Not even the estimable comic chops of Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker can lift it above the level of ordinary.

A fully believable, flesh-and-blood (albeit not human flesh and blood) romance is the beating heart of "Avatar." Cameron has never made a movie just to show off visual pyrotechnics: Every bit of technology in "Avatar" serves the greater purpose of a deeply felt love story.

The disappointments here are many, from a starry cast the film ill-uses to flat musical numbers that never fully integrate into the dramatic story. The only easy prediction is that Nine is not going to revive the slumbering musical-film genre.

Emily Blunt, one of the best and most glamorous actresses to come out of England in recent years, makes an unusual but highly successful choice for the young Victoria.

Crazy Heart lacks that spark of originality. So what Fox Searchlight has salvaged essentially is a highly watchable performance by Bridges, one of many he has furnished throughout a long career.

There's really very little to say about this film beyond that it's absolutely brilliant.

Ricky is a bold, ambitious hybrid that only intermittently reaches the heights toward which it audaciously aims.

A temperate, evenhanded perhaps overly timid film about an intemperate time in South Africa.

Jackson and his team tell a fundamentally different story. It's one that is not without its tension, humor and compelling details. But it's also a simpler, more button-pushing tale that misses the joy and heartbreak of the original.

Sensitive and stylish.

The movie offers enough solid laughs to ensure a decent audience on DVD and cable. That audience could have been even larger, however, were the proceedings just a little smarter and a whole lot funnier.

Reveals writer-director Lee Toland Krieger as a talent worth watching.

The story is riddled with salutes to executive producer David Lynch and the film seems pointed hopefully in the direction of Lynch's audiences.

It's rare for a movie to be at once so biting and so moving. If Ryan's future seems bleak, there's something exhilarating about a movie made with such clear-eyed intelligence.

Three superb performances by Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy should have Oscar handicappers drooling.

The lame gags, ineptly staged, don't produce anything in the way of genuine laughs, though there is the occasional funny line.

Irish director Jim Sheridan, who has made his films in America in recent years, now delivers an American remake that hues closely to the original but loses some of its true grit.

An initially intriguing plot line makes a messy getaway in this throwback heist movie.

A cloyingly sentimental story that rings false in every moment.

The film is impeccable but distant, lacking in spontaneity and not very original.

Berenger uses his weathered visage and trademark intensity to good effect, but his efforts are undercut by the overwhelmingly cliched script.

Overall, "Moonlight" is a nuttily engaging tale of betrayal and, perhaps, redemption.

The impact of the quietly observant film builds until the unlikeliest of elements - an old Broadway tune, an empty garage, a conversation about fenders - detonate with long-buried emotion, anguished and tender.

This would-be tearjerker without the musical numbers of typical Bollywood fare is for die-hard Amitabh Bachchan fans only.

Unfortunately, writer-director Rebecca Miller's script tries so hard to be nervous and edgy that it ultimately succeeds only in making its viewers nervous and edgy.

A provocative parable about individuals at war with development and the global economy.

Director John Hillcoat has performed an admirable job of bringing Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to the screen as an intact and haunting tale, even at the cost of sacrificing color, big scenes and standard Hollywood imagery of post-apocalyptic America.

Marks Disney's rediscovery of a strong narrative loaded with vibrant characters and mind-bending, hilarious situations.