Proves too anticlimactic for the audience to maintain interest.

Although it lacks the historical aura of classic Chinese wuxia backdrops, James Chiu's post-"Avatar" production design is memorably imaginative.

A so-called black comedy that is more sort of dull, spotty and yucky.

It's a long movie that feels short: It grabs you in early scenes, intense though low-key before all hell breaks loose, then keeps you riveted to its mostly male characters.

Duvall can play an avuncular cowboy sage in his sleep, but there's truly no one on Earth you'd rather see dishing out homespun aphorisms, so it's pointless to resist the pleasure of watching him do what he can do better than anyone else. Baker and Melissa Leo, as the waitress' mom, are not asked to exhibit a fraction of their talent, but they further class the joint up.

The movie is too much an act of hero-worship for there to be any critical distance.

Fails both as historical re-enactment and as action-flick thrill ride.

Will undoubtedly mean a great deal to Romanians who struggled during this dark period, but not much to anyone else.

With neither great insight nor any sign of wit, the film is not likely to capture interest outside France.

In a sense, this is not a financial thriller so much as a financial mystery. Which gets a bit lost in the movie's stylized presentation.

Earns its R but may leave audiences wanting more.

Ripples with the emotions and the saddened circumstances of those gallant and talented folks who sing the blues.

The film is a deft, graceful and often poignant story of a woman's quest to find her own identity and a spiritual sanctuary that will give her life hope and meaning.

Rowan Joffe's film of Graham Greene's 1938 novel "Brighton Rock" takes a gothic approach to the story of a young thug obsessed with hell with little of the writer's subtlety and too much reliance on a loud quasi-religious choral score.

There are guilty pleasures to be had in this frenzied B starring Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek), who gives an acrobatic performance that makes the overcooked material watchable, if not entirely enjoyable.

Arriving eight years after the lame third installment in Dimension's profitable series, this seems like far too little way too late.

A steady supply of spiky humor and a game cast keep this cooking most of the way, though the pacing could have been tighter and the film seems as if it's about to end two or three times before it actually does.

A handsome and achingly sad period piece, a finely observed portrait of cast-aside dreams. The drama is quieter and more chaste than the similarly themed "Camille Claudel," but no less haunting.

Although the conceit of an ever-so-erudite child palling around with an exceedingly wise concierge might be workable in a novel, cinema tends to realism, and Achache is too much of a novice to bring it off. The cuteness grates, and the setups and philosophizing are generally unconvincing.

Danish director Lone Scherfig skillfully adapts David Nicholls' best-selling romantic novel to the screen.

There is no purpose to the film other than random blood splattering amid scenes of bondage, primitive savagery and S&M eroticism. The film is numbing and dumb with its hero indistinguishable from its villains.

At once impressionistic and precise,The Tiniest Place (El Lugar más pequeño) is a beautifully rendered memory piece that insists on the necessity of memory.

Jeon is played to perfection by the director himself. The spare script effectively funnels audience attention into him, who is never less than engaging.

Australia makes a modest contribution to the growing sub-genre of everyman superhero movies with Griff the Invisible, a sweet but scattershot debut from local TV actor Leon Ford.

The result is a scary movie that is genuinely scary in parts, although an adult can't help noticing this is set in the very worn and tattered territory of the haunted-house genre. Then when you get a glimpse of the CGI critters causing all the mayhem, the scares completely vanish.

Shambles along with all the purposefulness of its title character, a kind of near-beer Lebowski who's neither reckless enough to cheer for nor misguided enough to disdain.

Aarakshan is heavy on speeches, but the film manages to work because director Prakash Jha has cast it wisely, and has clearly put time and care into exploring the nuances of the issue.

Given a bit of breathing room in the breathless script, Dempsey and Judd might have been able to develop some convincing chemistry, but relationship dynamics get squeezed out by relentless plotting.

It's an impressive movie, but the indie filmmaker has little to add to the debate beyond the eternal truth that the innocent always suffer most.

For admirers of the artist and the open-minded, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow actually presents the ideal way of appreciating Kiefer's extraordinary work.

A blatant commodity designed to illustrate what a splendid influence the hit television show has been on the world at large, if the series' creators don't mind saying so themselves.

To borrow from TV terminology, the series hasn't jumped the shark yet, but the strain of inventing bizarre deaths is beginning to show.

Though still a stretch for Western viewers, its bold directness and modern look should help bridge the culture gap and make it one of the most accessible Mideast films this year.

Areces is inventive and scary in main role, though it's impossible to sympathize with his madness. Other performances are gaudy but perfunctory.

Certainly delivers the goods as far as quantity of sex goes. But the quality will leave some cold.

