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The film opens with a quick history of magic, one which M. Night Shyamalan should take a good look at if he ever wants to learn to do exposition well, before moving into the life of Dave (Jay Baruchel), our hero. As a ten-year-old, he stumbled into a magic shop and was identified by its owner, Balthazar (Nicholas Cage), as the Prime Merlinian -- but then he managed to release Balthazar's nemesis, Horvath (Alfred Molina), from a magical prison. Balthazar and Horvath both got trapped in a magic urn, and Dave fled.

Ten years later, the urn frees the two sorcerers, both of whom set out to find Dave. Our hero is now a gifted physics student working with Tesla coils and not at all interested in finding out that what he'd thought was a childhood hallucination is actually real. Before long, though, Balthazar has shown him enough magic to get him interested and he officially becomes Balthazar's apprentice -- and helper in the fight against Horvath.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is efficient, not wasting screentime on unnecessary subplots. Everything either shows us more about the characters and their world, moves the plot forward, or both. It's rather refreshing. Baruchel makes an engaging protagonist, and is believable both as a brilliant physics-student-turned-sorcerer and as a nerdy loser. Cage has moved out of the action star role and into the intimidating mentor role for this film, and it suits him. After years of playing the hero, Cage seems to have a great time being slightly out of the protagonist spotlight.

Of course, kids movies stand or fall on their villains, and Horvath does not disappoint. He's creepy (he first appears as a giant pile of cockroaches), a snappy dresser, and very smooth. Molina is pitch-perfect in the role, especially in his scenes with Toby Kebbell as Horvath's flashy, annoying sidekick, Drake.

The magic in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is impressive during the fight scenes and provides some amusement during Dave's training too. A Chinese parade dragon turns into a real dragon, sorcerers throw fireballs, there's even a gigantic steel eagle that comes to life from the side of a skyscraper and carries people around. None of the effects are particularly mind-blowing, but they are well-done and will make you gasp if you've let the movie sink its hooks into you.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is not a great film. It's a couple hours of fun aimed at kids and at adults who love kids movies about magic. If you saw the previews and thought it looked like a good time, you should definitely check it out -- for once the previews for a movie successfully captured its spirit -- but if you don't find a sorcerer-in-training accidentally smacking himself with his own plasma balls to be funny, stay away.

The best extractor is Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), so when a powerful businessman needs an idea planted in the mind of his greatest rival, that's who he turns to. The details of the plan are irrelevant: what matters here is that inception is complex, difficult, and requires a skilled team. Cobb assembles a group of people who are all the best at what they do. He has Ariadne (Ellen Page), a brilliant student who can design dream architecture. Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is their chemist, one of the few in the world who can handle such a complicated job. Eames (Tom Hardy) is a dream forger -- he can impersonate anyone from reality inside a dream and persuade their mark he's the real deal. Arthur
(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an old partner of Cobb's, an experienced extractor. The team is also saddled with a tourist: their employer, Saito (Ken Watanabe), who insists on coming along so he can be sure the job gets done.

Once the film gets to the heist itself, it's a nonstop roller coaster ride which very quickly becomes so convoluted that it's hard to keep track of what's happening. There are dreams within dreams, and events in each dream can affect the events in the one within it. It all hangs together surprisingly well -- if you're paying close enough attention to catch the little throwaway-sounding lines that explain what look like plot holes.

Christopher Nolan is no stranger to the mind-bending, convoluted film; "Memento" was groundbreaking, told in reverse to simulate its protagonist's lack of long-term memory. If "Memento" was a precisely-built, perfectly-operating pocket watch, "Inception" is a masterfully crafted, smoothly-ticking astronomical clock.

Everything about the film grows organically from the tightly-written script. The performances are supported and given space by the writing, and it's hard to put any single performance above the rest. This is an ensemble film, and each actor is equally important. The special effects are stunning. CGI and physical wizardry are merged to give us a fight in a rolling hallway, zero gravity, city streets which explode or turn back on themselves, three-dimensional representations of the Penrose Staircase (an optical illusion in which a drawn staircase appears to be a continuous loop), and more. This is a film which deserves to be seen in theaters, on the biggest screen you can find. It's a feast for the eyes as much as it's a challenge for your mind.

