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(Ratings based on 4-star system.)
‘Alice in Wonderland’
Rated PG
★★★
Director Tim Burton’s new extravaganza, the second Disney-backed “Alice” and a bookend to the cheerily benign 1951 animated version, won’t be for everyone. It’s a little rough for preteens, and it doesn’t throw many laughs the audience’s way, but along with “Sweeney Todd,” this is Burton’s most interesting project in a decade. Wonderfully well-chosen Australian actress Mia Wasikowska plays Alice, and Johnny Depp continues his fruitfully nervy collaboration with Burton by playing the Mad Hatter.

‘Avatar’
Rated PG-13
★★★
The first 90 minutes of “Avatar” are pretty terrific — a full-immersion technological wonder with wonders to spare. The other 72 minutes, less and less terrific. Director James Cameron’s futuristic story becomes intentionally grueling in its heavily telegraphed narrative turn toward genocidal anguish, grim echoes of Vietnam-style firefights and the inevitable payback time and sequel setup. Cameron nonetheless has delivered the screen’s most anticipated and persuasive blend of live-action and motion-capture animation to date.

‘The Blind Side’
Rated PG-13
★★
Based on a book by Michael Lewis, this film fumbles a true story of an African-American product of the Memphis projects who ended up at a Christian school and in the care of a wealthy white family, then went on to NFL glory. The star is Sandra Bullock, whose character is conceived as a steel magnolia with a will of iron. Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), now a starting tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, has been sidelined in his own story. At its queasiest “The Blind Side” veers perilously close to the concept of poverty tourism.

‘Brooklyn’s Finest’
Rated R
★★
This film lays out a big spread of law enforcement corruption, intertwining the tales of three cops in crisis. One (Ethan Hawke) has a plan to buy a better future. Another (Richard Gere) is a suicidally inclined alcoholic just days from retirement. The third and most interesting (Don Cheadle, one of the best actors alive) is an undercover detective in trouble every which way. With so much complication and woe jammed into 125 minutes, credibility is in short supply.

‘Cop Out’
Rated R
★
Tracy Morgan plays the motor-mouth NYPD detective partner of Bruce Willis, and there’s no reason these two couldn’t headline a perfectly proficient action comedy. But this is a lousy, invention-free script, and Kevin Smith — an interesting and valuable filmmaker doing direction-only work for hire — cannot do anything to save it. His directorial personality is not to be found. This clunker makes you appreciate well-made buddy cop films such as “48 HRS.” and “Beverly Hills Cop” all the more.

‘The Crazies’
Rated R
★★★1⁄2 stars
One of the year’s nicest bloody surprises, the remake of the 1973 George A. Romero virus thriller “The Crazies” must be approached with the proper expectations. It should not be judged for what it is not. But nearly everything about it works. The good people of Ogden Marsh, Iowa, turn into murderous lunatics, owing to a nearby downed plane carrying germ-warfare viral nastiness leaking straight into the town’s water supply As in Romero’s Vietnam-era original, the real adversary is the U.S. government, which, after the craziness starts, launches “containment protocol.”

‘Crazy Heart’
Rated R
★★★★
There’s a powerful symmetry at work in “Crazy Heart.” It’s a parallel between protagonist Bad Blake, a country singer at a nadir of disintegration, and star Jeff Bridges, whose exceptional film choices have put him at the height of his powers in time to make Blake the capstone of his career. It’s a mark of how fine a performance Bridges gives that it succeeds beautifully even though the besotted, bedeviled country singer has been an overly familiar popular-culture staple for forever.

