It's a must-see for Daniel Day-Lewis' charismatic, subtly shaded performance as Lincoln - and an even richer one by Tommy Lee Jones.

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.

Prasad has a hard time keeping her bulging narrative straight; the twitchy editing, jarring close-ups and bobbing camera only muddle the audience.

Visually dazzling, intermittently funny.

Tonally, the film swings between whispery romance and ominous horror as it explores the dark side of love and lust, including an amusingly gory meditation on the notion that the person you think is your beloved might just rip your heart out.

Walken was largely typecast in quirky roles as a result of playing the title character's brother in "Annie Hall," so it's something of a delightful irony that 35 years later, Walken finds his most rewarding role leading a terrific ensemble in what amounts to one of the best Woody Allen movies that Allen wasn't involved in making.

At 96 minutes it is exactly 93 1/2 minutes too long. If they're going to put this artifact in theaters, they'd better charge 1973 grindhouse prices: a dollar a ticket.

These elisions give an odd feeling to a film so long in the making. Crewdson's work ultimately begins to seem less enigmatic than he is himself.

Cancels itself out by being too campy to take seriously and too tragic to laugh at.

Even if you've never ridden a skateboard or had any interest in people who do, you'll get a kick out of Stacy Peralta's documentary Bones Brigade: An Autography.

The Oscar-winning director of "Rain Man" - whose last film, the abysmal documentary "PoliWood" never went much further than the Tribeca Film Festival - demonstrates he can make a shakycam found-footage horror movie every bit as fake-looking, clumsy and unscary as your average college student working on a $200 budget.

Showing the personal toll that produces a star in any field could be a soggy, predictable drag, but the documentary A Man's Story never slides into easy sentiment or bromides.

That 20-minute white-knuckle sequence - which includes Washington's character, Whip Whitaker, flipping the plane upside down to pull out of a tailspin - is by far the most effective part of director Robert Zemeckis' first live-action film since the underrated "Cast Away" 12 years ago.

Like with any great singer, it's often the telling pauses of the man born Anthony Benedetto that say the most in The Zen of Bennett.

Molly Ringwald-like, Wren must choose between two guys: the nerdy Roosevelt (Thomas Mann) and the Porsche-driving Aaron (Thomas McDonell), but both are so dull it's hard to care. So feeble is the movie that even the wacky, redheaded best friend (Jane Levy) isn't funny.

The mellow Laue... makes a likable enough subject, if sometimes low-key to the point of dull. Watching other people watch him play, though, is definitely not.

Prieto does what he can to keep things roaring along, but the overall effect is not a lot more stimulating than your average diet cola.

The Other Son is played with warmth and conviction by its cast. But it's also a little pat and toothless, set in an Israel where not even the notorious border crossings seem that difficult.

Ultimately, Sleep Tight makes a sounder case for nocturnal Webcams than the "Paranormal Activity" franchise ever could.

Gorgeous surroundings don't make up for sulky, feuding travel companions.

The plot, however, comes with twists you can spot as far off as a Himalayan peak. The dialogue is heavily expository, and the actors are not up to the task of breathing life into characters meant to symbolize the Spirit of the Afghan People or the Nature of Evil.

The surfing sequences are some of the best I've ever seen in a film, and the re-creation of Jay's climactic battle to ride El Nino-driven waves is real white-knuckle stuff...But neither Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential") nor the fellow veteran director who replaced him when Hanson took ill, Michael Apted ("Gorillas in the Mist"), can do much with the hokey sequences on land.

I'll grant that the film has many layers. All of them are terrible.

The posthumous campaign to polish Michael Jackson's tarnished reputation continues apace with this Spike Lee infomercial, commissioned by Sony and the money-grubbing Jackson estate to promote the 25th anniversary of his 1987 album "Bad.''

Aside from these curious role reversals, though, Alex Cross is a mess. Drawing on every conceivable '80s B-movie action cliché and treating its beleaguered female characters like pieces of meat (literally, in one scene of butchery), director Rob Cohen squanders a surprisingly recognizable cast on a half-baked plot adapted from James Patterson's series of novels.

This is hardly reinventing the wheel, but it is serviceable, if you're looking for a few shivery communal scares.

The sort of enigmatic movie that many critics embrace because it's open to endless interpretation.

It's deeply frustrating to discover that this 2012 movie has precisely the same concerns as the ["The Women"] - appearance and men - with raunchy frankness about sex added and every trace of real wit siphoned out.