Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron E... Review: Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan's absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There's something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe. Striking out from his Batman origin story, Nolan cuts through to a deeper dimension. Huh? Wha? How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked, painted-on clown smile speak to the essentials of the human condition? Just hang on for a shock to the system. The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil — expected to do battle —... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Francois Cluzet, Kristin Scott Thomas, Marie-Josee Croze, Andre D... Review: Don't you hate it when critics review mystery movies and give away all the plot twists? I do. So I won't reveal diddly about Tell No One, except to say that the young French director Guillaume Canet — channeling Hitchcock's masterpiece Vertigo while working from an American mystery novel by the uber-clever Harlan Coben — has fired off one terrific, twisty thriller. Hot-blooded, haunting and packed with the pleasures of the unexpected, Tell No One will pin you to your seat. Francois Cluzet is a marvel as Alex, the widower pediatrician who is jolted to learn that his wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze), believed murdered eight years ago, might just be alive. The acting is uniformly first-rate, with special props going to Kristen Scott Thomas as a lesbian married to... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Adam Del Rio, Jameson... Review: Would you buy Will Smith as John Hancock, an amnesiac, grab-­ass, booze-swilling superhero who flies under the influence and disdains the punk-ass citizens of Los Angeles for thinking he's a superasshole? Trust me, you will. There also exists in L.A. a publicist, Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), committed to making the world a better place. Now, that's pushing it. Director Peter Berg has a feel for guys who screw up (see Very Bad Things), and he mines the herky-jerky script for every toxic glint of macho posturing. It's all hugely entertaining until the final reel, when the film tries for a tragic dimension it can't handle. Leave that to The Dark Knight. The actors save the day. Bateman doesn't make a false move, and a stellar Charlize Theron springs her own bolts from the blue as Ray's wife.... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, Sigourney Weaver, John Ratzenberger, K... Review: First image: the Earth as a garbage dump, a future reduced to ruins. For the past 700 years, what's left of humanity has been cruising the skies in a spaceship. Only a tiny robot, WALL-E (for Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth class), scoots around on urban terra firma compacting trash into piles that grow into skyscrapers. First sound: a voice lifted in song: "Out there/there's a world outside of Yonkers." The tune is "Put On Your Sunday Clothes," a merry ditty from the forgotten 1969 movie version of Hello, Dolly with Barbra Streisand. WALL-E, his eyes like binoculars (hell, they are binoculars!), watches an old, muddy video tape of Dolly with the same yearning we see in Michael Crawford, who plays a young store clerk at the turn of the 20th-century, warbling about... Rating: 4 Stars

Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron E... Review: Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan's absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There's something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe. Striking out from his Batman origin story, Nolan cuts through to a deeper dimension. Huh? Wha? How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked, painted-on clown smile speak to the essentials of the human condition? Just hang on for a shock to the system. The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil — expected to do battle —... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Gary Hart, George McGovern, Jann Wenner, Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Car... Review: The good doctor is family around these parts, so cheers to Alex Gibney (Oscar winner for Taxi to the Dark Side) for not screwing up this mesmerizing documentary about the people, places and substances that altered the mind and battered heart of the Kentucky-born inventor of gonzo journalism. Johnny Depp, who paid for the 2005 funeral in which Thompson's ashes were fired out of a cannon, narrates with just the right mix of awe and impertinence. Tom Wolfe, illustrator Ralph Steadman and Rolling Stone editor and publisher Jann S. Wenner check in on navigating the blurred line between fact and fiction that marked Thompson's landmark writing. Family, including son Juan, fill us in on life with the man who declared, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, Thom... Review: Angelina Jolie is packing heat, and she's going to show James McAvoy how to load a phallic pistol and shoot his wad. What's not to like? Wanted is what I'd call a guilty pleasure. Translation: It's trash, but I love it anyway. Brutal, sexy, built to thrill and minus a scintilla of redeeming social value, the movie — based on a series of comic books by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones — explodes like summer fireworks. And the detonator is Timur Bekmambetov, a Kazakhstan-born director whose Night Watch and Day Watch are huge hits in Russia and who is determined to hit Hollywood with the same pizzazz. Not a timid soul, Bekmambetov, who cut his teeth in the ad game, knows how to get a story going without pesky preliminaries. In the first scene, a professional assassin kills a few dozen... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan... Review: In this corner, Mike Myers, the sharp comic mind behind Austin Powers and countless SNL skits. Handicap: His edge has been blunted from lack of use over five years, except for voicing an ogre in the Shrek trilogy. Here, as guru Pitka, an American-born rival to Deepak Chopra in love therapy, he repeats lame jokes in a singsong accent until you want to scream. His formal greeting is "Mariska Hargitay." His mentor is guru Tugginmypudha (Sir Ben Kingsley). He helps Jessica Alba, the unlikely owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, deal with libidinous goalie Jacques "Le Coq" grande (Justin Timberlake). Ninety minutes pass like an eternity. Verdict: Down for the count. Watch Peter Travers' video review of The Love Guru. Rating: 0.5 Star

Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence ... Review: In this corner, Steve Carell, the sharp comic mind who gets sharper every week on The Office. Handicap: trying to update a 1960s TV series about idiot spy Maxwell Smart. Max's shoe phone was innovative back then, not so much for generation IM. Director Peter Segal ups the ante on the action, aiming for Bourne more than Bond, but the stunts grow frenzied and increasingly flat. What helps is Carell's inspired silliness and his teaming with delicious Anne Hathaway as Agent 99. Would you believe they have sexual chemistry? OK, no, but they make an appealingly scrappy team. Verdict: No knockout, but Carell wins on a rock-solid technicality – he's funny. Watch Peter Travers' video review of Get Smart. Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan... Review: In this corner, Mike Myers, the sharp comic mind behind Austin Powers and countless SNL skits. Handicap: His edge has been blunted from lack of use over five years, except for voicing an ogre in the Shrek trilogy. Here, as guru Pitka, an American-born rival to Deepak Chopra in love therapy, he repeats lame jokes in a singsong accent until you want to scream. His formal greeting is "Mariska Hargitay." His mentor is guru Tugginmypudha (Sir Ben Kingsley). He helps Jessica Alba, the unlikely owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, deal with libidinous goalie Jacques "Le Coq" grande (Justin timberlake). Ninety minutes pass like an eternity. Verdict: Down for the count. Watch Peter Travers' video review of The Love Guru. Rating: 0.5 Star

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Bailey Jr., Spencer Bresli... Review: Film critics have been asked to say as little as possible about M. Night Shyamalan?s new scare film about the perils of messing with Mother Nature. Fair enough. But I will say this: It?s not happening. Rating: 1 Star

Starring: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell Review: First, a little scorekeeping: Ang Lee's thoughtful, Freudian Hulk in 2003 was nowhere near as bad as its rep. And Louis Letterier's proudly pea-brained The Incredible Hulk is nowhere near incredible. In fact, in its rush to deliver a constant rush of action it forgets to think at all. But the latest spin on the Marvel comic-book hero delivers the popcorn goods. I like what Marvel is doing since it took over its franchise business from Hollywood starting with Jon Favreau's smart and splendid Iron Man. The overqualified casting of Robert Downey, Jr., Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow paid mucho dividends, as it does in The Incredible Hulk. Edward Norton is the ideal livewire to plug into the role of Bruce Banner, the scientist with such a fire inside that his rage takes... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Lou Taylor Pucci, Zooey Deschanel, Jena Malone, Giuseppe Andrews,... Review: Director-writer Martin Hynes shapes his first movie into something emotionally truthful, painfully funny and vibrantly alive. It?s a near-perfect road movie, since you don?t want the ride to end. Oregon teenager Mercer White, played by a subtly sensational Lou Taylor Pucci, hits the highway in a stolen car to track down his half-brother, Arlen (Jsu Garcia), who doesn?t know their mother has died. In concise episodes that brim over with the pleasures of the unexpected, Hynes deepens Mercer?s encounters with characters played by the superb likes of Jena Malone, Nick Offerman, Judy Greer, Maura Tierney and a knockout Bill Duke. Hynes? chief inspiration was a cellphone left in the car by the owner, who keeps nagging and nurturing Mercer throughout the trip. The throaty voice, which s... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Bailey Jr., Spencer Bresli... Review: Film critics have been asked to say as little as possible about M. Night Shyamalan?s new scare film about the perils of messing with Mother Nature. Fair enough. But I will say this: It?s not happening. Rating: 1 Star

