his actors.

This is a gorgeous, flashy, widescreen epic, like "Boogie Nights" or "Casino," about the most essential things in life: Family, friends and love. But most of all, love.

Wreck-It-Ralph is a gorgeously rendered story that will play just as well to children as to their parents, albeit for different reasons. Playstation and Xbox junkies will be equally pleased.

Once you get past the intriguing fact that although Whip's job puts hundreds of lives into his hands on a daily basis yet he's cavalier about protecting them, the movie doesn't feel much different than any other exploration of addiction.

Hunt gives this funny, touching movie its soul, and the actors elevate the material into something more resonant and memorable than the story promises.

If you're interested in the sheer craft of filmmaking, Cloud Atlas is required viewing - a rare example of a movie getting by entirely on technique and creative bravado.

Madrid, 1987 operates on a dizzying number of levels - as a romantic comedy, a sex farce, a study of culture clash, ageism and idealism - and the highest compliment you can give this ridiculously talky movie (which plays better if you speak Spanish) is that you're a little sad to see the characters go on their way once they part, probably forever.

Director James Ponsoldt, who co-wrote the script with Susan Burke (inspired in part by her own experiences), opts for realism and modesty instead of sensation.

Writer-director Stephane Robelin's frothy comedy is much more "Golden Girls" hijinks than "On Golden Pond."

Despite all the freaky business on display - and there are moments here when you cannot believe your eyes - The Paperboy suffocates you with boredom like a hot, wet blanket. You want to push it away and escape. It makes sleaze boring.

This is a talky picture, based on a historical incident where the outcome is already known – yet it still proves much more engrossing than crime dramas or bank robberies.

For a good hour, Seven Psychopaths is lively, bloody fun. Then the yawning starts.

What we are not spared is the sort of trite movie that lacks the backbone of any good dysfunctional-family comedy: a thread of the universal amid the absurdity.

The film also plays to the strengths of the found-footage format, proving that sometimes the scariest things are the ones you can barely see. For horror hounds, this is required viewing.

This delightfully twisted story about a boy and his (dead) dog showcases precisely what Burton excels at: blending the macabre and the heartfelt in a perfect, if oddball, union.

17 Girls is allegedly inspired by true events, but this diffident, dreamy film is so insubstantial it's hard to believe there's a speck of reality to be found in it.

Nothing wrong with a movie having a point of view, but watching people spout jargon or exposition doesn't really make for riveting entertainment.

Impossible not to like.

This is an exciting, exceptionally well-made futuristic thriller that also happens to be loaded with lived-in touches and punchy ideas.

Reveals yet another facet of this always-unpredictable filmmaker: a flair for compassionate, humane melodrama.

The movie even fails on a psychological level, never illustrating how, in a pressure-cooker environment and swept up by mob-think mentality, we are capable of committing acts that innately repel us.

Achingly beautiful and visually transfixing, Samsara offers a transporting vacation from the usual multiplex fare. It's a movie to get lost in.

The Master has become a contest between two gifted actors trying to shout each other down. The commitment to their roles is impressive, but it's tethered to a weightless, airless movie, a film so enamored of itself, the audience gets shut out.

Unfortunately even a clogging Timberlake can't stop the movie's march to a conveniently happy ending. Nor can he block the flow of psychobabble. It's enough to make any fan beg: Play ball. Please.

On one level, Searching for Sugar Man is a testament to how music - or painting or literature or any form of art - can take on a life far greater than its creator intended when it happens to connect with the right people at the right time.

The most fascinating aspect of The Imposter, though, is why the missing boy's family believed his story.

Even at his worst - and Robert does some awful things - the actor almost makes you root for him, hoping he'll get away with it.

The film is also less bloated than "Bridesmaids" - a comedy is always more nimble at 90 minutes than two hours - and it's less maudlin, too. It's the aberrant, foul-mouthed child of "Superbad" and "Young Adult."

There are several cameos in For a Good Time, Call… by famous actors portraying the girls' phone-sex clients, including Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen, but they've been clearly been left to improvise, and they don't put much effort into their routines.

Even the story-within-a-story structure doesn't pay off. This material needed more substance and ideas - and less flash and sumptuous production values.

You end up feeling sorry for all the actors forced to humiliate themselves, except for McConaughey, whose portrayal of sadistic, manipulative evil is mesmerizing, in part because it was so unexpected. He continues to surprise. Friedkin, sadly, continues to coast.

You don't believe Celeste for a minute when she tells a new guy that she needs to be alone for awhile. You know he's coming back in short order to provide the happy ending. Here's hoping she doesn't want him to get a job, too.

Cosmopolis may be a cerebral mood piece, but it is loaded with strong performances that connect on an emotional level.

The best moments in director David Koepp's slight, dull movie are the scenes in which bike messenger Wilee pauses at busy intersections to figure out the path of least obstruction.

Everyone in Hit and Run is clearly having a good time. It's the audience that gets left out of the fun.

The film's earnestness makes up for its high corn factor.

The best artists - the ones whose work endures and matters and changes the world - are often troublemakers who challenge the status quo. Out of their defiance comes art. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, director Alison Klayman's riveting documentary of the esteemed Chinese sculptor/painter/iconoclast, is practically a handbook on social rebellion.

None of this is all that engaging. But the art design of the movie makes up for the slack story.

Chuck Norris is also in this movie, although you should know that he gets roughly five minutes of screen time, half of those devoted to his telling of a Chuck Norris joke. That is as funny as the movie's self-aware humor gets.

The best stuff comes early in Ruby Sparks, which was written by Kazan (granddaughter of Elia) and directed by the husband and wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine).

There's a streak of compassion in Dark Horse, a sincere empathy for a thoroughly detestable man, that is as surprising as anything in Solondz's earlier, more transgressive work.

The movie is oddly impersonal - you remember the concept more than the story - and feels like something that was made simply for the opportunity to pair Streep and Jones for the first time.

Still, though it's crude and juvenile in ways that makes you vaguely ashamed at laughing so much, The Campaign is versatile enough to sneak in a good shot or two at the American political system.

It looks fantastic, but it's also hard to sit through, because by that point The Bourne Legacy has repeatedly proven there are no surprises to be had here, no more fresh stories to be mined from this well. The stunts look exhausting, though. No wonder Damon bailed.