Who among us hasn't been hoodwinked by a hotel's promise of an ocean view?

The stakes are far greater, however, when British pensioners are lured to India's Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful offering elegant living at reasonable rates. Instead, they find dusty rooms with furniture draped in sheets, birds flying around inside, missing doors and spotty water, electrical and phone service.

"Let's not concern ourselves with details," hotel manager Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel), assures his guests. The fact it looks little like the promotional photos is just part of the adjustment for newcomers in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" opening today at AMC-Loews at the Waterfront and Manor in Squirrel Hill.

One of the Brits, Graham (Tom Wilkinson), lived in India as a young man but hasn't been back in 40 years. He abruptly retires as a High Court judge and ends up among a ragtag band of strangers -- some married, some widowed or divorced, some ill-tempered and prejudiced, some terrified, some relishing a fluttering of freedom.

Chief among them are Evelyn (Judi Dench), a widow who had to sell her flat to pay her husband's hidden debts; Muriel (Maggie Smith), a hip replacement patient who can get the surgery immediately in India or wait six months at home; Douglas and Jean (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton), a married couple who lent their nest egg to their daughter; Madge (Celia Imrie), a divorcee who's tired of playing grandma the baby sitter; and Norman (Ronald Pickup), a self-styled romeo.

Their attitudes range from Graham's reassurance to Evelyn, "It's going to be extraordinary," to Muriel's determination to hate everything and perhaps everyone. "If I can't pronounce it, I don't want to eat it," she decrees.

And this is before they get to the hotel where they learn Sonny, the youthful and optimistic manager, presented his guests with a vision of the future, not a snapshot of the present. "In India, we have a saying. Everything will be all right in the end. So if it is not all right, it is not yet the end."

Before the end comes, one revelation will be shared, characters will either embrace or continue to rigidly fear their surroundings, and their ranks will be depleted in ways expected and unexpected.

You can see some of the developments coming in the gentle comedy directed by John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") and written by Ol Parker based on the Deborah Moggach novel originally published as "These Foolish Things."

Seven Brits may be one or two too many, since every character demands some screen time, as do Sonny and his girlfriend. The movie's saving grace is its rich talent, particularly Dame Judi, Dame Maggie, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Nighy, the acting equivalent of saffron, cardamom or edible gold leaf. It doesn't take much for them to spice a scene with emotion, while the young "Slumdog Millionaire" star and others salt in humor.

Outsourcing their retirement to India, with its heat, noise, teeming crowds, social and economic divides along with its modern call centers filled with young women elders don't consider suitable marriage material, allows a challenge that relocating to another nation would not.

Movies such as this allow you to walk a movie mile in another's slippers. Would you embrace what Evelyn calls the assault on the senses, relish the chance at reinvention and a third act of life, or desperately scheme to return home?

No matter what, the sight of a half-dozen actors -- all born between 1934 and 1952 -- sitting in a row at an airport like some sort of aging Avengers is a sight for sorely neglected older (and some younger) eyes.

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This "Dictator" isn't the great one, but he has deep respect for the inspirational role models who've come before. His film's dedication: "In loving memory of Kim Jong Il," a dear leader who died as he lived -- in three-inch heels.

Admiral General Aladeen is the ruthless ruler for life of Wadiya, an oil-rich African nation that looks suspiciously like Sacha Baron Cohen-land. Aladeen inherited that job at age 6, when his father was killed in a freak hunting accident (involving 97 stray bullets and a hand grenade).

Not that he lacks credentials of his own: Aladeen boasts 118 honorary doctorates and a diploma in spray tanning from Qatar Community College. He is also a world-class champion runner -- winner of his own Olympics, in which he traditionally fires the starting gun and keeps it, while running, to shoot competitors during the race.

Back at the palace, after a hard day's executions of people who disagree with him, Aladeen is a sexual dynamo: We and the camera enter his boudoir as Megan Fox -- the real-life one -- makes a hasty exit. The bedroom wall is covered with Polaroid photos of his celebrity conquests (including Ellen DeGeneres and Arnold Schwarzenegger).