Starring: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell Review: First, a little scorekeeping: Ang Lee's thoughtful, Freudian Hulk in 2003 was nowhere near as bad as its rep. And Louis Letterier's proudly pea-brained The Incredible Hulk is nowhere near incredible. In fact, in its rush to deliver a constant rush of action it forgets to think at all. But the latest spin on the Marvel comic-book hero delivers the popcorn goods. I like what Marvel is doing since it took over its franchise business from Hollywood starting with Jon Favreau's smart and splendid Iron Man. The overqualified casting of Robert Downey, Jr., Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow paid mucho dividends, as it does in The Incredible Hulk. Edward Norton is the ideal livewire to plug into the role of Bruce Banner, the scientist with such a fire inside that his rage takes... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Alberto Bonilla, Steven Chinni, Liev Schreiber Review: This gut punch of a documentary will knock you for a loop. File it under "no good deed goes unpunished." When actor Liev Schreiber saw an MTV interview with Muthana Mohmed, 25, a Baghdad film student whose school had just been destroyed by a U.S. bomb, he invited the Shiite to work as an intern on Everything Is Illuminated, the film he was directing in Prague. Nina Davenport came aboard to record Muthana's progress. What she finds is Hollywood at its worst. Schreiber, the good Jewish liberal, treats Muthana as a gofer. Producer Peter Saraf, putting the kid's Bush adoration aside, instructs him in the art of sucking up. Muthana, afraid of returning to Iraq, and getting accustomed to the availability of babes and booze, hustles a job on a zombie movie with the Rock and accuses Davenport of... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Review: You wind up caring deeply about the affair that began in the 1950s between American teenager Don Bachardy and three-decades-older Christopher Isherwood, the noted British author whose Berlin Stories inspired Cabaret. Isherwood died in 1986, but home movies, photos and interviews evoke his presence. And Bachardy — now a famed portrait artist speaking from the same Santa Monica home where he lived with Chris in defiance of the closeted times — shares intimate details that bring the relationship and an era to vivid life, with glimpses of Tennessee Williams, W.H. Auden and Igor Stravinsky. What could have been sordid emerges instead as fiercely funny and touching. Even the animated sequences featuring the lovers the way they imagined themselves — Chris as a horse, Don as a... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Lou Taylor Pucci, Zooey Deschanel, Jena Malone, Giuseppe Andrews,... Review: Director-writer Martin Hynes shapes his first movie into something emotionally truthful, painfully funny and vibrantly alive. It?s a near-perfect road movie, since you don?t want the ride to end. Oregon teenager Mercer White, played by a subtly sensational Lou Taylor Pucci, hits the highway in a stolen car to track down his half-brother, Arlen (Jsu Garcia), who doesn?t know their mother has died. In concise episodes that brim over with the pleasures of the unexpected, Hynes deepens Mercer?s encounters with characters played by the superb likes of Jena Malone, Nick Offerman, Judy Greer, Maura Tierney and a knockout Bill Duke. Hynes? chief inspiration was a cellphone left in the car by the owner, who keeps nagging and nurturing Mercer throughout the trip. The throaty voice, which s... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Mariah Carey, Shelley Berman, Sayed ... Review: Given the missed opportunities for sharpening silliness with satire, it's impossible not to mess with the Zohan. There's a risky idea in the script cooked up by star Adam Sandler and his co-writers, Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow: What if Sandler played a Mossad commando named Zohan who fakes his death and comes to New York to live his dream of making the world "silky smooth" by cutting and styling hair? And what if the only job he could get was working in a Brooklyn salon run by a Palestinian babe (Emmanuelle Chriqui)? It's the Middle East crisis played for laughs, and it gets a few until the movie backs off its bolder notions. That's a shame, because Sandler, buff, blow-dried and Borat-accented, is clearly having a ball playing a Jewish superhero. Ditto John Turturro as Zohan'... Rating: 2 Stars