It's also a film best seen in a group -- discussions of the ambiguous ending are inevitable, and the complexity of the storyline rewards the time and effort of close examination. This is a film I'm looking forward to watching again, but it's definitely not two hours of mindless Hollywood fun. If you just want to see things blow up, stay far away. This is the cinematic equivalent of a Rubik's Cube.

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel
Rated: PG for fantasy action violence.

The story has been pared down from the first season of the popular Nickelodeon cartoon "Avatar: The Last Airbender" by M. Night Shyamalan, who also directed. One has to wonder why the studio gave him that much control, considering that his last five films (which he also wrote and directed) have been flops. Given the simple nature of cartoon storytelling, adapting it for the big screen should be straightforward: trim out the episodes that have little to do with the major plotline, and remake the rest in live action.

The setting is a fantasy world based on Asian cultures, with four nations affiliated with the elements of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. Some people in each nation have the ability to control ("bend") their native element. Only the Avatar has the ability to control all four. A hundred years ago, the Fire Nation made a bid to conquer the world, and the Avatar vanished. His new incarnation has been found: a twelve-year-old Airbender named Aang. The two Water Tribe teens who find him accompany him on his quest to master the other elements so he can stop the Fire Lord's armies and return peace to the world.

Sure, I told myself, Shyamalan cast white actors for the good guys and dark-skinned actors as the villainous Fire Nation, but surely he'll get some of the story right! Sadly, he doesn't seem to have actually watched the show. The film feels like he read the Wikipedia page about the first season and went from there. He hits the major plot points, but leaves out the details that make the events important and engaging -- as well as many of the details that help the story make sense. If you haven't seen the cartoon, you're likely to be pretty confused.

The characters all have interesting backstories, but instead of using flashbacks or letting the characters drop bits of information during conversations, he has people sit around and talk. And talk. And talk. And repeat themselves later. He does the same with what little character development there is: we're told in voiceover that it happens, but we don't see it. Apparently Shyamalan missed the day in filmmaker school where they went over the concept of "show, don't tell."

The acting is wooden, but in a CGI-driven film that's to be expected. The one pleasant exception is Shaun Toub as Uncle Iroh, the Fire Lord's brother. In spite of looking nothing like his character in the cartoon and being hampered by the dreadful script, Toub captures Iroh's personality and makes him seem real. Unfortunately, the other performances aren't as good. Noah Ringer's performance as Aang consists almost entirely of martial arts katas and looking like someone kicked his favorite puppy. As Katara and Sokka, Aang's companions, Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone are borderline painful.

Worse, the fighting isn't even well done. The action was the one redeeming quality I was hoping for in "The Last Airbender," but it was not to be. Firstly, the motions for Bending are dissociated from the results. Instead of fighters who use their native elements as extensions of their bodies, you get people who seem to fight through interpretive dance with random bits of their element flying around. Secondly, all the fights are in slow motion, but choreographed so badly it's hard to tell what's going on. Finally, the most spectacular part of the final battle (a giant, Godzilla-like creature formed out of water and powered by the Avatar) is gone, replaced with an anticlimactic show of power which doesn't actually do anything.

I knew I probably wasn't going to like "The Last Airbender," but I went into it expecting to enjoy some aspects. Unfortunately, the only pieces that were unqualified successes were the costuming and other visuals. As bizarrely terrible as the fight scenes are, the effects used for bending are mostly well done. The various cities look great, and the costumes are straight out of the cartoon. But that's it. Everything else is terrible. "The Last Airbender" manages to fail both as an adaptation and as a movie, and it desperately needs to be Shyamalan's last film.