But enough deep background. Most pressing, at the moment, is that Aladeen has been summoned by the United Nations to address concerns that Wadiya is just months away from developing nuclear weapons. He agrees to go, but, like all top-tier tyrants, needs a new body double to stand in for him and be assassinated in New York. His treacherous and corrupt henchman Tamir (Ben Kingsley -- a dead ringer for Hamid Karzai) locates a dimwit dead ringer for Aladeen to pass off at the big UN gig.

How broad is this farce? Extreeemely broad -- even broader than "Borat" (2006) or "Bruno" (2009). Mr. Cohen's Aladeen is a hybrid of Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi and Soupy Sales on methamphetamines. His enormous Kramer fright wig and equally enormous Castro fright beard are reversible.

Once in New York and shorn of shrubbery, he looks like a mutant cross between Abby Hoffman and Frank Zappa. There, he runs into his ex-chief nuclear scientist (Jason Mantzoukas), whom he thought he had executed, among the Wadiyan refugees at Manhattan's popular Death to Aladeen restaurant. Later, he is rescued from an anti-Aladeen rally by spunky Zoey (Anna Faris), vegan-feminist manager of the Free Earth Collective. He falls in love with her, adopts the clever pseudonym "Allison Burgers" and joins her staff -- all leading up to an inevitable absurd climax at the UN.

Along the way, we're sure to find something to grossly offend every race, creed, disability and sexual orientation -- from bad taste 9/11 jokes and "Shoplifters Will Be Waterboarded" signs to the wildly over-the-top scene in which Aladeen assists at an emergency childbirth and asks, "Where's the trash can? It's a girl."

The percentage of vulgarity to perspicacious political satire is about 50-50. Mr. Cohen has made a career of culture clashes -- from Kazakhstani reporter Borat to Austrian fashionista Bruno -- and of his fanatical commitment to fictional characters mucking about in the real world. Director Larry Charles (who also helmed "Borat" and "Bruno" as well as "Curb Your Enthusiasm") tailors everything to his star's hijinks but this time without the mockumentary device: No real people are sought or ridiculed for their reactions.

Production of "The Dictator" actually began in June 2011, well BEFORE the Arab Spring that one might erroneously think inspired it. Its parodic political layers are thus more impressive -- especially in the Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous wardrobe realm. "The way Ahmadinejad dresses is an embarrassment for dictators," says Aladeen. "He looks like a snitch on Miami Vice. Why does he never wear a tie? Is every day in Iran casual Friday?"

It's vulgar, scatological, semi-obscene and never as funny or fresh as "Borat." But at least Mr. Cohen and Mr. Charles know when enough is enough: The film is a light, tight 84 minutes long. While too extreme for Aunt Thelmah and many mainstream viewers, Mr. Cohen's fans and younger audiences will likely savor it. Even at his most jejune, SBC can be an unpredictable hoot:

"Kim Jong Il? The guy did so much for the world. He spread wisdom, compassion and herpes throughout Asia. But he was very bullied at the Axis of Evil meetings."

Why are Kim Jong Il jokes so irresistible? Mr. Cohen's finest comic moment (in real life) was spilling Kim's urn ashes on Ryan Seacrest at this year's Oscars. His finest (real dramatic) moment may be forthcoming when he plays Freddie Mercury in a serious biopic scheduled for release in 2013.

I leave you with Aladeen's denial of Wadiya's aggression against its neighbors: "My country has existed for over 7 million years, ever since the dinosaurs were wiped out by the Zionists. And during that whole time, we have never attacked another nation, unless it was an emergency or we were really bored."

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Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have teamed up again for “Dark Shadows,” their eighth collaboration. While the two have made some outright fantastic films (“Edward Scissorhands,” “Ed Wood,” and “Sweeney Todd”), they’ve also made some films that missed the mark (“Alice in Wonderland” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”). “Dark Shadows” lays somewhere in the middle of fantastic and mediocre. The film is stylishly strange in only the way Burton can produce and has some genuinely funny moments, but ultimately “Dark Shadows” plays it safe and simply toes the line of the seriously twisted.

