Without wallowing in sentimentality or judging any of her characters, Kim has drawn a mature portrait of an elementary school girl old before her time and a loss of childhood that rings true on every level.

There is nothing we haven't seen here before in terms of chases, intrigue and betrayals, so for all its A-list cast and production values, the film comes off as routine.

Works better than you might imagine at times but stumbles awkwardly other times. The unevenness in the writing is matched by directorial overkill in certain comic sequences.

Wears its righteous indignation and good intentions on its sleeve but its simplistic, heavy handed treatment of a complex issue gives it the weight of a contrived movie of the week melodrama.

Follows the same formula as the first, with one difference: They've managed to ramp up the action and vulgarity beyond the insane heights of the original.

The result is an insightful, exuberant, probing, long-winded and even exhausting look at what it takes for a performer to have a life in the theater.

While Caine and young Milner make for amusing adversaries, it's nice to see Crowley paying respect to his elders by populating the retirement home with a number of familiar faces, including those belonging to Rosemary Harris, Sylvia Syms and longtime "Coronation Street" resident Thelma Barlow.

The cast is uniformly fine, but Abbass and Lipaz-Michael shine as two women who bond in the fear that the best of their lives is over and neither of them is happy with what the future holds.

The freshness and ingenuity of this techno-thriller should spark a cult following among sci-fi fans at the very least, but the film could make inroads among cineastes, adult adventure-seekers and the Latino community as well.

Completely lacking in visual, narrative or stylistic coherence, the film also suffers from cheap-looking visual effects and poorly staged and edited action sequences that will not exactly please the fanboys.

There are sufficient pratfalls and Miley/Hannah quick-changes to satisfy the fans, while Cyrus retains that natural, unforced likability that made her a star in the first place.

In the film's most flamboyant role, Peter Sarsgaard's devil-ish charisma and cold bluster is frightening.

Barring a Terry Zwigoff return to "Bad Santa" territory, it's hard to imagine a filmmaker embracing this dubious hero to the extent writer-director Jody Hill does.

A period suburban rites-of-passage story with a pitch-perfect cast.

With a keen affection for his own formative years, filmmaker Greg Mottola has crafted a funny and spunky amusement

Although it's refreshing that Alien Trespass doesn't indulge in the sort of mindless, gross-out humor that afflicts so many current cinematic spoofs, it errs too much on the other side, offering mere pastiche instead of witty satire.

Hecker makes good use of the south Florida locations, and the song selection -- including many Big Band favorites -- is winning.

All of this mayhem keeps us watching, but it would be hard to describe the experience as pleasurable.

Fast & Furious is the first film since the original to be smart about how far to stretch logic without sacrificing the desired macho swagger and revved-up emotions.

We can be grateful to a stellar cast and some discipline on the part of Matt Aselton, a commercials director making his feature debut, that Gigantic doesn't go completely overboard. Nevertheless, the film will appeal mostly to festivals and adventurous audiences.

The movie is almost rescued by the wonderful 1930's style songs (written by Reinhardt Wanger and Frank Thomas) that populate its final act.

Low-key, realistic performances from a mostly nonpro cast keep the story running smoothly. His face visibly stressed-out and hardened from loneliness as he detaches himself from family and friends, Naji gives the film a strong center.

Riveting, near flawless documentary.

Polished, funny and utterly charming.

It is both funny and sad, placid and provocative and, above all, hopeful and despairing.

There is a nice mix of action with tender moments -- especially among the misfit monsters

What seemed sharp and pointed onstage comes across pedantically in the film, which treats its subject with a clumsy heavy-handedness.

Although the impressively acted ensemble piece occasionally gets tripped up by Peter Elkoff's overtly literate script, it travels in some unexpected, thoughtful directions.

Cena is no Jason Statham. His stolid seriousness sucks the life right out of any scene in which he's required to speak. It's a bad sign when you repeatedly wish a runaway trolley would silence the hero.

Often engrossing and humorous.

Haunting tweaks familiar tropes enough to make them interesting. Just not so interesting as to inspire many nightmares after the credits roll.

Misunderstandings, new turns and stratagems mark the rest of this delightful divertimento, which navigates between burlesque and romantic comedy.

Director Alex Proyas resolutely thinks in B-movie terms. Even with an A-list budget, he oversells every plot point and gooses the thrills with hokey lighting, bombastic music and serious overacting.

