The Help will make you laugh, yes, but it can also break your heart. In the dog days of August moviegoing, that's a powerful recommendation.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan moves slowly, languidly; its art direction is often lovely, and despite their truncated screen time Lily and Snow Flower do make you care about their fates. But you would have cared more without all the distraction.

James Franco looks more bored and distracted in Rise of the Planet of the Apes than he did when he was hosting the Oscars: Watching the movie, I kept waiting for him to pull out his iPhone, aim it at the camera and take a snapshot while mugging sheepishly. Has there ever been a film with a less engaged protagonist?

Every summer movie season usually has at least one spectacular, disastrous flame-out, and although the dog days of August still loom, I doubt there will come a big-budget blockbuster worse than Cowboys and Aliens.

Unlike most films about the Holocaust, which has provided artists with an infinite array of heartrending stories and tragedies, Sarah's Key doesn't spend much time recounting the horrors that Jews suffered during World War II.

The movie wants to be an exploration of family ties and the various ways in which the people we love respond in times of crisis, but the drama is unconvincing, the characters are ill-defined, and Fischer, so good on The Office, seems a bit incomplete without Jim at her side.

Uproariously funny.

The movie is pleasant overall and occasionally comes up with a big laugh. When the movie's over, though, it evaporates from memory, just like a one-night stand that didn't go nearly as well as you'd hoped.

Evans – always a reliably dynamic and vivacious screen presence – can't do much to bring the character to life. As far as superheroes go, Cap remains a bit of a stiff.

And so the saga of Harry Potter comes to an end - not with a whimper but with a rousing thunderclap of incident, emotion, suspense and old-fashioned movie magic.

Aside from its period New Zealand setting, there is little to distinguish Bride Flight from something you might watch briefly on Lifetime, then change the channel.

The movie is slick and entertaining, but much of it is as superficial as a Twitter post.

Slow-witted, clumsy and almost pathologically reliant on crude name-calling for laughs - Horrible Bosses represents the lowest end of the comedy spectrum.

A continuous parade of slaughter.

The film seems simple and facile at a glance, but these characters and their dilemmas stay with you. These days, any of us could suddenly be Larry Crowne.

McGregor hasn't been this appealing or vulnerable in ages, and in both of the film's love stories, he exemplifies Mills' message.

Oh, what a hollow experience Dark of the Moon is! Bay is so afraid of boring his audience, he pitches every scene at the same high volume right from the first shot, and the effect is exhausting.

Amusing at times but never more than a modest diversion, lacking the cleverness and imagination required to turn it into more than a one-joke movie.

Thank Segal in part, because the guy is always funny, and Timberlake gets some of the biggest laughs in a particularly crude sex scene (though the song with which his character woos Miss Squirrel is perhaps the film's funniest moment).

Penguins are intrinsically amusing. In general, Jim Carrey is amusing, too, provided you can overlook that whole "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" debacle. In Mr. Popper's Penguins, he and they add up to surprisingly fun family entertainment.

The main problem with Submarine is that Oliver is not a likable protagonist.

The movie plays out as a series of memories, so exact and evocative that watching it becomes an immersive experience.

The tone is all over the place, which makes the movie difficult to take neither seriously nor as popcorn fluff.

The actors are talented enough to carry the movie, but they fade into the background once things grow dire, and the special effects take over. There's no sense of wonder or awe.

Midnight in Paris initially seems like a departure for Allen, but the prevailing theme blends right in with the rest of his canon.

An uncommonly polished and sophisticated superhero movie.

To call Meek's Cutoff slow doesn't begin to describe its pace. There are stretches that are, frankly, boring. But the vivid details and intimacy you develop with these travelers sticks with you.

A severe bout of sequelitis afflicts this eagerly awaited but only sporadically amusing follow-up.