“Dark Shadows” is a big-budget remake of a soap opera of the same name that ran from 1966 to 1971. It tells the story of Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp), a man who is cursed with vampirism in the 18th century by Angelique (Eva Green), a witch who has revenge on the mind when Barnabas spurns her love for another. She hypnotizes his true love Josette (Bella Heathcote) into jumping off a cliff and leaves Barnabas in a chained coffin six feet under.

Jump to 1972 and the coffin is accidentally unearthed by a crew of construction workers, finding Barnabas in a world completely foreign to him. He returns to his Victorian manor, which is in serious disrepair, to find the current dysfunctional Collins family living there: the family matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), her rebellious daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz), womanizing Uncle Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and his emotionally disturbed young son David (Gulliver McGrath), the surly groundskeeper Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley), David’s live-in alcoholic doctor, Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), and the new governess Victoria (Bella Heathcote) who bears a striking resemblance to Barnabas’ deceased love Josette. Together, the family works to bring the old family fishery business back to its former glory, only to have Angelique return to make Barnabas’ life a living hell.

The film looks fantastic and does an excellent job perfecting the dark atmosphere of the original show, especially the surf crashing against the dark cliffs that Josette throws herself from and the gorgeous gothic Collins manor. The strangely hypnotic score by Danny Elfman is a pitch perfect homage to the show and for music fans, expect a fantastic cameo from rock-god Alice Cooper that is sure to make you smile. Much of the film’s comedy is derived from Barnabas’ assimilation into a world he knows nothing about. Paved roads, lava lamps, cars, hippies, and even troll dolls throw Barnabas into uncertainty, making for some pretty funny moments. Definitely a strong aspect of the film is the stellar cast, although some stand out far more than others due to weakness within their character’s development. Michelle

Pfeiffer is absolutely lovely as Elizabeth Collins, the matriarch who is trying desperately to hold her family together, all while keeping up appearances of affluence. Jackie Earle Haley and Helena Bonham Carter, both playing hard drinkers, are pleasant enough and get a few laughs of their own. Unfortunately, the wonderful Jonny Lee Miller is severely underused as the dead-beat brother of Elizabeth. He’s simply not onscreen enough but when he is, he steals the movie effortlessly.

Also underused is Gulliver McGrath who plays young David, a little boy who holds a strong connection with his deceased mother. McGrath has little to work with but holds enough sadness and isolation within his features that you wish you saw more of him. Playing Elizabeth’s unruly daughter is Chloe Grace Moretz and while she is usually very solid in films, she appears a little forced as Carolyn, a young girl trying a little too hard to be a naughty Lolita. Her character also has the misfortune of a tacked on surprise that’s completely unnecessary.

Even with such a large cast, the two that get the most screen time is Johnny Depp and Eva Green. Thankfully, Eva Green is stunning and spot-on as the psychotic, lovelorn witch. With her blood red lips that spread out impossibly wide over her perfectly white teeth in the eeriest of ways, Green is magnetic and her Angelique is a strong and fascinating opponent for the well-spoken vampire.

However, it’s obvious that the strongest in the film is Johnny Depp. It’s a sad fact for the rest of the cast that without him as Barnabas, “Dark Shadows” would be pretty droll. Successfully channeling the original creator of the role Jonathan Frid, who had a cameo and unfortunately passed away just last month, Depp’s Barnabas is delightfully pasty and controlled. It’s so nice to see a vampire with sharp fingernails and pronounced makeup, reminding one of the Nosferatu-style vampires long before the sparkle of “Twilight.” It’s no surprise either that Depp is just as charming and effortlessly fascinating as he always is, infusing humor with facial features and perfectly executed vocal intonations. Barnabas is mainly a reactionary role and that’s something Depp has perfected time and time again, especially within “Edward Scissorhands.” The character is thrown into a strange world and Depp’s reactions to simple things such as headlights, showcases his unparalleled talent to for silent film acting.