Fukunaga clearly exhibits a flair for spirited storytelling, but when Sin Nombre departs from the specifics of its unique world in favor of more conventional genre execution, it leaves the characters and audience adrift.

It's a rare comedy that actually grows funnier on reflection. It benefits enormously from the talents of the two stars.

The movie is fun, with plenty of intrigue and suspense that will have audiences clutching at their arm rests.

A warm, amiable glimpse at the end of the showbiz road.

Entertaining and even poignant.

Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are two highly attractive, naturally funny actresses on the cusp of stardom so their pairing here as two lost souls is genius.

Here's the deal: The worst sex cartoon in Playboy's long history can't compete with the sheer vacuousness of this inane comedy.

Adheres sufficiently closely to the original template so as not to offend purists and manages to pack an intensely visceral punch of its own, most effectively in the extended setup.

The story is certainly predictable, but it contains just enough conflict and drama to engage the viewer.

The film belongs to the women, with Knightley going from strength to strength (and showing she can sing!) and Miller again proving that she has everything it takes to be a major movie star.

It's entertaining with a crafty mixture of action, humor and drama.

Thanks to the script which invests the smallest scenes with dramatic significance, Tokyo Sonata enthrals audiences for the first hour with the pacing of a thriller.

Snyder and writers David Hayter and Alex Tse never find a reason for those unfamiliar with the graphic novel to care about any of this nonsense. And it is nonsense.

The mesmerizing performance of Fanning as the gifted and troubled young Phoebe sparks the picture.

An affecting film that manages to find glimmers of beauty in the encroaching bleakness, and coaxing richly dimensional performances which, like Maria's photographs, transcend the conventionally black and white.

The film simply has too many tiredly predictable elements for its own good, and despite the handsome cinematography of the extremely picturesque California locations, "Sherman's" never really finds its way.

Though these vignettes appear frivolous and inconsequential when set beside the directors' features, they will tickle the funny bones of a general audience. A safe choice for fantastic fests, worldwide cinemas will open to the kind of audiences who bought tickets to see "Paris J'taime" or "To Each His Own Cinema."

Webber's way with his young cast is as unforced as the movie itself, which easily could have been overwrought and maudlin but is instead oddly affirming.

The film plays like a garish melodrama that reproduces the most ham-fisted, polemical aspects of "Crash."

Certainly their musicianship and onstage professionalism are smooth, though maybe a bit too smooth. There is little spontaneity in anything they do.

Director Andrzej Bartkowiak ("Romeo Must Die") works hard to supply the appropriate grittiness, but other than a few reasonably well-staged fight sequences, the proceedings are dull and visually uninspired. Justin Marks' solemn screenplay lacks any trace of wit.

A coming-of-age tale and a JFK assassination conspiracy movie. The first half of that equation works nicely...But the assassination story line is absurd.

For all its staleness, the melodramatic main story does contain enough good acting and resonant scenes.

It's like being trapped for an hour-and-a-half in a pound full of yappy puppies.

The secrets revealed here are not quite as shocking as the hints of child molestation captured in "Friedmans." Still, this is an equally intriguing and unsettling look at the turmoil hidden behind the white picket fences of suburbia.

The period sets, costumes and cinematography all superbly recreate the brutal era, grand illusions and everyday suffering of the Poles under both the Nazis and the Soviets.

Powerful, stripped to its very essence and featuring a spectacular cast (of mostly non-professionals), Matteo Garrone's sixth feature film Gomorra goes beyond Tarrantino's gratuitous violence and even Scorsese's Hollywood sensibility in depicting the everyday reality of organized crime's foot soldiers.

Phoenix plays the romantic lead with great intelligence and enormous charm, making his character's conflict utterly believable, and Paltrow positively glows as the radiant shiksa who dazzles him.

It's business as usual at Camp Crystal Lake, with very little in the way of fresh jolts or an innovative visual style that would have really revitalized the hokey franchise.

The resulting cat-and-mouse game -- occupies most of the film's running time, to gradually diminishing results.

This is a marvelous family story, tapping into all sorts of childhood dreams and nightmares involving Mommy, monsters and heroic youngsters. Selick's imaginative sets and puppets are in perfect pitch with Gaiman's fantasy.

All of this results in way too much relationship chatter and not nearly enough comedy, romance or even dysfunctional relationships. We want to laugh -- but at what?

