Farmiga never seems to strike a false note in any role, but this is perhaps her most reflective and multi-layered performance.

This insipid wannabe frightener features a checklist of derivative conventions.

One Day is an aching lovely romance, but it's also an insightful look at human potential and the search for a purposeful existence.

Conan the Barbarian lives by a pretty simple ethos: He lives, he loves, he slays. What he doesn't do, alas, is act.

Fright is way too quick on its feet to be slowed by clichés. David Tennant seizes McDowall's role as Peter Vincent, now a Criss Angel-style clown vampire slayer. Christopher Mintz-Plasse was born to play a high school nerd.

30 Minutes or Less is "Pineapple Express" gone sour.

Glee the TV show has become a cult phenom with three essential ingredients: whip-smart kids, adult-sized issues, all blended to sugary pop tunes. About a third of those components made it into Glee: The 3D Concert Movie.

Even by today's horror standards, Destination has some ghastly scenes. After seeing them, parents may want to reconsider letting their daughters try gymnastics or laser eye surgery.

The Help sidesteps easy sentimentality. As the film's heart and soul, Davis and Spencer add vast reserves of depth and dignity to a crowd-pleasing tale.

The Change-Up should have fired on all cylinders. What went wrong here?

The cautionary tale feels surprisingly fresh and entertaining, given that this is the fifth "Planet of the Apes" film since the 1968 original.

Smurfs is utterly kid-friendly.

Sometimes Crazy, Stupid, Love captures the complexity, humor and sweetness of relationships. But in several scenes, the film takes that insight and replaces it with farcical coincidences and strained scenarios that undercut the poignancy and wit.

Dialogue is terse and predictable, and the sci-fi thriller portion is even less compelling than the Western saga.

When it's good, Friends With Benefits is quite good - especially as it skewers rom-com clichés.

While the story is preposterous and most of the cast standard-issue, it's hard not to like a comic-book movie that features both Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers and high-tech vaporizing weaponry.

Sarah's Key is, for the most part, an exercise in reserve. We never see Hitler, never enter battle. Paquet-Brenner (Pretty Things, Walled In), rightly tells his Holocaust story as it now lives: through survivors and descendants.

Another Earth proves compellingly that science, intellect and emotion can coexist in mesmerizing synchronicity on the big screen.

Pooh succeeds by embracing much of what modern films (including Potter's) have largely forgotten: old-fashioned movie pleasures.

The lesson of the lovely-looking, but disappointing, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is avoid tinkering too much with a novelist's work.

The ideal culmination of a fantasy series that has artfully blended excitement, adventure and terror with humor, kinship and love.

There isn't much in the way of plot to get in the way of Sandler's world: There's poo, ripped pants and hot girls falling for fat guys.

It's over-the-top stuff, to be sure. But Bosses never crosses that line into the macabre.

Hanks directs with assurance. Perhaps if he had teamed with a more agile writer, less given to cheesy yuck-fests, Larry Crowne would be the nuanced adult love story it aims to be.

Monte Carlo is a wish-fulfillment fantasy. (What luck! The heiress' clothes fit all three girls like a glove!)

Stinting on story, dialogue or character development, Bay leaves us with little more than destruction and a hollow, clanking spectacle.

It's not that it's a bad film. But the bar is high, and it's lackluster and predictable, missing that alchemic blend of humor, pathos and indelible characters that give Pixar movies their brilliant shine.

Misanthropic to the extreme, Bad Teacher fails across the board.

For a movie that touts the importance of humanity, Green Lantern is a strangely lifeless spectacle.

Though it doesn't fully resonate as a romance, it is effective as a character study.

Predictable, but well-intentioned fun.

Though the lead actress, newcomer Jordana Beatty, gives a spunky performance as third-grader Judy, her character's borderline bratty charm wears thin fast. Mostly it's undercut by the movie's irritatingly antic slapstick style.

This sci-fi thriller has an engrossing plot and a strong cast of fully drawn characters. There's even a sweet youthful love story. In other words, it's a summer blockbuster firing on all cylinders.

What results is a disarmingly honest tale of affection, both romantic and filial.

This X- Men is indeed first class: an exciting, bold and thoroughly enjoyable summer blockbuster.

A shape-shifting film, it resembles a poem. At other moments, it is closer to a symphony. Most often, it approximates a fervent prayer.

Black is clearly suited for the role of a modern-day Inspector Clouseau, a hero clown who can't help but save the day.

Hangover II marks one of the most derivative sequels of the year: The opening and closing scenes are taken almost shot-for-shot from the original. Just substitute Asians for Americans, gross-outs for guffaws.

The story lacks honesty. For a film about the real problem of mental illness, it never feels authentic. Depression is not something neatly tied up. If this is meant as an allegory, it's vague and unconvincing.

The familiar dialogue here makes one long for something closer to the edginess of "Manhattan" or the offbeat humor of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

Here's how it goes down: 4 is better than 3, about the same as 2 and worse than 1.

Those looking to get a raucous laugh should say "I do" to Bridesmaids.

Speaking of that middle-finger finale, there is one redeeming trait: At least it signals the end credits.

As he did in "Stranger Than Fiction," Ferrell displays surprising range when he ratchets down the volume.

As wedding stories go, it's an improvement over the dreadful "Something Borrowed," though it doesn't have anything terribly new to say.

Bonds are tested and feelings hurt, but who really cares? The story takes predictable turns, embraces clichés and dodges all humor.

