Woody's Cassandra Is So-So

Helen Mirren stars in John Madden thriller

(NEWSER) - The Debt, starring Helen Mirren, tells the story of a trio of Mossad agents whose adventure in Cold War-era Berlin has consequences far into the future. It could have been a thought-provoking thriller, but it doesn’t quite live up to its promise:

• What begins as a “finely observed study of desire under duress gives way to a breathless and pedestrian globe-trotting thriller,” writes AO Scott in the New York Times . As it “grows more complex and suspenseful, it also becomes more literal, losing some of its dramatic intensity.”

True story of gay con-man highly divisive

(NEWSER) - Some critics are head-over-heels for I Love You Phillip Morris; others feel quite the opposite about the film, in which Jim Carrey plays a gay conman. (It's currently favored by 76% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences give it a lesser 55%.)

• At the New York Times , Stephen Holden loves the picture: “With his manic glare, ferociously eager smile, hyperkinetic body language and talent for instant self-transformation, Mr. Carrey has rarely been more charismatic on the screen.”

(NEWSER) - Woody Allen! Larry David! It sounds like a match made in comedy heaven, but the results are more like purgatory, according to the critics. Here’s what they’re saying:

• Whatever Works is one of Allen’s worst movies, writes Claudia Puig of USA Today. David’s Boris “is aptly named: He bores us. At least when Allen plays the part of the older man lusted after by gorgeous twentysomethings, he has some modicum of charm.”

Allen's latest tragicomedy splits critics

(NEWSER) - Critics are sharply divided over Woody Allen’s latest flick, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The story of two women’s romantic adventures in Spain—“as much a tragedy as a comedy,” Mahnola Dargis writes for the New York Times—carries “a sun-drenched splendor that never falters,” David Denby writes in the New Yorker. Allen, he says, “works everything out with a stringent thoroughness that still allows room for surprise.” More»

Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones return for alien flick

(NEWSER) - Sure, no one was that desperate for a Men in Black 3—but it's actually a pretty good summer movie. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are back defending the planet from aliens, and this time, Josh Brolin's along for the ride as a young Jones.

• The movie "turns out to be so much fun," writes AO Scott in the New York Times . While it "carefully fulfills its blockbuster imperatives—with chases and explosions and elaborately contrived plot twists—it swerves into some marvelously silly, unexpectedly witty, and genuinely fresh territory."