As in the mindless Man on a Ledge, the hero is never really in danger, we're the ones who are trapped.

Although Tomboy is as tightly constructed as a short story and as seemingly straightforward as a documentary, the parable about a small fib that grows out of control is so rooted in the rich soil of sexual identity that it entangles us.

The double deception of suppressed personality and repressed sexuality could have been the basis for a rewarding character study, but after Albert meets a kindred spirit and dares to dream of a happy ending, her denial and naivete become too much to swallow.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is supposed to promote healing, but as they say in New York: close, but no cigar.

Overreaching fits of melodrama, occasionally stilted dialogue, and performances by Gooding Jr. and Howard that are mostly a series of serious faces can't keep the shiny Red Tails from taking flight.

Like psychoanalysis, A Dangerous Method takes its time as it circles an opening to unexplored depths. To reward our patience, Cronenberg gives us some honey-hued eye candy and rich dialogue, but if you're seeking instant gratification, I prescribe "Shame."

Like Elizabeth Olsen in "Martha Marcy May Marlene," Oduye brilliantly slips inside the skin of a sensitive young woman who's having trouble finding her place in the world.

The film is a raw, unsparing look at the downside of humanity.

Nothing more than uninspired mushiness.

When a man whose wife was killed by cultists invites us to laugh at life's absurdities, the particulars are almost incidental.

As biopics go, The Iron Lady is among the more intriguing ones.

While the PG-13 approach to the most brutally sustained war the world has ever known makes it suitable for mature children, some cynical adults may resent the tug of the reins. Me, I cried like a grandmother.

Yes, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is often hard to follow, perhaps overestimating the audience's ability to keep track of what's going on and why. But it's a well-crafted film that wears its old-fashionedness with pride.

As a man committed to reinventing himself, Damon is terrific. And Johansson brings to Kelly just the right blend of spunkiness and hard-won maturity.

May be too cute to qualify as high art, but it's highly entertaining.

As a tale of a boy, his dog and their battles with bad guys, it's a treasure.

The film isn't quite as edgy as Fincher's best work - "Seven," "Fight Club" and "Zodiac" are masterpieces of modern angst. But the director brings a fresh eye to what might easily have been an unnecessary rehash of the 2009 Swedish adaptation.

On its own terms and against all odds, "Outrage" is adequately entertaining, with more than enough cringe-inducing violence and cruel humor to please the average American moviegoer. But true Kitano fans will find its title sadly ironic.

Clear-eyed, fearless and ferociously funny, Young Adult is mature filmmaking.

The world-class mechanic is Brad Bird, who applies the pacing and spatial freedom of a 'toon to a live-action thriller.

As in the first "Sherlock Holmes" movie, there are plenty of pratfalls and bare-knuckle brawls but no sleuthing for us to share.

It's a comedic dramatization with a looming shadow of the surreal.

Turturro, who previously directed a musical called "Romance and Cigarettes," lingers on the sensual movements of the performers and the character faces of the onlookers.

The sanitized setting and sappy script are so littered with cardboard characters and crass product placements that you'll mourn for the muggers and porno theaters that De Niro cursed in "Taxi Driver."

The most mesmerizing parts of the movie make up a tutorial about how the Muppets are made and moved.

The performance is both an eerie imitation and a touching revelation. Oscar voters who overlooked Williams for her camouflage roles in "Brokeback Mountain," "Wendy and Lucy" and "Blue Valentine" should now throw diamonds at her feet.

Into the Abyss makes a strong case for the inhumanity of capital punishment, regardless of the crime or the criminal.

While Banderas' dark intensity overshadows the potential poignancy of the story, Almodovar is such a skilled surgeon that he extracts a juicy nugget of pleasure from a purely distasteful premise.

Lacks the urgency of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" But Paine's thorough knowledge of his subject, and engaging way with an interview, make the follow-up film a fun ride.

Like a newborn planet, Melancholia is magnetically beautiful, but it's also an unformed mass of hot air.

