Penelope: Charmingly Imperfect

James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender star in Matthew Vaughn's film

(NEWSER) - Critics are largely impressed with the latest installment in the X-Men series: X-Men: First Class is certainly an improvement over the last few. A sampling of reviews:

• “After a close call with franchise death, the X-Men film series has bounced back to life with its fifth installment, rescued with a straight injection of pop,” writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times . The film “indulges in period nostalgia as it gazes into the future, using the backdrop of the cold war to explore how the past informs the present (while also blowing stuff up).”

Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon star in novel adaptation

(NEWSER) - Water for Elephants, based on the bestselling book, tells the story of a young man who joins the circus during the Depression, working with an elephant and falling for a married performer. Critics are mixed:

• The film “provides a constant wash of scenic pleasure,” and is true to the book, writes Todd McCarthy in the Hollywood Reporter . “But the vital spark that would have made the drama truly compelling on the screen is missing.”

Even naked Christina Ricci can't save ambiguous horror flick

(NEWSER) - Critics are absolutely burying After.Life, a dull horror flick about a woman who may be dead. And no, the stupid dot in the title is never explained. Here’s what they’re saying:

• What seems like it ought to be a vaguely silly movie “takes itself so seriously it’s practically embalmed,” writes Stephen Whitty of the Star-Ledger . Liam Neeson in particular “seems to have convinced himself that he’s in some rare, rediscovered Beckett play—Krapp’s Last Autopsy.”

Dreamworks' 3-D stunner stuck with one-dimensional storyline

(NEWSER) - Monsters Vs. Aliens looks amazing on screen, but grownups may find the thin jokes and the storyline of Dreamworks' animated spoof of '50s flicks a little grating, say critics.

• James Rocchi, Redbox: The movie "has amazing 3D, solid gags, wacky concepts and great animation; I just wish that at some point along the way someone had been as passionate about the story as they were about the spectacle."

Holiday comedy saps critics of their Christmas cheer

(NEWSER) - Holiday comedy Four Christmases had some critics chuckling but left most moaning ho-ho-no. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon star as a couple forced by circumstance to visit the dysfunctional families of their divorced parents, but the "predictable and dyspeptic story" lacks the bite of misanthropic holiday classics like Bad Santa, Claudia Puig writes in USA Today. More»