You have to overlook a whole lot of guff in order to enjoy the slight but pleasurable entertainment of The Switch.

He just wasn't the sort of hero the government pretended he was. This eye-opening, inspiring movie is a permanent corrective to that deception.

The film is far from perfect, but it's likely to inspire more than few quests for balance -- or at least a fabulous bowl of linguine.

The result is initially exhilarating, ultimately exhausting.

Jason Statham gives the best performance. Dolph Lundgren gets the best character arc. Terry Crews gets the best gun. Jet Li gets the best kill (you'll know it when you see it).Arnold Schwarzenegger gets the best cameo. And Sylvester Stallone? He gets the blame.

As the character grows soft and sentimental, so does La Soga, and the film's edge is terminally dulled by an avalanche of cliches and schmaltz.

Animal Kingdom moves with a brisk efficiency - Michôd trusts the viewer and doesn't waste time with unnecessary back story - and the plot twists and turns at brutal speed.

So hilarious that even longtime Ferrell haters (me) can't resist it.

The actors, aside from Sevani, were clearly not cast for their mad acting skills.

Harrowing and grueling, Lebanon ends on a gentle, hopeful note.

Charlie St. Cloud is primarily a vehicle to prove the actor can do more than dance and sing. It's more of a demo reel for Efron than a movie. His predominant fan base, though, won't mind a bit.

The hands-down funniest elements in Dinner for Schmucks turn out to be the mice dioramas, which become increasingly clever - even touching - as the film unfolds, then laugh-out-loud hilarious over the end credits. But you know you're in trouble when the best thing in your movie is a bunch of dead rodents.

Tender and sentimental, a little schmaltzy, and ultimately too slight.

Kline salvages the picture with his dynamic, utterly unpredictable performance -- the work of a highly skilled comedian thrilled by the opportunity to go nuts once again.

In a way, Phillip Noyce's film is the anti-"Inception"; it's never dazzling, but it's never confusing, either. It's a Bourne movie minus the exotic locations and sickening handheld camera, and its head spy has way better lips than Matt Damon.

In the film's most frightening sequence, Countdown to Zero imagines what would happen if someone detonated a bomb in the heart of a major city, such as New York City's Times Square.

The movie earns its tension and suspense the old-fashioned way: By making you care about its characters.

Here, finally, is something you've really never seen before.

Little happens that you don't see coming, down to which cast members will get picked off and in what order. It's a dumb action movie in a summer full of dumb movies, and yet it's always entertaining. And you won't really miss Arnold at all.

The story is far from finished; the film can't help but feel like a bridge to its end. But the power of that partnership forged in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" remains strong.

Shyamalan takes the beloved Nickelodeon anime series -- the full title was Avatar: The Last Airbender -- and turns it into 103 minutes of overproduced, stilted nonsense.

Eclipse, like its two predecessors, is ham-fisted and obvious, a mass-market entertainment with a frustrating lack of imagination.

The guys are more amusing than not, and they display the easy chemistry of real-life pals.

Wild Grass, which employs a wry, self-deprecating voice-over narrator and some highly stylish camerawork, feels like a comic thriller building into a kind of strange romance.

Restrepo makes time to observe these men during brief off-duty stints -- at one point four use an iPod to form an impromptu, joyous dance party -- but the bulk of the film centers on their insanely dangerous and heroic work.

Too bad, though, that whenever the characters stand still to talk, Knight and Day induces stupor in the viewer.

A worthy and delirious final chapter to this hallowed animation franchise.

I Am Love is a bold and thrilling masterpiece -- the introduction of a major talent to the world's stage.

It's a shrewd, poignant drama disguised as a comedy.

The genius of a feature film based on the 1980s TV series is that it can't help but exceed expectations that are so low to begin with.

Although Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is unmistakably a fawning love letter to an amazing performer, its subject proves to be her sharpest, bluntest critic.

Unlike last year's "Coco Before Chanel," in which Audrey Tautou played a warmer, kinder spirit, Mouglais presents her character as steely and unbending, a woman who has built her empire on her terms and refuses to abdicate the slightest control on her life.

It's not always an easy movie to watch, but its characters are unforgettable.