Starring: Danny McBride, Mary Jane Bostwick, Spencer Moreno, Carlos Lopez, ... Review: This hilarious, high-kicking nonsense cost two cents and looks it — hell, it was shot in 19 days, but you'll laugh helplessly anyway. Danny McBride (remember the name) is a comic dynamo as Fred Simmons, a loudmouthed bully who operates a tae kwon do (Korean for "foot fist way") dojo out of a strip mall. Fred idolizes Chuck "the Truck" Wallace (Ben Best), a Steven Seagal wanna-be who gets caught balling Fred's wife, Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic). The plot is a flimsy excuse for writer-director Jody Hill (he plays another foot-fist master) to string together jokes, the majority of which kick ass. While Fred struggles to stay true to the code of peace, the movie cares only about funny. Good call. Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Review: Money, madness, incest and murder! Just the recipe for a twisted mesmerizer of a movie, if it doesn't creep you out. It's the true story of Barbara Daly (Julianne Moore), a social climber who marries Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), the heir to a plastics empire, and proceeds to, well, just watch and hold your jaw up with both hands. Director Tom Kalin (Swoon) is a huge talent, and working from a script that Howard Rodman carved out of a book by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson, he uses dark humor and artful style to pull you into a tale of the rich abusing their privileges. Barbara dotes on her gay son, Tony (the excellent Eddie Redmayne), with boundary-shattering intensity. From Tony's birth in 1946 to Barbara's murder in 1972, Savage Grace travels the world with... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis,... Review: Some dudes say they'd rather light their dicks on fire than endure this movie version of the ultimate in TV chickcoms. Snap out of it, guys, you just might learn something. If the film didn't go on for a punishing two and a half hours, including two fashion shows and countless designer name-checks, I might call it must-viewing for men who are clueless about the female psyche. Come on, what men aren't? It took producer and star Sarah Jessica Parker four years of struggling to finally get the movie made. Long story short: Co-star Kim Cattrall wanted to get the same money Parker was getting for the film and held off until she came close. Presto: The Movie. New York City is back, and so are the ladies: Parker is funny, touching and vital as Carrie Bradshaw, the sex-columnist-tu... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hu... Review: A New York Times critic said, "I was bored out of my mind." Holy schizo! Now that the fourth chapter in the Indiana Jones series has opened and we can see beyond the box-office gold rush, the truth emerges between the extremes, you know, the place where disappointment eats at your expectations. Sure, I wanted Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to be as classically adventurous as Raiders of the Lost Ark, which kicked off the Indy saga in 1981. It isn't. Crystal Skull is hit-and-miss like the clunky 1984 sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And instead of the elegiac tone that lifted 1989's presumptive valedictory, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas have gotten sillier. The good news is that Harrison Ford... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell,... Review: The sequel is livelier, with more action heat in it than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — the first of the films being made from C.S. Lewis' seven Narnia books. But that 2005 box-office hit should have taught a lesson. Lewis wrote with a Christian agenda, and Walden Media, releasing these films through Disney, is similarly committed. Step up for Prince Caspian, and what you get is a PG rating, family values, battles without blood and an animated lion named Aslan standing in for the resurrected Jesus and voiced by Liam Neeson. No sense in complaining that you're watching Lord of the Rings lite. That's the point. So where were we? In Narnia, 1,300 years have passed. But a mere year has zipped by for the four Pevensie children: Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Tim Robbins, William Hurt Review: What if a New Yorker got so pissed off at noise on the streets that he transformed himself into "the Rectifier" and took action against car alarms? Writer-director Henry Bean, the master behind The Believer, is that man. But instead of turning vigilante, he made a movie about it, put in Tim Robbins as the Rectifier and William Hurt as the mayor who opposes him, and worked out variations on a theme. It's wickedly amusing for a little bit — Robbins and Hurt really get into it — but ultimately the film becomes what it's fighting: just noise. Rating: 2 Stars

Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Cameron Diaz, Queen Latifah, Lake Bell, Zach Gali... Review: People around me actually laughed at a preview screening of this alleged romantic farce. I couldn't join in. I kept seeing the strain on the faces of Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, playing New York strangers who meet and marry in Vegas — it's the booze — and find their annulment delayed when he hits a $3 million jackpot on the slots using her quarter. If you don't see where this is going, you've never seen a movie. Sorry it had to be this one. >> Watch Peter Travers' video review of What Happens in Vegas. >> Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes here (when prompted, click ?Launch application?). Every Friday, a new episode featuring clips from the week's newest movies will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don?t have... Rating: 1.5 Stars

Starring: Emile Hirsch, Nicholas Elia, Susan Sarandon, Melissa Holroyd, Ari... Review: Fun for the whole family: not exactly a phrase you associate with the films of Andy and Larry Wachowski. Before the brutal complexities of the Matrix trilogy, they gave us Bound, a kinky lesbian crime caper that showcased the hand as a sex organ. But that wimpy PG rating on Speed Racer is no mistake. The Wachowskis wanted to make a movie that their nephews and nieces could see without falling prey to existential angst. And Speed Racer — reportedly budgeted at $120 million, what with the mix of live-action and computer effects — is the hyperkinetic result. In terms of coherence, the movie is a mess, a relentlessly adrenalized take on the 1960s TV cartoon series about a racing family that feels the need, the need for speed. Even the target audience of 10-year-olds might get jimmy... Rating: 2 Stars

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges... Review: There's no rust on this baby. Iron Man kicks off summer on a blazing high note and practically dares the competition to measure up. It's been years since a movie superhero was this fierce and this funny. All praise to acting dynamo Robert Downey Jr., who brings so much creative juice to the party that Iron Man achieves instant liftoff. Even if you know diddly about the character Marvel built in 1963, Downey and director Jon Favreau — just the right swinger for the job — will get you up to speed pronto. Hard to believe that Iron Man and his alter ego, Tony Stark, have never been exploited as movie subjects before. Could it be that Stark, the boozing, lecherous, right-wing manufacturer of WMDs, scared off stars less willing to take a risk than Downey? Screw 'em.... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Emily Mortimer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Max Martini, Rebecca Pidgeon, C... Review: No writer knows how a con game ticks better than David Mamet. He's proved it repeatedly as a playwright (Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo) and a filmmaker (House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner). So you sense a sting in Redbelt when Mamet zooms in on ethics in the person of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Gulf War veteran who runs a jujitsu studio in L.A. according to strict samurai code. To Mike, there's shame in competition, which puts him up against the American way as he is prodded to go for the jackpot on the mixed-martial-arts circuit. Though MMA figures in Redbelt, Mamet, who studied jujitsu for five years, is more interested in the philosophy that understanding will defeat strength. With uncanny skill, Mamet directs the movie like a moral combat sport in which a variety of... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman, Deborah K... Review: Try as he might to "hoo-ha" some life into this stupendously stupid thriller, Al Pacino can't disguise the desperation of this CSI wanna-be. As Jack Gramm, an FBI forensic shrink who also teaches at a Seattle university, Pacino must ward off a horny student (Alicia Witt), a serial killer (Neal McDonough) on death row who arranges a string of copycat murders to win a reprieve, and a mystery caller who warns him he has only eighty-eight minutes to live. Sounds like a full day, what with Jack's semen found in the vaginal cavity of a murdered call girl. But I'm guessing it's the pressure of an idiot script by Gary Scott Thompson and understandably clueless direction from Jon Avnet that forces Pacino to ham it up so vigorously that you want to garnish him with cloves and a slice of pineapple.... Rating: 1 Star

