As fun as it is at times -- particularly early on -- the longer The Sorcerer's Apprentice goes on, the more the magic wears off.

This is a self-contained story that stands nicely on its own. How novel.

A thoroughly and unmistakably modern film so rooted in the now that it's bound to be remembered as a cinematic landmark.

More than just corny. Eclipse is boring.

Sure, it's an interesting scene as he (Stone) chews the fat with Raul Castro, and coca leaves with Bolivia's Evo Morales. But his South of the Border can't be taken seriously, muchacho -- and if you think it can, well, I've got a primo cigar factory in Havana to sell you.

A film that is beautiful, harrowing, heartbreaking -- and necessary.

Positively soars.

Built on spasms of explosive summertime action interspersed throughout a vacant shell of an origins story, animator-turned-director Jimmy Hayward's first stab at directing a live-action film ends up feeling like one great, big missed opportunity.

Unfortunately, for the bulk of the film's running time -- its first two-thirds or so -- Davis and Heilbroner oversaturate viewers with scene-setting material, describing the climate for gay men and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s.

Imagine Norman Rockwell had he been more of a realist than a nostalgist.

The casting is perfect, and the resetting of the story to China allows for a satisfyingly cinematic retelling.

Like "The Hurt Locker," Winter's Bone is a spare but riveting drama with a female director. It is built around a raw, revelatory performance by a young, little-known lead actor.

Getting two biographies on the same person in such a short window is unusual. What's even more unusual is that both suffer from the same flaw.

What it does have going for it are its lead actors -- Brand and Hill both know exactly how to deliver a punch line -- and a lead character who represents one of the best bits of rock 'n' roll satire since "This Is Spinal Tap."

A surprisingly entertaining movie on its own, a strap-yourself-in, suspend-your-disbelief summer popcorn adventure.

The whole thing is such a rare visual treat -- such a tres magnifique cinematic spectacle -- that those flaws are easy to overlook. Jeunet's film is hard to resist.

Although they've left the city behind, the girls haven't forgotten the sex. They're still as frank as ever, as outrageous as ever, as liberated as ever.

Worse, Shrek Forever After feels like just another animated movie -- which is exactly what the series was fighting against when it started, and a big reason why it caught on with audiences.

Still, it's not the iconic, be-all-end-all that Scott was certainly hoping for.

You can't just cast an appealing actress in the lead role -- in this case Queen Latifah ("Valentine's Day, " "The Secret Life of Bees") -- and expect her to do all the heavy lifting.

It's a lovely bit of blood-pressure-lowering cinema that never betrays its simple conceit.

If nothing else, Garcia's movie is a brave one, with its unflinching look at adoption, which -- as overwhelmingly compassionate an act as it is -- often leaves behind deep emotional scars.

A dramatic comedy that is light on plot but generous in spirit, a leisurely, understated film that underscores the ever-present modern guilt while -- oddly, given the weightiness of that central conceit -- boasting a satisfying buoyancy.

Even at its worst moments, it's better than "awful." But at its best, it's never comes close to "incredible."

Before it gives itself a chance to deliver on that promise, however, it morphs into something different -- something often resembling a soap opera, just with prettier sets and less-passionate smooching.

It's an intriguing travelogue, showing parts of Iran that most of us could never see, or would never dare try to see, given that nasty "Death to America" thing.

The performances are strong enough to elevate things. Darin, Villamil and Francella are the kinds of actors who you just know you've seen before, but whom you probably haven't.

Unfortunately, on the way to delivering that message, it becomes weighted down by its own dreary self-importance.

The result is a documentary that is as interesting as it is irresistible.

But lowbrow or not, it is, like, totally tubular in its own right. To the max. Fer sure.

It's neither a good movie nor a bad movie. It's just a movie.

Even if The Bounty Hunter is more plot-driven than your standard romantic comedy, it's never quite as funny as it should be.