However, with everything that it has going for it, in the end “Dark Shadows” is exactly what one would expect from a Burton/Depp collaboration nowadays and that predictability does it a disservice. While watching it, you can’t help but get sick of Burton’s recent penchant for remakes and long for his original stories again, even if he’s just remaking one of his own films, such as the upcoming stop-motion “Frankenweenie.” As far as Depp is concerned, even in the films that may not hold levity, he always delivers a solid and magnetic performance, making it nearly impossible to dislike him. The humor, while effective, is sometimes repetitive and almost lazy. “Dark Shadows” is a movie you should enter into without any expectations and be willing to just enjoy it for what it is, a fun film that may not blow you away, but it will certainly make you laugh.

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What does one do when love strikes during times of war? And make no mistake. Elections time in a small dusty town of Uttar Pradesh is akin to war. Guns are fired randomly at enemies, real or imagined. Enemies fall to the ground. Morals lie crushed under heels. And finer feelings are buried under a rubble of trouble.

Into this town, here named Almora, enters love on silent feet. Well, maybe not so silent. Ishaqzaade is a very noisy film. The hero Parma (debutant Arjun Kapoor) is an uncouth animal, whose disgusting habits include kidnapping the town's nautch girl from a rival's party to dance at his grandfather's wedding. Later, his moral temperature dips to an all-time low when he takes loathsome revenge on the girl he loves to hate.

As the Muslim girl Zoya, Parineeti Chopra fills the screen with a tempestuous charm. Naturally spontaneous and vivacious, she reminds you of the early Jaya Bhaduri. Her character is a sharp-shooter with a tongue to match. And when she gets brutally compromised by Parma, she reacts like a wild cat raging against the promised full-cream milk that curdled when she was not looking.

Habib Faisal, who made the mellow, mild-mannered middle-class comedy "Do Dooni Chaar" about a college professor's dream of buying a car, here shows a completely unexpected side to his cinematic vision. The landscape he paints in Almora is so volatile and violent, you pray for atonement for these characters.

The lovers don't exchange chaste glances and furtive kisses. They embrace passionately and smooch each other's lips off. And when they make love, it seems they are waging war on the world. Full-blooded, voluptuous and eminently earthy, "Ishaqzaade" is a pickled, aromatic roller-coaster ride through the badlands where blazing guns mean families are at one another's throats.

The first-half of the narration builds up to an engrossing case for Parma to inflict his uncouth and aggressive malevolence on Zoya. The confrontation scenes between the two, written with the right amount of zing and sting, are first-rate. Remarkably the adversaries-turned-lovers keep drawing attention to each other's religion without mincing words. The two religions are almost thrown at one another as taunts. Riot or wrong, who can tell?

What Faisal wants to say, and we would be better off if we pay heed, is -- it is imperative to address the Hindi-Muslim divide headlong, or else blood would continue to be spilt each time two people from different communities 'dare' to love each other.

"Don't even think of it. An Indo-Pak war will break out," the Muslim girl warns the Hindu boy. And then proceeds to break the self-imposed rule with a rush of rebellion and passion that seems to replicate the flow of adrenaline in the virile script.

"Ishaqzaade" is written in blood, dipped in passion, and shot in vivid colours of life, strife and other bitter embers of the communal fire. The director constantly attempts to bring alive the cluttered milieu of a lawless north Indian town. Faisal succeeds to a remarkable degree.

His characters speak an easily recognisable language from Uttar Pradesh's heartland where even daughters are taught to fire a gun before they learn the alphabet. The supporting characters don't fake it even for a second.

Many scenes convey warmth and empathy without a jot of self-consciousness. The characters are all played by unknown local UP actors who are born to the milieu. The director builds a believable arc of love and revenge. His lovers are so well-conceived on paper, it would have taken two truly idiotic actors to ruin their characters.