That is the biggest problem I have with "Knight and Day," the new Tom
Cruise vehicle. It requires you to suspend your disbelief so strongly
over the course of the film that by halfway in, the characters don't
even seem vaguely real anymore. What's the point in worrying about
someone if their actions have no effect on the course of the plot?
There's no logic to try and figure out, no possible events to see
coming and hope against, because what is happening on the screen in
front of you has so little bearing on what is going to happen later.
We're presumably supposed to hang on for the ride and just believe,
but there's not much of a ride when there's no logical progression.

The setup of the film, and even the first 20 minutes or so, were
extremely promising: an ordinary woman, June (Cameron Diaz), gets
caught up in the adventures of a spy, Roy (Cruise), who is trying to
save a genius inventor and his powerful invention from a rogue agent
who has turned the government against him. June starts out pretty
sympathetic -- she restores old cars, is lugging a rolling suitcase
full of parts, and when Roy tells her the pilots of the plane they're
on are dead, she initially thinks he's joking.

Roy is promising too. He's every spy cliche rolled into one: handsome,
a top-notch fighter, able to land a plane in a cornfield in a pinch,
and considerate enough to give June a detailed warning about the
baddies who will likely come after her. He drugs her, takes her home,
leaves her a nice breakfast, and then disappears. At this point, I
thought my initial impressions from the trailers (namely, that this
was going to be an astonishingly bad film) were wrong. I should never
have doubted the director who brought us "Walk the Line" and "3:10 to
Yuma," I told myself.

Sadly, my early optimism was quickly dashed and my doubts were proven
to be spot-on. June ignores Roy's warnings and lets the government
agents get her into a car, so she then has to be rescued. She goes
into shock and tries to get away from him, but he chases her down,
tells her she has no chance on her own, and she throws her lot in with
him. Then he winds up having to drug her again and what looks, from
the glimpses we see through her eyes, like the best part of the movie
is glossed over until they're on a desert island and she wakes up in a
bikini for some light romance and banter.

June's mechanic abilities vanish almost immediately and she alternates
between shrieking damsel and skillful amateur spy (Roy compliments her
on several occasions). Roy has the same expression of
barely-restrained mania for almost the entire film, making the
agency's allegations that he's gone crazy pretty believable. On the
rare occasions when he's being serious, it's impossible to tell
whether he's lying or not (he lies for a variety of reasons, most of
which the film wants us to believe turn out to be for June's own
good). June and Roy fall for each other for no obvious reason, since
their chemistry consists of her getting them in danger and him having
to get them out.

The best thing I can say about the film is that the special effects
are very, very good. Most action movies these days have good enough
effects and cinematography that even if the writing and acting are
appalling, you have pretty things to look at. "Knight and Day" is no
exception. Unfortunately, its writing is some of the laziest I've ever
had the misfortune to see. The "seeing things through a drugged
person's eyes" approach is used several times to gloss over the
logistics and fighting necessary to move from point A to point C. It
was kind of funny the first time, in a quasi-satirical kind of way,
but eventually it just looked like the writers couldn't be bothered to
condense their film so it would fit the time limit, so they cut whole
sections and replaced them with druged-protagonist sequences.

The idea behind the film is a good one, but the execution is so
terrible that the only reasons I can think of to recommend the film to
anyone are masochism or an obsessive love for the main actors.

The film is the story of its title character, a former Confederate soldier with a scarred face and the ability to talk to dead people. He works as a bounty hunter and keeps his connections to a minimum; the closest he gets to human contact is the occasional tryst with gun- and knife-wielding hooker Lilah (Megan Fox) and visits to a local tribe of Native Americans to magically heal him when he's badly hurt.

The man who scarred his face is Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), once Hex's commanding officer. Turnbull has become a terrorist and is planning something impressively awful to mar the United States' centennial celebrations, so President Grant (Aidan Quinn) hires Hex to stop him. Along the way there are loads of fights, some mystical stuff about destiny and death, and very, very little in the way of logic.

