Bees More Honey Than Sting

Dakota Fanning-Kristen Stewart vehicle divides critics

(NEWSER) - Critics praise the performances in The Runaways, about Joan Jett's seminal '70s band, but whether the flick succeeds is up for debate. Some takes:

• "Say what you will about the Runaways," Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone , but "they never played it safe. The movie does." He wants more out of the verboten relationship between Dakota Fanning's Cherie Currie and Kristen Stewart's Jett. Still, "Fanning scores a knockout."

Dazzlingly creepy stop-motion animation conjures up children's worst fears

(NEWSER) - Coraline is an eerie marvel of stop-motion animation guaranteed to give little kids nightmares, say critics. The story of a young girl—voiced by Dakota Fanning—who stumbles into a strange parallel universe where life seems almost too good to be true is a "dazzling, delightfully dark children's movie," Rafer Guzman writes in Newsday. More»

Star-studded heist comedy offers few laughs

(NEWSER) - Even Oscar-caliber talent like Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah can't save Mad Money, about three cash-strapped women who join forces to pull off the perfect heist. The movie, which also stars Katie Holmes, "fails to hit the stratosphere," Stephen Schaefer writes in the Boston Herald, because it "just isn’t funny enough to be truly engaging." 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."

Johnny Depp stars in Tim Burton film

(NEWSER) - Critics aren't thrilled with Tim Burton's latest offering, inspired by the late-1960s cult TV show of the same name and starring Johnny Depp as an 18th-century vampire who is buried alive, only to be accidentally dug up in 1972. The film isn't sure what it wants to be:

• Dark Shadows "tries to serve too many masters," writes Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News . "Initially it’s an epic valentine to the show. Then it’s a vamp-out-of-water story. Soon it’s a gung-ho comedy. Finally it's a monster flick." Still, it "unearths enough fun."