‘Dear John’
Rated PG-13
★★
Like “The Blind Side,” ‘’Dear John” offers audiences a meat-and-potatoes story of love, loyalty, heartfelt generosity and other matters seldom brought to the screen with any skill at all. I truly wish this adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel were a better, less shamelessly manipulative movie, but a couple of the actors got me through it alive. Amanda Seyfried, who plays a driven-snow saint without making you gag, falls for a Green Beret (Channing Tatum, not so good) with an autistic father (Richard Jenkins, another asset). Tears ensue.
— Tribune Media Services

‘An Education’
Rated PG-13
★★★1⁄2 stars
Novelist Nick Hornby’s screenplay for British journalist Lynn Barber’s memoir sands a few edges off the corners of its heroine’s story, yet the film is awfully charming. It bops along with so much esprit and lively acting, and such an observant sense of the period (the early ‘60s), you’re seduced by the results in the same way charming, slightly oily David (Peter Sarsgaar d), entices young Jenny (Carey Mulligan) into his glamorous orbit. The film belongs to Mulligan, who showcases her comic range and natural authority.

‘The Ghost Writer’
Rated PG-13
31⁄2 stars
Director Roman Polanski turns a conventional conspiracy thriller into a triumph of atmospheric menace. A hated politician (Pierce Brosnan, playing a variant on ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair) owes his publisher an autobiography. Enter the ghost writer (Ewan McGregor), who arrives on Martha’s Vineyard to research his subject. Some may perceive this as an anti-Bush polemic, but Polanski is less intrigued by specific topical reference points than by the cramped corridors of power and what misdeeds lie in the shadows.
‘The Good Guy’
Rated R
2 stars
Writer-director Julio DePietro draws from his previous life as an investment firm employee to tell a story of three New Yorkers: an urban conservationist (Alexis Bledel), her slick broker boyfriend (Scott Porter) and a conveniently located dreamboat (Bryan Greenberg) who may not be cut out for high finance and low morals but seems like a good guy to build a future around. The film has its moments, but DePietro struggles to reconcile the perceived demands of the romantic comedy genre and the hustle and detail of real life.

‘Green Zone’
Rated R
21⁄2 stars
Director Paul Greengrass delivers a skillfully made package, but this feels like a too-soon proposition. “Green Zone” is partly real and partly outlandish in its wishful thinking. An Army officer hunting for WMDs in 2003, the fictional Miller (Matt Damon) knocks heads with everyone in Baghdad, from a neocon Pentagon huckster (Greg Kinnear) to a scary Special Forces op (Jason Isaacs). Everyone’s after one of Saddam’s top military figureheads (Khalid Abdalla), who has gone underground and who knows what Miller wants to learn.

‘The Hurt Locker’
Rated R
31⁄2 stars
Vivid, assured and extremely suspenseful, director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest (and strongest) film takes moviegoers by the collar and throws them headlong into one horrifying life-and-death situation after another. Jeremy Renner plays a soldier in Iraq running toward the explosives while everyone else is ducking and covering. He’s a bomb tech whose job entails disarming one Improvised Explosive Device (IED) after another, day after day. Time will tell if this politically neutral war movie is a classic, but it’s certainly a formidable experience.

‘The Last Station’
Rated R
31⁄2 stars
The final years of Leo Tolstoy’s life were all war and no peace. The savage rivalry for his attention and legacy between his redoubtable wife and his craftiest disciple has now been turned into a showcase for tasty acting by performers who really know how to sink their teeth into roles. Under the accomplished direction of Michael Hoffman, who also wrote the script, “The Last Station” is well-acted across the board, but the film’s centerpiece is the spectacular back and forth between Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya, his wife of 48 years.

‘Our Family Wedding’
Rated PG-13
1 star
Instead of invitations, they should be sending out apologies for “Our Family Wedding.” Race as much as romance is at the heart of the matter, with director Rick Famuyiwa playing that card in nearly every scene. The film stars America Ferrera and Lance Gross as a couple traveling to L.A. to meet the parents and wed on the fly. This is a wasted opportunity to take a smart cut at a subject rarely explored by Hollywood. Instead, the warring families, the interracial romance and the inherent cultural clashes are squandered.

