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.