There's plenty of freshness and skill here, both in front of the camera and behind it.

Eastwood never manages to bring the past to life, even as DiCaprio and company dive gamely into the material.

Doesn't demand much of the audience, sure, but it doesn't provide much, either. It's as if an all-star gang of would-be crooks got together to rip off...moviegoers.

And while it may be true that Almodóvar doesn't have Hitchcock's way with terror, it's not clear that Hitchcock could leave the real world behind so wholly and convincingly as Almodóvar does here.

It's a topic that's been handled in films before, perhaps most notably in Jane Campion's "Holy Smoke," but Durkin offers the most persuasively believable peek into the psyche of such a character I've ever seen.

It's easy to imagine that some folks will find the film rapturous, but it's equally clear that there are others whom it will drive crazy.

Puss in Boots isn't particularly deep, nor does it take itself seriously -- it just wants to seek glory, win affection and cash in. Done, done and done.

It may not add up to a narrative, but it's a fascinating compilation -- a mixtape you may want to hear more than once.

To my thinking, the grand simplicity of the metaphor is a big part of In Time's oddly retro sci-fi charm. Niccol is practicing the old-school craft of making a barn-broad alternate-reality that forces you to think about the way we all consensually agree to participate in systems -- even when those systems are hopelessly screwed up.

I just wish the movie wasn't also so monologue-choked, muted to a fault and fond of oversimplifying financial lingo to the point of meaninglessness.

In their best moments, Hark's action movies have a what-did-I-just-see giddiness, as if their choreography were springing straight from a cartoon id. Though I could have done without much of the film's CGI-heavy fakery, "Detective Dee" finds that giddiness more than a few times.

It's a horrific tale, filled with fear, confusion, anger, disfigurement, and loss. Weissman and Weber don't milk the pathos and they don't have to. Their interview subjects are brilliantly chosen, not only for their specific vantage points on the events but for their eloquence and depth of feeling. Time and again, the spoken and visual record of what happened overwhelms you.

It hardly needs to hang its head around the original, and it bolsters Brewer's standing as a talent of note.

The performances are solid, the cinematography is stunning, and the setting is intriguing. But the whole thing feels bloodless, hitting us over the head with its understatedness. Anytime a film's soundtrack features The Shins, James Taylor, and Nick Drake, you know you're in for an overly laid back time.

A harsh self-examination of the cynicism that has crept into every cranny of the political landscape. As such, it's absolutely a story of our times.

Thanks to a slew of engaging performances and a script that finds the sweet spot between crass and curdled, it's a winner.

The only thing that could make this movie more French would be a guillotine.

Despite the film's claim to be an anatomy of a pop culture craze, it's deeply parochial and has an opportunistic feel at its core.

Genuinely breathtaking.

Dolphin Tale is inoffensive enough -- little kids will probably dig it -- and I'm not suggesting that family-friendly docudramas should tightly conform to real life. But when they do embellish, they should distill the story into something more compelling, rather than watering it down with pleasant-but-utterly-forgettable inspirational boilerplate.

It's a sports story, yes, because without baseball there's no Beane. But it's far more a tale of a man's triumph over himself and his doubters. And you don't need math to make sense of that.

At its best, Pearl Jam 20 makes a convincing argument that Nirvana wasn't the most iconic band to rise from the grunge scene. Ultimately, however, Crowe's fanboy treatment pushes it into a mosh pit of mediocrity.

The result is a gripping film about a subject almost too good to be true.

As the film accrues intensity and awakes the demon lurking inside its protagonist, you can see it as something more than a retro-cool crime story. Rather, it's a parable of good and evil and the nature of man.

It's never more than an intro to a man who merits volumes.

Ultimately, though, this is a story about a conflicted, intelligent, flawed, moral woman making her way through her life.

The film is enthralling, even as the tale becomes more and more dire, with scores of millions dead and societal upheaval imminent. The circumstances depicted in Contagion are terrifying, but the power with which the film is made blends the horror, as only the best art can, with beauty.

Begins with an eye on satire but dissolves quickly into grotesquerie -- and if the first tack was a bit narrow, the second is far too scattershot.