Looper

SONY PICTURES/ALAN MARKFIELD
Bruce Willis, left, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are shown in a scene from "Looper."

"Looper" boasts an ingenius premise, a hook most other movies would introduce and simply coast on until the end. But writer-director Rian Johnson never stops working, using the science-fiction setup and trappings to delve into the characters and give us a story with some real meat.

"Looper" is the story of Joe. Actually, it's the story of two Joes—who really are the same Joe. One, in 2044, is a young man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a junkie who works for a ruthless mob boss known as the Rainmaker—who's running things three decades from now. "Time travel hasn't been invented yet," Joe explains in voice-over, "but in 30 years, it will have been." Joe is a "looper," an executioner who eliminates whoever the future mob sends back in time, no questions asked. The mob literally makes its enemies disappear and rewards Joe handsomely. Each looper does this knowing his future self eventually will be delivered to him. He's expected to pull the trigger as he always does, take the hefty payout that comes along with it and live out his remaining days however he sees fit—until it's time for him to go back and close his loop.

Everybody got that? Good.

House at the End of the Street

RELATIVITY MEDIA
Jennifer Lawrence, left, and Elizabeth Shue are shown in a scene from "House at the End of the Street."

"House at the End of the Street" borrows heavily from one of the all-time classics—revealing which classic film would be a big spoiler—and does so in a way that is both good and bad.

The good: It's disguised well enough that you might not see it coming.

The bad: I'm not sure if it makes sense. It feels like the filmmakers were so enamored of their twist on the well-known story that, along the way, they got a little lost in the details of the plot.

The setup is typical of a horror movie. Sarah Cassidy (Elizabeth Shue) and her 17-year-old daughter, Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence), move from Chicago to a small, rural town. Elissa appears to have been closer to her father, and we never learn why she lives with her mother now.

Trouble with the Curve

WARNER BROS. PICTURES/KEITH BERNSTEIN
Clint Eastwood, right, and Amy Adams are shown in a scene from "Trouble with the Curve."

The trouble with "Trouble with the Curve" is it feels outdated, as behind the times as co-workers accuse Gus, an octogenarian baseball scout with failing eyesight, of being.

But because Clint Eastwood plays Gus with his usual steely-eyed authority, and because his chief critic is a sniveling villain played by Matthew Lillard, we are expected to overlook that thought.

Gus, a longtime scout for the Atlanta Braves, pores over box scores in newspapers and frequently hits the road to evaluate young talent with his own eyes—even when those eyes aren't working anymore. The Lillard character prefers to use statistics and—gasp!—a computer. Though he had a different name, better actor and superior script, he essentially was the hero of last year's "Moneyball." Gus is the kind of dinosaur we saw ushered out in that film.

"Trouble with the Curve" asks us to ignore the reality of the sport.

Sleepwalk with Me

IFC FILMS, ADAM BECKMAN
Mike Birbiglia is shown in a scene from "Sleepwalk with Me."

Sometimes, a story is so good—so darn funny, so full of real, relatable, human emotion—and the storyteller so engaging that it not only works but flourishes in any medium.

Take comedian Mike Birbiglia's "Sleepwalk with Me." It's been a one-man, Off Broadway show; he's performed portions of it on the radio program "This American Life," hosted by Ira Glass; it is the title story of Birbiglia's book, released in 2010; and a live performance is available on CD.

The culmination of it all is "Sleepwalk with Me" the feature film, directed by Birbiglia, with co-director Seth Barrish; written by Birbiglia, his brother Joe, Glass and Barrish; and starring Birbiglia as an only slightly fictional version of himself, Matt Pandamiglio.

OK, so we all haven't jumped through a closed, second-story window, or found ourselves threatened by a jackal in our bedroom in the middle of the night, as Birbiglia has done in his life and Matt does in the movie. But who hasn't felt the anxiety that can come from a relationship, pressure from family and friends, and struggles in your chosen career path?

The Campaign

WARNER BROS., PATTI PERRET
Will Ferrell, left, and Zach Galifianakis are shown in a scene from "The Campaign."

With the presidential election less than three months away, "The Campaign," featuring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis as dueling congressional candidates, couldn't be any more timely.

Director Jay Roach pulls from both sides of his career, attempting to mix the broad comedy of "Meet the Parents" and the Austin Powers series with the political drama of "Recount" and "Game Change." The movie doesn't have much to say beyond the obvious—politicians are not to be trusted, and campaigning is a dirty business. That's mostly OK, though, for what it lacks in incisive satire, it makes up in big laughs.

Ferrell is Cam Brady, a long-serving, philandering congressman representing North Carolina's 14th District, based in part on former Sen. John Edwards with a touch of Ferrell's George W. Bush impression. Brady serves not out of a desire to accomplish anything, but simply because he enjoys being "Congressman Cam Brady" too much to be anything else. His constituents keep electing him because he always runs unopposed.

News of Brady's latest affair creates an opening two industrialist brothers, Glenn and Wade Motch (John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd), hope to exploit. Searching for someone to serve as their puppet, they come across Marty Huggins (Galifianakis), a naive, small-town tourism director.