Though he looks every inch a brawny Norse god, Hemsworth is not just a hunk. His charisma and charming grin go a long way toward making Thor engaging.

Here's a by-the-playbook movie if ever there was one.

Memorable for being one of the most obnoxious animated movies of recent years.

Inventive action sequences, deft stunt work and breathtaking cinematography make for revved-up fun.

Redford methodically presents the injustices piled on Surratt and suggests what might have prompted her stoicism. But James D. Solomon's script is often flat, perhaps in a misguided effort to be stately.

This is Disneynature's third and best release, after 2009's "Earth" and 2010's "Oceans." With its compelling narrative of survival, it will probably be the one that most enthralls audiences.

Spurlock comes off like a new and improved Everyman, familiar but smarter and funnier than the average Joe.

Mildly entertaining, though the best performances come not from the stars, but the supporting players.

For its stunning iridescent look and infectious music, Rio is a refreshing adventure worth taking.

It's hard to sustain that cheeky meta humor, and the film seems to just give in and join its slasher brethren, devolving into a string of gruesome, but unoriginal, slayings.

The inspiring story of surfer and shark attack victim Bethany Hamilton deserves a better dramatization.

Despite his cockney-accented verbosity, Brand does not convey the effortless conviviality that Dudley Moore did in the part.

One of the coldest action films in years and an odd showcase for Saoirse Ronan, a deft actress who is one of the few youngsters capable of pulling off action with acting.

Misguided raunchfest.

The movie's appeal is largely the result of the perfectly cast James Marsden as Fred, a lovable slacker who accidentally injures a floppy-eared rabbit who calls himself E.B. (perfectly voiced by Russell Brand).

It's far more annoying than frightening.

A high-octane mind game best enjoyed by following a key character's advice: "The Source Code is a gift. Don't squander it by thinking."

Leave it to a wimpy kid to show Hollywood how to make a family movie with live people in it.

You've never seen a movie like Sucker Punch. And depending on your entertainment preferences, you may not want to.

Bogged down by speechifying and a plodding pace, Miral is well-intentioned but doesn't achieve the searing emotional resonance suggested by the story.

The story feels believable as a witty chronicle of human behavior, in contrast with the self-consciously satirical style of some indie films and the far-fetched heroics of big studio fare.

An L.A.-based story with more turns and curves than a Hollywood canyon.

Briskly paced, suspenseful thriller.

Where Paul takes off is in its embrace and knowledge of sci-fi icons.

The movie has more charm when it's earthbound. Cusack and Green's mother-son repartee has sharp comic timing. Once the story veers off to space, it goes downhill.

The look of this version may be the finest of the 27 Jane Eyre film and television re-tellings.

You have to give director Jonathan Liebesman some points for sparing no shell casings or standing buildings to hustle us through the film's languorous two hours.

The best that can be said is that the production design is striking. Otherwise, it's a foolish story, marred by a strange blend of overacting and bland, offhand performances.

It's dogged by awkward dialogue, a ridiculous plot and lackluster performances, especially by the leads.

The result is an odd, occasionally engaging but often cacophonous mishmash.

As a raunchy romantic comedy or an homage to the 1980s, Take Me Home Tonight is hardly worth a one-night stand.

Compelling enough, a sort of "Inception"-lite, but the plot holes take it off course.

It's almost impressive when a movie can manage to be both repellently vulgar and sickeningly sweet in the span of a mere two hours. Almost.

Four is so cobbled with bits of other sci-fi and comic-book movies, there's little to distinguish it.

Trying to decipher all the convoluted pathways could drive you mad. Mostly, though, it is so ludicrous that it will unintentionally inspire laughter.

A ceramic gnome by any other name is still a kitschy little figure.

Never works as a gum-snapper concert movie and does provide a glimpse into instant stardom in the Twitter generation.

What it became was bad. A movie that hopes to blend "Lethal Weapon" with "Gladiator" winds up not being a fraction of either.

This is a Frank Capra-meets-Judd Apatow comedy with a sweetness-laced ribaldry.

For added heehaws, the normally dependable Nick Swardson comes along to act the ass and delve into some of Sandler's more nuanced scatological humor.

A documentary on the formation of stalagmites would have been more compelling.

Brisk, brutal and unconcerned with collateral damage, The Mechanic doesn't pave much of anything new in the assassin-for-hire genre. But when it kills, it does so with style.

Bardem's soulful turn lends this haunting meditation a sense of hope and saves it from the contrived missteps it teeters toward.

A flimsy, occasionally spooky demon tale.

It's simple stuff, but the movie's heart is in the right place.

The Way Back, with its epic story and spectacularly bleak setting, invites comparisons with "Laurence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago." It's awash in vast, unforgiving terrain. So it got the setting right, but not necessarily the substance.

The few genuinely comic moments and deviations from cutesy rom-com formula make you wish No Strings Attached had traveled a more distinctively offbeat path.

Paul Giamatti brings just the right blend of irascible charm and caustic intelligence to the role of Barney.

Vaughn and James are likable enough, and they would have real chemistry in, say, an all-out comedy.

Some of the car gadgetry, Kato's specialty, looks cool...The Green Hornet is otherwise colorless, numbing and sluggishly paced.

A mishmash of horror and history genres that's not as bad as its trailers but ultimately is dragged down by, of all things, its star.

Love and loneliness are presented, in almost equal parts, with subdued precision in the richly abundant Another Year.