Although the film serves as a charming introduction to audiences new to the Bollywood genre, those well studied in the history of Shah Rukh Khan movies will be most rewarded, since the screenplay and songs make dozens of references to his earlier films.

Perhaps keenly aware of the short attention spans and the reluctance in the ordinary viewer to countenance long-lingering malice on screen – especially among good-looking, self-proclaimed friends – everything gets neatly resolved sharply and swiftly, so that shouting matches will quickly give way to yet another round of gags and all-round tomfoolery.

Funny but less successful as comedy than as a cry of you-screwed-us-up solidarity.

The filmmakers may have hoped to make a timely commentary on the amorality in our executive suites, but they end up merely restating the obvious. Maybe the whole thing would have played better as a corporate comedy, the kind that Doris Day and Rock Hudson made some 50 years ago.

Inspiring if not inspired, Lee Daniels' The Butler is a sort of Readers' Digest overview of the 20th century American civil rights movement centered on an ordinary individual with an extraordinary perspective.

A compelling tale even for viewers with no interest in the sweet science.

There are just enough laugh-out-loud moments here to excuse the lurches into shameless, tear-jerking sentimentality.

Though it lacks the specific argumentative point of view that might have carried it into the mainstream, its sympathetic approach to subjects offers a compelling human perspective on questions that get too little attention in debates about health care.

While visually engaging, this production of Disneytoon Studios -- it was originally slated to go direct-to-DVD -- lacks the sort of character depth and dramatic scope normally associated with the Pixar brand.

Tiny Times certainly offers fantastical lifestyles which is nearly unattainable for most of its viewers. But what makes the film even more beguiling is probably its inability to create empathy, as it goes without accounting for where these individuals came from and why their friendships were so rock-solid.

The Thor Freudenthal-helmed sequel lacks the energetic zip of its predecessor.

The film's slender conceit is given some weight by its 11-year-old leading lady Sydney Aguirre, whose portrait of a flinty, instinctively mischievous tomboy growing up without benefit of parental guidance provides gratification even when there's not much going on.

La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus is just what the title indicates — and that turns out be an intimate and vivid report on a surprising connection between North and Central America.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber adequately manages the mechanics demanded here but adds no finesse or grace notes.

Only the bravura of the cast, first and foremost Park and Lee (both veterans of Unbowed), generates sufficient interest to see the film through to its surprising conclusion, recounted in a respectful coda many years later.

Watching your friends’ actual wedding videos, however painful, would be a more edifying experience than sitting through Breakup at a Wedding.

An atmospheric chiller that’s just quirky enough to achieve cult status.

Thematically diffuse, tonally inconsistent and blighted by an inauthentic feel for its story’s time and place, it sits awkwardly between sober human drama and lighter dysfunctional-family turf, constantly striving for unearned emotions.

What makes the film work is that this potentially lurid material is treated at all times with sensitivity and probing psychological seriousness.

All the interest and good will built up by the sharply conceived preliminaries is washed away in a succession of scenes that feel crushingly routine and generic, not to mentioned guided by ideological urges.

A riveting and often hilarious demonstration of the Slovenian philosopher’s uncanny ability to turn movies inside out and accepted notions on their head.

Narrated in unobtrusive fashion by Forest Whitaker and featuring a jaunty Afropop soundtrack, the film is crisp and economical, with the filmmaker carefully avoiding extraneous melodramatics. They are, after all, hardly necessary in a tale that already contains such inherently powerful drama.

You can’t make this stuff up. But Smash and Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers would be fascinating even if it wasn’t so timely.

The picture survives its excesses thanks to winning chemistry between stars Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, who animate banter-heavy dialogue and click so well one wonders why they haven't shared the screen before.

Linsanity reaffirms that the best sports stories originate with dimensional, relatable subjects who earn respect and admiration through their personal struggles and triumphs.

The movie becomes a survival tale and is more successful in its grueling, slightly crazed second half. The Goetzes do a better job capturing the terrain's physical extremes and the challenge of endurance than they do depicting a relationship.

As a National Geographic-style pictorial, The Machine is modestly engaging.

Beyond a few chuckle-worthy one-liners and some amusing visual comedy, there’s not much to engage adults, although the wee ones should be distracted enough.