Forestier's performance is a tour de force of comic acting, maintaining astonishing alertness and energy from shot to shot and scene to scene.

Attack the Block is the other alien-invasion movie opening today, the lousy one, the one from Britain. In Britain, it's probably just a regular bad movie, but here - with accents that are barely comprehensible and in-jokes about council flats, not to mention a swerving handheld camera and some of the cheapest effects since "Night of the Lepus" - it's surprising this thing ever got released.

Once you're done trying to conjugate the smurfs, there's a better movie than anyone could have possibly expected, thanks in large part to an honest effort by Harris in a thankless role.

Some of the film is imaginatively put together. But the melodrama feels forced - manipulated by filmmakers hell-bent on teaching its main character a lesson or two about life and the need to seize it.

Take a cowboy movie, add space aliens. That's a gimmick that could easily have exhausted itself after 20 minutes, but director Favreau, a team of screenwriters and some well-cast actors keep it alive, and the result is a crowd-pleasing summer movie with more wit than most.

Men will watch Crazy, Stupid, Love thinking they're finding out things about women, but if anything, this movie works the other way. Women will get a glimpse into the male mind.

Structurally, this becomes a little monotonous because there's just no denying that some kids are more interesting than others.

Road to Nowhere, a neo-noir in which art imitates true crime (or is it vice versa?), is bound to be a thrill ride for some - and a head-scratcher for others.

What matters most in this sad, sobering movie is not what anyone says; it's what goes unsaid for most of the running time.

As thrillers go, Rapt is long on intellect and short on action, a virtue to some degree, though not entirely.

The takeaway on Friends With Benefits is that mores change, styles change, the rules change, and even humor changes. (There are two jokes involving apps, of all things, that are pretty funny.) But people's emotional needs remain the same from era to era.

What distinguishes Cap is his humble backstory, which involves neither hairy gods nor hot-dogging test pilots but a kid from Brooklyn who just wants to fight for freedom.

This latest from director Wayne Wang, about the friendship of two young women, travels from 2011 to 1997 to 1829 to 1838, in search of a reason for the audience to keep watching and start caring. That reason is never found.

The result is a nice little movie that does its job and doesn't spread misery under cover of spreading joy.

Morris is a storyteller of the highest order, and within seconds, he draws us into his subject, doling out details, making us wonder what will happen next and dropping bombs for maximum impact.

After watching Project Nim, a distressing portrait of a misguided 1970s language experiment, you'll be glad you're not a chimp in a cage. But you might want to revoke your membership in the human race, which comes across as a narcissistic, hedonistic, self-absorbed, neglectful, anthropomorphizing and arrogant bunch of hippie-dippy know-it-alls.

Tribe superfan Rapaport doesn't fawn, but he juggles too much, and the ending feels pat. It's still an outstanding effort, and one of the more honest band biopics in recent years.

Depressing. So is director Marshall Curry's avowal in the press notes that the film will leave viewers with "a more nuanced view of the world."

If you've sworn off movies about adolescent misfits, I don't blame you, but make an exception for Terri. This modest comedy-drama declines to take the easy way out, unlike many examples of the genre.

The epic and impassioned close that the saga deserves, a sweeping Wagnerian finish that's taut with suspense and wet with emotion.

The core fan base of this English sword battle drama will pay for the boundary-pushing blood and gore. Why bore them with things like plot and context and production values?

A Better Life isn't an instant classic, but it tells its story with a simplicity and compassion that other urban dramas would be wise to emulate.

Wexler gets tired of his own movie near the end of it. The viewer will get tired in 15 minutes.

Horrible Bosses has a handful of hilarious moments, but it's not exactly funny and not exactly serious, either.

As far as complete wastes of time go, Zookeeper is not especially offensive. Yet it is surprising that everything you might expect to be charming in it just isn't - namely all the bits involving animals.

Those of you who don't work for a newspaper may also be interested in what it's like on the inside - how stories are generated, how editors and writers interact, etc. For what it's worth, it's an accurate portrait.

Rhys Ifans is an engaging protagonist, playing Marks as a passive and seemingly unflappable character whose iron nerve and ability to keep cool in a crisis get him out of more than one desperate situation.

It's unpleasant where it should be pleasant, convoluted where it should be streamlined, anxiety provoking where it should be easy, and long, long, long - at least 20 minutes longer than it has a right to be.