The actors' abilities (or lack thereof) are irrelevant because the characters are so simple. There is no depth here, no need to show multiple emotions -- calling the characters cardboard would overstate their complexity. Brolin's acting ability is limited by the extensive makeup for his scar and the requirement that every line be spoken through gritted teeth. Even without that, though, Hex has two emotions: rage and disinterest. Turnbull and Burke are simply evil; Turnbull is soft-spoken and Burke is manic, but that's about as much differentiation as they get, outside their accents (Malkovich makes a noble effort at a Southern gentleman accent, while Fassbender goes full-on Irish). Fox's job is to look sultry and show as much skin as a PG-13 rating will allow, and she does fine.

But then, this isn't trying to be a character study. The characters exist so that the action and effects can happen, and that is where “Jonah Hex” really shines. There are a number of thoroughly enjoyable fistfights and shootouts, and Turnbull's superweapon is suitably impressive and awesome (if utterly unrealistic; but then, you don't see a movie like this looking for realism). Hex's ability to bring the dead back to life temporarily means we get some surprisingly well-done transformation effects, and there's even a couple creative uses of the power. The soundtrack is a highlight as well. It's a mixture of music composed for the film by heavy-metal group Mastodon and traditional Civil War music -- bizarre but effective and enjoyable.

Those good things may not be enough to make the film worth watching for you, though. “Jonah Hex” is worth seeing on the big screen if you like special effects enough to make up for its other shortcomings. Otherwise, wait for DVD -- unless you insist your movies have even a smidgeon of depth, complexity, or coherence. In that case, stay away entirely.

In case you somehow missed being exposed to the original television
series, the team of the title consists of four men: Hannibal (Liam
Neeson) is the cigar-chomping commander, who loves it when a plan
comes together; Face (Bradley Cooper) is the smooth con artist; B. A.
Barakus (Quinton "Rampage" Jackson) is a genius mechanic who's also
good with his tattooed fists; and Murdock (Sharlto Copley) is their
savant of a pilot, who may or may not be clinically out of his mind.
The series had the four written as Vietnam veterans; the film has
updated things a bit so that it can take place in the present day.

The film starts in the middle of an operation in Mexico where Hannibal
and Face wind up running into and recruiting Barakus and Murdock. Once
united, they're an unbeatable team, so when a nigh-impossible job
needs doing while US troops are pulling out of Iraq, they're brought
in. As anyone who watched the old show can tell you, the job was a
setup and the team is framed. They break out and set about clearing
their names, with many, many, many ridiculous and awesome hijinks
along the way.

The actors are spot-on. Neeson is mostly known for serious roles, but
he is perfectly capable of not taking himself seriously, and he
demonstrates that here with ease. Copley was last seen as desperate,
mutating Wikus in "District 9," and it's astonishing to see him as
Murdock. He steals almost every scene he's in -- which is an
achievement when he's sharing screen time with Cooper, who is both a
pretty face and a solid actor. Jackson is excellent as Barakus, and
handles the small bits of character development he's handed well. As
nasty CIA agent Lynch, Patrick Wilson is smooth, slimy, and very
funny; he makes a good foil for the team. Most importantly, all the
actors seem to be having a great time.

This wouldn't be an A-Team story without lots of crazy chases,
escapes, and battles, and the film doesn't disappoint. Anyone who's
seen the trailers knows that at one point the team is in a tank which
gets dropped out of an airplane; what's left out of the trailers is
the way the team manages to steer it so that it can land safely in
spite of losing two of its parachutes. The action keeps the same fun,
cartoonish feel as the original show, just with a much, much bigger
budget.

The script is solid, and the dialogue both entertains and helps us get
to know and like the characters. Like a lot of the best blockbusters,
if you're sharp and paying attention, there are lots of little moments
of hilarity strewn through the film. But if you're distracted by
something and mostly watching for the action, it's still a great flick
-- there aren't long waits between action scenes.

"The A-Team" is a perfect summer movie. It's funny, lighthearted,
entertaining, and a great way to spend a couple hours out of the heat.
It's not intellectual, educational, or even realistic, but it is one
heck of a lot of fun. If that's the kind of movie you like, do not
miss it -- and be sure to stay after the credits, especially if
you're a fan of the original show. If you're looking for a serious,
smart film, though, go somewhere else.