The Bourne Legacy

UNIVERSAL PICTURES, MARY CYBULSKI
Jeremy Renner is shown in a scene from "The Bourne Legacy."

How many times have you seen the fourth installment in a Hollywood franchise and left the theater thinking, "I hope I don't have to wait long for part five?"

It doesn't take long to count to zero.

But Tony Gilroy, screenwriter of the first three "Bourne films," should create that kind of anticipating with "The Bourne Legacy," which he directed and co-wrote with his brother, Dan Gilroy.

Like the films that preceded it, this is a movie that, even its (brief) quieter passages, is all about momentum. Things are happening, the good guys are on the move, the bad guys are closing in. Its pulse never drops, its pace never relents.

Gilroy might even take that edge-of-your-seat feeling a little too far, barely offering a moment to breathe before the end credits start to roll rather abruptly. Maybe that just goes to show how completely I was wrapped up in the movie's action to that point.

Ted

UNIVERSAL PICTURES
Mark Wahlberg, left, is shown with the character Ted (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) in a scene from "Ted."

There are many reasons we go to the movies—to be thrilled, to be scared, to think, to learn, to see the future, to visit the past, to travel to foreign countries and worlds, and one that never seems to get the respect afforded so many others, to laugh.

Being funny is hard, hard work, especially in a movie, when you're working without any real audience feedback until late in the process. If the timing is off or if a couple jokes bomb, that's serious trouble. Sometimes, a movie can be so bad it's funny; a comedy aims to be funny, so when it's bad, it's simply bad.

This is all to say that a good comedy—even if its goal is no loftier than to make us laugh—deserves more praise than we often give it. There should be no shame, even in the snootiest of film circles, in wholeheartedly recommending a movie about a man's friendship with the teddy bear that miraculously came to life when he was a boy—if said movie is bursting with laughs and tells a satisfying story.

I've just described "Ted," the feature-film debut of "Family Guy" mastermind Seth MacFarlane, in which young, friendless John Bennett makes a Christmas wish that gives him a best friend for life. This walking, talking stuffed animal becomes a media sensation, but 27 years later, Ted (voiced by MacFarlane, doing just a slight variation of "Family Guy's" Peter Griffin) has gone from trading quips with Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" to being the boorish roommate a 35-year-old John (Mark Wahlberg) just can't bear to get rid of, even though the bear's presence obviously is wearing on his relationship with Lori (Mila Kunis), his girlfriend of four years.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

20TH CENTURY FOX/ALAN MARKFIELD
Benjamin Walker is shown in a scene from "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

Honest Abe. The Great Emancipator. Vampire hunter.

At long last, the secret, undead-slaying life of our 16th president has come to light, first in the 2010 novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, now in the feature film of the same name, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

The premise might sound ridiculous—because it is, of course. The key is that Grahame-Smith (who also wrote the screenplay), director Timur Bekmambetov ("Wanted"), Benjamin Walker in the title role and the rest of the cast play it deadly serious. Those expecting a high camp factor will be disappointed; this is a straight-laced action-adventure film with more than enough blood to earn its R rating and action set pieces at times bordering on spectacular.

Though events (some major) are omitted for the sake of pacing and running time, there is a real respect for history, the movie following Lincoln from a young boy in Indiana until his final day in the nation's capital.

Dark Shadows

WARNER BROS. PICTURES
Johnny Depp is shown in a scene from "Dark Shadows."

"Dark Shadows," a daytime soap opera that aired from 1966 to 1971 on ABC, was popular in its time, adored by some (now forgotten by more) and unique in that after its run began, it introduced ghosts, vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches and other sorts of supernatural happenings. It might seem a weird choice for a feature film in 2012—but not for director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp. For them, teaming together for the eighth time, it feels routine, safe.

After all, Burton has been mining "weird" at the movies for more than a quarter century, while Depp has become one of the world's most popular actors by disappearing into outrageous costumes, makeup and hair, and speaking in different variations of an English accent.

So there is a been-there-done-that feeling permeating all of "Dark Shadows," no matter how entertaining it might be at times.

The Avengers

DISNEY
Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) left, and Captain America (Chris Evans) are shown in a scene from "The Avengers."

Five films in four years, plus an even longer wait for legions of comic book lovers—and the payoff, "The Avengers" (or "Marvel's The Avengers," as the studio insists on calling it), delivers all anyone could hope for.

Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) all are here, mostly ready to take on each other at first, then teaming up to battle Thor's brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and the army he intends to unleash upon the people of Earth.

More importantly, writer-director Joss Whedon makes sure the people behind the silly names and costumes always are present, as well [-] Tony Stark (Iron Man), Steve Rogers (Captain America), Bruce Banner (the Hulk), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) and Clint Barton (Hawkeye).

So while the sheer spectacle—this is a vividly shot and designed film, even in dreaded 3-D—is almost overwhelming, especially during the climactic smackdown in which seemingly half of New York City is reduced to rubble, it is the quieter character moments that give the movie its beating heart, that make us care about whether these superhumans (or demigod, in Thor's case) can come together and cause us to think there is a chance they could be unsuccessful once they do.