This installment is all about the grown-up kids. The three young leads - especially Emma Watson, who can do more with a still face than any actress her age - are all terrific

Portman toils slavishly to realize Aronofsky's mad vision. It isn't her fault that, despite Black Swan's visual splendor and bursts of grand guignol excess, this emotionally inert movie never does grow wings.

This non-balletic adaptation by the Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky is something gnarled and stunted and wrong, something that should never have been allowed to see the light of day. How's that for a holiday-ad pullquote?

The very existence of Four Lions is an act of audacity; the fact that it's also smart, humane, and frequently hilarious is nothing short of a miracle.

Boyle's skill at wringing physical and emotional reactions from his audience is impressive; watching 127 Hours is, as intended, an experience of grueling intensity.

Block intended this movie as a loving portrait of his relationship with his daughter. Instead, it's a reflection, and not always a kind one, of the man behind the camera.

Even knowing what's likely to come-the doors opening on their own, the skeptical characters scoffing at metaphysical explanations, the unheeded warnings from paranormally gifted guests-doesn't make it any less nailbiting to watch.

Though I found Hereafter meandering and occasionally sentimental, I couldn't help but admire Clint Eastwood's ambition in taking on-headfirst-the greatest fact of human existence.

Red simultaneously tries too hard and not hard enough.

Watching Jackass 3-D was like being plunged into a Hieronymous Bosch painting of hell, yet this very reaction attests to the franchise's primal, diabolical power.

Secretariat is a by-the-numbers sports-hero picture with an inexpressive hero (horses look great in motion, but they can't carry a close-up) and a preordained outcome.

The baby-faced Thomas Sangster nearly steals the show in the much smaller role of Paul McCartney.

The Social Network wants to be a social satire, a miniaturist comedy of manners, and a Greek tragedy; it bites off a lot, at times more than it can chew. But even the unmasticated morsels are pretty tasty.

Like Gekko, the film also feels urgent and strangely necessary.

By the time this movie's over, you've spent an hour and a half just working your way through the words of Howl and some related source material, and that turns out to be a surprisingly satisfying thing to do.

An autopsy for The Town would list multiple causes of death.

Of all the twists in Catfish-the most surprising of all is what an honest and thoughtful film it turns out, against all odds, to be.

The worst thing about I'm Still Here is the fact that it exists.

Though the movie never overcomes the miscasting of its lead couple, The Romantics does show a surprisingly fine authorial touch.

There's just not quite enough to the movie: not enough jokes, not enough obstacles, not enough sex.

If you're willing to let go of your Hollywood-bred expectations for a movie of this type-spectacular action set pieces, constant pulse-pounding music, a killing every 15 minutes-The American is a great pleasure to watch, an astringent antidote to the loud, frantic action movies that have been clogging our veins all summer.

Ultimately The Switch can't escape the constraints of its own formula.

Soul Kitchen is sprawling, undisciplined, raucous, occasionally crass-and so full of life you forgive it everything.

In short, Elizabeth Gilbert is the Julia Roberts of writers, which means that the film adaptation by Ryan Murphy (the creator of Nip/Tuck and Glee) got at least one thing right.

A package of cinematic Pop Rocks, a neon-hued, defiantly non-nutritive confection that nonetheless makes you laugh at its sheer bold novelty.

The Other Guys actually suffers by comparison to its own madcap opening sequence.

Preposterous plot devices, leaden acting, and clunktastic dialogue are acceptable in a dance movie, but bad choreography is not, and it's during the dance scenes that Step Up 3D fails.

This tawdry freak show is a telling substitution for the actual stupidity mocked in Veber's original. Roach's remake manages both mean-spiritedness and timidity the same time. That's some feat-moviemaking for boneheads.