Luckily, Parineeti Chopra and Arjun Kapoor are anything but incapable actors. They imbue the violent ambience with their own peculiar chemistry. The bloodshed never stops, and the action is relentless. Hemant Chaturvedi's cinematography creates a world that is real and at the same time, highly cinematic.

There are many reasons why "Ishaqzaade" is a remarkable film. It enters the killing fields of Uttar Pradesh. It chases down our two protagonists and then watches them get into a crisis with no end. In the end, we are looking at two young vibrant people whom we love because they love one another irrespective of the differences.

This is not a film which offers a pretty love story with gentle love songs. Even the music (by Amit Trivedi) sounds like a war cry. As for Parineeti and Arjun, never mind the destiny that lies in store for their characters in this film. They are here to stay.

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As a vampire flick, Dark Shadows seems to have crept up a few years late. While it looks a little like it's riding on the coat-tails of the Twilight movie franchise and TV series like True Blood and The Vampire Diaries, it's actually a remake of creator Dan Curtis' 1960s and 1970s cult TV series.

Of course, there is still some novelty in watching its lead actor, Johnny Depp, tackle the bloodsucking role of Barnabas Collins. The opening sequence explains how, in 1752, young Barnabas and his parents set sail from Liverpool, England, to start life anew in America's Maine region.

When business prospers, Mr and Mrs Collins decide to settle down for good, building a large mansion, Collinwood Manor, as family home. But when Barnabas spurns the affections of a servant girl, the family gets put under a curse.

Barnabas is transformed by witchcraft into a vampire and buried in a chained-up coffin six feet under, while his true love, Josette, hurls herself, in a trance, into the sea from a cliff.

The cliff scene with the silhouette of a gnarled tree, as well as the mansion's ornate furnishings, allows director Tim Burton, Depp's frequent collaborator, to exert his gothic aesthetics that have already surfaced in past films like Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Sleepy Hollow (1999).

But as soon as the setting moves forward to 1972, when Barnabas is dug out of the ground by construction workers, the gothic elements become intermingled with 1970s pop culture. As Barnabas makes his way to Collinwood Manor, he discovers that his descendants are a dysfunctional family in an Addams Family sort of way.

Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the matriarch, who lives with his brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) under one roof. A live-in psychiatrist, Dr Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), is helping Roger's 10-year-old son, David (Gulliver McGrath), cope with the trauma of his mother's death. Elizabeth's own daughter Carolyn (Chloe Moretz) takes teenage rebellion to new heights.

There's also the caretaker Willie (Jackie Earle Haley), as well as David's newly arrived governess, Victoria (Bella Heathcote), who immediately catches Barnabas' eye for being a dead ringer for Josette.

Now if you expect a war of wits to erupt between Pfeiffer and Depp, you'll be disappointed. While there is an earlier hint of the two settling into an uneasy rapport in the story, Pfeiffer doesn't get much chance in the story to fire up and match Depp's charisma.

Even Heathcote's onscreen romance with Depp pales in comparison with a particularly campy love scene that Depp shares with Eva Green, who plays vicious witch and Barnabas' former flame, Angelique, with great relish.

There is some attempt to glean laughter from Barnabas' fish-out-of-the-water experience, like how the 18th-century man reacts initially with fear to modern technology like cars and electric lights.

As Barnabas goes about reviving the family business - in a sequence set to the incongruently upbeat ditty of The Carpenters' Top Of The World - the story never goes beyond the threat posed by a witch scorned.

The original TV series has been described as an "American gothic soap opera", but I have to ask, where are the dramatic plot twists?

In the end, one gets the feeling that the story premise (and even Depp's make-up) holds more potential than the screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter).

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You think you’ve seen it all when it comes to teens getting stalked in the woods?  You’ve never seen anything like this. The Cabin in the Woods, a new horror-comedy from Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, starts with a set-up we’ve all seen before. Five college kids head out to an old cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere to get away for the weekend. However, soon after their arrival, they notice things aren’t what they seem and suddenly they’re all in terrible danger.