Arthur Christmas stays sweet without becoming overly sentimental and is filled with sly details and smart action sequences.

For cinematic sojourners, Hugo is a trip to the moon.

An Oscar-ready collaboration between a great director and a star at the peak of his powers, but at its heart is a message in a bottle reading: "Trapped in paradise. Please send help."

The troupe's first film in more than a decade, is a more aggressively absurd antidote to what it calls "a hard, cynical world." Happily, it works.

The best thing you could say about Happy Feet Two is that it doesn't have any product placements or potty jokes. Other than that, this charmless Antarctic cartoon is what it looks like when hell freezes over.

Twilight fans who have followed the series will want to see "Breaking Dawn," and like Bella and Edward may find brief moments of pleasure.

A beautifully realized drama that gets to the essence of what it's like to be young, confused and in love.

J. Edgar is the kind of prestige production that apologists will call polished, but even the technical attributes are tinny. In the gay-geezers scenes, Hammer wears terrible old-age makeup, and the entire film is bathed in sepia tones as weak as its convictions.

The Women on the 6th Floor shouldn't work, but this efficient flick whisks away our cynicism.

The movie inspired theater critic Judith Newmark to write a sonnet in response.

Perhaps the spookiest thing in this slyly scary movie is the word-for-word way that Patrick's followers regurgitate his pablum.

Back when it was planned as an African-American "Ocean's Eleven," this project might have been edgy, but the script has been whitewashed into a generic caper comedy with pretensions of timeliness.

Shannon's powerfully imploded performance ignites one of the best films of the year.

In recording the timeless traditions of Jewry, he created a new one: the identity crisis that rides on the back of laughter.

Depp shows again that he truly understands Thompson by delivering a nuanced performance that is remarkably different, but subliminally similar, from the wonderfully outrageous turn he provided in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

After a nifty setup, In Time mostly fails to deliver as it gets lamer by the minute.

Even if they don't provide much lift, these boots were made for amusement.

Toast is lovely to look at, evoking both the gray-green milieu of Midlands life and the sensuality of good food, but it's like a whipped topping with no base.

If you haven't seen a wasting disease in real life, you might think Restless is romantic. If you have, you might diagnose it as terminally cute.

In place of a rousing adventure, Blackthorn is a haunting ode.

For anyone expecting the second coming of Clouseau, Johnny English Reborn is a karmic catastrophe.

This true story fills a needed niche, spotlighting women's basketball in the era before Title IX promoted equal treatment.

Margin Call has a spectacular cast, and the 24-hour cycle of events gives the movie the compressed dramatic effect of a fine play.

An art-history lesson and a spiritual exercise disguised as a movie.

A solid sci-fi/horror hybrid, but this iceman doesn't deliver enough to chew on.

The larger-than-life actor is as emblematic of his country as Tom Hanks is of ours, and My Afternoons With Margueritte is his "Forrest Gump." Only better.

The Big Year puts the focus on people who aren't inherently interesting - or funny.

Footloose poses as a bold update, but it's shockingly out of step with the times.

Happy, Happy has the makings of a Norwegian "Ice Storm," but it goes out with a whimper.

The Hedgehog sneaks up on you with its heartfelt storytelling and sophisticated wit.

Pleasant, well-acted but somewhat overlong, The Way was written and directed by Estevez, who's perhaps best known for his acting career ("The Breakfast Club").

If you'd pay to see a film called "Hotel Rwanda: Maniac Manager," you might be receptive to this mixed-message movie, but skeptics should keep one eye on the exit.

What it lacks is the human element. Charlie is more of a rat than a rascal, and instead of working hard to build and operate his robots, he's literally going through the motions.

If you want to see a great movie about a political campaign, starring the smartest heartthrob of his era, rent "The Candidate." If you want see a very good one, buy a ticket for The Ides of March.

