With action aplenty, talking animals and enough gags to make any sane grown-up groan, "The Revenge of Kitty Galore" is a harmless but fun hot-weather diversion for the family.

Fails as a detective story, but it does offer an entertaining look at the punk scene in the 1970s.

Darlings, there's nothing quite so tragique as a boring eccentric.

It's condescending, it's vague, it's unfair and, ultimately, it's pointless.

Duvall and Spacek are so in tune with each other's rhythms -- despite their 20-year age difference -- that it's hard to believe they've never acted together before.

A gut-wrenching look at the human cost of war.

Salt contains many conflicts: intelligence vs. counterintelligence, blond Angelina vs raven-haired and . . . well, that's about it.

Newcomer Joey King is funny and adorable as daydreaming 9-year-old Ramona Quimby.

Illustrating the many ways nuclear weapons could kill you makes Countdown to Zero one of the most frightening documentaries you'll ever see, or endure.

While it obviously isn't for all tastes, this is a big, thematically rich step forward -- mostly it's about tolerance and forgiveness -- from the empty provocation of Solondz's "Storytelling" and "Palindromes." About time.

Carion gets excellent performances from Emir Kusturica as the Russian and Guillaume Canet as the Frenchman. Each is a filmmaker in his own right -- Canet's directorial résumé includes the thriller "Tell No One" and Kusturica's lists the Serbian black comedies "Underground" and "Black Cat, White Cat."

Talking heads include friends, fellow artists, art dealers and former girlfriends. One contributor is Julian Schnabel, the painter and filmmaker who directed the 1996 biopic "Basquiat."

Nolan blurs the distinction between dreams and reality so artfully that Inception may well be a masterpiece masquerading as a summer blockbuster.

In an effective touch, Kisses opens in black and white, changes into color for its Dublin scenes, then returns to monochrome.

Visually striking but portentous and pretentious.

The overall result is superficial and deadly boring.

The plot of the gorgeous Mexican film Alamar -- a father-son vacation -- isn't what Hollywood calls "high concept." But thanks to director-cinematographer-editor Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio, the film might be called "high enjoyment."

A two-hour trailer: explosion, shape-shift, chase, wisecrack, repeat. Its most amazing trick will be how it vanishes from your memory before the seat you vacate has stopped moving.

Though Despicable Me is a little ragged on story, it's got a lot of imagination and a heart as warm as a fluffy kitty.

After 23 years and three attempts, Predators finally delivers a solid sequel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger B-movie classic.

A highly entertaining first-person documentary .

If you want an introduction to the director's work, you're better off with "La Belle Noiseuse" (1991) and his masterpiece, "Celine and Julie Go Boating" (1974).

Ruefully funny, beautifully acted comedy of manners.

Almost without exception, the men are either sickening deviants or wise mentors while the ladies tend to be kickboxing hipsters or victims of sexual abuse (many are both).

Apprently novice filmmaker Angela Ismailos' definition of a Great Director is one who's willing to sit or walk with her while she lobs innocuous questions and gives herself lots of awed close-up reaction shots.

Finzi's lovingly filmed movie draws viewers into the lives of its two young heroes. You don't have to be a ballet buff to be moved by Isabela's and Irlan's stories.

If M. Night Shyamalan sold his soul to the devil for the success of "The Sixth Sense," I think His Satanic Majesty has finally collected in full with The Last Airbender.

Dispenses with much of the caramel gooeyness of the first two episodes in favor of decent action, some heartfelt tender moments and even a splash of wit. This time they’re actually Twi-ing.

The film casts Spector in a sympathetic light. You can't help feeling sorry for the tormented genius.

Mirren maintains her class throughout Love Ranch. She may deserve another Oscar just for keeping a straight face while reciting a ridiculous speech about the Donner Pass tragedy on her way to a tryst with her character's lover.

When Grown Ups star and co-writer Adam Sandler repeatedly slapped Rob Schneider in the face with a dehydrated banana, I was jealous of Schneider, who suffered less than I did getting slapped upside the head by this rotting fruit of a comedy.

