Inventive, droll and sharp, the film is rich in comic darkness but quite humane and genuine as well.

The film is all the more remarkable because its actors are untrained and their lines are improvised. Clearly, they've lived this.

Feels like a movie that wants to bare its fangs, but only manages a mild gumming.

The movie's still quite affecting -- in part because of its simple, old-school earnestness, but mostly because Stolzl does white-knuckle work behind the camera to make you feel the height, pain and awe of the grueling ascent, and the bottomless terror and exhaustion after everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

fFat, dull drag.

It's a refreshingly human-scale saga.

A movie that, like its title character, is meandering, unstructured and only dimly aware of what it’s doing.

I am not qualified to refute every claim made in this movie, but I have seen enough topical documentaries to have a good idea when a filmmaker is not being entirely honest with viewers.

This makes "Eli" sort of wonderfully silly toward the end, as if the Hughes brothers set out to make the first-ever faith-based "Mad Max" movie.

Like "Red Road" it's slow-moving and sometimes grueling, but it's more of a chronicle than narrative, a series of slices-of-life rather than an unfolding and increasingly engrossing enigma.

It’s not earth-shaking, but it’s diverting and polished.

The tension between the comely and comforting manner of the film and its undecided and beguiling content is, arguably, Haneke’s signature touch.

Whether Elia Kazan could have done something memorable with this script will remain an eternally open question. This film, though, is most effective as a reminder that Williams' works emerged from a certain time and place, and to approach them from another is fraught with peril.

Despite some arresting visual flourishes and Downey’s inherent likeability, it’s nearly incoherent both as cinema and as story. No, this isn’t your grandfather’s or your father’s Sherlock Holmes, but if theirs featured Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett in the lead, it was better by miles.

The movie's anchored by a strong lead performance and a steady sense of humor.

If you loved his (Gilliam) older work -- and if you can stand the twinge of pain that beholding the lamented Ledger will surely evoke -- it’s worth a visit.

Paley's production shines with brilliance and great humor.

For all the inactivity and resistance that mark the plot, there's beauty in the filmmaking and a kind of dazzling inevitability to the unwinding of the tale.

The movie's a fish-out-of-water romantic-comedy thriller that forgets to be romantic, comedic or thrilling.

Is it a great movie? Maybe not. But it is a great step forward in moviemaking. Shrug it off if that makes you feel better, but starting today you live in a post-Avatar movie world.

Eventually, the inconsistency wears, and the film provokes mostly indifference and restlessness.

A fresh look at the first chapters in the monarch's life, while maintaining historical fidelity.

Delirious. Hilarious. Absolutely one-of-a-kind.

As someone new to the material, I found Jackson’s film soulful, respectful, masterful, horrifying, rending and emotionally true. It may not be the Lovely Bones that you have in mind, but it’s a fine and powerful one.

It’s not a great film, but parts of it are outstanding.

Built around Firth’s fine work, A Single Man is a handsome film that, like its slender source novel, is stylish, quiet and sure.

For a ripped-from-reality film about love and death and family strife in the face of the war in Afghanistan, Brothers is awfully artificial.

For much of its going, Up in the Air moves with the same refreshing pace and attitude that marked Reitman's "Thank You for Smoking" and "Juno" -- with the added frisson that the subject matter is so torn-from-the-headlines that it feels, in a good way, like reality TV.

I appreciate that talented people wanted to honor Shelly by making this film. They likely would have better honored her by mounting her script as a play.

It’s offensive, really, this blatant pandering to emotions.

Giamatti, in fact, makes off with a few scenes as the literally mustache-twirling antagonist, providing some welcome moments of over-the-top levity.

Flashes of dark humor and steady, grounded performances make it a welcome return for Miller, making her first film since 2005's "The Ballad of Jack and Rose."

The Road walks a tremendously daring and delicate line between inspiration and horror, and it does so not only in the events it depicts but in its very air and atmosphere. It was unforgettable on the page, and it impresses equally, or at least it does so remarkably often, on screen.

It's no "Fantasia" or "Sleeping Beauty," but it's no "The Rescuers Down Under," either.

A thoroughly credible and deeply entertaining biopic about a titanically famous film personality.

More solidly crafted and insults its audience quite a bit less than its predecessor, and it sets up several nice emotionally complicated cliffhangers for the next installment. I hope its target audience has a blast.

