It's quite possible that The Avengers has more action than any movie ever made...[but] for all its thrill-ride clutter, The Avengers is just about as simplistic as them fightin'-robot pictures... 
Pessimism, sweetness, raunch and loopiness make for a pleasantly offbeat blend. 
A next-generation Scream, a self-referential horror film that tongue-in-cheekily deconstructs its own genre. 
Predictability is the fatal flaw of any American sequel, and while this one comes closest in tone to the original film, that's a decidedly double-edged sword. 
This exquisite realization is as vital as can be in depicting the timeless tortures of the romantically damned. 
By toning down his excesses for a mass audience of largely children, the self-billed Tarsem hits his sweet spot, serving up lavish sets and costumes to create a fantasy world that doesn't make us want to scratch our eyeballs out. 
Largely concerned with the prickliness and delicacy around legacy, and the attendant patrilineal complications...But it's as much about the egotism and dysfunction of academia, reflected in the complex personalities of Eliezer and Uriel. 
It's simply difficult to throw in with the film's reality-if not its essential story, then its details: Being Flynn feels indie art-directed instead of observed. 
The haunted House may be a built on a shaky foundation, but its scare tactics are sound, and its gimmickry is enough to stand out in a crowded genre neighborhood. 
An annoying provocation with too little to say, a serious credibility deficit, a whiff of misandry, and a miscalculated, unseemly gusto for abusing its hero. Instead of having catharsis, the audience just gets had. 
Perhaps the title sets an expectation Ken Kwapis’ movie can’t quite deliver. 
Though it does thrill with intense, close-cropped action photography, swift editing, and vivid sound design, The Grey makes as much of an impression by being unexpectedly emotional. 
Except as a tool for pediatric grief counseling, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close amounts to a fetishization of its own trappings (the boy, NYC, 9/11) more interested in Oscar than Oskar. 
Finds Soderbergh keeping it simple, stupid, by filling the story's hollowness with kick-butt action and elements of style. 
A slow disintegration of the thin veneer of social niceties, revealing the human animalism underneath. Like Reza's equally popular Art, God of Carnage isn't as deep as it would have you believe, but both plays are catnip for actors. 
Whether coolly dispatching a fly or eating a Wimpy burger with knife and fork, Oldman carefully makes every gesture part of his quiet revelation of character. 
Fincher is perfectly suited to the material, with its voluminous clues to be organized and parsed, its emotional austerity, and its serial murder, rape, and sundry sick plot twists. 
What ultimately makes Young Adult worth the trip is Theron’s uncompromising performance, which dares to make Mavis unlikeable and, in the process, earns our pity and, more disturbingly, our identification. 
I tell ya, I haven't heard this much talk about ball-dropping since the junior high locker room. 
Though this pastiche has been crafted by film nerds and largely for them, Michel Hazanavicius' feature has an emotional generosity that speaks louder than words. 
If you see The Descendants, see it for Clooney (and Woodley), but don’t believe the hype that it’s one for the ages. 
Muppet News Flash! Your friends in felt are back on the big screen, ready and waiting to charm a new generation of…moppets. 
The interviews that make up the balance of the film yield plenty of oddities of modern American life. 
The director's emotional sadism and laughable bluntness in his symbolic approach leave us in the cold, to pick through the art-auction catalog of Manuel Alberto Claro's cinematography and contemplate Dunst's award-winning suffering. 
Has the perfect 'generic brand' title to match its Teflon blandness. 
At least, though the insights here aren't as plentiful as Durkin seems to think, Olsen's fine work as the off-balance, paranoid anti-hero helps to create that illusion. 
From the man who brought you Godzilla and 2012...a loud and ludicrous historical rewrite about the supposed hidden authorship of Shakespeare's plays. 
Chandor’s social critique may or may not stand the test of time, but as all eyes turn to the 'Occupy' movement, Margin Call is entirely right for this moment. 
Plays out like a game of high-stakes poker, mostly in shades of quiet, intense deliberation. 
Butler delivers an unconvincing performance that's part and parcel of a phony film lacking in any narrative subtlety or finesse. 
Undaunted, O'Connor straightens his spine of melodrama and focuses on the task of building up the film's emotional muscle. 
Imagine if the characters on TV’s beloved sitcom Friends lost their lease and decided to mark the end with an orgy...gives new meaning to 'I’ll be there for you.' 
Boils down to the importance of facing up to what one can and can't live with, and taking action to set matters right...audiences will be able to recognize the secret agency in their own lives and the folly of living lies. 
Kapadia fosters a distinct 'you are there' feeling for the races by composing his visual storytelling entirely of vintage footage, mostly derived from the Formula One archives. 
Momoa, also a model, proves that he's more of a poser than an actor: he's a cocked eyebrow, a squinty tic, and an assortment of bulges in search of a performance. 
One Day's annoying artificiality comes with no compensatory effervescence, a requirement of a romantic picture. 
A sort of raunchy It's a Wonderful Life, though the plentiful nudity and babbling brooks of profanity tip the scale from sensitivity to outrageousness. 
Serves up a bounty of clichés and borrowed ideas, but it's also overtly political, bringing up issues American rom-coms wouldn't dare touch. 
Morris compellingly unfolds the story and clearly means for us to see our own untoward qualities writ large in Joyce and the circus surrounding her. 
The most noticeable motif Johnston plays with is the use of a garbage-can lid as a shield: more important than $140 million dollars worth of toys is Johnston’s childlike sense of play. 