It's an amusing geriatric uprising that might just as well be titled "Gray."

Nobody can disagree that Waiting for Superman deals with a subject demanding attention. But it paints the engulfing problems of U.S. education with a brush too broad and samples too small to be definitive.

Imagination is the key element that Conviction lacks.

The Tourist is less likely to be remembered for its cat-and-mouse machinations than for the beautiful people carrying them out.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ends on a perfectly appropriate note, recapturing a childish sense of wonder and an earnest approach to Lewis' religious allegory.

Part 1 of Harry Potter's long goodbye is technically impressive as usual, especially an animated shadow play explaining the whole Deathly Hallows myth.

Burlesque is what happens when an irresistible sex object like Aguilera meets Cher's immovable upper lip. It isn't always pretty but on occasion it's guiltily pleasurable.

For Colored Girls is blessed with a Murderer's Row of black female actors, each tearing ferociously into Shange's words and gamely hanging on through Perry's.

Only a spunky cast prevents the film from being as tedious as a test pattern.

It's a nice pairing of singular personalities deserving better material, or a shorter leash on the improv.

When director Joseph Kosinski flips the switch on action, TRON: Legacy is entertaining enough. Especially in 3D IMAX, with a mega-audio system booming Deft Punk's droning Xbox-ready musical score, nearly drowning out the collisions.

Yes, The Eagle is as bad as it sounds but also entertaining, in a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" sort of way that Macdonald didn't intend.

Giamatti is a superb expressionist of emotional flotsam, with a Golden Globe for his effort.

The next step in Matthew McConaughey's inevitable march to network television is The Lincoln Lawyer, a pilot disguised as a feature-length movie, with an entire season's arc crammed into two hours.

A fitfully entertaining movie in an awkward position; too arty for the action crowd yet too unsubtle for more refined tastes.

The sermons are subtle, raising the film's chances of crossing over to secular audiences. Soul Surfer is so clean that it squeaks, but sometimes that's a nice change of pace.

The standout in Win Win is Alex Shaffer, a former New Jersey state champion cast as Kyle.

All that director Kenneth Branagh must do with Thor is not mess it up, and he succeeds. But that isn't enough. The results aren't as exhilarating as the first "Iron Man," but Downey can't play every superhero.

The pleasant surprises in Larry Crowne come from its side characters.

There are laughs that stick in your throat, when they aren't broad strokes shattering a forlorn mood that occasionally makes the movie feel like a companion piece to "Magnolia," or any film depicting downbeat people realizing they have more sorrow in common than expected.

Certainly amusing, but it never accelerates past one-note characters playing out separate personal crises in ways that aren't surprising.

It's a nice movie, and can certainly be inspirational for the proper audiences.

The most succinct evidence that Shakespeare was a fraud is offered by Derek Jacobi in prologue and epilogue, alone on a Broadway stage before a rapt audience. As usual in matters of the Bard, the play's the thing.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is boldly dull in protest to modern movie tastes, and that alone may earn it more praise than it deserves.

Joyful Noise is a good movie when it lifts up its heart and lets people sing.

Movies don't come any brawnier than Safe House, and all that chaotic mayhem eventually beats the plot to a pulp.

There is nice stuff found in The Lorax - Thneedville's artificial nature is inspired - and bad, like the original songs nobody will be humming when they leave the theater. But good intentions don't trump mediocre filmmaking. If that makes me a Grinch, so be it.

Next to Swinton's excellent portrayal of a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown, the movie belongs to the two Kevins, young actors with matching arched eyebrows and sullen expressions.

An imagined conversation between Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, after the premiere of Wrath of the Titans...

At times the sewer dwellers don't appear worth saving, except for Socha's profiting. This can't be the filmmaker's intention but it's there.

Even the smuttiest jokes about rape, torture and genitals have a more polished edge, sliding by without causing much offense. Watching actors portray alarm at Cohen's antics isn't as hilarious as civilians doing it for real.

Rock of Ages is nothing but a good time and sometimes less, slogging through the knee-deep hoopla of 1980s nostalgia at a jukebox pace.

The rest are hit-and-miss propositions with occasional flashes of wit, and a few standout performances. It's always good to see Judy Davis exchanging barbs with Allen, like when he boasts of having an IQ of 160.

Sparkle may wind up as Ejogo's breakthrough but will forever be remembered as Houston's swan song, and a glimpse of what her next life chapter might have been. What a talent. What a waste.

Writer-director Martin McDonagh's followup to his more cohesive "In Bruges" is a middle finger to cliches "Pulp Fiction" wrought, while garishly reveling in the same hyper-ironic, pop referenced ultraviolence it lampoons.