The film marks the directorial debut of Drew Goddard, writer of 2008’s Cloverfield, and his efforts have definitely placed him on my list of people to keep an eye on. His masterful combination of Cabin’s several different elements and tones displays that Goddard has just the kind of vision and skill the horror genre.  The film’s main cast features Guiding Light’s Kristen Connolly as Dana Polk, Thor’s Chris Hemsworth as Curt Vaughan, Shortland Street’s Anna Hutchison as Jules Louden, Dollhouse’s Fran Kranz as Marty Mikalski and Grey’s Anatomy’s Jesse Williams as Holden McCrea.  Much like the direction, the main cast’s acting in

The Cabin in the Woods is solid, with each cast member giving equally impressive performances.
The screenplay for The Cabin in the Woods, written by director Drew Goddard and producer Joss Whedon, was also one of the film’s high points. In the current age, it seems increasingly rare to find a smart and cleverly written horror movie anymore, but Goddard and Whedon have given us just that. The film excels at shifting between a threatening and eerie tone to a darkly humourous one.  In addition to a well-written screenplay, the characters are also well developed and likable, another rarity for horror movies focused on college students.

The visual effects in the movie are also worth noting. While there were a few distracting CGI shots, the majority of the effects look completely real and believable. Considering the film’s relatively low budget and the abundance of visual effects, this is an impressive feat that makes Cabin’s visuals on par with its great script, acting, and direction.

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"Jannat 2" is stuffed with the buffet-style storytelling that makes commercial Indian cinema seem gluttonously overwhelming by the standards of most Hollywood output. Would a moody Michael Mann crime drama be improved by a musical number? Could a Nancy Meyers crossed-wires romance benefit from a dense, intense thriller subplot?

The film shares its director, lead actor and a few behind-the-scenes names with the 2008 Indian film "Jannat," but this sequel otherwise is a stand-alone affair, with new characters and a self-sustaining story line.

This time out, star Emraan Hashmi plays Sonu Dilli, a street hustler and small-time gun runner who likes to refer to himself as a "cheeky rogue." A local cop (Randeep Hooda) with designs on bringing down a larger gun smuggling ring presses Sonu into working as his informer.

Its something-for-everyone attitude gives the movie a freewheeling, anything-goes feel for a time — the abrupt transition from the first romantic musical number back to the crime story is kind of head-spinning — but it eventually just becomes burdensome. Not long after the film launches its most surprising narrative twist, Sonu retreats to a bathroom where, as he relieves himself, he delivers a soliloquy recapping how incredible the new information is.

Too often, "Jannat 2" simply seems to be running in place — and like many Bollywood films, it runs for 21/2 hours, far too long by the standards of Hollywood storytelling, with many repetitive and unnecessary scenes. The extra material doesn't provide added value but diminishing returns. In this case, less clearly would have yielded more.

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Damsels in Distress: A comedy about a trio of beautiful girls as they set out to revolutionize life at a grungy American university. With Greta Gerwig, Megalyn Echikunwoke and Carrie MacLemore. 1 hr. 37; PG-13.

The Deep Blue SEA: The wife of a British judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot. With Rachel Weisz, Simon Russell Beale and Tom Hiddleston. 1 hr. 38; R.

The Avengers: A team of superheroes including Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk and Thor unite to save the world. With Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo and Chris Hemsworth. 2 hrs. 22; PG-13.

LEAVING TOWN

21 Jump Street: A pair of underachieving cops are sent back to a local high school to blend in and bring down a synthetic drug ring. 1 hr. 49; R.

Act of Valor: An elite team of Navy Seals embark on a covert mission to recover a kidnapped CIA agent. 1 hr. 50; R.

Ghost Rider: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE: The supernatural antihero Ghost Rider risks everything to team with a rebel monk to save a young boy and himself. 1 hr. 35; PG-13.

Jeff Who Lives at Home: A 30-year-old man-child hunkered down in his mother’s basement ventures out into the real world on an errand, where he winds up on an adventure. 1 hr. 23; R.

JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI: The story of 85 year-old Jiro Ono, considered by many to be the world’s greatest sushi chef. 1 hr. 21; PG.

Project X: Three high school seniors throw a birthday party to make a name for themselves. As the night progresses, things spiral out of control. 1 hr. 28; R.

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN: A visionary sheik will spare no expense in bringing salmon fishing to the desert. 1 hr. 47. PG-13.

The Three Stooges: Three infants left on a nun’s doorstep grow up to be knuckleheads who get embroiled in a strange murder plot and also stumble into a reality TV show. 1 hr. 25; PG.

The Vow: After waking from a coma, a newlywed wife copes with severe memory loss while her husband tries to win her heart again. 1 hr. 34; PG-13.

NOW SHOWING

American Reunion: A decade after their teen adventures, a group of lifelong friends returns to their hometown for a high school reunion. 1 hr. 55; R.

The Cabin in the Woods: Bad things happen when a group of friends visits a remote cabin in the woods. 1 hr. 35; R.

Chimpanzee: This nature documentary follows a baby chimpanzee and his family as they survive in the African forest. 1 hr. 18; G.

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax: A 12-year-old boy searching for the key to winning over his dream girl must confront a mysterious grumpy creature. 1 hr. 34; PG.

The Five-Year Engagement: An engaged couple find themselves continually sidetracked on the road to marriage. 2 hrs. 4; R.

Good Deeds: Businessman Wesley Deeds is jolted out of his scripted life when he meets Lindsey, a single mother who works on the cleaning crew in his office building. 1 hr. 50; PG-13.

The Hunger Games: In the post-apocalyptic ruins of North America, a teenage girl competes in a nationally televised battle to the death against 23 of her peers. 2 hrs. 22; PG-13.

Journey 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND: Sean Anderson partners with his mom’s husband on a mission to find his grandfather, who is thought to be missing on a mythical island. 1 hr. 34; PG.

The Lucky One: A Marine returns home from Iraq with his good-luck charm: a found photo of a woman he’s never met but intends to find and thank. 1 hr. 41; PG-13.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits: The enthusiastic captain of a pirate ship seeks to best his rivals and win the coveted Pirate of the Year award in this animated tale. 1 hr. 28; PG.

The Raven: In 19th-century Baltimore, a young detective teams with the struggling writer Edgar Allan Poe to solve a series of murders inspired by his stories. 1 hr. 51; R.

Safe: A washed-up cage fighter whose family was murdered by gangsters impulsively rescues a 12-year-old girl with a priceless secret from the very same killers. 1 hr. 34; R.

Safe House: A young CIA agent is tasked with looking after a fugitive in a safe house. But when the safe house is attacked, he finds himself on the run with his charge. 1 hr. 55; R.

Think Like a Man: Four men have their love lives shaken up when the women they are pursuing read a relationship-advice book and take its lessons to heart. 2 hrs.; PG-13.

A Thousand Words: A fast-talking literary agent must choose his words carefully when he finds himself bonded to a magical tree that sheds a leaf each time he speaks. 1 hr. 31; PG-13.

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While it took some time after the breakout success of The Blair Witch Project in 1999 for Hollywood to catch on to the low-risk, high-reward nature of the "found footage" format, it appears that the style is here to stay -- particularly in the horror genre, where the gritty, unrefined aesthetic naturally plays into the edgy fare. The latest entry is Area 407 (formerly known as Tape 407), which essentially applies the found footage method to The Grey, minus the wolves.

