For those who loved his singing in "Velvet Goldmine," Rhys-Meyers once again proves that he has pipes.

The movie isn't a send-up or a takedown of fairy tales -- it's a fairy tale.

Ultimately Hitman is about bullets, blood, and bombs. For die-hard fans of the videogame, there is much to relish in terms of cobblestone car chases, punishing fistfights, cool weaponry, impossible physical feats, and ear-popping gun battles that rage through exclusive hotels in exotic locations.

Haynes's picture may not be perfect -- hell, I'm not even sure that perfection is a state it even aspires to -- but it's bold and individualistic and accomplished. A reason to take heart for the state of current American moviemaking.

This one aims for bleak and hits it.

I like a good flying, fire-breathing dragon as much as the next fellow. Beowulf's excesses, though, are such that the film ought to carry the subtitle …But This Is Ridiculous.

Margot is a fleet, strangely enjoyable film, animated by the acuity of Baumbach's perceptions and -- this helps a lot -- the frequent laugh-out-loud wit of his dialogue.

For a movie built around a brightly-colored, magical toy store, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is surprisingly forgettable. In fact, it's most wondrous feat is just how it manages to waste good actors and fine performances.

The problem here, which vitiates the picture's ingenuity and causes it, finally, to sink like a stone, is in the physical execution of the material.

What doesn't work at all -- saving the worst for last -- is a ship-sinking performance by John Leguizamo as Lorenzo.

There's a lot of "stuff" here, and Kelly's biggest problem -- he's got more than a few -- is that he can't tell his good material from his bad.

Silly, heartwarming, and fun.

Lambs feels five years too late.

As stomach-churning a suspense exercise as the cinema has seen since the salad days of Hitchcock.

The new perspective Scott and Zaillian want to bring to this material never gels convincingly, and despite some effective set pieces, a cast of memorable faces and attitudes, and evocative cinematography by Harris Savides, this would-be epic feels tired and rote.

The result is oddly schizoid, but also so insubstantial that to call it oddly schizoid suggests a weight it doesn't have.

At its best, it throbs with immediacy, just as Strummer did.

Filmed in 2005, the first of two Cusack widower flicks this season (the weepier and more indie "Grace is Gone" hits theaters in December) Martian Child is also a Franken-schmaltz monster of cobbled-together Cusack movie parts.

The action is violent, messy, and threaded through with dark humor. This is a movie for grownups, for sure, but it has a mulish kick that most such pictures consider themselves to tasteful to aspire to.

A smart, sweet, and thoroughly disarming ensemble comedy that isn't afraid to wear its humanism on its sleeve.

Though the series seemed like a great concept three years ago, it's now just a repeated assault on the senses, designed strictly for the gross-out crowd, and disturbs rather than scares.

It's all pulled off with a firm sense of the fun in being scared.

It's been well-publicized that Affleck, going for as authentic a feel as possible, cast many genuine South Bostoners in both extra and speaking roles, and, while that's salutary, in some scenes his strategy backfires, yielding caricatures that are merely more vivid than the ones turned out by Central Casting Hollywood productions.

If it makes anybody feel better, one character in the picture does point out that the whole "extraordinary rendition" concept originated with Clinton. So there's balance for you.

One of those infuriating films that can't allow this already dramatic situation to fester and develop on its own.

The film also has an unexpected and rich vein of humor. John Carroll Lynch -- you might know him as Norm Gunderson of "Fargo" -- is a stitch as a neighbor of the Burkes.

This handsomely mounted film, in its cute ADD way, soon forgets its half-hearted attempt to make History Relevant to What Is Going On in the World Today and morphs into a sort of Classic Comics on acid, or, as a friend so brilliantly put it, "the longest Eurythmics video ever made."

Lars's attraction to Bianca is like an audience's to an actor onscreen -- the object is fake, an approximation, but for some that's better than flesh and blood. Bianca is a work of art. And so is Lars and the Real Girl.