Christopher Nolan's dramatically and emotionally satisfying wrap-up to the Dark Knight trilogy adroitly avoids clichés and gleefully subverts your expectations at every turn.

The movie focuses tightly and obviously on role playing, but the most unsettling observations concern how fragile it all is - our health, our minds, our denial of death.

At first glance, Grassroots doesn't seem like much of an idea for a movie. Nor at second, third or fourth glance. Your fifth glance will be at your watch, and at sixth glance your eyelids will be getting very, very heavy.

Sorvino brings a spark, but neither she nor Patti LuPone, in an amusing cameo, can overcome the clockwork-like plod to the end.

Pinto's lack of dramatic range (she basically has two expressions) and an awkward third act do not provide a solid foundation for Hardy's tragic ending.

Despite a bunch of fourth-wall-breaking re-enactments, the look is consistent with most TV true-crime stories. But the way Layton parcels out information makes this story as strange and fascinating as anyone could desire.

The best evidence of this troubled man's genius is provided by ample samples of his music, much of which will be familiar to fans of Warner Bros. cartoons from the '30s and '40s.

As this eye-opening documentary shows, the suits who run MLB are the real bad guys here, treating the aspiring ballplayers as so much sausage.

Gets sillier and sillier as it goes along.

Gritty visuals and a strong central performance elevate the routine crime story at the heart of Sweden's Easy Money, a sort of mash-up of "Goodfellas" and "The Great Gatsby."

Jacquot's lavish décor and costumes are like the perfume the women use instead of bathing: They may cover up the willful carelessness at the center of the project, but it's still there.

At best, the film serves up mild chuckles, with occasional cute jokes.

Briskly effective, humanizing.

Both characters are riveting, and they even manage to earn most of the freight that Donovan loads onto his heavily ironic title.

Unpleasant as it is, you can't exactly call Sherman's perspective misogynistic, if only because the protagonist hates himself every bit as much.

A decent idea for an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond," The Do-Deca-Pentathlon falls short as a movie.

The trouble is that the film also wants to make Kev at least partly sympathetic, despite his monstrous treatment of his son, and nothing we learn about him ever does, or could, accomplish that.

Familiar elements such as a dark family secret, a ghost and a Ouija board start to seem trite after a while, and the third act is a little ridiculous, but debut writer-director Nicholas McCarthy does a lot with a little and seems fully prepared to handle a big-studio horror project.

Chang doesn't pull his punches in this continuing look at a changing, out-of-control China.

Even in an underwritten role, the delightful Madsen shines in her best performance since her comeback role in "Sideways."

Despite its excesses, Savage" is never unintentionally funny, just gritty and mean. The run time is more than two hours, yet it's also tight: no drag, no waste, no message.

Sometimes dull and mostly uninspired, it's much less a satisfying reboot like "Batman Begins'' than a pointless rehash in the mode of "Superman Returns.''

The nicest thing I can think of to say about the doc Neil Young Journeys is that at least it isn't in 3-D.

It's apt that the Rome weather in this stodgy film, contrary to the title, seems quite temperate.

Both Venice and Bouquet are photographed to ravishing effect, and like the city, Judith is meant to suggest something trapped into being a fantasy for others.

The overall mood of Gypsy is despair.

Canadian actor Kirby's bedroom-eyes shtick is infused with just the right amount of creepiness, as Polley's film plays with the blurry line between soulful romantic obsession and just plain stalking.

The considerable talents of Banks make the movie bearable.