Johnny Depp puts in a cameo declaring that "most Americans believe the clichés about Gypsies." Unfortunately, the well-intentioned film never gets beyond clichés itself.

I found this more elaborate, play-it-safe sequel far less fresh or funny.

Interestingly for an Israeli movie, the bombers are not Palestinians -- they're young, ultra-Orthodox fanatics.

Without Branagh's pitch-perfect comedic skills the entire movie could have been crushed under the avalanche of quips and wisecracks tumbling from Kalesniko's too-clever-by-half pen.

Most of the film, while handsome to look at, doesn’t rise above this level of obviousness.

Overlong and heavy-handed.

A glitzy and shallow satire about shallow people.

Riding Alone features a moving performance by Takakura (often called the Asian Clint Eastwood), as well as pretty cinematography. But the mushy script, co-written by Zhang, never rises above that of a TV soap opera.

The Maze Runner isn’t based on a video game, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. In it, our hero must lead his comrades through a dingy gray concrete maze while dodging cyborg monsters, and it all looks like every gaming trailer you’ve ever seen.

A frustratingly bland young-adult feminist comedy without good jokes, Moxie is a cross between a hokey ’90s family sitcom and a vastly superior teen film, such as Lady Bird.

Ranks somewhere between the barely watchable "The Back-Up Plan" and the good but wildly overrated "The Kids Are All Right."

Both boys are good, and Kyle MacLachlan gives a tender turn as Franky’s gay dad. But the sheer amount of issues shoved in here is overpowering.

A disappointingly superficial treatment of a fascinating historical incident.

Small Time has its heart in the right place, but its screenplay’s in serious need of a tuneup.

I might be able to get past that if Hathaway and Sturgess had any chemistry. There are no sparks whatsoever, and that's always a deal-breaker for me in romantic films.

Days of Glory has good intentions and a well-executed combat scene, but it could do with more originality.

S.W.A.T. boasts the kernel of a good idea - but it gets buried in the chaff of half-baked plot threads, partly realized characters and unstructured pandemonium.

Pigs fly and perform a Busby Berkeley-style water ballet. Maggie Gyllenhaal sports a posh British accent. Everybody steps in dung repeatedly. These are the high points of Nanny McPhee Returns.

On the plus side is a good cast, including Eddie Marsan and Helena Bonham Carter as Bernie's hapless parents and Stephen Rea as a sympathetic doctor.

A disappointing erotic thriller from director Jane Campion that amounts to an implausible update on "Looking for Mr. Goodbar."

A comedy as black as vinyl, Kill Your Friends is a music-industry tell-all set at a decadent London record label in 1997.

A rather crude affair that feels like a student film, due to performances that often lack conviction and would-be "street" dialogue that rings false.

The erstwhile crack dealer born Curtis Jackson may be a prot‚g‚ of Eminem, but this shapeless and derivative gangsta saga is no "8 Mile."

Entertaining, if maddeningly superficial.

In the utterly routine effort Skyfall, we're actually expected to cheer each chord we've heard so many times (here's a martini shaker! Look, it's a Walther PPK! And there's an Aston Martin!) We've been turned into wretched Pavlovian dogs, salivating at the bell instead of the snack. The highlight, by far, is a classic animated credit sequence: Adele, you are the new Shirley Bassey.

There are moments of fun (an aphrodisiac-laced dessert, for example), but generally the humor seems warmed-over.

Though this is the rare documentary that admirably admits recording "reality" on film actually shapes how people behave under the camera's gaze, I think Eleven Minutes is going to appeal mostly to hard-core fashionistas.

Those looking for another "Showgirls" will be disappointed - writer-director Steve Antin avoids the seamy side of the business, and the same-sex flirtation is mostly between guys.

Jane Wants a Boyfriend loses momentum careening between Dushku’s Bianca and Krause’s Jane — the latter of whom is far more interesting.

A lighter hand would have enhanced some very good performances.

McCarthy shines when loosely riffing, but the plot tightens around her like a vise.

The script is cliché-ridden and ends on an overly sentimental note.

The star is Luke Benward, a dead ringer for the young Kurt Russell.

There are lots of special effects, but sadly, no real magic.

A slim story that becomes schmaltzy at the end.