A gut-wrenching, politically neutral documentary that spends more than a year with a platoon of American GIs in a valley that's been called the most dangerous spot on Earth.

A highly original black comedy from Greece -- and one of the weirdest movies I've seen in a long time.

Stone praises Latin America for turning toward "government of the people" (yet ignores Castro's lack of interest in democracy). But it's no wonder he's in such a sunny mood: We see him grow increasingly giddy while chewing coca leaves with Morales (a coca farmer who wants to make cocaine legal).

Wild Grass is a French movie for people afraid of French movies.

It would also help if they were given some dialogue that was actually funny, or at least more clever than the lines provided to Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl in the distressingly similar "Killers" from earlier this month.

May not be a masterpiece, but it still had me in tears at the end.

Nutty? Maybe. But a pungent blast of the cinema du bonkers is just what this summer's multiplexes need after weeks of bromide-stuffed retreads that are as smug about their lack of originality as packs of teen girls who dress exactly alike. Mock Jonah Hex if you must, but you can't say you've seen a lot of other supernatural Westerns lately.

John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill give such wonderfully satisfying, full-blooded performances in Cyrus that it seems almost churlish to wish this creepy little Oedipal comedy were a little more well-thought-out, and handled its wilder shifts in tone with more finesse.

A hard-hitting exposé of a shameful episode.

As things pick up in the second half, the splendid photography and tempestuous John Adams score cannot quite conceal that the film is uncomfortably close to being an extravagantly elongated, Fendi-clad episode of "Dynasty."

Reflective but only mildly engaging dramedy.

Musician Bones is believable as the luckless tourist in lime-green shades, and the musical soundtrack, including songs by Bones, is infectious.

The film takes awhile to get going -- the depiction of homophobic 1950s suburbia has a familiar feel. The movie hits its stride only when eyewitnesses to the events at the Stonewall tell their stories.

A popcorn picture that thinks it’s “The Last Emperor,” The Karate Kid is about as likely to grab your youngster’s attention as any other propaganda film made by the Chinese government.

Overlong, overblown and utterly forgettable.

As portrayed by Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky weren't exactly Rhett & Scarlett.

A documentary that exerts a car-wreck fascination as it follows the icon through her 75th year (she's now 77) while looking back over her tumult-filled life and career.

The main reason for Winter's Bone to exist is that it delivers a little voyeuristic thrill -- a bit of poverty porno -- for the critics who awarded it their highest honors at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Examines in entertaining detail the way Hollywood has treated North American natives going as far back as the days of silent flicks.

The film has no ready answers, although it becomes abundantly clear that both those for and against charter schools are more concerned with covering their own asses than with helping students get a quality education.

Neil Jordan's Ondine has a split personality. It starts promisingly as a fantasy but ends disappointingly as a thriller.

Smart, scary -- and at times very funny -- horror movie.

Mostly, this frantic film is yet another attempt at “Spinal Tap” silly. At times it goes for the heart of “Almost Famous,” and its sense of rock is that of a barely acquainted observer.

On several levels, this film is a real-life horror story that puts most Hollywood movies to shame.

A mildly funny, stereotype-stuffed comedy.

Like "Sex and the City 2," Marmaduke features well-coifed bitches in heat, nonstop puns and its very own Mr. Big. Unlike "SATC 2," this one is harmless and, on occasion, mildly witty.

This loopy farce has the feel of a wacky off-off-Broadway play with more energy than wit, but it has its moments. And the laid-back acting of Hoffman (son of Dustin) just about holds it together.

Burzynski is dull, dull, dull, even for an infomercial.

Like the Master of Suspense's best films, Double Take (which makes great use of Bernard Herrmann's haunting "Psycho" score) is an intellectual puzzle that also works as a thoroughly accessible entertainment.

May be the first movie that effectively erases virtually its entire story line by the very last scene.

I suppose it's nice that Romero has a hobby, but he couldn't be more of a bore if he were showing off his pine cone collection.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the French di rector of "Amelie," is back to more lighthearted whimsy with the delightful Micmacs.

There is much opportunity to turn the film into a soaper, but Hansen-Love resists.

