At least The Game Plan does have Johnson, whose innate charisma will make it easier for adult viewers to endure the film without ruing the decision to make a family outing to the multiplex.

Though its violence is searing and brutal, the film, about four FBI agents investigating a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, shows a conscience and a brain, and if it explains things a bit simplistically at times, so much the better.

There's too much caution and not enough lust.

The movie tries its hardest to celebrate the impetuousness of its hero and the exhilaration of his accomplishments. Mostly, though, it just reminds you of the severity of his mistakes.

Its silly Snow White allusions aside, Sydney White is a simple but amiable modern fairy tale.

Across the Universe can't achieve the transcendence and exhilaration musicals strive for, but it often generates a singular kind of magic you've never experienced before.

Here is an excellent crime thriller made with grown-ups in mind: Yep, it must definitely be fall.

Great actors can do more than carry a movie on the strength of their performances: They can also elevate it to a height it does not necessarily merit, and for much of In the Valley of Elah, Tommy Lee Jones does exactly that.

Neurotic New Yorkers, messed up relationships, inept analysts, infidelity -- Ira & Abby has them all, and it's anything but refreshing to trudge through this well-worn territory again.

Sarandon blends into the background, having practically nothing to do except stand around and wring her hands as the two men in her life battle it out in a passive-aggressive war. It's enough to make her want to run off with Thelma.

As far as its plot mechanics go, The Brave One belongs to the hallowed (if less-than-respectable) genre of exploitative revenge pictures.

The new version is a glorious, thrilling throwback that never sacrifices its solid roots in the western genre despite a sharp modern update that actually improves on the original.

Seeing the Earth from the point of view these men saw it -- ''like a jewel hung in the blackness'' -- tends to put things in perspective.

Despite all the flying bullets, which are admittedly entertaining at times, Shoot 'Em Up doesn't offer enough bang for your bucks.

By the time the end credits roll, you're still not sure what kind of movie The Hunting Party is supposed to be, other than just queasy.

Cheese is written with plenty of sophisticated wit, but it is not quite convincing as a movie.

Death Sentence would be right at home as one half of "Grindhouse"'s B-movie double bill.

There's nothing so artistic about it as to attract the same art-house crowd that braved subtitles to discover "Nine Queens," and yet, it's professional enough that Spanish speakers will be glad to have a heist movie on par with "Rush Hour 3" or "The Pacifier" made in their native tongue.

The few jokes it does land can't make this more than a look-what's-on-late-night-cable event.

Illegal Tender is the sort of crime movie in which nothing, not one detail, has been observed from real life; it's composed entirely of fantasies and falsehoods lifted from bad movies and hip-hop videos.

A late-summer delight, a sleek, handsomely made bauble buoyed by a cast much stronger than the flimsy material deserves.

The thoroughly unconvincing drama Resurrecting the Champ might be based on a true story, but that doesn't mean you're going to believe a single frame of it.

Filmmaker Christopher Cain has turned a national tragedy into a teen romance, and not in a grand, entertaining, "Titanic" way.

Although it is never explicitly stated, Manda Bala essentially argues that when the middle class disappears, the rich and the poor end up feeding on each other, like the frogs that go cannibalistic at the frog farm that gives the movie its central metaphor.

Superbad never forgets the lesson one learns when looking back on one's awkward youth: Cool isn't just where society dictates; it is also where you find it.

Feels more like a lecture you've already heard than a galvanizing call to action.

There's no question The Invasion works in a mechanical, by-the-numbers manner. But it's what the movie leaves you with -- absolutely nothing -- that is the scariest thing about it.

A nuanced study in obsession, dedication, manipulation, ethics and how the all-American need to be the best at something -- anything -- can shape a life.