Danes and Parsons are a weird pairing, who carry their TV personas with them like tote bags. Their “Homeland” and “Big Bang Theory” shticks don’t quite click. Even so, when Danes’ mother comes to realize that her sweet kid is more than just a talking point, she’ll have you wiping away tears.

Not even a compelling performance by Al Pacino as Shylock can make The Merchant of Venice work in its first major big-screen adaptation.

Unfortunately, this ultra-glossy romantic drama derived from a best seller twists into very dark territory — a drastic tonal shift that neither its stars nor debuting director, Thea Sharrock, a respected stage veteran, manage with dramatic credibility.

The Tillman Story purports to be an exposé of the cover-up of the death by friendly fire of the Army Ranger and one time NFL star Pat Tillman. But, provocative and colorful as the film is, it does the very thing it denounces -- massaging the facts to seize Tillman for a political agenda.

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

Visually flat and uninteresting and too often feels like a (leisurely paced) filmed play.

There are nice cameos by Joan Chen and Kyle MacLachlan as Li's mother and lawyer, respectively.

Like the recent "Sex and the City" movie, this spinoff not so subtly tries to have its cake and eat it by ALSO suggesting that a woman is nothing without a man.

In my favorite scene, Hobbs leads his tween daughter’s soccer team in a haka (Maori war dance) to intimidate their rivals. Can’t wait for “Fast and Furious 11: No Boys Allowed.”

Some things, like ouzo and flaming cheese, are best left at single servings.

Too Late is a good-looking gimmick of a movie, one that will only be shown in theaters on 35mm film. Old-school advocate Quentin Tarantino would be proud — as he should be, since this noir starring John Hawkes feels like a big old valentine to him.

Would it have been tacky to visually play up the connection between Tolkien’s harrowing experiences on the WWI battlefield and his depiction of Mordor in the books? Perhaps. Beyond the briefest of allusions, Karukoski tastefully leaves that to the imagination. But this — like much of the film — is a tastefulness that induces sleepiness. Tolkien’s estate was not supportive of this film, understandably: The legendary author’s work is memorial enough.

A shameless heart-tugger from France, The Chorus leaves no cliché unturned.

You can't help wishing they'd thought a little further outside the box.

It’s a blatantly terrible idea with potential for comedy, but DuVall’s sometimes amusing screenplay has trouble finding its footing as an ensemble portrait of struggling relationships.

Surprisingly watchable because of its cast - especially Jack Klugman, who steals every scene he's in as Dad's paranoid survivor father. All he has to do to stand out is underact.

A ho-hum male weepie/road comedy that's worth watching mostly because of a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of England's greatest working-class actors.

About as edgy as a cup of Ovaltine, A Walk to Remember is an old-fashioned teen romance so sweet and free of irony that criticizing it feels like taking a baseball bat to a sack full of newborn kittens.

Hate to say it, but this film ain’t half the satire it could have been.

Despite excellent performances by Kevin Costner, Octavia Spencer and other cast members, Mike Binder’s racially tinged custody battle drama Black or White never achieves much in the way of dramatic credibility.

So there is courage and cheekiness here. What there is not is a story, or much insight or even anger; anyone expecting an indictment of Iran will be sorely disappointed.

Twinkles and glows, but all the surface razzle-dazzle fails to mask the emptiness at its core.

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.

So deadpan are the dialogue and narration that it's hard to tell whether the laughs are intentional. What with all the shrieking, dumb bad-girl hookers and the wistful, wounded good-girl hookers, the sexism is so creepy it might be an ironic genre critique. Then again, maybe it's just creepy.

Rambling, mildly engaging micro-budgeted indie.

Seven Days in Utopia obviously isn't targeted at us cynical New Yorkers. But it goes down more smoothly than you'd imagine thanks to Duvall and an excellent supporting cast.

Under writer-helmer Rehana Mirza, the acting and direction are workmanlike, but the plot is full of hackneyed characters and contrived events better suited to TV than the big screen.

Suddenly topical because of parallels to the kidnapping and death of Daniel Pearl.

A mildly raunchy comedy that might be more accurately titled "Love: Canadian Style."

