To ensure customer loyalty, Hollywood should promote more movies about workaday life in the provinces, but until there's a new wave of midcoast comedies, Cedar Rapids is the big kahuna.

On a minute-to-minute level, it's an engaging mystery, the kind that rewards our participation with eye candy and adrenaline shots. But when we pull back for an overview, we see that it's flat and that pieces are missing.

The cheap, indifferent, teen-alien thriller I Am Number Four delivers none of the spectacle of a competent sci-fi film, none of the emotion of an effective teen romance and none of the giggles of a kitsch fiasco.

Stays too low to the ground to become an animated classic, but if there's a fairer midwinter's tale, wherefore art thou?

It's pure speculation on the filmmakers' part that Gaelic pagans were adorned with bones, blue mud and Mohawks, but the fire-dancing spectacle is a welcome respite from the beefcake of the journey scenes.

Barney's Version has episodes instead of plot, outbursts instead of wit and alibis instead of growth.

As a drama about coping with hard times, The Company Men doesn't come close to being as sharp or entertaining as "Up in the Air" - which starred Wells' "ER" associate George Clooney.

You might expect a cartoon about a man and his dog to be strictly for kids, but My Dog Tulip, based on a memoir by J.R. Ackerley, has a psychological richness and anatomical explicitness that is very grown-up.

The saving grace of Biutiful is Bardem.

This humane movie is an ode to joy, albeit of the mature sort.

Unhurried in its storytelling but unshakable in its impact.

The Illusionist has surprises up its sleeve that are unusually nuanced for an animated movie.

Even by the sloppy, soulless standards of hit man movies, The Mechanic is a mess.

That's right - this is an exorcism movie that those who actually saw "The Exorcist" in theaters can get into.

Summer Wars has engineered a truce between the familiar and the fantastical.

A foul-mouthed comedy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. "Bad Santa" (2003) also had plenty of crude language and lewd behavior. The difference is, "Bad Santa" was extremely funny.

You would expect an epic with brains and hearts. Instead we settle for sturdy craft, with a stellar cast struggling to breathe life into the cold material.

A distinctly European exercise in observational nuance and tonal restraint in which Coppola stretches static images to the breaking point.

Might be mistaken for a mere soap opera. But it's actually an emotional symphony.

It's true that the movie is both emotionally violent and sexually explicit. Yet these scenes from a marriage are crafted with such attention to detail and overarching honesty that Blue Valentine touches the heart.

Seth Rogen is the Green Hornet. What else do you need to know?

It's classic sitcom shtick, and The Dilemma is a painful reminder that director Ron Howard was trained in television.

Even with a large cast, groovy clothes and cool pop songs, Hawkins holds our attention with a combination of modesty and moral strength.

Loosely - very loosely - based on the classic Jonathan Swift story, "Gulliver's Travels" begins promisingly but quickly loses its way.

The King's Speech is the epitome of prestige cinema, an impeccably crafted and emotionally compelling drama that deserves the many laurels it surely will receive.

There's a fascinating story here for a bolder filmmaker, but after so much meandering it's a relief that "All Good Things" must come to an end.

True Grit is just a couple bloody gunfights removed from an old-fashioned Disney yarn. Yet it's still unmistakably a Coen brothers movie, from the stray weirdness of a bearskin-clad dentist to the bulls-eye delights of the dialogue.

If instead of story and characters, your movie wish list includes projectile vomiting and erection gags, this lump of coal has your name on it.

It's a tart trifle, but in the madding crowd of year-end movies, Tamara Drewe rocks.

In the infidelity drama Leaving, British reserve gets overtaken by French passion, and the subsequent events have the horrific momentum of a slow-motion car crash.

Hogancamp's alliance with director Jeff Malmberg in this artful and poignant film marks a victory in the war against the self.

Here, Dan Aykroyd mimics the original voice, but the three-dimensional CGI isn't loose and lively enough to compensate for the unimaginative story.

Director David O. Russell ("Three Kings") delivers a film of staggering impact.

A bit slow to get started, and it's nowhere near as funny as "The Hangover." But it'll make you smile.

It's a triumph of streamlined design, but TRON: Legacy never enters the fourth dimension where it's worth a plugged nickel to humans.

Megamind falls flat.

Pregnant with possibility; it's the delivery that disappoints.

This movie is Denzel Washington stopping a speeding train devoid of subtext, blunders and earth-shattering revelations about the human condition. It is precisely as entertaining as it sounds; no more, no less.

Successful in small doses, but the full regimen needed more testing.

Plays as if Tillman studied the works of director Michael Mann ("Heat"), but got a C on the final exam.

Black Swan is ridiculously over the top, but in a way that makes it fascinating to watch.

While we await the definitive documentary about the glut of garbage, Waste Land reduces this global catastrophe to touchingly human scale.

An utter shipwreck, a would-be adventure with meager rations of magic and a listless crew.

A would-be light thriller that's so deficient in the genre's essentials - such as witty dialogue, intriguing characters and surprising yet credible plot turns - that you're embarrassed for everyone involved.

In skewering the neuroses of New York bohemians, Durham has left us too little to care about.

Tangled is lovely to look at, but if you're not a pre-teen girl, you may be distracted by the split ends.

It's a worn-out show-business fairy tale piggybacking on a nonexistent trend.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is slower and stranger than any of the previous films, simultaneously raising hopes for a haunting finale while dimming hopes for a magical one.

A road-trip comedy that somehow renders both promiscuity and racism harmless. While we're soaking up the sunny surroundings, we're getting nowhere.

For a nation at war with its own values, Fair Game is a compelling, pertinent and scrupulously true political thriller in the honorable tradition of "All the President's Men."

