Further marred by second-rate 3-D and the sort of cornball one-liners that even a fairy godmother couldn't love, it's a tolerance-testing tale that puts the grim in Grimm.

Some viewers might give the movie a few extra points for its retro vibe of taciturn badassedness. But little punctures the wall of emotional remove-the pulse rate is way too controlled for entertainment's sake.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams feels stuck in a middling zone of too much conjecture and not enough scholarship.

The writer-director does have a wonderful eye-a shot of a tractor wheel sticking out of the Hudson River is museumworthy-but his grasp of the melodramatic could use a little more grounding.

Offers an intriguing outsider's document of Russian culture reinventing itself from the outside in; its main export, however, seems to be good old-fashioned Ugly Americanism.

The Arbor's pummeling second half begins with the collapse of its celebrity subject; the following spirals of self-destruction make you suspect that some childhoods are simply too hard to escape. Tough, worthy stuff.

Fortunately, Teegarden and McDonell make up for the hand-me-down plotting with a sweet, unaffected chemistry.

A classically structured rampage that bears serious comparison to the definitive greats of Akira Kurosawa, 13 Assassins will floor connoisseurs of action, mood and the dignity of a pissed-off scowl.

Epitomizing the shrill franchise's schizophrenic tonal shifts, Madea metes out Christian life lessons with one hand-and righteously bitch-slaps with the other.

Without larger-than-life drama or a steady stream of historical detail, it's merely a gargantuan production that's been lavished on a story hardly worth trumpeting.

The bulk of the film inspires little more than eye-rolling and impatient finger-tapping.

Shindô concocts a stylistic mix of odd experimental flourishes, female nudity, Soviet-style close-ups and baldly sentimental melodrama to emphasize the toll this disaster took; its cup may runneth over, yet the stark vibe is impossible to shake.

The film isn't blinded by Candy's beauty and celebrity; it digs critically, if still empathetically, beneath.

The whole movie aches from tired blood.

The movie's infrequent martial-arts centerpieces deliver the feeblest of punches.

A staggering political drama that could put you in mind of the intimate sweep of Bernardo Bertolucci, Incendies feels like a mighty movie in our midst.

Rather than an argument or exposé, the movie is a condescendingly narrated demonstration of how money makes the movie world go round. (Stop the presses.)

Some ventriloquists win the fame game, while some remain stuck in the D-list dugout. The fact that Dumbstruck doesn't even attempt to differentiate these camps makes the film feel as if it's just talking out of the side of its mouth.

A single arresting shot of a photographer chasing a man on fire says more about journalistic ethics and the queasy power of the image than all of the speechifying and star-posing combined; if only the rest of this muddled movie had as much insightful Sontagian bang.

Since this is a House of Mouse production, sentimental order must inevitably be grafted onto nature's pitiless chaos. The cornball voiceover ascribes human wants and desires to the animals.

If violence ever comes into the picture-and considering the illegal millions made from trafficking, it strains credulity to imply it doesn't-we don't hear about it, as Corben wants to paint the subjects as drug-war martyrs.

A collective sense of psychological turmoil seems to weigh heavily on the entire country as much as Champ, reaching critical mass once chaos creeps into the city-leading to a quiet, climactic walk into darkness that earns the right to be called haunting.

Don't go in expecting scares so much as laughs. Scream 4 is a better "Scary Movie" than any of the "Scary Movies" ever were, from its inventively gut-busting kills (watch out for that mail slot!) to the unintentionally humorous sight of the three leads acting as if they're in three separate films.

Compared to Pixar's "Up," a much more organic and heartfelt story about making friends in far-flung places, Rio simply feels rote.

The filmmaker provides intellectual rigor to spare, yet precious little narrative focus (you virtually wander into plot strands) and there's a stiffness to the proceedings that neither Wilson's charisma nor Ulliel and Thierry's screen-ready beauty can remedy.

Steven Peros's character study is clearly designed as an homage to vintage Tinseltown mystique, so it's a pity that the old guard would have been mortified by Peros's rudimentary craftsmanship and Temtchine's thudding performance as a walking metaphor for L.A.'s young, A-list–averse idealists.

This was Italy's official submission for Best Foreign Film to the 2011 Academy Awards (a red flag more often than not), and, sure enough there's little here that rises above middlebrow.

Here's the thing: We enjoy a good mindf--- lark as much as the next filmgoer, but such fluid tomfoolery eventually has to add up to something, and The Double Hour ultimately doesn't.