The relevant question now isn't who John Galt is, but how much demand there will be for what the producers supply.

Nobody dies softly here; they're mutilated, splattered in blood and vomit, set up by people who'll get theirs soon.

The movie finds its humor in the royals' shock at Hyde Park's lacking decorum, and a hint of FDR's political savvy.

The movie is airy, predictable and ultimately inconsequential. Yet, there are moments in She's All That when the filmmakers create something close to artfulness, a rare trait in a teen-dream movie. It's a minor, reassuring cure for those Varsity Blues. [29 Jan 1999]

Emperor is also one of those movies in which the most intriguing occurrences are revealed by "what-happened-to . . ." title cards at the finale.

It took brains to create such a sumptuous fantasia with pixels and keyboard swipes. Now, if it only had a heart.

The third act of Scardino's movie is very funny, and its finale featuring the exposure of an impossibly successful illusion is flat-out brilliant. It's just too bad that the movie's opening act is so sleight of humor, damaging the movie's potential. Now you see it. Then you don't.

Although The Croods has lazy patches throughout, the conclusion is exciting and, lo and behold, surprising.

Paramount prefers to think of Star Trek: Generations as the first of a new film series, rather than the seventh act of the old, but prior knowledge of the saga definitely is a necessity. It's a movie filled with punchlines that depend on the audience knowing the set-ups. [18 Nov. 1994, p.3]

I learned a total of two things from watching Evil Dead: No camping kit is complete without duct tape, and sometimes end credits are worth sitting through for a movie's best gag.

Iron Man 3 is missing that old Tony Stark spark. Not from Robert Downey Jr., who is still the best thing about this overblown show.

Renoir is beautifully filmed and scored, yet with the emotional pull of watching exquisitely textured oil paint dry.

The Hangover Part III is more like "Beverly Hills Cop," a generic crime flick improved by comical touches that shouldn't fit the proceedings.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace doesn't attempt to disguise its sentiments - no more so than Greenpeace - but neither does it lose the campy spirit of the 1978 original. Although never as stylish as the first movie, it shows verve and a modest wit. Superman IV is not as funny as the first sequel, but it isn't as violent, either. [27 July 1987, p.1D]

None of it is thrilling, but Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has a Saturday matinee goofiness that'll go well enough with air conditioning.

Knight and Day never makes sense from the opening credits. Heck, the title is only half-explained, and not as cleverly as the pun deserves. It's a movie that never gestated beyond the pitch: Glamorous stars in exotic locales, shooting and driving their way to safety through a gantlet of bad guys chasing a MacGuffin.

Baruchel aside, The Sorcerer's Apprentice contains a few minor delights. One is Cage's surprisingly low-key approach to a role that he could be expected to play over the top.

It's Lane who's saddled with dragging this nag over the finish line, with her cliched portrayal of another single-minded woman beating men at their own game.

It's a one-note character that Bardem builds into a complex emotional chord, lessening the urge to dismiss Biutiful solely as an endurance test for viewers.

A nice but unnecessary movie for small children who can find the same level of entertainment on kiddie cable networks.

The redneck rust bucket is on screen so much that 3-D glasses should come with tetanus shots.

Wang's high regard for women is intact, plus a keen eye for period detail making the 19th century sequences lovely to observe. But it's nothing we haven't seen before.

Feels like half of a good movie, much of it revealed in admittedly thrilling trailers.

Curled up at home with the lights off and DVD player running, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark might be passable fun. Spread over a movie screen, the film's modest ambition gets dwarfed by expectations, especially after paying for a ticket.

Real Steel is sci-fi without the science, and the fiction is strictly 20th century, straight out of Rocky knockoffs.

At least the latest movie about the financial meltdown doesn't make the same mistake as the last one. It also doesn't prove that a fictional film can explain the downturn's causes and effects better than a documentary.

There might be a great movie about any of Hoover's triumphs and secrets, but not all at once.

Almodóvar dives into perversity, practically daring the audience not to follow. The Skin I Live In is a mediocre addition to his resume, yet for fans, even bad Almodóvar is better than none at all.

The strategy deserves to self-destruct in five seconds.

In telling someone else's story Crowe loses track of his own as a cultural definer, not a panderer. Mee bought a zoo; Crowe sells out.

There's no disputing Streep's brilliance, which this time feels more calculated than usual, in a movie demanding only an impersonation.

Soderbergh doesn't always match his pacing to Mallory's fury.

At least This Means War is an equal opportunity misfire, with as much appeal for men as women, compared to a one-sided weeper like "The Vow."