A facile, feel-good fable that substitutes cliché for reality at nearly every turn.

In Almodóvar and Cruz we have a real collaboration of artist and inspiration that only seems to improve and deepen over time.

Woo's hand is sure and his eye, as ever, finds beauty in everything, even death.

Although 2012 is what they call "critic-proof," it's not immune to analysis. It depicts a world where no one, man or God, has much say in what happens to the planet, and where the survival of one family outweighs the deaths of billions.

For all the ostensible immaturity of its form, Fantastic Mr. Fox is the most grown-up thing the director has done in years.

The only scenes that felt "actorly" come when the pair drunkenly crash an ex-girlfriend's wedding party. Otherwise, The Messenger has a verisimilitude rare in films tackling this subject matter.

Witless, tasteless, toothless, pointless, garish, repetitive, obvious, and painfully dull, Pirate Radio is that exceedingly rare film that never, but never puts a foot right.

Precious can’t be endorsed as entertainment: the circumstances and incidents and emotions in the film are far too dark and painful. But there is exhilaration in its daring, in its craft and in the powerhouse work of its principal actresses.

Sporadically clever and chilling.

Carrey’s Scrooge is deliciously pinched and credible. As, indeed, is this film -- that is, when it feels like Dickens and not a theme park ride.

There are moments of levity throughout the film, but it’s made with pedestrian craft and feels more like a set-up and a series of vignettes than a compelling yarn. Chiefly, it demonstrates just how accomplished the Coens are even when their films seem offhanded and easy.

If any of what he says makes sense to you -- and even if it’s only a small piece, it’s terrifying -- then you’ll want to invest in gold and organic seeds and friendly relations with your nearest neighbors. You know: JUST IN CASE.....

If you want genuine laughs and romance in a carnival setting, go rent "Adventureland."

As the struggle toward something new and different overwhelms the film, it becomes less and less human, less and less funny and less and less worth the effort to meet it on its own terms.

If you're a big Michael Jackson fan, you'll love This Is It. If you're not, it's like watching two hours of band practice.

In addition to the slick but generic computer animation, it's also got an A-list voice cast: Nicolas Cage as Dr. Tenma, the grieving inventor, and Donald Sutherland as a scheming politician.

Better luck trying to find out what truly happened to the real Earhart than trying to diagnose all that's wrong with this hapless film.

The film is competent without being spectacular or thrilling.

Significantly cleverer than its moniker, even though it picks for its satire one of the most inviting targets on record: the world of contemporary art.

There’s a lot of hate in this film. But a lot of talent, too. It borders on despicable, but you can’t ignore it.

Jaa's performance as Tien is mostly wordless and humorless.

It IS a film that deflates you too often, despite its efforts to impart a sense of soaring. In the end, where the Wild Things are is in your imagination and in Sendak’s pages, not in this big-hearted but ultimately faint simulation.

The movie starts out as a potboiler with a troubling character arc; unfortunately, it ends up becoming a goofy, story-overwhelming Rube Goldberg contraption that would make the producers of the "Saw" series blush.

The film is somewhat sketch-like in its episodes and in placing Raquel within a larger world. But it’s very surefooted when it stays close in on her and her universe of chores, rituals and fears.

It is, in its quiet, precise, classical way, nearly perfect.

It's played with real zest and energy, and if you can stand the heat it gives off it may charm you despite yourself.

It’s a fascinating story about ambition and vanity and pride, and in Sheen’s performance and the atmosphere capture by Hooper it contains truly fine and rare things.

It’s an eye-opening and modestly funny look at a massive business and a culture with its own signifiers and language.

Fiercely acted but made with indifferent craft and no palpable feel for its subject matter, Trucker takes you on a ride from intrigue to indifference.

They also, with brilliant simplicity, point to the possibility of these actions being taken for real.

The movie's a ride, basically. It's a slick, funny buddy-flick confection about a dork (Jesse Eisenberg), a Twinkie-loving hick (Harrelson), a hottie (Emma Stone) and a sassy kid (Abigail Breslin) who bicker and bond as they drive cross-country after a zombie plague.

It's a fantastic high concept to wrap the film around, and Gervais comes close to fulfilling its potential, especially when he tells a comforting deathbed lie to his dying mother and accidentally invents religion.

