This is no family-friendly "Peanuts" special.

J. Edgar is infuriatingly coy and noncritical about its subject, an undeniable patriot but also an alarmist and a ruiner of lives.

A set piece involving a skyscraper and a sports car proves he can induce sweaty palms, but one nail-biting moment and some much-misssed Murphy mouthiness won't keep you from feeling like you're the one being ripped off.

Unfortunately, Truffaut fell into a pit of awkwardness on the project; editingwise, he's hardly in the league of Hitchcock, his sequences rushing ahead, his ironies too obvious. The Bride Wore Black only makes you yearn for better imitators like Brian De Palma. (Unlikely agreement came from Truffaut himself, ever the film critic, who hated his own movie.)

Dragonslayer captures the aimless, ad hoc nature of this young man's life, leaving open the question of whether Sandoval is a free spirit or simply a leech.

There's an all-embracing openness here that belies the often cold and calculating characters she plays onscreen. She's the perfect confluence of brains and beauty, and it's a pleasure to be in her company.

"Amadeus" it's not, but as light transitional music, the film-which has Pete Postlethwaite's final performance, as a swishy landlord-is tuneful enough.

When sitting through this detail-heavy documentary, nonaficionados may feel like they're watching paint dry, albeit in the company of an artist who savors each and every shade.

Cool, it's a rom-com featuring the man who'd influence Romanticism.

By the time The Son of No One reaches its wanna-be-tragic finale, you'd like nothing more than to kick this bastard child to the curb.

Nevins's portrait of how a nihilistic movement fostered such nurturing family men resonates beyond its rebels-with-a-cause novelty.

The more the veteran actor strives to give Joe a final dose of funereal dignity, the more the film around him seems intent on deep-sixing its MVP.

Niccol's attempts at satire are toothless.

Aside from some character-defining flashbacks, a godawful score and sweat-enhancing color photography, it's the same movie as before - a divertingly tense yet superficial time-waster.

It's fascinating to watch Yeshi grow from a skeptical teenager into a spiritual leader - a transformation that still doesn't bring him any closer to his father. The film could use one scene of the two men acknowledging their differences, but even without that, My Reincarnation won't test your patience.

Like Crazy proves it's still possible to make a love story that's both genuinely sweet and bittersweet.

The predictability is crushing, and with movies like "Crazy Heart" and Sofia Coppola's distinctly personal "Somewhere" so close in the rearview, David M. Rosenthal's estrangement drama feels especially soft.

Like a "Training Day" for spy thrillers, The Double provocatively pairs Gere and Grace as a gray-green odd couple, only to unravel as the double-crossed absurdities pile up and the duo start trading bad Russian accents in a private Mexican standoff. Oh nyet you didn't!

Other than ludicrously pulpy fun, Anonymous, true to its title, ultimately signifies nothing.

You can't deny the fun of seeing Depp retro-construct a muted version of his Vegas mugging like De Niro riffing on Brando's Don Corleone. (His reaction to swigging homemade rum is worth the price of admission alone.)

The pomo thrill was already wearing thin a few "Shrek" entries ago; here, the reliance on self-referentiality really risks coming off like yesterday's Purina.

It's hard to truly hate any movie whose ending revolves around a clever Where's Waldo? gag. It's also near impossible to take it seriously for that exact same reason.

An incredible physical comedian, Rowan Atkinson would seemingly do anything for a laugh except one crucial thing: hold out for a better script. This sequel to 2003's Johnny English has a few inspired gags, but most of the material is on the level of English getting kicked repeatedly in his thunderballs.

Like its predecessors, Paranormal Activity 3 demands to be seen with a crowd: Being able to hear outbursts of nervous laughter and irrepressible panic ripple through a packed house is the reason movies like this exist.

Wrestler turned actor (so to speak) Cena is built like a cinder block and has range to match; Embry compensates by capering like a blaxploitation pimp.

This is textbook Kaurismäki, neither fresh nor unwelcome.

We've been here before; you may now yell "Cut!," print it and call the concept a wrap.

Muskets and swords are a bit old-fashioned for the director of "Resident Evil" - Paul W.S. Anderson has added flying battleships and elaborate diamond heists. (With material as shopworn as this, an anachronizing approach seems as valid as any.)