Act of Valor will likely earn high praise from combat veterans and their families, the way movies like "Fireproof" and "Seven Days in Utopia" resonate with Christians. Civilians, movie critics and certainly pacifists won't be nearly as impressed.

If this movie truly cost $375 million to produce and market (as the L.A. Times reported), the biggest chunk isn't on the screen.

Director Robert Lorenz makes a nondescript debut, after assisting Eastwood on several of his directing gigs. The student hasn't learned much from the teacher about economic storytelling or deflecting schmaltz.

Identity Thief is a road movie with its creative lanes clogged, and a Mack truck comedian barreling through, anyway.

Without previous knowledge of Andy Diggle's comics, The Losers looks like every other globetrotting gunpowder flick in which good guy bullets never miss and bad guy bullets never hit their targets.

Will Forte plays his pitifully deluded creation to the hilt in a penknife movie. There's a lot of material here that only occasionally succeeds on Forte's insanely focused performance.

Salt is a movie constantly painting itself into corners then tromping out with arbitrary twists and action distractions.

Wright is an insanely funny filmmaker (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) yet only the front half of that description carries over to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

If anyone gets a career boost from The Expendables it will be Dolph Lundgren, playing a drug-addicted loose Howitzer booted from the team and flipping to the bad side.

Whatever laughter Lottery Ticket earns is through familiarity with these exaggerated characters, and actors going the extra mile to make viewers believe they haven't seen this material before.

Imagine a stuffy Merchant Ivory production blended with muted Michael Crichton sci-fi and you have Never Let Me Go, at least as it plays on screen.

Hereafter doesn't feel like a Clint Eastwood film; it's more like a very special edition of John Edward's psychic TV show.

Unstoppable isn't unwatchable, but it is a letdown after "Speed" and some of the Speed-on-a-(fill in the blank with a vehicle) flicks that followed. Forget missing Hopper; even Keanu Reeves might make this movie more entertaining.

As a rollicking comedy, it isn't.

What nags me about Battle Los Angeles is that Liebesman never realizes what he set up to happen after the fade-out.

Brand is amusing, in a nutty "Get Him to the Greek" sort of way, while Moore delivered one of the funniest performances ever.

As a cinematic effort, Atlas Shrugged: Part I is competent; in service to Ayn Rand's epic novel, it's less so.

The Beaver plays like a thickly veiled confessional and plea for forgiveness. It's too creepy for comfort.

I deferred to the wisdom of Grouchy Smurf (George Lopez): "I didn't hate it as much as I expected to. But I still hated it."

Some ideas simply work better on book pages, rather than on film where illogic is exposed.

Conan the Barbarian has its small, insipid pleasures, if you're in the mood.

Cena handles rough stuff like a pro, and his poker-faced wisecracking isn't bad. But he probably shouldn't quit his day job.

The terror of Sept. 11 feels like little more than a dramatic hook, an easy way to make audiences cry. Oskar and the event defining him deserve better.

Close's performance is technically perfect and emotionally pinched, which is exactly what her role calls for, but it doesn't make a compelling movie.

There are too many convenient romances, trumped-up crises and reversals of conscience to clear up while those poor whales suffer. Big Miracle isn't an entirely bad movie but a wholly misguided one.

Shame smears the lines between daring and taunting, and art versus indulgence. When it ends there's the urge to take a shower, and not a cold one.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance offers Cage plenty of opportunities to tap his inner circus geek, to twitch, cackle and flail without shame, going full tilt batwing crazy. Not since he danced in a pagan bear suit in The Wicker Man has Cage appeared this unconcerned about what the audience will think.

Flat and polished is a fine condition for mirrors, not movies. There is imagination galore but no genuine magic in Mirror Mirror, a Grimmly disappointing take on Snow White's fairy tale.

The movie's only constant pleasure - heck, the whole franchise's - is Eugene Levy as Jim's dad, widowed and wondering if it's time to date again.

The Raven isn't nearly as much fun as it should be.

Life Happens still has the obligatory relationship cracks and repairs to wade through but it's finally tolerable.

Apatow hates leaving anything on the cutting room floor. You could excise entire chunks of The Five-Year Engagement - the donut experiments at college, a couple of wise soliloquies, most of the stuff involving Violet's sister (Alison Brie) - and never miss a beat.

Dark Shadows manages in two hours what the TV show took six years to do: become irrelevant and remembered only for how sloppy it was.

The only surprise is that Garry Marshall didn't direct this jumbled, star-studded kibitz and rename it "Mothers Day."

I spent several minutes not caring what was happening with the story but just observing the patchwork illusion of oversized props, short stunt doubles and computer grafting of big faces on small bodies. Nice work.