Barrymore is terrific with her actors, finding moments for even the smallest supporting players.

It’s a story that begins in an ancient riddle and ends, perfectly, in the rumble of an oncoming storm. It’s about life, A Serious Man is, and it’s as close, I think, as any American narrative movie of recent vintage has come to touching on the uncanniness of it.

Tautou is, as ever, radiant and deep and affecting, but a film about such an extraordinary personage as Chanel shouldn’t feel so ordinary and wan.

Humor and humanity keep The Boys Are Back from being a cloying mess.

Capitalism lacks the surprising wit of “Roger & Me” and the sobering comparative journalism of “Sicko,” and it isn’t nearly as heartfelt as “Columbine,” which poignantly and repeatedly circled back to Moore’s beloved home state of Michigan.

Its got a deliciously audacious and cheeky tenor.

Structurally, this is as by-the-numbers as rom-coms get, right down to the wacky best friends, played by Judy Greer and Dan Fogler. For a while, it's low-key enough to be tolerable.

Performances are for the most part strong, especially Seyfried's, and Kusama uses Fox well, making the most of the actress' blank-eyed arrogance. It's not a performance that suggests a lot of range, but it's fun to watch.

Portland's dreary climate is used to good effect, but it's not enough to make up for the director's needlessly convoluted approach.

There are nice bits throughout, and your heart can’t help but go out to these impassioned young lovers whom you know are doomed. But Bright Star is too often tarnished by the ordinary.

The film sometimes feels like the kid brother of “Fog of War,” Errol Morris’s far more compelling account of the mind of Robert McNamara, Ellsberg’s one-time boss. There’s reality and depth here, but a chill, too, that the filmmaking never quite manages to melt.

Ultimately, it's an instructive and entertaining examination of both the overlooked environmental costs of everyday life and the possibilities for change.

At barely an-hour-and-a-quarter in length, it's one of those very rare feature films that you wish were longer.

Crude is only a progress report of a case that might last until well into the decade, the sordid details of which are still, pardon the pun, spilling out.

Which leads to the question of whether Extract, clunky title aside, will finally give Judge a box-office hit. It looks and quacks like "Office Space," and previous satirical edges have been sanded down to something palatable to average filmgoers. On the other hand, it largely lacks the audacious elements that have given stuff like "The Hangover" an intense word-of-mouth following.

Oswalt sells Auferio's pasty indecision and makes him a more sympathetic figure than he has any right to be.

Filled with vivacity, charm and, yes, beauty.

It’s a timely and lively film that reminds us that such phenomena as reality TV, YouTube celebrity and living one’s life 24/7 on Facebook and Twitter aren’t necessarily brand new.

Somehow Lee fails to make it speak to us. His heart is in the right place, but like many of the crowd that swarmed Yasgur's farm, he has rather lost his head.

I'm not sure if parents will be counting out each of Shorts 89 minutes or not, begging for it to end, but I'm guessing 8-year-olds will absolutely love it, because Rodriguez isn't talking down to them or using pop-culture references in place of actual gags; he's making what might be called eye-level children's entertainment.

It's a film with many strengths, but it's not a knockout. And that's Tarantino's own fault, though not in the first way you might imagine.

It's jaunty and bright, but Pray never gets under the skin of things or ever truly questions the essence of advertising as an art or trade.

The film is gummed up by Bruno Ganz as an intelligence officer who wants not only to capture the bad guys but to understand them -- and to explain them, hand-wringingly, endlessly.

Yes, a comedy, however dark, about a parent taking advantage of a child's death is a tough sell. But with Williams more restrained and sympathetic than he's been in years (again, faint praise), and a final act that makes up for a ponderous first third, "Dad" shows that it can be done.

This is a delicious premise, and Blomkamp, who first played with it in a 2005 short called "Alive in Joburg," has magnified and improved it with ferocious energy, wit and style.

An entertaining and fascinating film.

In many places it's genuinely, absurdly funny--crass, sleazy and morally questionable, yes, but still funny.

Feels like an iffy concept album with some great singles.

Paper Heart isn't the most cloying instance of earnest indie quirk to emerge in the past few months, nor is it the most charming, but the mere fact that such a continuum exists is reason enough to worry.

If you're willing to have your patience tested, Twohy and his cast reward it.