Captain Jack Sparrow is back in excellent form for his fourth adventure in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which is more serious in the hands of a new director, Rob Marshall, and thanks to Penelope Cruz it's also a good deal sexier.

Darius Khondji's cinematography evokes to the hilt the gorgeously inviting Paris of so many people's imaginations (while conveniently ignoring the rest), and the film has the concision and snappy pace of Allen's best work.

How To Live Forever is less about how to delay or defeat death than a film about what gives life meaning.

Too dark for a very broad audience, it will flummox some viewers drawn by its cast but will strike others with its more-than-prickly approach and standoffish humor.

Chadwick strikes a perfect balance between humor and tragic gravity, and the result is that an unknown story seems certain to stir the hearts of audiences worldwide.

Without Antonio Banderas, The Big Bang would be a whimper of a movie, too awful to watch.

Informative and insightful for films buffs without sacrificing accessibility to the casual fan, "Cameraman" is essential viewing for anyone interested in film history.

The film just doesn't mine enough humor or drama from this situation. Meanwhile most of the developments are wholly predictable.

A short, dour and stodgy creature feature with average 3D effects that draws on so many film influences from westerns, action adventures and sci-fi tales that what fun there is comes from spotting the many sources.

For longtime Wiig fans, this uneven, overlong, emotionally involving and discreetly ambitious film will represent a welcome and overdue step up from her popular sketch work on "Saturday Night Live" to something sustained and searching, not to mention pretty funny.

British writer-director Roland Joffé dips a toe into explosive material - the Spanish Civil War, betrayal, sainthood, Opus Dei - but all these big themes and characters slip from his grasp.

If the degree of laughter at the wrong moments and the number of walkouts at the Toronto International Film Festival are any indication, the film will appeal only to the most fondly indulgent.

Last Night is a sex tease, but that makes it sound more exciting than it ever becomes.

A wedding comedy that grows increasingly unfunny with each passing minute.

A risky bet that pays off solidly, Jodie Foster's much-delayed The Beaver survives its life/art parallels -- thanks to its star, Mel Gibson -- to deliver a hopeful portrait of mental illness that is quirky, serious and sensitive.

A generic blast, Hobo with a Shotgun unspools like a spaghetti western but amped with enough testosterone to fill a video-game warehouse.

Doesn't so much borrow from other movies as settle into a comfort zone of raising provocative questions regarding love, commitment and marriage only to dismiss them with a brush of a hand as so much dandruff.

Film noir is combined with horror to zero effect in Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.

Oscar-nominee John Hawkes' convincing portrayal of real-life "crop artist" Stan Herd is the exceedingly quiet center of an exceedingly nonabrasive film that has all the dramatic energy of plants growing.

The movie has a cheerful good nature and a solid cast of youngsters - including Aimee Teegarden and Thomas McDonell - but any resemblance between this and real high school is, of course, purely coincidental.

One of the most obnoxious and least necessary animated films of the century thus far.

Lebanon, Pa. is a few strong moments of storytelling lost in a sea of indie cliche.

Chris Hemsworth gives a breakout performance as fallen Norse god.

Ultimately, most audiences will be left scratching their heads, wanting to know more about why this man, Hans Rettenberg, does what he does.

Audiences can either fight it, trying to make sense of the shaky plot, or flow along with the film's languid, doomed romance accompanied by the southern poetics of singer-songwriter Tom Russell.

This well-intentioned tween-friendly message movie is earnest to a fault.

Ruffalo gives voice to the film's unironic point of view.

The real key to the documentary's appeal is its writer-director Phil Rosenthal, creator of the long-running CBS sitcom.