Despite any irony behind the film's title, Marvel was right to play it safe with the moral twists and turns of “The Avengers.” But Joss Whedon, who both directed and wrote the film's screenplay, must have gotten a kick out of smashing up his hometown in the process.

The film speed of 24 frames-per-second barely outruns the relentless pace of pummeling that thumps through the Indonesian martial arts flick “The Raid: Redemption.”

Inspired by Hasbro's classic board game, “Battleship” is essentially a lavish but inconsequential diversion. For the film, the fact that aliens do exist, have responded to our radio signals, and have landed on Earth for possibly colonizing it is mainly an excuse for thrilling battleship action, and for slacker Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) to go through his coming-of-age.

It was only a matter of time before the popularity of reality TV would lead to reality movies. This scary new genre is not the same as a documentary, which looks at real people doing real things to tell a story. Reality movies take real people and put them in a fictional story,

“John Carter” is to action movies as eggs, milk and flour are to a cake. All of the elements are there but they just haven't come together to make a sweet treat.

Martin Scorsese's “Hugo” is a children's film for grownups — grownup film buffs.

"Forgettable” probably isn't a word you'd expect to use to describe a film starring Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepard. But unfortunately, that's one of the most apt when pondering “Safe House.”

Yes, “Contraband” follows the tried-and-true One Last Job formula. Yes, Mark Wahlberg is nestled deep within his comfort zone as a former master criminal who's lived a dangerous life and gone straight.

A straight-up action picture may sound unusual coming from Steven Soderbergh, but as he has demonstrated repeatedly throughout his career, he is keen to experiment with every genre imaginable.

From the opening moment when a bomb explodes and annihilates everything in sight, “Black & White Episode I: The Dawn of Assault” (痞子英雄首部曲：全面開戰) makes clear its intention to claim all the tropes of Hollywood action films.