Haywire is a wannabe, or rather a wanna-B, and that B is for "Bourne." As each imitator comes and (rapidly) goes, my appreciation for the best superspy franchise deepens. Even top directors - in this case Steven Soderbergh - can't figure out the trick.

A well-acted, well-directed (by TV veteran Anthony Hemingway) popcorn movie with great aerial battles and solid dramatic scenes that hold your attention for two good hours.

The French affection (affectation?) for conversational film reaches absurd proportions in the talkathon Domain.

Romantic comedies are often as contrived and irritating as Loosies, but few feature a lead character so lacking in appeal.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's reformist two-term president, gets the once-over-lightly treatment in Lula, Son of Brazil.

The only possible relief from director Xavier Gens' abusively bleak survivalist scenario is how implausible it is.

Latifah, a formidable actress who's almost always better than her movies, easily dominates this hokey cross between "Glee'' and "Sister Act.''

Contraband aims to be dumb fun but gets only the first half right.

The title It's About You is something Kurt Markus claims Mellencamp told him when he commissioned the film. With the elder Markus' self-important, egotistical narration rarely shutting up, it was a fairly prophetic remark.

For a sex movie, Norwegian Wood is about as dry as a pocketful of sand. Even for a film set in a land that considers paper folding an exciting activity, this is dull stuff.

It's sad to see Quaid in sloppily directed (by Martin Guigui) dreck like Beneath the Darkness less than a decade after the performance of his career as a closeted married man in "Far From Heaven.''

Soulfully directed by Michael Cuesta ("L.I.E."), Roadie is short on narrative momentum, but it's a perfectly attuned character study of this rock relic and his middle-aged sorrows.

Cinematographer Mohammad Davudi's nighttime shots of jammed Tehran highways help convey the society's dehumanization. Scenes of a vast forest outside the city, where Ali releases tension by hunting, are powerful in their own, sparse way.

Patient viewers will be rewarded, as long as they pay attention. Lots of what at first seems inconsequential is actually of great import - but Ceylan isn't letting on. And yes, the cinematography is impressive.

Director Gaby Dellal gets respectable performances all around, especially from Dekker as the hapless, grief-stricken father, but they can't elevate Angels Crest, beyond its one obvious and depressing note: It is very sad when a small child dies.

In the compelling but slow-moving Iranian film A Separation, a downbeat family drama of no particular distinction gradually turns into a mystery that raises painful moral questions. There may be several guilty parties.

Sincerely directed by one woman (Phyllida Lloyd, who did "Mamma Mia!") and smartly written by another (Abi Morgan), the film stars an unsurpassable Meryl Streep, whose ability to empathize with her characters has never been more gloriously impassioned than it is in this titanic performance.

The hit man's narration is compelling and frightening on its own.

This is a look at the joy, confusion and heartbreak of adolescence that's both culture- and locale-specific and, at the same time, universal.

Zhang Yimou, one of China's best-known filmmakers, deserves a great big lump of coal in his holiday stocking thanks to his ludicrous soap opera The Flowers of War.

It's the dancing that makes Pina a visual delight. It should appeal to dance mavens, and to folks who have no idea what a pas de deux is.

Vincent Bal's film should appeal to kids, cat lovers and felines. I give it two stars, and my cat, Audrey, gives it three meows.

So the film is a head-spinning mix of dead babies and romantic dinners, pillow talk and mass executions. Blood and honey don't taste right together.

About as artistically profound as those framed 3-D photos of the Twin Towers emblazoned with "Never Forget'' that are still for sale in Times Square a decade after 9/11.

Genuinely charming, treacle-free family films are tough to find these days, so I'm happy to heartily recommend We Bought a Zoo as heartwarming holiday fare that even jaded adults can share with the kids.

It's not a knock on Steven Spielberg to say he is history's finest maker of children's movies. His capacity to evoke simplicity, awe, beauty and unconditional love are his genius, and his vision of the children's story War Horse is a gorgeous, majestic fable about a boy who yearns to be reunited with his steed.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is, as you'd expect, rubbish, but the word is slightly too kind. The David Fincher film (like the very similar Swedish one - released in the US just last year! - and the book) is not even good rubbish.

Thankfully, Tintin is Spielberg at his most playful and unpretentious.