There's a certain triteness to the overarching message -- secrets will keep us apart, and the truth will set us free -- but the kind of sweetness and earnestness that's on display in City Island makes such quibbles easy to forgive.

It's one of the most engaging foreign films to come along since 'Tell No One' in 2008.

There's humor there, but this is a "smart" comedy, which is to say it's not intended to make you guffaw.

For her part, Stewart has Jett down pat: her strut, her slouch, her sexiness. This is a performance that goes far beyond Jett's shag haircut.

If you appreciate historical melodrama, you could do worse than Vincere.

Bong's film starts out as a comedy, transforms into a quirky Agatha Christie whodunnit and finishes with an unpredictable Hitchcockian flourish.

It has a sweet quality, and Forest Whitaker gets a chance to show off his comic chops.

Burton's most imaginative film in some time.

This isn't the kind of film that will leave audiences in awe of clever writing. Rather, it will leave them thinking how much Fuqua wanted to make a movie version of "The Wire."

Don't expect there to be a run on Secret of Kells action figures any time soon.

More than anything else, however, director Jacques Audiard's gritty, grab-you-by-the-shirtfront film is a mob movie -- a really, really good mob movie. Think "GoodFellas," but with Gauloises and accent aigu instead of plates of spaghetti and accent Pesci.

The Art of the Steal is activist filmmaking, but it's well-done activist filmmaking. And, given that the Barnes fight isn't quite yet over, it could also become the most most important kind of filmmaking: the kind that makes a difference.

Anthony Hopkins still does elegant menace better than anyone.

Manages to overcome its flaws and become a charming love letter to love itself -- and a pitch-perfect V-Day date film to boot.

The ending of Dear John feels manufactured and patently false. Seyfried tries to sell it, but you can tell that she's having a hard time believing the words coming out of her mouth.

Director Martin Campbell does a nice job of creating suspense, and Ray Winstone stands out for his performance as a conflicted hitman.

It's a nice, feel-good story with an appealing cast and strong production values.

Fortunately, there's enough charisma in those doe eyes -- to narrowly rescue the featherweight Leap Year from becoming a full-blown case of Erin-go-blah.

Cera exudes a geeky charm and tender vulnerability that's hard to resist -- probably because he's far easier to relate to for most of us than we'd like to admit.

The film is chilled by characters that never really come alive or generate any deep sympathy.

Ritchie and company spend too much time being cute and not enough time being clever, resulting in a one-dimensional comic-book version of Doyle's detectives.

The result: a fun and sweet romantic comedy that lands comfortably on the smart side of vacant, along the way offering a pleasant and satisfying holiday diversion for the grown-ups in the room.

Parnassus is a cold film that delights in dancing along that fine line separating "fantastical" and "nonsensical." Then, when a movie is supposed to hit things home -- in that all-important third act -- it lands with a thud on the wrong side.

Grant and Parker's talents are wasted on a boring, made-for-TV story punctuated by a contrived, throwaway third act.

As engrossing as The Young Victoria is, this isn't a movie that will stay with you very long. Mostly that's because Blunt's character does little by way of evolving.

A simple story about a difficult man, and it's an impressive debut from writer-director Scott Cooper.

Not only does Invictus tell a remarkable story of a remarkable man, but it also illustrates how sports can be a salve to a wounded community. And that's something New Orleanians can certainly appreciate.

A singularly enjoyable and moving film.

Early on in The Slammin' Salmon, a customer sends back a plate of undercooked fish. I can't imagine a better metaphor for a movie that is named after a fish and that is as half-baked as this one is.

It is edifying, it is emotionally engaging, it is embraceable.

Local viewers will be tickled by the wealth of New Orleans details in the production. One of the best just might be in the film's music.

The result is an often-screwball jaunt that isn't without its fun moments.

One of the reasons it's so effective is because it's based on a real-life, odds-defying story: that of mountainous Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher (played by Quinton Aaron).

The result is a deliriously watchable and darkly comic portrait of a high-velocity death spiral.