The Plot

At the tail end of winter break from school, bubbly pre-teen Trish (Abigail Schrader) and her older sister Jessie (Samantha Lester) board a New Year's Eve red-eye Optima Air flight from New York back to their home in Los Angeles. Trish is using Jessie's video camera to document the tedious aeronautical proceedings, peppering the ever-patient passengers with equally tedious questions about their lives.
Luckily for us, the plane hits some turbulence shortly after the two dozen or so people on board crack open the celebratory midnight champagne, and the flight, like the bubbly, goes down. The jet splits in two, Lost-style, with the young sisters emerging from the rubble of the tail section to find themselves in the middle of nowhere with a miraculous number of other survivors -- including drunken jerk Charlie (Brendan Patrick Connor), nice-guy photojournalist Jimmy (James Lyons), Aussie air marshall Laura (Melanie Lyons), flight attendant Lois (Samantha Sloyan) and loving husband Tom (Ken Garcia).

Trish's arm is bleeding badly, so the first thing Jessie decides to do is...pick up the camera and keep filming? She captures not only the chaos of the wreck, but also a new threat to their survival: a mysterious creature is lurking in the shadows, picking them off one by one. The ferocious beast chases them to a nearby cabin, where they try to make sense of what's going on. When they think help is on the way, however, it turns out their rescuers may be as dangerous as the monster that's stalking them.

The End Result

Despite an promising concept that teases at least a few cheap popcorn thrills, Area 407 ends up a listless occupant of the lower-tier of found footage horror movies, alongside the likes of major theatrical releases like The Devil Inside and lesser-known direct-to-video fare like Bryan Loves You. It feels like a found footage version of a SyFy movie of the week -- campy fare that routinely features giant mutant snakes, spiders, sharks and the like -- but it lacks the pace, energy and sense of dumb fun.
If it were a SyFy flick, at least Area 407 would've been good for a few big monster attack scenes. As it is, we catch a glimpse of the creature only three or four times, and the action sequences amount to someone standing by a bush or an open door and being (very predictably) yanked off screen. To the film's credit, the CGI effects in the few creature scenes are well done for a low-budget pic, but there's too few of them to make an impact. Most of the movie is taken up by a bunch of hectic yelling about what the group should do next and a bunch of walking from one hiding spot to another.

The extended face time that the characters receive is particularly annoying because they're a grating bunch, from the screechy-voiced Trish to the gluttonous Charlie to the film-at-any-cost Jessie. As a whole, their decision-making is consistently poor, even for a horror movie; no one seems to think, for instance, that having a camera with a bright light might actually be attracting the predator. And why are they cracking into their limited food supply within 30 minutes of the crash? The inane dialogue certainly doesn't help; the found footage format often relies on ad-libbing, but the cast here seems capable of little more than repetitive, pointless yelling -- which, ironically, is probably more realistic than more polished found footage fare.

The Skinny

Acting: C- (The awkward cast struggles to achieve a sense of ad-libbed realism.)
Direction: D+ (Dull with predictable attempts to scare.)
Script: D- (A solid concept is wasted by annoying dialogue and a shallow, repetitive story that fails to flesh out its plot points.)
Gore/Effects: C (Solid CGI effects but limited, sterile, painted-on gore.)
Overall: D+ (An unimaginative, flatly executed example of the found footage sub-genre.)

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A quick survey of Internet movie reviews shows that The Avengers, to be released this week, is a must see for those who grew up obsessed with Marvel comic-books. The all-star cast includes Robert Downey Jr., Tim Hiddleston, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner.­

"The Avengers makes superhero movies new again — a colossal task indeed," says Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News, who gives the movie five stars. "Folks, these flicks don’t get any better than this.""The Avengers is a damn fun, entertaining and satisfying superhero spectacle," writes Eric Goldman for IGN Movies.

Critic Christy Lemire, writing in the Miami Herald, says co-writer and director Joss Wheldon "has pulled off the tricky feat of juggling a large ensemble cast and giving everyone a chance to shine...The result is a film that should potentially please purists as well as those who aren't necessarily comic book aficionados.

"The All-Star Game of modern superhero extravaganzas, The Avengers is humongous -- the film Marvel and its legions of fans have been waiting for," writes Todd McCarthy in the Hollywood Reporter. "It's hard to imagine that anyone with an appetite for the trademark's patented brand of fantasy, effects, mayhem and strangely dressed he-men will be disappointed."

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