Imagination is the key element that Conviction lacks.

Hereafter doesn't feel like a Clint Eastwood film; it's more like a very special edition of John Edward's psychic TV show.

It's an amusing geriatric uprising that might just as well be titled "Gray."

It's Lane who's saddled with dragging this nag over the finish line, with her cliched portrayal of another single-minded woman beating men at their own game.

A sitcom pilot idea stretched to feature length boredom.

This is a remarkable film for more reasons than its antihero, from the cyberspeed wisdom of Aaron Sorkin's screenplay to Jeff Cronenweth's camera prowling the excesses of youthful genius gone wild.

This is how a romantic vampire flick should work.

Whatever his motivations or deeds, Gordon Gekko is a classic screen character and Douglas is never better than when playing him.

Nobody can disagree that Waiting for Superman deals with a subject demanding attention. But it paints the engulfing problems of U.S. education with a brush too broad and samples too small to be definitive.

The reclamation project that Ben Affleck calls a career continues with The Town, his second directing effort that would impress more if the first try weren't so terrific and visually similar.

Screenwriter Bert V. Royal takes the oldest adolescence hook in the book - losing one's virginity- and turns it inside out.

Imagine a stuffy Merchant Ivory production blended with muted Michael Crichton sci-fi and you have Never Let Me Go, at least as it plays on screen.

I'm Still Here is amateurishly shot and edited, as if ineptness equaled some higher level of veracity. Ironically, it's the only Joaquin Phoenix movie anyone has cared about in years.

Bran Nue Dae is a strange change from the usual multiplex fare, and that's nearly enough to make it wonderful.

The heist movie genre gets a hip-hop makeover in Takers, a movie loaded with as much style as ammunition.

Whatever laughter Lottery Ticket earns is through familiarity with these exaggerated characters, and actors going the extra mile to make viewers believe they haven't seen this material before.

Hands down and body parts floating, the most irresistibly sick movie in years is Piranha 3D, which should be retitled Piranha 3D, Double-D and C for all the topless cuties director Alexandre Aja feeds the fish and audience.

One of the year's best documentaries.

After a lucrative career of bashing well-made scary, epic, disaster and date movies, Friedberg and Seltzer have a source begging to be mocked.

Eat Pray Love is like one of those rich dishes Liz consumes in Italy; robustly flavored and guiltily pleasurable.

Wright is an insanely funny filmmaker (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) yet only the front half of that description carries over to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

If anyone gets a career boost from The Expendables it will be Dolph Lundgren, playing a drug-addicted loose Howitzer booted from the team and flipping to the bad side.

The choicest performance in Animal Kingdom is Weaver's sing-song sinister matriarch of the Cody clan, a cheery sort with the benign nickname "Mama Smurf."

This summer's funniest movie.

Steve Carell's character in Dinner for Schmucks is almost too pitiful for the jokes launched against him to be funny. It is a terrific performance making everyone else's condescension sound harsher than the writers likely intended.

The movie is geared to preschoolers, so only parents dragged with them may complain. There's only that Looney Tunes overture to savor before the Acme production begins.

Get Low is a pleasant yarn, well-acted and dutifully mounted with period designs. There isn't a false note among the actors.

Salt is a movie constantly painting itself into corners then tromping out with arbitrary twists and action distractions.