Has some witty dialogue and sprightly performances by Karen Black, Andrea Marcovicci, Victoria Tennant and others.

The fresh-faced Noonan tries very hard to rise above the material, but it defeats her and her fellow cast members.

Despite some remarkable unembedded footage, Andrew Berends' is yet another disappointingly superficial, unfocused and one-sided documentary on the conflict in Iraq.

They don’t make ’em like A Walk Among the Tombstones any more. Mainly because everyone got bored with ’em and stopped watching ’em.

From the incessant rain that blurs the joyless Boston setting to the mysterious decision to make a brunette Hudson look as plain as possible, it's an evanescent fancy devoid of sparkle.

This morbid and self-consciously literary adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's Pulitzer-winning novel is no crowd pleaser.

Colman and Cumberbatch’s appealing energy is always a pleasure — and clearly the draw here — but I didn’t enjoy spending my night with the sourpusses it’s wasted on.

Beautifully filmed and well-acted, "The Gift to Stalin," directed by Rustem Abdrashev, has its schmaltzy, cliched moments, including an unnecessary finale in Jerusalem.

A shallow, stilted romantic thriller.

As the movie's feet get stuck in its own misery, it made me appreciate "Trainspotting" all over again - its wit, how it moved, the way any outcome for its characters seemed possible.

It pains me to report that his Zebraman is a disappointment.

Carion, in his feature debut, means well, and his characters are lovable. But the plot is so predictable and sentimental that viewers are likely to lose interest before Sandrine and her goats walk off into the sunset.

It's basically a Middle Eastern version of "The Princess Bride" with an assisted-suicide subplot.

This unapologetic B-movie at least keeps the action rolling, and the time goes by quickly. To put it another way, I’d rather see Gerard Butler stab a terrorist in the neck than flirt with Katherine Heigl.

A hokey, overblown and deeply unsatisfying movie.

Trouble is, the movie is only sporadically funny, and the concept soon grows tiresome. In fact, you could say that there's too much downtime in Autoerotic.

A crude, manic and embarrassingly unfunny satire that feels off from beginning to end.

If you're looking for great action scenes, you've found them. But if you desire more than eye candy, such as character and plot development and historical accuracy, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Beautifully shot but a soulless cash machine, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 delivers no dramatic payoff, no resolution and not much fun. Hopefully we'll get that in the final installment next summer.

Rather morbid.

A thoroughly mediocre dramedy.

Pumped-up, dumbed-down Bond, with tattoos instead of brains.

You know exactly how this thing is going to turn out before it's even half over.

Chicago 10 has interesting moments, but basically it's a teaser for Steven Spielberg's upcoming feature on the trial.

The biggest problem is Wong's decision to cast Norah Jones as Elizabeth, a New Yorker who hits the road after a love affair goes bad. Jones, in her first movie, can't act. (There, I said it!)

For piquing kids’ interest in history and nature, you could do worse than this goofy Ben Stiller franchise. But its third installment is more meh than manic, too reliant on wide shots of the ragtag Museum of Natural History cohorts striding down corridors. You get the feeling returning director Shawn Levy is ready to hang it up.

It's the Food Network meets The Weather Channel meets . . . the Scary Doomsday Preachers Channel.

Creepy spirits in old-timey dress, ear-stabbing sound cues, slamming doors and bloody handprints: The horror flick Insidious isn't scared to be trite.

Loads of fun, especially if you use the site yourself. But it plays too much like a paid ad.

Its message is sugarcoated in a schmaltzy, clichéd story line about Smith's conflicts with streetwise black minister (Jeff Obafemi Carr) - and sabotaged by hackneyed dialogue, sluggish pacing and a listless performance by Smith, who only springs to life when he's singing.

Works its way to an improbably cheerful ending, but getting there is a slow trip.

Don't you hate movies where one character is so much smarter than everyone else? That's only one problem with Spy Game, a glossy, suffocatingly predictable star vehicle for Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

At Berkeley casts a nonjudgmental eye on everyone from cement layers to students discussing Thoreau to administrators complaining about budgeting. If only everything were interesting.

Thaddeus Bradley, narrating in tedious metaphors about how “there’s always more than what’s on the surface.” That’s one claim this shallow sequel simply can’t back up.