‘Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief’
Rated PG
2 stars
The first installment in Rick Riordan’s five-book series suggests that this could be the start of something adequate. Its limitations are less a matter of scale than of imagination. It may be director Chris Columbus’ fate to initiate a fantasy franchise destined to be improved by his successors, as with the “Harry Potter” juggernaut. Now, Columbus has taken on this fantasy construct in which Greek gods threaten war in modern-day America over Zeus’ missing lightning bolt.

‘Remember Me’
Rated PG-13
2 stars
Teen audiences, particularly female, are likely to fall headlong into this dour romantic drama because Robert Pattinson and his fwoopy hair are both in it. Pattinson plays an NYU student who dares to ask out a girl (Emilie de Ravin) despite the fact that she’s the daughter of the cop (Chris Cooper) who recently arrested him. The story takes place largely in New York City in early 2001, so 9⁄11 looms. Pattinson is a good actor, but he struggles to find a through-line to the film’s generalized notion of F. Scott Fitzgerald/J.D. Salinger raw youth.

‘She’s Out of My League’
Rated R
2 stars
Jay Baruchel is the 21st-century Don Knotts, and even in a forgettable film like this one, his adenoidal, sidewinding line readings can make the stupidest material sound temporarily funny. Half of this film takes place in a Judd Apatow comedy, or tries to. The other half takes place in a drably photographed Pittsburgh, where Kirk (Baruchel) works as a Transportation Security Administration employee. An attractive babe (Alice Eve) coming off a bad relationship decides to give Kirk a try, much to the bewilderment of his goofball friends.

‘Shutter Island’
Rated R
2 stars
A U.S. marshal (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his amiable new partner (Mark Ruffalo) hunt for an escaped patient at an insane asylum run by a shifty doctor (Ben Kingsley), whose island clinic may harbor sinister doings in the name of progressive health care. The esteemed Martin Scorsese directs this adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel, but Scorsese overcooks the stew. Not even supporting players as deft as Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley and Emily Mortimer can make this more than classy, well-acted junk.

‘A Single Man’
Rated R
4 stars
Some films aren’t revelations, exactly, but they burrow so deeply into old truths about love and loss and the mess and thrill of life, they seem new anyway. This is one such film, one of the best of 2009. In adapting Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel to the screen, first-time feature filmmaker Tom Ford (better known for being a famous fashion designer) has put his admiration of the source material to excellent results. Ford also has facilitated a career best for actor Colin Firth, one of the screen’s great and subtle portraitists.

‘Valentine’s Day’
Rated PG-13
2 stars
Set in a sprawling, grime-free L.A., director Garry Marshall’s “Valentine’s Day” is “Crash” with hearts and flowers, an ensemble romantic comedy that believes in bulk. Is “Valentine’s Day” good? Not really, though plenty of the actors are. The massive cast includes Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Biel, Queen Latifah, Topher Grace and many others. In sum it plays like 12 landlocked episodes of “The Love Boat” rammed together.

‘The Wolfman’
Rated R
3 stars
The new edition of the old Universal horror title “The Wolfman” constitutes a pleasant surprise, if “pleasant” can be used to describe a brooding $100 million-plus diversion with this many beheadings and eviscerations. Someone or something is on the loose in late-1800s England, slaughtering Gypsies and good, upright English folk. When a famous Shakespearean actor (Benicio Del Toro) is attacked and begins showing signs of trouble, it’s his father (Anthony Hopkins) who takes care of him, though he seems strangely interested in letting “the beast” run free.

‘The Yellow Hankerchief’
Rated PG-13
3 stars
This is a gentle, low-key road movie centering on the eternal need to love and to trust. A sweet-natured kid with wanderlust (Eddie Redmayne) passes through a tiny town in his vintage convertible and gives a lift to a pretty teen (Kristen Stewart) and to a middle-age man (William Hurt) of much kindness and concern for these two young people, but not eager to talk about himself. This film is adept at making viewers care what happens to these very likable people.
— Tribune Media Services