Directed in workmanlike style by Underworld: Evolution's Len Wiseman, has its share of wild stunts and spectacular carnage, but it feels pokey and predictable, too.

It runs a fast 88 minutes, is broad as the waistlines of its stars, and is remarkably family-friendly if you don't mind bathroom humor.

An ambitious, if wildly uneven, character study that relies on a taut script, snappy dialogue, and a few well-placed plot twists, The Barber boasts a fine turn by Scott Glenn as an aging serial killer.

Efron, who wears an "All glory is fleeting" tattoo on his back and a soulful look on his face, gets to be more of a grown-up in The Lucky One than in most of what he's done before.

I left the film wondering where at the Bellevue-like psychiatric facility that schizophrenic teenager obtained such a becoming brick-red lipstick.

Despite its visual beauty and Rahim's extraordinary, and silent, performance, the film never quite manages to connect on an emotional level.

Meet Dave isn't great, but it's good enough. And it proves once again that Murphy can do anything - even a PG comedy in which he isn't a donkey.

Cheesy and loads of fun.

While Dumont's movie has its striking scenes, it is doomed to a sense of lethargy and inertia by the kind of people it ponders and the context in which they are placed.

The best thing about The Life Before Her Eyes, a somber meditation on fate and friendship, is the way it captures the close relationship between two teenage girls.

A mostly glum, gray and grim story lit by a fugitive sunbeam.

At 24 minutes, Lola Versus might be a middling episode of a sitcom like "New Girl." At 87 minutes, it is a gracefully aimed arrow shot in the air. Where it lands, Wein and Lister Jones know not where.

It's basketball Fantasy Camp for the cost of a movie ticket.

Ultimately, this jingo-bingo action thriller squarely hits its target, then delivers a delayed-action message contrary to everything that has preceded it. Berg heroizes the plucky Americans, but in the closing scenes of his ripping action flick, sucker-punches them. It's as if this populist Syriana frags itself.

The best reason to see Along Came Polly is the supporting cast.

Lockout is genre all the way. The film wears its colors proudly, but it also, alas, wears out its welcome.

Winterbottom's films never bore. They do sometimes frustrate, provoke - even anger. That's the case with his entry in the true-story genre, The Face of an Angel.

Hoodwinked may be a poor cousin to the Shrek franchise, but this made-on-the-cheap computer-animated feature still has more style and snarky gags than Disney's recent CG hit, "Chicken Little."

The film is cannily made.

The puppets are anatomically correct and politically incorrect. They provide 45 of the funniest minutes I've spent at the movies this year.

Part of Me is Perry's visually spectacular testimonial to her own indomitable determination to follow her dreams. The fact that the film lends itself to some really colorful Pinterest pages is merely a bonus.

Yun-Fat is magnetic and majestic, and the story, no matter that it is not entirely true, continues to fascinate.

The byplay between Efron and newcomer Tahan as his brother has a warmth and intimacy that establish the film's tone. The performances carry the film.

The plot may be forgettable, but the execution is frantic and funny. The Spy Next Door is a movie that will bring smiles to kids - and their grandparents.

The gift of Imaginary Heroes is getting to know these anything-but-ordinary people.

The upside: Chow has energy and invention to burn. The downside: He doesn't know when he blisters his audience.

For soccer aficionados, Kicking & Screaming boasts some fairly cool play, courtesy of Alessandro Ruggiero and Francesco Liotti, two kids who play "the Italians."

At 92 minutes, the film has the economy of a Potter story, but not the shapeliness or the zip.