There are a few exciting battle sequences and the sets are lavish, but mostly the film meanders aimlessly for more than two hours. No wonder new sword-and-sandal movies are in short supply.

Working from a well-thought-out script co-written by director Stéphane Brizé, the two stars deliver impressive, understated performances.

The ever-excitable Martin Scorsese, who is listed as a producer and who pops up, bizarrely, to talk about how he decided to stage the last shot of "The Departed," concludes things by saying, "Cubism was not a style. It was a revolution!" Yep. And not in any way a fad.

The transformation of the girls from winsome wisecrackers into whiny bling-obsessed chuckleheads is complete.

Tired? This series is as exhausted as Shrek after a day of baby wrangling and diaper changing.

There's a reason you've never seen the words "Will Forte" topping the billing of a major motion picture. After the throbbing flameball of unfunny that is MacGruber, you never will again.

A rare drug-crime movie devoid of violence, and pretty much anything in the way of excitement.

The fine supporting cast includes Steve Buscemi, as a cynical American doctor who at first doesn't get along with Rabe; and Anne Consigny, as the French head of a local school for Chinese girls.

A comedy that forgot to install the funny.

Superb as an auto salesman who sinks deeper and deeper into disgrace in Solitary Man, Douglas' juiciest vehicle since "Wonder Boys."

An interesting but flawed look at the birth of the French New Wave.

Has a certain dark charm if you can put up with very jittery camera work and editing.

Head and shoulders above the sort of lightheaded epics Hollywood typically offers during the summer season.

A girl with relationship woes can hardly set foot in Europe these days without finding herself hip-deep in yummy food and tasty men. The latest iteration of the story is Letters to Juliet or, as I like to think of it, "Eat Pray Hurl."

A very rare contemporary romantic comedy that doesn't succumb to terminal stupidity.

The landscapes are exotic and Kilcher is erotic, but the film plays like a generic made-for-TV biopic.

A mashup of Nick Hornby and Martin Scorsese? Why not?

This is a terminally whimsical vanity project that would probably have been a chore to sit through even in its original intended format, a 20-minute stage monologue.

Mendoza gives a heart-tugging performance as Mariana.

Sometimes painfully sincere male weepie.

Borderline clichéd, and it makes getting a US visa seem way too easy. But I can think of much worse ways to spend an hour and a half than watching this absurdist comedy.

It’s only fitfully entertaining as an all-star indie team led again by director Jon Favreau, who gets swallowed up by the same sort of overproduced overkill as “Spider Man 3.”

Even I realize that other people's babies are boring. So is Babies.

As one interviewee opines: "It's all about the money."

High praise for the movie Mother and Child: It's as good as a TV show. Although it's not as fine as HBO's "In Treatment," a show run by this movie's writer-director, Rodrigo Garcia.

Multiple Sarcasms happens to be the title of the play within the movie, and it turns out to be by far the most interesting thing in the film. Not that many people will want to suffer through the first 90 minutes of this vanity production to get there.

Sexist, racist humor abounds, with Jews and gays especially taking a beating. I don't always object to non-PC humor -- but I like it to be funny, and here it isn't.

A mind-numbing piece of would-be provocation from the button-pushing Harmony Korine, Trash Humpers gets no stars from me -- not because it's offensive and disgusting like his earlier "Gummo" and "Julien Donkey-Boy," but because it's about as enervating a way to waste 78 minutes as I've ever experienced.

Though Freddy is basically the same guy as in the 1984 original, his back story is different. For a few minutes the movie threatens to become interesting -- then retreats.

Excruciatingly unfunny.

The movie begins to wear out its welcome even before a conclusion of breathtaking corniness.

Unlike "Dirty Harry," this film doesn't particularly have an overt political ax to grind. But it thankfully strips away the veneer of glamour that Guy Ritchie and his imitators have applied to British crime films over the last decade or so.

Despite risible dialogue, Mercy is watchable because of Caan's physical presence -- and a couple of scenes with his real-life father, James Caan, as his cynical dad who pronounces that "love -- it does not exist."

Two possible ways of regarding Please Give: It's shallow. Or maybe it's deeply shallow.