Feels lavish by normal documentary standards and will have great appeal in such F1 hotbeds as Europe and South America.

Taylor does capture the Jim Crow era and its anxieties well, but his characters tend toward the facile and his white heroine is too idealized.

A limp piece of fan fiction about a fictional rock band's heyday and decline.

The filmmakers' fidelity to their source material is admirable, but more historical context could have made this Trip as illuminating as it is magical.

Fleischer stages one chase scene with a bit of comic flair but otherwise never locates that mix of macabre action and comedy that at least made "Zombieland" amusing.

Strong action, special effects and by far the most credible ape "performances" yet seen will spell box office to inspire chest-thumping in all markets.

The Change-Up bravely attempts to revive the dormant subgenre but it's a lame effort that grows increasingly frantic and foul-mouthed as the realization sets in that the gimmick isn't working.

Young director Marek Najbrt, commendably, is not interested in wringing easy tears from the European experience of World War II. In the handsome drama Protektor, he brings a cool, noirish slant to a story of Czech artists and intellectuals as they accommodate and to a lesser extent resist the German occupiers.

The film has its flaws in storytelling due to the unwieldy size of its narrative but strong performances and an unwavering observation of inhumanity on all sides make Habermann a provocative film.

What is left is the sheer joy of storytelling, and willing audiences will find themselves caught up in a what-happens-next page-turner of a film.

Green has chosen for his focus to fall on Enrique, in many ways the least interesting character in his story, rather than the son or even the mother who is surprisingly protective and understanding.

It's messy and leaves an unusual taste on the palate, but Bellflower has a strange, ugly-sweet appeal that couldn't have been produced without the schlocky entertainments that have channeled the imaginations of gifted but impressionable kids for decades.

Overall this is an impressive debut from a filmmaker with something to say and the talent to say it.

The film never quite pins the chef down about any of this but in his menu introduction to the staff or off-hand remarks to long-time colleagues you begin to understand the mindset. "The more bewilderment, the better," he declares. He is not joking.

For all the digitally enhanced Smurfness, the results are remarkably mirthless.

A high-wire act that almost slips as it edges perilously closer and closer to the edge of improbability. But it never does.

Good Neighbors is a film of acquired taste. If one is willing to accept humor in a movie about a serial killer, if one likes a thriller than emphasizes character over thrills, if one is susceptible to a cast of characters that includes three cats, then the movie has found its very selective target audience.

Life in a Day is an experimental project driven by the Internet at its best, where connectivity among the planet's population has become a reality.

Undeniably fascinating as a visit to a world you'd never have wanted to have come near in real life -- that of the Hussein family's inner sanctum -- the film falls crucially short by not providing a window into the mind of the man who was coerced into acting as his double.

The key to its success lies in the determination by everyone involved to play the damn thing straight. Even the slightest goofiness, the tiniest touch of camp, and the whole thing would blow sky high. But it doesn't.

There's a vaguely Spielbergian quality to Cornish's skill at balancing the sense of shared adventure with genuine danger.

The movie suffers perhaps from too many characters and subplots but all the actors appear to have fun with their characters.

Ultimately, the film is best appreciated as a welcome big-screen starring vehicle for Fischer, who expertly navigates the comedic and dramatic demands of a role that keeps her onscreen for virtually the entire running time.

Sticking to its simplistic, patriotic origins, where a muscular red, white and blue GI slugging Adolf Hitler in the jaw is all that's required, Captain America trafficks in red-blooded heroes, dastardly villains, classy dames and war-weary military officers.

The result is that rare thing in cinema -- an intellectually-stimulating crowd-pleaser.

The movie gathers momentum with a steady, assured pace, accumulating incidents, characters, secrets and lies until the rush of events is absolutely transfixing. Cinema can sometimes rival the novel in compulsive intensity and Sarah's Key is one such example.

Mitchell still manages to plant a flag on this well-trodden territory by steering more toward drama than comedy, though he scores points on both fronts. Where he exceeds those films are sensual visuals that recapture summertime adolescence in all its vivacity.

Goes a long way in bringing sexy back to a soggy genre, benefiting greatly from the presence of its likable leads.

Nothing is bleaker than failed black comedy, which this is.

So strong are the emotions - and, yes, the melodrama - that Snow Flower and the Secret Fan represents one of Wang's best films to date.

Once you realize the film is just going to be a string of encomiums against a backdrop of frantically edited archival material in which few shots are allowed to stay onscreen longer than three seconds, it's clear that no meaningful analysis of the woman's career or political agenda will be forthcoming.

Morris clearly invested so much time and energy in McKinney's story because he saw her as emblematic of our crazed times. Others might wonder whether the sad saga deserves quite this much attention, but there's no denying the film's morbid fascination.

