There is one thing interesting about Alex Cross, and if you miss this, you've missed the whole movie. It's not the story - it's worse than mediocre. It's not the lead actor - nothing wrong with Tyler Perry, but as an action star he's no Vin Diesel. And it's not the dialogue, which has a clunker every other scene. It's the direction. Notice the direction. Alex Cross is a good example of what a seriously talented director can do with a heaping pile of garbage.

What makes Middle of Nowhere a break-even proposition, rather than something to avoid, is that it deals with an aspect of life and with characters rarely seen in movies.

Is it a comedy if the audience laughs or is it a comedy if laughs were intended, irrespective of whether they're generated? Excuse Me for Living qualifies under the second definition.

To be fair, War of the Buttons is a film with a modest agenda. It does not attempt to provide a complete or even vaguely realistic depiction of the rural French resistance in the endgame to World War II. Instead, it provides a fable.

Compared with other movies, Seven Psychopaths is clever and inventive enough to be considered a weak success or a modest failure, the kind of effort that usually gets damned with the faint praise of "not bad."

The main source of astonishment is the precision exhibited everywhere, from the slyly vintage look of Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography to the gradual, cinching tension in Chris Terrio's careful screenplay.

It would have been enough for The Other Dream Team to simply pay tribute to the tie-dyed underdogs, but the filmmakers strived for more. Adding detailed historical context, the quirky feel-good story becomes a tragedy and a lesson. And that makes the victories resonate even more.

The pure mechanics of Here Comes the Boom land it in an enjoyable, if forgettable, space.

A poignant and insightful look into the human suffering caused by agricultural bioengineering, features an unlikely but appealing protagonist to tell its story about a global phenomenon.

Taken 2 is like a textbook on how to make beautiful, successful and highly satisfying junk-food cinema. When it's just a plot point, the information gets tossed out as fast and as forcefully as possible. Time is lavished only on the things that matter.

The movie has a saving grace in that it breaks formula. Its concerns are not the usual movie concerns, and it takes what might have been a standard plot in some unexpected directions.

It is pure, retro-cinematic joy.

Butter is a misfire. At 90 minutes it feels inflated, and though clearly intended as funny, it's difficult to locate, except in the most general terms, the focus of the movie's satire, and there's not a laugh to be had.

That the movie largely sidesteps partisan politics will no doubt irk some viewers, but may just be its greatest strength.

Nostalgia for the groves of academe weighs heavily on Liberal Arts, which both exploits and undermines romanticized memories of campus life.

We are left to ponder whether this nightmare might be a harbinger of America's economic prospects. And that is a scary thought indeed.

A movie whose main virtue was its honesty ultimately lands in a place that feels canned and unsatisfying. But on the way there, Backwards isn't so bad.

Any movie that features a character calling herself Fat Amy has a pretty firm grip on irony. It helps that Fat Amy is played by Rebel Wilson ("Bachelorette," "Bridesmaids"), my favorite eccentric Aussie practitioner of lip-curled comic timing.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower hurts. It hurts because it depicts the loneliness, anxiety and all-out quivering mess of adolescence in a manner not often seen since John Hughes' heyday.

A captivating 86-minute film by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, who is married to one of Vreeland's grandsons.

The cutest darn thing in Hotel Transylvania is the way Count Dracula spazzes into a brilliant red devil-face when provoked. The second-cutest thing is his annoyed response to being misquoted by idiot humans.

The casting is carefully considered, as well, from Willis, whose Old Joe is even more dangerous than Young Joe, to Emily Blunt, who goes American this time and plays a young mother with a winning warmth and vulnerability.

For sure, this is a cause movie - sometimes it even feels that way - in favor of charter schools and against the teachers unions. Still, Won't Back Down is reasonably fair in its approach.

When the screenplay sticks to the tricky business of living - trying, then screwing up, then stumbling forward anyway - it hits its mark with confidence, and the big ensemble cast responds with tight little performances of affecting vulnerability.

The mind-numbingly predictable, but admittedly watchable Hello I Must Be Going needed less whine and more surprise.

A play-it-safe, by-the-numbers kind of documentary - yet somehow it gets under your skin.

If it were just a middling effort, The Master would be a lot less frustrating. But the latest from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has greatness in it - two extraordinary performances, intuitive and revealing photography and scene setting, and a distinct directorial sensibility that hovers between sobriety and satire. Yet all those virtues are undermined by a narrative that goes all but dead for the last hour.

When it's over, this documentary lingers as a testament to extraordinary human bravery. It stands as one of the most heartbreaking and suspenseful sagas of the year.