Mostly, though, Ondine deftly demonstrates just how far we'll reach for any promise of relief from life's hardships, in whatever form -- magic or plain dumb luck -- it arrives.

By the time the film's climactic 15 minutes rolled around, viewers at a preview were laughing as if they were watching "Knocked Up." For a horror picture, such a reaction is the equivalent of a stake through the heart.

The volume is pitched high, perhaps so you won't notice how lackadaisically structured the picture is. Get Him to the Greek isn't really a story but a collection of comic set pieces.

There's plenty of action, but it's all the same.

Micmacs is a wan fizzle of a fantasy, a spirited, imaginative spectacle that never quite takes flight.

The story's historical setting is fascinating, but the movie is populated by thin, uninvolving characters.

Although it deals with some monumental themes, Mademoiselle Chambon also feels wispy and inconsequential.

Frothy as it is, SATC2 is best when it's about the women, not the wardrobe.

For this last chapter, the filmmakers play things relatively straight, resulting in the best Shrek movie to date.

Certainly a grand-looking picture. For a film that's filled with CGI effects, there wasn't a single shot that looked artificial, and the production design is tremendous. But it's a hollow, boring spectacle.

Letters to Juliet will never be mistaken for an epic romance -- too light, too silly, too mistake-prone -- but the ingredients of its tasty chick-flick stew are tried and true.

If you can overlook that last little bit of sports fantasy, you just might like Just Wright.

The main problem with Iron Man 2 lies in the script.

Sweet, amusing little film.

The amount of information the viewer is asked to process is voluminous and never stops coming.

Mother and Child is good when it takes a harsh, unsparing look at lament and the burdens we carry throughout our lives. Then it goes for your tear ducts, and we're suddenly stranded in Lifetime TV territory.

Freddy simply isn't as scary as he used to be, even though Jackie Earle Haley, taking over from Robert Englund in the role, plays Krueger essentially straight, keeping the one-liners to a minimum.

A mean and exceedingly well-made little B-picture, but the questions it raises are far too complex to answer with a simple gunshot.

The cast is uniformly spectacular, infusing the characters with nuance and complexity.

The Back-up Plan is about as much fun as 36 hours of labor, only you don't get to go home with a baby at the end. Instead, you leave with a throbbing headache and a lot of questions about why anybody still thinks Jennifer Lopez can anchor a movie.

Kick-Ass reminds you of the great pleasures and thrills of superhero comics -- then turns everything you ever learned from comic books upside down.

What makes Exit Through the Gift Shop so fascinating -- and it is riveting, regardless of your interest in the art world -- is the eloquent way in which it illustrates how beauty and meaning really are in the eye of the beholder and how that eternal phrase still holds true: There's a sucker born every minute.

Handsome Harry has some shakily staged scenes and erratic acting, but it also has wonderful moments.

Though it's entertaining when the tone is light, The Joneses can't quite keep up with this sort of complexity.

Unfortunately, Ghobadi doesn't trust his film to convey the message that has already been clearly and entertainingly spelled out, and No One Knows About Persian Cats ends on a sudden note of tragedy that almost ruins the exuberant spirit of everything that has preceded it.

Although it is structured like a thriller, and its plot dominated by Benjamin's detective work, The Secret in Their Eyes is really a cautionary tale about the consequences of a life of too much apprehension and propriety.

Once the guns come out, and the car crashes begin, Date Night loses the funny.

A movie as annoying as its oddly punctuated title, After.Life is a misguided and empty-headed attempt at psychological horror that succeeds only at talking the viewer to death.

This lavish, spectacular reworking of director Desmond Davis' beloved 1981 original is the rare sort of remake that actually makes sense: With all due respect (and copious apologies) to the generation that grew up with the first film, Clash of the Titans just wasn't very good.

The Last Song, yet another maudlin remake of a Nicholas Sparks bestseller.

Cannot sustain the level of comic insanity the filmmakers hoped for -- no movie could -- although it's bound to play much better on late-night cable TV, especially when accompanied by a few beers and the occasional bong hit.

Doesn't have the depth and resonance of a classic, but the picture's modesty is refreshing, and its artistry is awe-inspiring.

Yes, it's every bit as brainless as the trailers suggest.

