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.