The plot is straightforward: Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) is a young
record company employee who loves music. He comes up with an idea to
help the company do better: have aging rock legend Aldous Snow
(Russell Brand) do a live performance to mark the tenth anniversary of
his landmark concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The company
can sell all kinds of rights as well as his back catalog. His boss,
Sergio (Sean "P. Diddy" Combs) decides he likes the idea and assigns
Aaron to escort the star from his home in London to the concert. He
has 72 hours to get the fellow there. This should be plenty, but
Aldous has fallen spectacularly off the wagon after a bad breakup and
is in full drunken rock star mode. Young, naive Aaron doesn't stand a
chance.

The film begins with a brilliant montage chronicling Aldous' rise to
greatness and subsequent fall, using news clips, papparazzi photos,
and segments from his music videos, including his dreadful, maudlin
ballad against war, "African Child." This is probably the film's high
point -- writer/director Nicholas Stoller has a poison pen and is
spot-on when it comes to skewering the music industry.

Unfortunately, the film soon devolves into jokes involving Aaron
getting thoroughly humiliated as he tries and fails to do his job.
That's not my cup of tea, but some folks like it, so okay. Then,
however, the film has one of those "rape is funny if it happens to a
guy" scenes. This is the point where it went from cringe-inducing to
actively offensive and totally lost me. The inclusion of several
surprisingly serious scenes before the film's ridiculous conclusion
didn't help.

It's a pity, really, because the things that are good in "Get Him to
the Greek" are really, really good. Brand can actually sing, and he
does a fantastic job of being a rock star on stage. He moves his lanky
body like he's been in a major, stadium-concert band for years. Hill
is sympathetic and almost entirely likeable. Combs is hysterical and
has fantastic timing in his scenes (he reappears late in the film to
help Aaron and steals all his scenes easily).

Whether you should see "Get Him To The Greek" or not is entirely a
matter of personal taste. If the good points sound like they'll
outweigh the bad, go for it. Otherwise, stay away.

The plot revolves around the Dagger of Time, held safe in the holy city of Alamut and watched over by its rulers. The Dagger gives its wielder the ability to travel backwards in time about one minute and change his or her actions. When the Persian army, lead by the three Princes of Persia and their uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley), invades and conquers Alamut, the Dagger falls into the hands of the youngest Prince, Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal). He was adopted as a boy by the king and although he was raised in the palace, he's never lost the craftiness and quick wit necessary to survive on the streets.

Soon the king is murdered, Dastan is framed, and he and Princess Tamina are on the run with the Dagger. Tamina wants to take it to a remote temple to keep it safe, but Dastan considers it evidence of a plot against his father and wants to take it to Nizam. Of course, those of us who have seen the trailers or who know anything about this sort of film know not to trust the king's adviser, especially if he wears eyeliner and has a goatee. Nizam does both, so it's no surprise when he turns out to have a very complicated plot in the works to make himself King.

Along the way there are bandits and mystically-powered assassins to be faced, along with a burgeoning attraction between our protagonists. The special effects blend in well with the excellent stunt-work and on-location shooting so that we can just enjoy the swordfighting, barbed whips, knife-throwing, and lush scenery without being distracted by bad CGI. My only complaint with the visuals was that some of the fight sequences are shot at such close quarters that it's hard to tell what's going on. That's a common issue in Hollywood movies these days, however, so I should probably be glad that some of the fights are shot from a wider angle at all.

The acting is spot-on for this sort of film: convincing and not too over-the-top. Kingsley chews a little scenery near the end, but he knows the line between entertainingly villainous and ridiculously silly, and walks it like a pro. Gyllenhaal and Artertos have good chemistry and excellent timing with their bickering, and added to their good looks this makes them perfect action heroes. Alfred Molina is hilarious as the amoral leader of a group of bandits who alternately help and menace our heroes.

Overall, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" is a top-notch summer flick. If you like fantasy, swashbuckling, and great special effects, it's a must-see. If you like your summer movies to have guns or demand high intellect from films, it's probably best avoided.