The sci-fi thriller Repo Men gets off to a sluggish start. But wait. You have to give the movie time to find its groove and establish its premise.

After starring in a string of heavy dramas, Andy Garcia lightens up and goes for the funny in City Island, a breezy comedy that fits the actor like a güayabera.

A passable adaptation of Kinney's novel, but no replacement for the real thing. Read the book, then see the movie.

The biggest compliment you can pay the much-anticipated film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that you can't imagine Stieg Larsson's corker of a story ever having existed in book form.

Greenberg is a comedy (a scene in which Roger attends a boisterous college party and pitches a fit over the music is marvelously funny), but it's a sad, rueful comedy about disappointment.

The Runaways ultimately feels too lethargic and conventional for the wild story it tells.

The movie's utter lack of predictability helps to keep you engaged, even if some of the plot turns are a bit baffling, and the unusual depth and complexity of the characters -- the eponymous heroine in particular -- give the picture its unusual, scalding power. You've never met a mother quite like this one.

Green Zone is just an excuse for director Paul Greengrass to haul out his jittery hand-held camera as Miller and Co. sprint through the streets and buildings of Baghdad in pursuit of one villain or another.

She's Out of My League essentially plays its central premise straight, although the film does find time to veer into gross-out humor.

While patience is a virtue in a marriage, we shouldn't need quite this much to make it through a movie.

Coulter wants to explore the act of mourning as a theme, and how death sometimes reminds us that every minute of life should be savored. On that level, Remember Me certainly succeeds.

Alice in Wonderland is curiously devoid of metaphors and allegories about a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, about to be engaged by arrangement to a loathsome toad of a man she can barely stomach. The lack of psychological subtext is hugely disappointing.

By turning Brooklyn's Finest into a morality tale, Fuqua lets the movie slip right through his undeniably talented fingers.

The Secret of Kells manages to feel simultaneously old-fashioned and mesmerizingly modern,and the slight story at its center has the emotional weight of a classic fable: A boy's wild, fantastical adventure, simply told.

A soulless, witless, landfill contraption that Smith once would have mocked mercilessly.

You may not remember The Crazies in a month, but you'll have a grand time watching it.

Most prison movies are about escape or survival. A Prophet (Un Prophete) is about the creation of a consciousness. This one, too, could have been called “An Education.”

The only positive thing about the aimless film The Yellow Handkerchief is the idea that William Hurt may be ready for his Jeff Bridges moment.

The tone and mood of Shutter Island are different on the screen from on the page -- the shadows darker than you imagined, the violence more ghastly, the blood redder.

In Happy Tears, Posey lands a juicy starring role designed to showcase her eccentric energy, and she's so delighted by the opportunity that her happiness infuses the movie: She keeps the first half of Happy Tears aloft on a cloud of endearing tics and mannerisms.

Johnston fails to make a story set in 1891 England relevant to contemporary audiences.

May not be so deep or richly imagined as J.K. Rowling's universe of magic and Muggles, but the film is populated by likable characters, great special effects and a neat premise.

There are so many romantic-comedy cliches crammed into Valentine's Day that watching it feels like surfing through the channels of an all-chick-flick cable service.

There's an audience for old-fashioned romance, and Dear John will please most of it.

Generic but breezily entertaining.

A thriller boasting Mel Gibson's first starring role in eight years, elicits a gigantic wow -- as in ``Wow, does this movie suck!''

Tale is anything but spellbinding.

The movie takes a completely apolitical look at the lives of its three main characters, focusing not on their differences but on how, in a way, they are trapped by their cultures.

Everything about this excruciatingly dull, talky film screams made-for-network-TV: The I'm-only-here-for-a-paycheck performances by famous actors; the Crate and Barrel catalog mise-en-scene; the syrupy, heartwarming score that lays the pathos on so thickly you gag on it.

There is also a last-minute "Sixth Sense" twist, although it definitely won't make you sit through the movie again to see if the filmmakers cheated.

Rich in cliché and brimming with the sort of potent idiocy that can only be found in January-release romantic comedies, Leap Year manages to do every possible thing wrong.

The slight but enjoyable Youth in Revolt finds plenty of mayhem to take advantage of Cera's against-type performance. Oh, the things we do for love.