The film catches the Mozarts' true personalities in a way that Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus" never approaches. In one scene, the siblings playfully improvise musical variations, and then joyfully rush to the clavier to write them down: There is the essence of Mozart.

This affable comedy is a healthy alternative to tearjerkers.

It does induce a few giggles like cheap champagne.

A true story of animal rescue, and it even stars the sea creature to whom it happened. But it's the humans who do the cutesy tricks that make it a mixed blessing.

Although you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it, Moneyball is one of the best baseball movies imaginable.

Struggles heroically, but unsuccessfully, to strike a balance between whimsy and pathos.

Offers an inside look at Iran in all its cultural complexity.

Like its main character, I Don't Know How She Does It tries to do everything, but it doesn't quite succeed.

This film might easily have settled for mocking religion. Instead, it's a fascinating glimpse into a culture that forces some people to choose between fitting in and opting out.

More damaging is Lurie's conspicuous "red state" rant, as he makes sure that every prominent guy in this film - save for the screenwriter and the black sheriff - fits all of the Southern stereotypes. That doesn't make it a bad movie, just one that is something less than Peckinpah's original.

As Refn is riffing on thriller cliches, he gets solid support from the ensemble. Brooks, a comedic standout since the '70s, makes a sympathetic villain, and Gosling stokes the young-Brando comparisons - instead of settling for Richard Gere.

Doesn't rise to classic status, but it's an intriguing mood piece.

Starts out so promisingly that it's a huge disappointment when it ultimately becomes way too predictable - and unbelievable. It's as if "Raging Bull" suddenly morphed into "Rocky."

A documentary that clearly aspires to the highest standards of cinematic muckraking but makes for a frustrating experience.

The Tree might have suffered from too much symbolism if not for writer-director Julie Bertuccelli's deft touch and Gainsbourg's appealing performance.

Sitting through A Good Old Fashioned Orgy is like being monopolized by the most irritating person at a really boring party.

With such supercharged material under the hood, a magnetic man behind the wheel and a nimble director manning the pits, Senna is simply the greatest sports film I have ever seen.

The Debt eventually settles into a predictable groove that slightly undercuts its impact. Still, it's a film of ambition and substance.

Neither as magic nor as trippy as the culture quake that it documents, but it's a valuable flashback and a pleasurable contact high.

It's hard to imagine a better movie about corporate-sanctioned sex trafficking than The Whistleblower. But whether you're ready to confront this true story is a trickier question.

Our Idiot Brother is smart entertainment.

Like its neo-noir kin across the pond, The Guard is violent, profane and funny. But McDonagh is interested in more than mockery.

Put aside any hang-ups you may have about subtitles. As action flicks go, Point Blank is right on target.

Despite the oddly literate title, Vincent Wants to Sea never deviates from the predictable bonding-through-misadventure script, and it has little to teach us about the nature and treatment of the traveler's respective maladies.

One Day fails to make us care about the young couple at its center.

July is a provocative and honorably independent filmmaker, but given the meager rewards of investing our time, The Future wasn't worth the wait.

It honors the original throughout, including a memorable nightclub scene and a surprise cameo that's a huge crowd-pleaser, while at the same time giving updates to make it fresher and better than ever.

The result is more like a long commercial than a cohesive movie, and the omissions are glaring.

There's so much higher intelligence in Project Nim that simply digesting it feels like evolutionary progress.

In such a bleak story, the redemptive ending seems rushed and unconvincing, but director Oliver Schmitz has sent us a timely dispatch from a forgotten corner of the world that is honest above all.

This is another one of those phony movies in which a character burrows into someone else's life without telling them she's an axe murderer, a man or a vampire. Not only that, we're supposed to hope that they get it on. I was hoping that everyone involved would get hit by an asteroid.

30 Minutes or Less could have been a guilty pleasure, but the crusty caper is half baked.

It's a credit to the cast and to the worthiness of the idea that this overlong movie works at all. But those of us who already know that racism is bad could use a little more challenge and a little less help.

Here, the scattershot spoofery never rings true.