Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has a near-impossible task: to hold up to John le Carré’s much-loved cold war-era novel and the definitive 1979 BBC miniseries
Josh Trank’s Chronicle may feature the best use of found footage yet, with its premise of three highschoolers developing unnatural superpowers
Roman Polanski’s Carnage is short, sweet, and unexpectedly funny, even if it isn’t as sharp as it ought to be
A Dangerous Method seems like a match made in heaven, though this is a far more conventional film than would be expected of Cronenberg
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is Brad Bird’s fast-paced, suspenseful, and lightly comic return to the Mission: Impossible series
The Rum Diary is a revealing and affectionate look into a creative mind not yet fully formed
Puss in Boots is a rare spinoff that actually feels deserved, as the Shrek films started to feel stale by the third installment
Real Steel is based on a short story by Richard Matheson, which was previously made into a memorable Twilight Zone episode
Paranormal Activity 3 is an unnerving, even exhausting experience that is incredibly effective at what it sets out to do
Johnny English Reborn is a clear notch above its predecessor, with more laughs, better stunts, and a greater sense of sophistication
By Jason Statham standards of believability Killer Elite ranks several notches above the Crank and Transporter films
There’s a lot to like in Crazy, Stupid, Love, most of all the cast of characters played by Stone, Gosling, Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore
Final Destination 5 is the best in the Final Destination series and heartily recommended for fans
Captain America: The First Avenger represents some of the best of what the Marvel universe has brought to the screen
Richard Ayoade’s Submarine is a pure delight: quirky, poignant, and frequently very funny
Surviving Life is Švankmajer’s most accessible work, from the style of animation to the fairly straightforward narrative
The Hangover Part II is that it’s a carbon copy of the original film, with the setting changed from Las Vegas to Thailand
Water for Elephants is a beautiful film to look at, and director Francis Lawrence and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto know it
There are two especially satisfying action sequences in Fast Five, the latest entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise
The Eagle may not bring anything new to the table, but it’s a refreshingly old-fashioned action-adventure
Unknown starts things off with an intriguing premise and ends with a preposterous but half-satisfying conclusion
Jack Goes Boating, the directorial debut of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, is an oddball little NYC indie
A thriller about “smart” people shouldn’t be so dumb, but Neil Burger’s Limitless is still a helluva lot of fun
The Rite comes from the basis of something real, but it has only been used to inspire a conventional Hollywood product