This comedy whodunit generates more laughs than its predecessor, which is to say, two or three.

Despite its high-profile cast and a sizable marketing push from distributor Summit Entertainment, audiences won't require any paranormal powers of their own to realize they've seen this one before.

The end product is surprisingly charmless -- a shrill "Devil Wears Prada"/"Bridget Jones"/"Sex and the City" knockoff that keeps threatening to fall apart at the seams.

Punctuated with bursts of explosive energy, this is a contained, cerebral film.

Given how insultingly fanboys are portrayed, even the fan base could be put off.

This war-horror movie basically plays like "Blair Witch" in Afghanistan.

Might do good business at home and abroad among audiences unconcerned with the finer points of characterization or psychological insight.

The film is still cheesy rather than deliciously scary. It never really generates sustained suspense.

Strictly old hat -- and a poorly assembled hat at that.

The camera explores each nook and cranny of the dilapidated movie-house like an usher who knows his way round blindfolded, and the building, with its richly visual interior structures desperately in need of an overhaul, comes to symbolize poetically the predicament of its inhabitants and their moral ambiguity.

The film might amuse some, especially fans of Alfred Hitchcock, but is likely to annoy almost everyone else.

Thanks to sturdy performances by holdovers Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy as well as tidy, unfussy direction by first-timer Patrick Tatopoulos, the creature designer who is taking the reins from originator Len Wiseman, the third installment in the successful franchise should be to the fan base's lycan.

A formulaic yet clever chiller that offers generous doses of sex and violence aboard a luxury yacht.

Inkheart goes crazy with fairy tale characters popping in and out, all sorts of fantastical creatures materializing and so many rescues one loses count. Yet the movie fails to involve the key constituent: the audience.

It's entertaining nonsense with major league special effects, larger-than-life characters and inventive monsters that draw on the "Aliens" and "Predator" models, being terrifying but also vaguely sympathetic.

Poetically composed, with marvelous lumps of wit and perspective, Of Times and The City is a masterwork.

2 1/2 hours of shouting, gesticulating, pratfalls and groin kicks will leave viewers with an MSG headache.

Doerrie goes beyond the "Lost in Translation" jokes about East-West culture clashes to communicate something meaningful and deep about Japanese art and thought.

It's a pretty lazy film in the creativity department save for the dogs.

The 3-D effects come fast and furious, rendered with a technical skill and humor that gives this otherwise strictly formulaic slasher picture whatever entertainment value it possesses.

For a man apparently making his first film, Woolard carries the movie like a pro. Cross your fingers that this is no fluke, for this guy could be a real comer.

Great comics from Jerry Lewis to Peter Sellers have turned pathetic into comedic. But James never seems to able to get beyond pathetic.

Never gets off its high-concept stool long enough to explore what makes weddings so exciting and nerve-racking and treacherous. It flounders instead in juvenilia and bitchiness.

The actors do what they can with the cards they're dealt but can't overcome the nakedness of the dialogue or the characters' actions. Duke does ensure that the production flows smoothly though. And those frequent injections of comedy do wonders.

What finally undoes the struggle to maintain suspense is Goyer's dialogue, which is consistently hokey.

Reygadas has hitched his austere and protracted style to an allegorical tale of subtle strength and depth.

That butting of heads, as performed by actors as strong and soulful as Craig and Schreiber, lends Defiance an emotional charge, even as the film itself struggles dramatically to find its way out of those woods.

Paced deliberately in a way that reinforces the tragedy of evil flourishing when good men do nothing, Good may find boxoffice returns slow to build but the film's aim is true and patient audiences will be well rewarded.

In "Virginia Woolf," George and Martha are locked into a symbiotic, disturbingly needy relationship that absolutely feed off their acidic battles. But for Revolutionary Road's Frank and April Wheeler, you wonder: Why don't they just get a divorce?

The chosen style of animation leads to a distracting choppiness that renders the movements, gestures and facial expressions of the interviewees unconvincing. The other problem is that, memory naturally being something that returns in fits and starts, the film is rarely able to sustain any consistent narrative thrust.

Superbly made and winningly acted by Brad Pitt in his most impressive outing to date.

It is truly a mess.

"Stories" makes a better Christmas movie than those generic comedies manufactured this time of year. The hits-to-misses ratio for its gags is above average, the sentimentality is kept in check and the film plays well to its audience.