"The Losers" is like that. I was muttering the dialogue under my breath ahead of the characters sometimes, and laughing at wildly inappropriate things because I was so delighted at how precisely it fulfilled my expectations. When the heroes let the children they just rescued from a drug lord get on their helicopter, I just knew that helicopter was going down. It did, of course, because Our Heroes annoyed a supervillain who wears one glove and shoots his umbrella handlers when they don't keep a good grip on his umbrella.

So our heroes, a team of walking-stereotype black-ops specialists, find themselves presumed dead and stuck in Bolivia. Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the gruff leader whose weakness is volatile women, wants to find a way to get back at Max (Jason Patric), the crazed genius who set them up. His men are Jensen (Chris Evans), the mouthy computer genius of the team; Cougar (Oscar Jaenada), the strong, silent sniper; Roque (Idris Elba), the knife-wielding demolitions expert; and Pooch (Columbus Short), the driver and heavy weapons man.

No action movie is complete without a beautiful, mysterious woman, and Aisha (Zoe Saldana) fits the bill perfectly. She's improbably thin, absolutely gorgeous, and a nigh-invincible fighter, able to hold her own in hand-to-hand combat against Clay (which is basically foreplay, of course. Their first date results in the hotel being burned down, and that's before they actually fall into bed together). She has access to vast amounts of money, lots of power, and wants to fund Our Heroes so they can take down Max.

Along the way to that final showdown between Clay and Max there are lots of gunfights, some PG-13 sexy scenes, and lots and lots and lots of one-liners. Most of them belong to Jensen, who manages to be the team's computer nerd in spite of being just as muscly and good with weapons as the rest of the team. He proudly wears a violently pink shirt to support his niece's soccer team ("Go Petunias!" is his battle cry at one point) even while in hiding, and steals just about every scene he's in if only through sheer ridiculousness.

Just about everything in "The Losers" is distilled action flick perfection. It's a bit heavier on the choppy editing and Woo-style slow motion than some folks may like, but the script and acting are spot-on hilariously awesome. This is not an intellectually stimulating film. This is not a film full of subtlety and brilliantly-crafted puzzles. This is a film which includes a motorcycle on fire crashing into a plane and making it explode.

If that last sentence makes you exclaim "awesome!" then "The Losers" is your kind of movie. Don't miss it! If, on the other hand, it makes you roll your eyes, stay away.

It's just a few years into the future -- enough that technology has advanced, but not so much that people aren't still driving SUVs and using cellphones. Remy (Jude Law) and his friend Jake (Forest Whitaker) are repo men for The Union, a company which makes artificial organs. Need a new liver? Not a problem. Sure, it's expensive, but their credit department will find a payment plan that fits your lifestyle. You owe it to your family, they'll tell you. You owe it to yourself.

But if you fall too far behind on payments, guys like Remy and Jake will find you, knock you out, and take the organ back. Legally they have to offer you an ambulance, but they often neglect to do that until after you're unconscious. And, well, even if they did, who'd finance a new organ for someone with a bad credit history?

Law and Whitaker have an easy chemistry that fits their characters perfectly. Law manages to make a fellow who kills for a living sympathetic, in part by showing that he's not a ruthless killing machine. He's more like a blue collar sort of worker. He goes to work, grabs some coffee, gets his slips, collects the organs he's been assigned, and goes home to his wife and son. Whitaker nails Jake, who's less sympathetic. Jake's the kind of guy who does a repo job in a taxi in the middle of a suburban neighborhood where kids can see it and shoot video on their cellphones. He loves his job, loves his best friend, and thinks life is just peachy. Sure, people die, but a job's a job.

Remy and Jake are very, very good at what they do, but Remy's wife is sick of the late nights and the danger, and wants him to go into sales. He talks to his manager, the disturbing and slimy Frank (Liev Schreiber), but a permanent switch becomes impossible when Remy's heart quits on him. He gets a new one, but it's expensive, and sales doesn't pay as well as repo. Unfortunately, it turns out a job's not just a job: having an artificial organ of his own makes him sympathize with his targets, and he finds himself unable to actually work. Which -- you guessed it -- means he can't keep up with his payments, and soon finds himself on the other side of the repossession mambo.