The action that follows is as broad and unconvincing as the characters involved: director George Ratliff manages to turn even dignified Ciaran Hinds into a ham.

Its schematic structure oversimplifies the drama, despite an interesting, mostly debut cast. It seems better suited for the small screen.

Although one would never have expected to find her in a film like this, Dawson, by dint of enthusiasm, is the only actor who rises above the material with her dignity intact.

Fully justifying the decision, once thought purely mercenary, of splitting J.K. Rowling's final book into two parts, this is an exciting and, to put it mildly, massively eventful finale that will grip and greatly please anyone who has been at all a fan of the series up to now.

The lameness of the gags and dialogue and the film's frequent deep dives for the bottom at the expense of real comedy speak to desperation in Hollywood to figure out the audience for contemporary naughty comedy.

A gore fest aimed at indiscriminate action fans. Those interested in learning more about goings on in medieval history will probably find the splatter tedious and off-putting.

Lucas Belvaux's Rapt is two movies, both excellent, for the price of one.

Weakly spoofing, or at least deliberately tweaking, Southern Gothic conventions, writer-director Tully can't fully get his arms around this messy genre mashup.

While by no means a masterpiece of the form, John Carpenter's The Ward is an economical period piece that still effectively demonstrates what a skilled technician can accomplish in a single location with a compact cast and sturdy old-school effects.

Director Abhinay Deo and producer Aamir Khan's gleeful experiment in "Hangover"-caliber humor delivers the laughs, and its young stars, including Khan's nephew, A-lister Imran Khan, rise to the challenge.

While this is fascinating material, it's the flawed human behavior it exposes that makes the story so compelling. And yet what elevates Marsh's film is the even-handedness of his perspective.

Charlie Hunnam and Terrence Howard put enough actors' oomph into these ledge mates to make them authentic characters even though the film fails to achieve anything like the same level of authenticity.

Though it may not have much of an audience beyond the band's fan base, it offers enough context to serve as a primer on the hugely influential Native Tongues clique and should have life on home-vid.

Little kids will enjoy it all, while parents, when not checking their cell phones, will be thankful for the thoughtfully brief running time.

The best science fiction tells stories about people in extraordinary environments or situations that serve to open up the vast, still largely unexplored terrain of the human heart. Mike Cahill's Another Earth is science fiction at its best.

The movie offers no simple solutions, nor even a feel-good ending, but throws a cold light on the human tragedy that underlies many of today's headlines.

Cheesy reality shows monopolize the TV schedule, but must they infect our multiplexes as well? Love, Etc., Jill Andresevic's documentary depicting the romantic travails of various New Yorkers, is a disturbing example of a trend that is to be soundly discouraged.

Even as she is the center of attention here in a double role, the jury is still out on Gomez's bigscreen potential; she's not very appealing or magnetic here, nor does she display any particular comic gifts for this sort of broad fare.

There's still much to admire about this carefully drawn but concise character sketch, especially the strong performances and a unique, affectingly ominous score by folk-rock-gospel outfit Bruce Peninsula.

As much a memorial as it is a docudrama and as such it will interest educators and students, and make for sober television. It's a pity, though, that more of an attempt wasn't made to understand the killer and explain such things as why no one apparently thought to phone for help or hit the fire alarm.

Every scene is on the prowl for laughs at the expense of the inherent drama in the lives of its colorful characters.

With its bittersweet outcome, this is a tremendously moving story, strong in social commitment and deftly woven out of years of footage.

The millions of man hours put into producing this techno shock and awe must be staggering. Everyone got his job done, but somewhere along the way, the movie got lost.

If the lighter scenes sometimes lean toward sitcom cuteness, Jacobs has a sufficiently deft touch to get away with it. The territory often seems closest to that of NBC's unjustly short-lived "Freaks and Geeks," which is by no means a bad place to be.

Tomnay skillfully shifts the film's initial tone from suspense to dark comedy so that the transition never feels forced.

A worthy history lesson on the founding of the Chinese Communist Party with only partially entertaining aspects.

The picture's quiet performances and occasionally surprising moments take it just far enough off the beaten path to make it more than a transparently formulaic feel-good story.

The loggerhead turtle's journey is indeed incredible. But you would rather the narration, delivered intelligently by Miranda Richardson, didn't feel a need to remind you of this fact so frequently.

Manages to be simultaneously offensive and bland.

"Just to document yourself being bored is very boring," Enci says at one point. It's one moment of fiction here that rings all too true.

First-time writer-director Robert Persons' documentary on the Deep South introduces a new filmmaker with a distinctive sensibility.