Go see Won't Back Down and enjoy it. Just don't believe it's anything more than a stacked deck with a lot at stake.

It's all harmless, if not entirely fun.

Clash of the Titans redefines 3-D but in the wrong way; the movie is dull, dingy and, well, let's just say dull again.

Date Night is really just another example of what happens when funny sitcom stars are lumped together in a movie, believing that laughter exponentially increases with screen size.

I seriously doubt that it happened this way, with such convenient strife and truncated solutions. The movie is about baseball but plays like T-ball, with each situation teed up for easy swings.

Somewhere, Wes Craven is laughing up his sleeve, and Robert Englund is grinning. It's nice to know that you're irreplaceable.

Yes, this is a great time for escapism at the movies. But there's a point at which escapism throws what we're trying to forget back in our faces.

A distinct lack of merriment marks each frame of this film, with Scott determined to erase all fond memories of past Robin Hoods.

Jonah Hex isn't abrupt by design but by desperation.

I honestly thought Eclipse would be different, after "New Moon" showed stirrings of cinematic life.

The movie is geared to preschoolers, so only parents dragged with them may complain. There's only that Looney Tunes overture to savor before the Acme production begins.

After a lucrative career of bashing well-made scary, epic, disaster and date movies, Friedberg and Seltzer have a source begging to be mocked.

Paul Haggis is positive that withholding information while John makes "A Beautiful Mind" flow charts and deals with bad dudes will keep it interesting. Haggis is wrong.

A terrible title for a not-much-better movie, missing a grammatically correct question mark and most of the point with romantic comedies.

A movie that wouldn't get much attention if the creator of "Titanic" and "Avatar" (as the ads overhype) weren't tangentially involved.

A comedy as lazy as Sandler's previous boondoggles.

Nothing to skip school over but at least it's not in 3-D. No sense in paying an extra ticket charge for something belonging on TV, anyway.

This is a comedy never proceeding beyond its idea pitch and attractive casting.

Man on a Ledge makes bigger leaps of logic than Nick will if he fails a gravity test. If the transparent sting springing him from Sing Sing doesn't roll your eyes, then wait for the climax when Nick becomes a kind of plainclothes Spider-Man.

Despite its haunted house setting, the movie's most visible cobwebs are found in Jane Goldman's screenplay, adapted from Susan Hill's novel.

If not for a few choice performance moments and a couple of peppy montages, Wanderlust would be cinematic compost, recycled and thoroughly smelly.

Step Up Revolution is a bad movie with a few good moments, usually when the cast sets aside delusions of acting prowess and does what comes naturally to them.

If you prefer hipster romantic comedies that are unromantic and not too funny, Lee Toland Krieger's movie may be your grande half-caf caramel mocha frappe.

Sinister is basically a collection of bogus snuff films linked by standard haunted house tricks - everything creaking and slamming, with the power conveniently shut off.

It's enough to make Kim Jong ill.

The fifth edition of the franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard, is the brawniest and most brainless of the bunch.

The Host doesn't strive for social allegory, as previous body snatcher flicks have done with the Red Scare, civil rights and Watergate. If anything it's merely a teenage girl's fantasy checklist for prom.

The movie's best performance — and worst defamation — belongs to Tony Shalhoub, playing the first victim as a conniving, egotistical jerk who deserves to be kidnapped, maimed and ruined financially.

Movies like Miss Daisy purport to be humanistic or aimed at a higher consciousness, but they're as self-righteous and silly as the one-dimensional characters they depict. [12 Jan. 1990, p.7]

Beverly Hills Cop II is practically a carbon copy of the original movie, which, at the very least, exhibited a glimmer of invention. The sequel is superior only in terms of technique. It looks slicker and sounds better; more like a music video. Its tone is fractionally more reserved. And there isn't the unsettling clash between humor and violence. [22 May 1987, p.1D]

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is an uneven mix of shopworn comedy and talky space adventure...If it's moderately engaging, it's because the material is familiar and never taxing. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier goes where no man has gone before. Barely. [9 June 1989, p.12]

None of these complaints would matter if The Bounty Hunter possessed even a smidgen of inspired comedy. It doesn't.

The only memorable aspect of She's Out of My League is Eve's performance. Not that it's good, but it does possess the hypnotic quality of a flicker ring.

Our Family Wedding should embarrass Whitaker and each of his co-stars, perhaps except Carlos Mencia, whose chief attribute as an actor is that he's a so-so standup comedian.

Nearly everything about Just Wright is just wrong.

As far as unnecessary movies go, Predators is a pip.

A sitcom pilot idea stretched to feature length boredom.

If only one character in Stone reacted as someone in his position would to the preposterous situation at hand, the movie would be 15 minutes long.