He winds up joining forces with Beth (Alice Braga), a fellow past-due client, and the two of them try to hide from the repo men. When that proves impossible, they set out to get themselves out of the credit record system. Beth is a surprisingly fantastic action heroine. She's street-smart and a capable fighter, but also a good sidekick. She knows how to cover a door and hand weapons along to a better-trained fighter. It's refreshing to see a petite woman in an action movie who's neither an impossibly skilled ninja nor a complete weakling.

The action is exciting and shot in wide enough frames that you can see what's going on and appreciate the fighters' skills. Whitaker is a student of Filipino martial arts, and his abilities are impressive. The rest of the cinematography is top-notch as well, and there are some interesting sequences that seem ripe for film students to write papers about. The cleverness doesn't distract, however -- there's just enough for film geeks to be entertained by without it detracting from the rest of the film.

Overall, whether you can enjoy "Repo Men" hinges largely on your tolerance for gore. There are close-ups of Remy at work, slicing people open and rooting around for their organs. Blood spatters on walls during fights. If that's not your cup of tea, and you don't like films with seriously dark themes, stay away. If you can handle that, however, "Repo Men" is well worth seeing.

Milo (Gerard Butler) is a former cop who's just getting by as a bounty hunter. When he learns his next target is his ex-wife Nicole (Jennifer Aniston), he's more than pleased. He figures it'll be an easy job -- and s thoroughly satisfying one, since their split is the reason he drank so much he got booted off the force. What he doesn't know is that Nicole's job as an investigative journalist has made her the target of some very unpleasant people. His simple pick-her-up-and-take-her-in plan is quickly derailed when someone tries to kill her. When he learns that her investigation has revealed their mutual friend Bobby (Dorian Missick) as a likely suspect for a murder, he decides to join her in trying to solve the case before taking her in.

It's a fairly ludicrous story, but Butler and Aniston have good chemistry as ex-spouses who are still crazy about each other but drive each other up the wall, and their comic timing is good enough to make the silliness entertaining. Milo and Nicole know each other in that way you only get from being married and then going through an unpleasant divorce. They know each other's hangups and buttons, and he is happy to use his knowledge to give her a hard time.

Butler's American accent (he's a native of Scotland) is surprisingly good, and he delivers competently as a guy who is both attractive and believable as someone who would drive his spouse crazy. Aniston likewise comes through as a career-driven, intelligent woman who can't help letting Milo get under her skin.

The secondary characters are all larger than life and although they're stock characters, they're well done. Milo's boss is a harried guy whose kids are scamps. His secretary snaps her gum, wears loud makeup, and is several years past her ability to care about customer service. Nicole's mother, Kitty (Christine Baranski) is a singer in Atlantic City who has no shame and slams her drinks while giving her daughter advice. One of Nicole's coworkers, Stewart (Jason Sudeikis), is convinced their drunken makeout session at a company party means they have a Serious Relationship, and is always pestering her for a date. The bad guys are dirty, no-good thugs -- but their minions are basically decent guys who provide some extra laughs.

The pacing only drags occasionally. For the most part, the film moves easily between silly comedy, snarky dialog, and exciting (and mostly bloodless) action. Although she's generally running around in high heels, Nicole is smart, resourceful, and brave (although sometimes her bravery is because she's ignoring the danger out of sheer pigheadedness) and she holds her own pretty darn well for a heroine in a romantic comedy.

This isn't a work of great art, but it's not trying to be. If the trailers made you chuckle and you found the central couple charming, it's worth checking out. If you want realism, character development, and any form of intellectual engagement, go elsewhere.