Mainstream moviemaking at its most proficient, with a zippy script, comfort-food casting and a breakout performance by a deserving star.

In the end, the movie is still a poetic injustice.

His (Eastwood) first boring film.

The story is sustained by the stubborn love between the siblings and by the conviction of the two fine actors who portray them.

This true story does a great service by honoring the memory of 22 brave men and women and by dramatizing the internal debates within the French population. But in staying true to life, it sacrifices some of the pacing and clarity of a conventional thriller.

It's intellectual snack food, satisfying for a little while but always leaving you hungry for more.

Stone isn't for everyone. But for all its shortcomings, it is courageously original.

Red is an insult to our memories and to our intelligence, an unfunny farce whose veteran cast is cashing a retirement check.

Gilchrist ("United States of Tara") is immensely appealing as a kid who's just a bit too wrapped up in himself to grasp that perhaps his problems aren't insurmountable.

Only a heartfelt performance by Diane Lane rescues the film from abject mediocrity.

Nowhere Boy is too astutely written and directed to go to predictably melodramatic extremes.

A film that's at once timely and timeless.

With its mix of true-blood romance and full-moon madness, Let Me In should hasten the twilight of the twerpy pretenders.

It's a wholly successful sequel - audacious, entertaining and bracingly pertinent.

Weaver is a natural as the imperious Ramona, but the rest of the cast is flattened by the script, particularly White, who is just window-dressing in a movie that could use the rude humor she's displayed elsewhere.

Waiting for Superman raises important questions while wearing a big red heart on its chest, but inconvenient facts are its kryptonite.

Allen has been criticized for leaving some of the plot lines up in the air and several characters in the lurch. But he seems to be making a point: Neat Hollywood endings are as phony and dangerous as Cristal's ramblings.

Because of some sentimental backspin, Affleck doesn't quite hit it out of the park, but he may provoke the green monster of envy in lesser directors.

Manages to waste the talents of its strong supporting cast, which includes Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm McDowell and Stanley Tucci.

Nev and the filmmakers prove to be charismatic, and at times hilarious, investigators of the unfolding mystery.

Like Ernest Borgnine, Philip Seymour Hoffman is an unconventional leading man with an Oscar on his mantle, and his bittersweet Jack Goes Boating has elicited comparisons with "Marty."

May be too sterile and stylized to elicit real tears, but it's got brains and heart to spare.

It's almost offensive that Danny Glover is relegated to playing the mysterious old confidante who haunts the same fishing hole as Cal. By the time Glover's character delivers the homily, Legendary is pinned to the mat.

Whether true or a hoax, I'm Still Here represents real risk-taking that I can only applaud.

If The Virginity Hit had been filmed as a straightforward sex comedy, it could've been a riot.

The premise is pure formula.

Post-Dispatch classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller told me that Gould's music is as divisive today as it was 50 years ago, when the pianist publicly clashed with conductor Leonard Bernstein over the tempo of a performance.

Moviegoers will know in the first five minutes whether the new B-movie Machete is their cup of tea - or bucket of blood.

While it's both too crude and too commercial to be mistaken for journalism, the good news is that the headliners deliver.

A bizarre buffet of buffoonery, brutality and beautiful landscapes.

Best appreciated as an exercise in style. Based on Martin Booth's novel "A Very Private Gentleman," the film establishes and sustains a mood of suspense, but Corbijn seems only minimally interested in conventional thrills.

It's hard to love and hard to hate.

There aren't enough surprises to justify the title, but The Switch produces sufficient light for a late-summer diversion.

Weighty issues such as war and divorce are mentioned, but the serious themes pass quickly. The lighthearted story always takes precedent over the special effects, but a scene involving swimming piglets will have kids flashing a sea of smiles.

Three actors portray the clumsy-but-limber Li in the years of his arduous training, when he is pulled between a teacher who's inspired by Mao and another who's inspired by bootleg videos of Mikhail Baryshnikov.

The word that sums up the essence of this movie is "frustrating."

There's a running joke that this epic of also-ran heroism is set in eternally modest Toronto; but its real locale is an alternate universe without parents or the unhip.

All of the performances are skilled, and yet it's Weaver (a veteran screen, television and stage actress in Australia) who, in a smaller role, creates the character who stays with you.

The funniest movie of the year.

This homey construct is warm, exactingly crafted and painted with pop-country tones, but it's lacking a deep foundation where the issues that it raises can resonate. For a movie like that, we may have to depend on the Danes.

The multiple cameras that shadow Anker and his novice partner provide unprecedented images. But they also raise unintended questions about the vanishing frontier.

If you're interested in a drama about a few days in the life of an American abroad, you may find Cairo Time engaging. But for some viewers, it all may be just too subtle.

As phony as a poodle-skirted waitress at a mall diner, yet it's as sweet as a malt. A vanilla one.

Although Lebanon is to be congratulated for its bold visual strategy and strong antiwar stance, the film becomes claustrophobic after a while.

Imagine if the "Godfather" saga had been told from the point of view of Talia Shire's character. The perspective of a don's daughter could produce a compelling movie, but The Sicilian Girl isn't it.

It's more like a shelved episode of "Touched by An Angel." The sappy script is a disservice to the naturally effervescent Efron, whose character is so mopey he makes Robert Pattinson seem like a song-and-dance man.

Its mean-spiritedness, stupidity and squandering of talent is uniquely Hollywood.

Between the carefully trained animals and their computer-animated mouths, the movie doesn't have much room for realism; but the 3-D effects are surprisingly effective, and this playful pic earns a pat on the head.