Almodovar lets his movie become boring, and insufferably so.

For all of its faults, ends up being relentlessly watchable as well, a summertime popcorn spectacle plopped down in the middle of the fall movie season.

Even though it's right there in the title, "fantastic" might be a touch hyperbolic in describing director Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, but only by a whisker.

It's a tremendously moving drama, filled with heartbreak, humor and, more importantly, humanity.

There's an overly episodic feel to it all, as Curtis and company seem happy merely to float along from gag to gag.

Precious is painful, it is harrowing, it is emotionally exhausting. It is also a singular film, one that is as difficult to compare to another as it is to forget.

As beautiful as the animation is, Zemeckis' real masterstroke is combining it with a loyalty to Dickens' story.

An up-tempo and upbeat concert documentary that celebrates, rather than mourns, the last hurrah of a pop-culture touchstone.

Trades breathless romance for a fun "Ripley's Believe it or Not"-flavored weirdness.

His (Jonze) obvious affection for, and veneration of, Maurice Sendak's 1963 Caldecott Medal-winning children's book is palpable in his near-perfect live-action adaptation, a dreamy -- and, like Sendak's book, faintly nightmarish -- exploration of one child's tantrum-y side.

It's a career-making performance that relies as much on charm as on acting ability -- and Mulligan has both.

It's provocative stuff, and The Yes Men approach it with a wicked sense of humor.

It's great, gruesome fun, a well-written and fantastically cast romp.

The result is a film that is equal parts fluff and tough.

The only thing missing from the film -- which is frequently amusing but too bleak to be consistently laugh-out-loud funny -- is a genuine connection with its audiences, or at least those audiences not raised in 1960s Jewish suburbia.

It is an inspiring, well-assembled portrait of one man's love for his autistic 6-year-old son and the measures he's willing to go to help the boy -- and the family -- cope with his neurological challenges.

A better title: "Coco Before She Was Interesting."

That it's all true might make it more heart-tugging, but it doesn't make it any more interesting.

After watching the bailouts, the bank foreclosures and the Bernie Madoffs of the world dominate headlines, Michael Moore is mad as hell, and he's going to try to make you mad as hell, too.

It's all good, goofy fun.

The truth, however, is that for much of Soderbergh's film, it's all as yawn-inducing as its premise.

9, though animated, isn't really a movie for kids. The problem is that, despite its strikingly original set-up and its cool steampunk visual vibe, it's not much of a movie for grown-ups, either.

Part eco-doc, part legal-doc, it is a troubling, real story -- and a well-told one at that -- that is inspiring and infuriating all at once.

With its immensely likable cast elevating the material, Judge extracts just enough ironic chuckles to rescue the movie from being written off as an assembly-line comedy.

Only one of a number of recent immigrant tales to hit theaters, but with its blend of sweet humor and topical relevance, it's one of the more compelling -- and surprising -- in some time.

The characters aren't fully formed enough to care about, the humor is baseball-bat dull, and the story - such as it is - is never treated as anything more than a half-hearted means to get the audiences from one spectacular snuffing to the next.

Lee keeps things afloat with an appealing air of levity, including a fun but restrained use of split-screen, an homage to the 1970 doc, as well as cameos by that movie's Port-O-San guy and its peace-sign-flashing nuns.

A satisfying dose of wild imagination and unbridled silliness.

Most of the time, however, Post Grad just coasts along, flat as a mortar board, and as forgettable as a ... oh, I forgot already.

If there's a prevailing problem with director Richard Loncraine's bit of period fluff, it's that many of the characters encountered along the way are a touch too cartoonish to resonate meaningfully with audiences.

To his credit, however, the often-playful Blomkamp never bludgeons his audience with any specific message. He's too busy letting 'er rip with his edge-of-your-seat, and unapologetically violent, sci-fi adventure.

Brilliant in its simplicity, as he turns the floor over to the three masters with this simple instruction: The guitar. Discuss.