Starring: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Bill Hader Review: Did producer Judd Apatow swear a blood oath to make the comedy careers of everyone he hired on TV's Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared? I ask because the creative types on both those low-rated but deservedly treasured sitcoms keep turning up as actors, writers and directors on the films issuing from Apatow Nation. The last two (Walk Hard, Drillbit Taylor) were factory seconds. But Forgetting Sarah Marshall — the tale of a dude dumped by his girlfriend while his limp dick hangs out — ranks with the hit models, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Superbad. The man of these two hours is doughy, hangdog, unfailingly funny Jason Segel, who appeared in Freaks, Undeclared and Knocked Up and currently does sitcom duty on the un-Apatovian How I Met Your Mother. Segel wrote the... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Richard Jenkins, Danai Gurira, Haaz Sleiman, Hiam Abbass Review: If I told you The Visitor reamed out our government for its shameful treatment of illegal immigrants, you?d say, ?stop preaching.? If I told you The Visitor focused on one man, a shy, sixtyish college professor who comes out of his shell, you?d say, who wants to see that? And yet The Visitor, featuring an award-caliber performance by Richard Jenkins as the prof, is a heartfelt human drama that sneaks up and floors you. In only his second film as writer and director, following his acclaimed 2003 debut with The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy is already that rare talent who can work in miniature to reveal major truths. Like his acting — you just saw him on the last season of The Wire as a Jayson Blair-like journalist — McCarthy is attuned to the nuances of behavior. Just watch... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Richard Jenkins, Danai Gurira, Haaz Sleiman, Hiam Abbass Review: If I told you The Visitor reamed out our government for its shameful treatment of illegal immigrants, you?d say, ?stop preaching.? If I told you The Visitor focused on one man, a shy, sixtyish college professor who comes out of his shell, you?d say, who wants to see that? And yet The Visitor, featuring an award-caliber performance by Richard Jenkins as the prof, is a heartfelt human drama that sneaks up and floors you. In only his second film as writer and director, following his acclaimed 2003 debut with The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy is already that rare talent who can work in miniature to reveal major truths. Like his acting — you just saw him on the last season of The Wire as a Jayson Blair-like journalist — McCarthy is attuned to the nuances of behavior. Just watch... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Forest Whitaker, Common, ... Review: Police corruption is always a juicy theme for a balls-out action flick. And here?s Keanu Reeves going all butch and trigger-happy as LAPD hardass Tom Ludlow, a hothead who bends the law with the blessing of his commanding officer, Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker, pushing way too hard). Reeves struggles mightily for the brute force that felt second nature to Russell Crowe in the great L.A. Confidential, from a novel by James Ellroy, who shares writing credit for Street Kings. Director David Ayer also labors under the shadow of the vital script he wrote for Training Day. The acting? Common and the Game score as baddies, but Hugh Laurie as an acid-tongued internal-affairs cop is disappointingly just House without the limp. Don?t get me wrong. Street Kings clips along with brutal efficiency, but... Rating: 2 Stars

