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.

Fascinating characters...inescapably provokes consideration of the human animal’s primal nature.

Both Buck and Buck endorse sensitive care for the voiceless, whether they be horses or cowed children.

Has the consistency of an individually wrapped slice of Velveeta.

Reunites the delectable pair of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, real-life actor-comic friends who play versions of themselves to highly amusing and oddly wistful effect.

Cuts the whimsy with melancholy...its case of the cutes isn’t terminal.

Let's be honest: the b.s. sci-fi plot is so much empty machinery, which becomes steadily more apparent as the film wends its way toward a heavy-metal climax that's narratively and emotionally questionable.

The weakness of the film is in its blandness of character and obviousness of storytelling: it’s all kept storybook simple...

The ostensible genre elements that seem to pitch The Double Hour somewhere between crime film and ghost story begin to look like the stuff of an allegory about modern relationships and the fright of commitment.

Agreeable enough fare for families craving a little action, comedy, and action-comedy.

An existential nightmare of maddening uncertainty, a notion only emphasized by Reichardt’s commitment to ambiguity.

Clobberin’ action, a touch of ’50s sci-fi, and a heaping portion of titan-clashing theatrics spell something a little different for the comic-book movie.

As a fast-food pitchwoman once asked, 'Where’s the beef?'

Despite its exotic setting, the personal connection of Rio-bred director Carlos Saldanha, the odd eye-popping sequence, and a lot of literal color, the new CGI-animated Rio turns out to be figuratively colorless.

A quickie sequel to a film released only last year, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules surprisingly improves on its predecessor. 

Skews to fantasy over fact, but when it blinks at you with those puppy-dog eyes, just see if you don't sniffle.

As interpreted by first-time director George Nolfi (screenwriter of The Bourne Ultimatum), Dick's story transforms into an endearingly silly allegory of the mysterious interaction of free will and fate.

I suspect the young'uns will...take a shine to the hero of Rango: a chameleon that's part Kermit the Frog, part street-corner kook (and all Johnny Depp, who supplies the often hilarious voice).

Though obvious, Bollaín's morality tale dramatizes vital issues facing the global economy, forcing the audience to experience them on a human level.

Tati’s masterful mime easily inspires an animated treatment, recapturing his graceful comic body language and 'no subtitles required' international appeal.

In achieving a credible realism, Leigh and his actors refreshingly avoid the tidy and obvious.

Since Barney’s Version is nothing if not a character study, Giamatti is the surly, sarcastic selling point.

Spews noxious gas and obnoxious patter.

Biutiful doesn’t seem to have much to say about all this sadness, except that death, like love, makes us want to be better people.

The film’s impeccable emotional truth and delicate touches of black humor owe in equal part to screenwriter, director and stars.

Somewhere feels like it’s made by the grandchild of Antonioni (and, in an artistic sense, perhaps it is). It’ll drive at least half the audience crazy, while the rest will walk out with a light buzz.

It’s funny because it’s true. That’s the idea behind the mad-love story I Love You Phillip Morris, which gets its kicks by being much stranger than fiction.

Vienna. The 1920s. Albert Einstein sings...a world of proto-Nazi space-ranger rats led by a nasty, singing Andy Warhol rodent. But I don’t have to tell you the beloved story of The Nutcracker...

Audiences may roll an eye here or there, but they're unlikely to lose interest in John's efforts.

Respectable but rather soggy.

With its one-track premise, Unstoppable derails thrills.

Zigs where other monster movies zag...a trip worth taking.

A cogent synthesis of the factors leading to, defining, and resulting from the global economic crisis of the last couple of years.

Ever so charming...with some satirical snap to its characterizations.

If it’s half-baked Italian modernism you’re after, you’ve come to the right place.

The picturesque romantic travelogue...is as obvious but elegant as the bit of symbolism that ends it.

A “human nature film,” a crime drama that observes cops and robbers in their natural habitat and studies their instinctual behaviors.

One is always in good hands with Thompson, even in this kiddie franchise...for the kids, there’s not only the sobering reminder that they're works in progress but also lots of...fairy-tale magic, with a touch of Babe’s farm charm.

Julia Roberts and voluptuous production value contribute mightily to this ultimate of wish-fulfillment tales.

A welcome late-career showcase for Robert Duvall...fits snugly into the traditions of Southern literature, particularly the tensions between gentility and eccentricity, the community and the individual, and man and God.

Gallo's self-consciously overstated direction feeds the impression that he's trying to remake Goodfellas...can we all agree by now that the use of 'Sympathy for the Devil' in crime pictures ought to be outlawed?

A fairly typical Hollywood bromantic comedy in that one suspects that the improvisatory chops of its likeable star duo made them real-time script doctors.

Nicholas Sparks-meets-Bruce Joel Rubin...The movie’s God talk (most of it coming from…Ray Liotta?) and blatant expression of theme through platitudes make this romantic melodrama as drippy as the St. Cloud boys’ eyes.

Perhaps its best that Predators keeps its ambitions humble, but a dearth of inspiration makes this fifth Predator film dangerously close to a rehash of the first.

Weds a Charles Addams drollness to Looney Tunes one-upmanship.

Lacking the psychological intimacy afforded by the page, Daniel Alfredson’s film won’t inspire better than a shrug from audiences.

Emphasizes the dog-eat-dog nature of show biz...[but fails] to illuminate, or apparently even investigate, the early source of its subject’s hungry void.

Wry and melancholic, Solitary Man recalls Wonder Boys as a character-study showcase worthy of Douglas’ ability.

Reaches its apex with a manic party scene that unleashes the full intimidation of P. Diddy and guarantees the phrase “stroke the furry wall” a place in the comedy lexicon...

Though the attempt is moody and earnest, I can't say that it's smart or memorable.