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.