Starring: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ron Wood, Christina A... Review: If you're expecting Martin Scorsese to do a Last Waltz number on the Rolling Stones, snap out of it. No way are the Stones the departed. No way are they ready for a farewell concert like the classic 1978 elegy Scorsese did for the Band. In Shine a Light, the Stones defy you to wave them off. The music is full-out, in-your-face, viscera-twisting rock & roll. Because the film was shot in 2006 at New York's Beacon Theater at a benefit for the Clinton Foundation, you might think Scorsese had limited access. There's a dishy bit with Mick Jagger having a snit about all those distracting cameras and cranes. Scorsese doesn't budge. In fact, eighteen cameras — manned by the Oscar-winning likes of Robert Richardson, John Toll and Robert Elswit — zoom around the stage like... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce, ... Review: He belongs to two churches — film and football — and George Clooney worships at both in Leatherheads, a scrappy debate on the rules we live by disguised as a screwball comedy. In his third shot at directing, following two savvy meditations on media and politics (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night, and Good Luck), Clooney throws us a rowdy party of a movie. Or does he? Leatherheads could be subtitled We Only Kill the Things We Love. Clooney paints a vivid picture of pro football circa 1925 and the advent of the NFL, endorsements, free agency and contract money that could feed several starving countries. Clooney plays Dodge Connolly, an aging team captain who dodges growing up. He knows pro football is a joke. College football gets respect, but Dodge and... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Jared Leto, Lindsay Lohan Review: Don't hammer this film for trying to get inside the head of Mark David Chapman before he shot John Lennon outside the rock legend's New York apartment on December 8th, 1980. Hammer it instead for failing to do so with any depth or insight. It's not that Jared Leto, who gained nearly seventy pounds to play Chapman, doesn't attack the role with all he's got. It's that J.P. Schaefer's film, with Lindsay Lohan as another Lennon fan, has nothing to say. Schaefer obsesses that Chapman met Lennon while carrying a copy of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which ends at Chapter 26. Did Chapman think of the murder as his ending to Salinger's Holden Caulfield saga? Such conjecture prompts just one response: Thanks for nothing. Rating: 1.5 Stars

Starring: Simon Pegg, Hank Azaria, Ameet Chana, Dylan Moran, Thandie Newton Review: Why in hell is queens-born David Schwimmer making his directing debut with a British farce? Damned if I know. But the Friends star has a welcome eye for laughs that sneak in around familiar corners. It's also a big comic boost that Simon Pegg, the offbeat star of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, plays Dennis, a security guard in a lingerie shop. Five years earlier, dumbass Dennis ditched his pregnant fiancée, Libby (gorgeous Thandie Newton), at the altar. Now she's about to marry Whit (Hank Azaria), a rich American. Desperate to win Libby back, Dennis competes against Whit in a London charity marathon to prove he can man up. "I'm not fat," Dennis insists, "I'm unfit." So's the plot, which sparks only when Schwimmer spins knockabout variations on it. The funniest scenes are... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Spacey Review: Odds are you're going to like this lively spin on the true story of six MIT mathletes who broke the Vegas bank in the 1990s. Loosely adapted from Ben Mezrich's best-selling Bringing Down the House, the movie stretches facts like taffy but never shirks its responsibility to entertain. And, jeez, it's a kick to see Kevin Spacey up to his old tricks as the sultan of snark. Spacey plays Mickey Rosa, a math prof who cherry-picks the brainiest students to join his secret club of card counters. They rake it in at blackjack on weekend trips to Vegas. His newest recruit is Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), an innocent with a knack for numbers to rival Rain Man's. Sturgess does a nifty job as this poor Boston lad, given that he's a Brit best known for starring in Across the Universe. The... Rating: 3 Stars

Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levi... Review: Here's the first major movie of the new year that touches greatness, and damn if there isn't a curse hanging over it. Stop-Loss, directed with ferocity and feeling by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry), is up against the war raging between audiences and films about Iraq. Box-office casualties last year include Lions for Lambs, Rendition, Redacted, Grace Is Gone and the unfairly scorned In the Valley of Elah. Stop-Loss has the juice to break the jinx. The emotional battlefield on which Peirce paints her canvas strikes a universal chord that transcends politics and preaching. Peirce, who co-wrote the script with Mark Richard, takes us inside the minds and hearts of soldiers who enlisted after 9/11. Why? "To get the people who had done this," in the words of Peirce, whose brother... Rating: 3.5 Stars