Matt Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, who heads a group of men in charge of tracking down weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. It's four weeks after the invasion, and the Iraqis are just starting to complain about things like the lack of water. Miller is becoming exasperated: he keeps being sent to sites reported to be holding WMDs and winding up empty-handed. He and his men are risking their lives on wild goose chase after wild goose chase. When he brings this up in a meeting and suggests that perhaps the information they're being given isn't accurate, he is shut down -- but after the meeting, a CIA man, Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) approaches him. He's noticed the same thing, and wants to find out what's going on.

Damon makes Miller a sympathetic hero, even though at times he's less than compassionate toward the Iraqis. Miller is an idealist and a very dedicated, principled man, and Damon brings that across in a way that makes us believe in Miller rather than dismiss him as foolish or hopelessly naive. Damon earned his place as an action movie hero in the Bourne movies, and he's in top form here. It's nice to see him as someone other than the superhuman Bourne, though. Miller is just a good, old-fashioned American military man: well-trained and excellent at his job.

As Miller and others, including Brown and a determined Wall Street Journal reporter (Amy Ryan) start digging into the source of the faulty WMD intel, things start to get ugly. People like Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), one of the higher-ups in the American bureaucracy in Iraq, don't want the truth to be known. Kinnear is always a delight in roles like this -- slimy, self-confident, and more than a little self-deluded.

Meanwhile, of course, there's lots of other things going on. General Al Rawi (Igal Naor) and the men under his command from the old Iraqi army are in hiding, awaiting overtures from the Americans and making plans to fight if the Americans don't play nice. Miller winds up with Freddy (Khalid Abdalla), an Iraqi civilian, as his impromptu translator after the man comes to Miller with information about some strange goings-on. He cares about his country, but doesn't necessarily see things the way the Americans do.

It's no surprise that "Green Zone" is a well-crafted film: director Paul Greengrass helmed the last two Bourne films, and screenwriter Brian Helgeland was the pen behind "L.A. Confidential," "Mystic River," and other tightly-scripted thrillers. The one flaw here is the camerawork: too much of it is hand-held, chaotic, and potentially nausea-inducing. If you're a fan of steadicam work and like to be able to appreciate the choreography and see the big picture in fights, you are out of luck. This is the modern trend of in-the-action cinematography at its worst.

If you can handle that, "Green Zone" is well worth watching. The political intrigue is tightly written (and filmed conventionally) and compelling, and the performances are very good. This isn't just another action flick, it's a sort of half-breed action-thriller. Fortunately, the mix works.

The hero of "From Paris With Love" is James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a US Embassy employee who really, really wants to be a spy. He finally gets his big break and is promoted from being one of the behind-the-scenes types who change the real spies' license plates to being Wax's partner. He's precise, organized, a chess player, and not at all the kind of guy who fits well with Wax, setting the two of them up for a perfect buddy-movie arc.

This isn't a by-the-numbers Hollywood flick, though. Its story was written by the gifted French action filmmaker Luc Besson, and it was directed by Pierre Morel (who helmed the delightful parkour action flick "District B-13"). There are enough twists to keep you on your toes, and while some of them are telegraphed, the resulting actions aren't disappointing. When you ride a roller coaster, sometimes you can see the rails start to curve before a turn; if the 'coaster is good, it doesn't make the ride any less fun.

Travolta and Meyers' performances are thoroughly engaging. Travolta chews scenery with aplomb while Meyers offers us an intelligent, if naive, young man who has the makings of an excellent spy. Their chemistry works for the buddy angle, and the film ends with a good setup for a sequel. We can but hope.

The film has a good mix of action, comedy, and suspense, though its plot is occasionally a bit murky. That's a liability in a film which also has political intrigue, since it's hard to enjoy a well-crafted bit of that when you've turned your brain off to aid in the suspension of disbelief. However, the characters are sufficiently entertaining to make up for that lack, at least for character-fixated viewers like myself.

If you're looking for a fun action movie, "From Paris With Love" should hit the spot. It's highly entertaining in spite of the occasional lack of clarity. Here's hoping Travolta keeps turning out films with characters like this, he has a definite knack for it. Folks looking for complex, brilliantly-crafted, intellectual puzzles should stay away. This isn't your standard brainless flick, but it's not exactly a brain teaser, either.