By CHRISTY LEMIRE (More)

There are franchises, and there are franchises, and though it's been a full 19 years-- Nine. Teen. Years! -- since "Last Crusade," the arrival of the fourth Indiana Jones film, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," is cause for a really large picture. Here's a guide to the summer's offerings, featuring the usual familiar faces and comic-book heroes, as well as the return of Mike Myers, Pixar's robot flick, a whole lot of ABBA and the rebirth of "Star Wars" in cartoon form. (More)

OK, so it's not as bad as Ron Howard's elephantine live-action version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." (More)

Don't ask director David Redmon about his documentary "Kamp Katrina," which screens today as part of the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers. (More)

What is the point of a bodice-ripper starring an actress who -- how to put this politely? -- doesn't have much to offer in the decolletage department? (More)

Ritalin in the bag, dinner in the oven. (More)

The assassination of an American president is examined from multiple angles in "Vantage Point," a fast-paced thriller whose gimmicky narrative helps disguise the foolishness at its center. (More)

Meet John (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Wendy Savage (Laura Linney), siblings who have spent their entire adult lives trying to escape the long shadow of their abusive father, Lenny (Philip Bosco). (More)

Motion picture studios are always looking for the next great film franchise. It's one thing to have a movie that generates big bucks, but movies with sequels are money in the bank again and again and again. (More)

On the verge of a divorce, New York ad exec Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) shares with his adorably cute and impossibly inquisitive daughter ("Little Miss Sunshine's" Abigail Breslin) a history of the women he has loved. (More)

Just when you had finally managed to erase your bad memories of "Norbit," along comes "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins," another uncommonly mean-spirited comedy that trades on every African-American stereotype on record. (More)

"Fool's Gold" is "Romancing the Stone" without the romance, or "National Treasure" without the tricky plot twists. This tale about the search for sunken treasure off the coast of Florida is the worst effort in its genre since the 1984 Brooke Shields TV movie "Wet Gold." (More)

Imagine putting on a set of headphones to listen to a 10-minute piece of intense Christian organ music. (More)

There's a moment early in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" where the picture suddenly goes blurry. We've been watching the action from the viewpoint of a Frenchman named Jean-Dominique Bauby, a recent stroke victim who is completely paralyzed. (More)

A competent but unmemorable crime thriller, "Untraceable" does introduce one fascinating, troubling notion -- that Americans are so addicted to their media that they happily would become accessories to murder in order to get their daily fix of electronic thrills. (More)

Marlene Dietrich used to extol in song the virtues of a man who takes his time. Were she still around, the screen diva might have had a soft spot for Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson, two artists known for the long, considered intervals that precede each of their film projects. (More)

Is the long search for the new Meg Ryan over? (More)

Cloverfield" arrives in theaters more marketing phenomenon than movie, a "Blair Godzilla Project" built on an unknown cast, "found video," a little-seen monster and a lot of hype. (More)

Joe Wright's doggedly faithful, emotionally stunted adaptation of Ian McEwan's "Atonement" centers on 13-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), who -- in 1935, at her family's estate in Surrey -- is busy writing and directing a play in honor of her older brother, Leon (Patrick Kennedy). (More)

Director Marc Forster's exceedingly respectful adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's international best-seller "The Kite Runner" has both a subtle, captivating naturalism and a few convenient plot turns that are difficult to overcome. (More)

It's a simple exercise: Make a list of all the things you want to do in your life, big experiences, noble goals, altruistic urges. From peering into the Grand Canyon to learning a foreign language or dating a cheerleader, this is what you will squeeze in before you "kick the bucket." (More)

In Kenneth Branagh's and Harold Pinter's very unnecessary reimagining of Anthony Shaffer's famed stage play "Sleuth," Michael Caine plays Andrew Wyke, a bestselling novelist who has invited to his mansion a callow young man named Milo Tindle, played by Jude Law. (More)

"It" screenwriter Diablo Cody's celebrated script for "Juno" is exceptionally clever but also a potential minefield. (More)

"The Water Horse -- Legend of the Deep" is one of the family-friendliest films of the year. That's a good thing. The problem is that even the youngest person in the family might find the story familiar. That's not so good. (More)

In David Cronenberg's particularly gruesome crime thriller "Eastern Promises," (Universal, R), Viggo Mortensen stars as a member of the Russian mob in London who meets a midwife (Naomi Watts) trying to discover the killer of a teenage Russian prostitute. Bonus features include a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film; and "Marked for Life," an exploration of tattoos and what they tell about the Russian men wearing them. (More)