The ending smacks of Hollywood rewriting of history. But The Devil's Double shows the political consequences of Uday's misdeeds, the delicate negotiations that keep the people with grievances in line. And Dominic Cooper delivers a career-making performance.

The slapstick is very small-kid friendly and even the most adult-friendly jokes are pretty mild stuff.

Despite the locations and the informative narrative, almost every scene is missing that spark that would bring the characters to life and immediacy to the story.

That it lacks the snap, crackle and kapow of the summer's better comic book blockbusters isn't surprising. With all this effort riding on a big, expensive and rushed studio summer picture, the real miracle is that any of them come to life.

As a Steve Carell comedy, it works. He plays the victim well, the guy romantically in over his head ever better. Surrounding him with people this funny - Ryan Gosling, who knew?

A brisk blast of bloody good fun, sci-fi with a little social commentary as subtext. Attack the Block is the movie that "Battle: Los Angeles" was not - thrilling, nerve-wracking and fun.

Chemistry is king. It's one reason the rom-com has long seemed like the toughest code for Hollywood to crack. But never underestimate the power of snappy, rapid-fire banter, the paving stones of the Hollywood road to romance.

The fourth comic book movie of the summer is the best comic book movie of the summer. Johnston has delivered a light, clever and deftly balanced adventure picture with real lump in the throat nostalgia.

Does well in capturing the cruelty of school life and the assorted "types" who inhabit schools there and here. But it's more twee than clever, more affectionate than romantic and more promising than satisfying.

Once you get past the cliched Spanglish dialogue and the sentimental tone of the early acts, A Better Life settles down into something both involving and moving.

It's a treat for children making their first trek to the multiplex and for parents and grandparents with fond memories of the Hundred Acre Wood.

The finale to the Harry Potter saga is, like most of the films in the series, a bit of a slog. But it's a generally satisfying slog.

A slick one hour and 50 minute version of those political convention hagiographies ("A Man From Hope"), so it's not exactly an objective take on its subject, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The first funny film to give those "Bridesmaids" a run for their money.

James takes his comic lumps like a man. His Griffin suffers injuries and indignities and lets us laugh at him as he does. No matter where the script wanders and where the direction founders, at some point, James' comic instincts take over. And this time, they don't let him down.

Here's a documentary so slick, novel, touching and outrageous that your first thought might be "This has to be fake."

Zeroing in on Carr as the movie's "hero" was a smart move. He comes off as smart, confrontational and unconventional.

A perfectly pleasant but fluffy, inconsequential romantic comedy.

This script, this leaden direction ensures that even as the teen wish-fulfillment fantasy, complete with young women playing dress-up, Monte Carlo fails.

Moon delivers the popcorn in gigantic fist-fulls of fun.

It's a movie of thematic dead-ends. Director Azazel Jacobs and writer Patrick DeWitt give us a slow SLOW and somewhat morose tale that isn't remotely funny or profound enough to sustain that pace and tone.

Bad Teacher is a pulled punch, a pot-smoking/kid cussing/teacher copulating farce that is less than the sum of its parts.

It's a bit long to be as kid friendly as this educational and visually striking film is meant to be.

They turn more of the story over to the comic relief, the dopey tow truck Tow Mater, and get a sillier, more kid-friendly movie out of it. Yes, Cars 2 is better than "Cars."

The riffing, the one-upsmanship, the off-the-cuff zingers and the singing (ABBA, a great favorite of Coogan's most famous creation, the dizzy talk show host Alan Partridge) make The Trip an easy-going trek down a road well-traveled by these two.

Glibly put, this challenging time-skipping rumination is the big screen equivalent of watching that "Tree" grow.

Precious, protracted and pleasant enough.

Well, Green Lantern isn't "Jonah Hex" bad. But it's silly enough to be part of the same "silliest Warner Brothers comic book summer movies of all time" conversation.