There’s no doubt that animated films wowed us in recent months. Films like The Adventures of Tintin and Rango were impressive in every way and to compare The Secret World of Arrietty is simply unfair because it’s the antithesis to those other films; yes, it’s animated too but where many animated films make sure that no stone goes unturned, giving us everything we could dream of, Arrietty still leaves plenty to the imagination. It’s the type of story that makes you ask what or who is living under your home. It makes you look at your light sockets differently or maybe that crack in your kitchen baseboard. And maybe, it makes you look at yourself in the mirror a little differently too.

Our story introduces us to the Clock family, four-inch tall species of humans called Borrowers who live underneath the floorboards. The protagonist is a young girl named Arrietty (Bridgit ...

Chronicle gives the “realistic” superhero movie a +1 level up from Unbreakable, giving us a step closer to believing “what it would look like if superheroes existed in our world,” but it also a hybrid of a few other types of films. It takes the “found footage” concept film past what we were introduced to in The Blair Witch Project, and expanded to in Cloverfield (with a much steadier camera hand), and combines it with an autobiographical documentary like Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation.

Over 90% of the “footage” belongs to Andrew (Dane DeHaan, In Treatment) the high school social pariah who buys a high-end (and large) video camera to record his adolescent years, good experiences or bad. We’re not given a reason why he chooses to document his life in this manner. Maybe he hopes to capture the varied high school experience, or his own coming of age; what he gets ...

The Woman in Black, starring Daniel Radcliffe, doesn’t try to break any molds in the horror genre. The ghostly tale is one that you have seen play out time-and-time again in film, or just about every fourth week on the CW’s Supernatural. However, The Woman in Black does manage to carve out its own space thanks to the acting talent. Following up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Daniel Radcliffe breaks out of his schoolboy type to mesmerize you with a few strong scenes performed without dialogue. Ciarán Hinds also lends his talent to the minimalist dialogue, making this a solid horror tale, despite its lack of novelty.

The film opens on three girls in an attic playing with their dolls and toy tea set. Horror movies that don’t employ teens with bad acting usually focus on children so that more seasoned actors can play opposite. ...

There is nothing in the world that makes my blood boil like the concept of ‘not trying’. ‘Not trying’ is the very hallmark of contempt: for yourself and for others. It is also a sign of weakness. One For The Money may be one of the most contemptuous, weak films to come out Hollywood in quite some time. It is also one of the worst films you will see in 2012, and we’re barely a month into the new year.

To call One For The Money a film would be a disservice to all films, including the annual bulls***t churned out by the likes of Michael Bay and Tyler Perry. It’s flimsy premise isn’t even worthy to be the pilot of a really bad TNT, USA, or Lifetime television show. It is a piece of work that simply doesn’t need to exist beyond the crappy section of what was your ...

There is no way to describe Liam Neeson other than a badass. Sure there were inklings of his badassery early on in his career (1995′s Rob Roy is a woefully underrated film) but his action hero status didn’t click with worldwide audiences until 2008′s Taken, a wonderfully trashy B-movie that was elevated by his phenomenal performance. What was suppose to be a by-the-numbers dumb action flick that could have starred a countless number of bland pretty boys was turned into the “don’t mess with Liam Neeson” show. And a don’t-messing we all did — so much so that Taken 2 is scheduled to be released sometime this Fall. In the meantime, we have The Grey to keep some of us content while others may have a hard time not nodding off in the middle.

The Grey, which reunites Neeson with director Joe Carnahan (The A-Team), centers around a suicidal wolf hunter ...

Haywire is the film I imagine Sucker Punch wanted to be. Director Steven Soderbergh sidesteps a cohesive plot in favor of delivering a kick-ass new female action hero who puts the crunch in nut crunch. MMA fighter and American Gladiator Gina Carano stars as Mallory, a contracted soldier who is deadly when it comes to one-on-one combat with men. Each fight scene becomes its own mini movie, drawing you into the finessed fight scenes whenever the story fails to keep your attention. Soderbergh is completely unapologetic when it comes to focusing on action over story. However, by the end of the film he does give plot-lovers something to chew on and wonder if they actually saw an intricate movie instead of a string of beautifully choreographed hand-to-hand combat scenes.

Haywire begins with Mallory sitting alone in a café. You immediately suspect that something is about to happen or that something ...

In her grand entrance, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) pulls off her motorcycle helmet to reveal a wild, ravishing hairdo and sulks into her employer’s office to meet her client. She does not do this often. She is lonely, socially inept, and emotionally withdrawn. Her job as a freelance hacker keeps her contact with others to a minimum and feeds her secretive lifestyle. Lisbeth has a photographic memory, is extremely intelligent but also admits to being insane, which makes her the perfect heroine to deal with a serial killer. Inspired by Stieg Larsson’s best-selling novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and the Swedish film adaptation of the same name, director David Fincher put his own atmospheric, detailed, and intense mark on the first installment of the Millennium Trilogy in what is surely this year’s most chilling and depressing Christmas film.

Dragon Tattoo tells the story of Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) ...

While minor references are made to previous Mission Impossible movies, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol feels more like a franchise reboot than a sequel. The intense non-stop action keeps the adrenaline high. Director Brad Bird set out to make an epic action movie and delivered just that. Tom Cruise reminds us just what it means to be an action hero. For Cruise, Ghost Protocol feels like a return to the 80s and early 90s Cruise that made him the star he is. Simon Pegg adds just enough quirky humor to the film to keep even the most dramatic moments light, but never takes this movie out of its heart-pumping niche. While Harry Potter fans may lean towards The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 as their choice action flick of the year, Ghost Protocol will easily top the charts on ever action fan’s list.

Ghost Protocol begins with a ...

Call it the Go Ask Alice for middle-aged men in crisis. I Melt With You is a monotonous pill-popping ride of visual over indulgence. Director Mark Pellington unites Thomas Jane (Hung), Jeremy Piven (Entourage), Rob Lowe (Parks and Recreation, Young Justice, Californication), and Christian McKay (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) in a two-hour long film that drags on due to lack of substance. Each actor has his share of great moments, but that’s all they amount to – moments. About thirty minutes into this film, you will be mislead into waiting for a layered story. Unfortunately, by the end of the film, you’ll realize the only layers that were there were in the levels of substance abuse that lacked any substance. Carla Gugino (Sucker Punch, upcoming By Virtue Fall) also shows up to show off how much wasted talent is in this film.

I Melt With You is the ...

The movie gods have truly blessed us this Winter with two very good, well-made family films: The Muppets and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. While the former revels in its barebones approach (and amazingly so), the later is a spectacle that we haven’t seen on screens in quiet some time.

Based on a novel by Brian Selznick, Hugo centers around a young boy (Asa Butterfield, Son of Rambow) who hides out in the clock towers of a 1920′s Parisian train station from the very determined, orphan-hating Station Inspector (Sasha Baron Cohen, Borat) after his drunk uncle and guardian (Ray Winstone, The Departed) disappears. When not trying to evading capture, Hugo spends his time observing the shopkeepers and cafe operators at the station, including the grumpy old tinker toy maker (Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley). It’s a fascinating world that the boy can’t truly be a part of, for obvious reasons, but his need ...