A smarter-than-average bear becomes a dumber-than-usual kiddie flick with Yogi Bear, the lone Christmas release specifically aimed at children, so it automatically qualifies as their lump of coal.

Country Strong is a country music melodrama, but I'm not sure which country.

Billed as an action comedy, The Green Hornet isn't funny, and the action is often too frenetic to make any impression.

Yes, there is a hell, and this movie is showing at its local multiplex.

A timid new take on the old fairy tale, and it's pretty grim.

Hop is harmless, which is the worst best thing to be said for any movie. It never decides whether to be a kiddie flick or a grownup lark and winds up as neither. As Roger might say: "Puh-puh-puh-puhleeze, don't waste your time."

Your Highness is drive-by directing at its laziest, linking late-night sketch ideas in a quest for comedy as difficult to locate as the Holy Grail.

Something Borrowed is a romantic comedy in which absolutely no one deserves to end up happy.

The Art of Getting By is enough to drive a movie critic to drink. The next round's on the kid in the overcoat.

Can we please get over the notion that every superhero in a skintight suit deserves a movie? Green Lantern is the latest wallet drainer emptying the comic book bench, more thudding than "Thor" and sorely incoherent.

30 Minutes or Less merely puts together actors with only one funny talent each, making them do it over and over again.

I wouldn't even DVR What's Your Number? if under house arrest and starved for entertainment. I've got this movie's number, and it's zero.

Machine Gun Preacher comes alive only when Sam is pulling a trigger, which is most of the second hour. You can find the same thrill from watching a grindhouse descendant like "The Expendables" on cable TV.

This Thing is purely for the gorehounds, and they aren't likely to leave impressed.

Breaking Dawn Part 1 confirms suspicions that all four books could've made a heck of a single movie.

By the time Melancholia finally crawls to its conclusion, his (von Trier) round orb in the sky isn't as depressing as the rectangular screen.

Through it all, Marshall sticks to his rose-colored principles: You gotta have hope, listen to your heart and take leaps of faith. Plus a new one: Parker should never make it through a movie without at least one pair of fabulous shoes.

Carnahan didn't make a movie unfit for mankind but it certainly isn't worth mankind's money.

Move along, guys. Nothing to see in The Lucky One, unless you're in the doghouse at home and need to make nice.

Two flesh-and-blood performers stand out among the machinery. One is pop singer Rhianna, looking lovely as usual despite the military gear and quite comfortable with high-powered artillery. The other is Gregory D. Gadson, an Army veteran who lost his legs to a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Other than its campy title, not much about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is fun.

An amoral mosaic of carnage and carnality.

The word "sappy" comes to mind, constantly. So often that I wanted to make like a tree and leaf. Frankly I'm stumped, wondering exactly who the audience is for such a drab slab of saccharine uplift.

Alex Cross is slipshod cinema hoping to capitalize on a star out of his orbit here.

Cloud Atlas, surely the most incoherent waste of time and money on screen this year.

Jack the Giant Slayer is merely cable TV fodder waiting to happen and not worth a hill of beans, magic or otherwise.

This movie never realizes how ridiculous anything it does truly is, right up to the last-second promise of another sequel.

Darkman is a spectacularly ill-conceived combination of Batman and The Phantom of the Opera. [24 Aug. 1990, p.6]

Everybody's cyber-pal Ashton Kutcher is perfect casting for Killers, since the screenplay is shallow as a Tweet and the movie appears to have been shot with a Nikon point-and-click camera he plugs on TV.

For the love of movies, stay away.

Niccol fashioned an uninspired and downright dull sci-fi gimmick and doesn't even explain how it happened.

Most annoying is John Carter's scarcity of action. This much buck should buy more bang.

The Last Airbender makes the cartoon version with its ratchet-jawed characters and clunky animation seem like a Pixar classic.

I'm Still Here is amateurishly shot and edited, as if ineptness equaled some higher level of veracity. Ironically, it's the only Joaquin Phoenix movie anyone has cared about in years.

A comedy abomination, tasteless and useless to a stunning degree, with storied actors smugly collecting paychecks for sullying their careers.

It's all megalomaniacal junk from Snyder, but that isn't his most offensive move.

The Change-Up is the "Human Centipede" of gag-me comedies.

This messy mix of sci-fi horror and post-Superbad raunchiness didn't make me laugh once. Not a single snicker, chortle or smile.

Save the money you might spend for a ticket to see For a Good Time, Call... and just read a dive bar's restroom wall for free. That's the sub-level of comedy here, with a litany of crude sexual euphemisms and phallic images passed off as jokes.