When I reviewed PART 1, I said that it wasn't a complete film and that everyone needed to check back to see how I really liked it when I'd seen the whole film. I'm happy to report that the conclusion of the HARRY POTTER series is epic and ultimately satisfying. And unlike PART 1 it works as a stand-alone film too.

The film picks up where the last one left off and the more familiar one is with PART 1 the easier it will be to follow this one. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliff) strikes a deal with the goblin Griphook (Warwick Davis, RETURN OF THE JEDI) to sneak into the Gringotts bank to search the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter, SWEENEY TODD) for one of the horcruxes, which hold a piece of the soul of Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes, THE ENGLISH PATIENT). Destroying them is the key to defeating You Know Who.

This might be the gutsiest release of the summer. Theatrical films geared toward the preschool and slightly above set are rarely made today. They usually dwell in the land of direct-to-video. Pooh is Disney's biggest merchandising producer. Every preschooler has something Pooh related in their room. But once the kid hits school, is Pooh cool? That's why this is a difficult sell. But those who buy a ticket will be transported into a simple timeless production filled with wit and whimsy.

John Cleese provides the narration for this tale of Christopher Robin (Jack Boulter), the imaginative boy who brings his toys to life in the Hundred Acre Woods. While looking for the lost tail of Eeyore (Bud Luckey, BOUNDIN’), Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings) discovers a note at Christopher Robin’s tree house. He takes it to Owl (Craig Ferguson, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON), who misinterprets it as a kidnap note. The veracious beast the Backson (which sounds a lot like Back Soon) has taken the young boy, so it is up to Pooh and friends to set a trap for the monster.

Part of what made SHREK 2 work was the addition of Puss in Boots to the franchise. It's not surprising that he would get his own film. Unfortunately some of the sharpness the character brought to that film has been declawed for this one. The irreverent take on fairy tales is gone. In its place — cat jokes.

Don't get me wrong the cat gags are the funniest bits, but they don't have the layers that made the first two SHREK films special. In this origin story, Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas, DESPERADO) is cast as an orphan who becomes blood brothers with fellow orphan outcast Humpty Dumpty (Zack Galifianakis, THE HANGOVER). They are in search of the magic beans of legend. The duo continuously get in trouble until one day Puss gets a taste of being a hero and vows to go straight. Bad blood forms and Puss is wrongfully believed an outlaw. Years later he is reunited with Humpty, who now has a female feline thief sidekick named Kitty Softpaws (Selma Hayek, DESPERADO). Humpty wants to put their past behind them and work together to steal the magic beans from the notorious murderers Jack and Jill (Billy Bob Thonrton, SLINGBLADE & Amy Sedaris, STRANGERS WITH CANDY).

This endlessly clever short is one of the best produced by Pixar. Teddy Newton’s film features two 2D characters with a CG world alive in their bodies. One represents day and the other night. When Night sees the beautiful women sunbathing by the pool inside Day, a howl of jealousy bellows from him. He tries to take what day has, but every attempt shows that things that go on in the light are not the same in the dark.

For the most part, the short takes its setup and runs with it. The gags fly by at a clip. Just to get a taste, the short starts with a rooster crowing and Day waking. After a series of perfectly paced gags about his morning routine, the sequence ends with a stream appearing in a relieving place on Day’s body. What starts as an adversarial relationship between Day and Night turns toward the end as Night realizes that Day doesn’t have everything. The short ends up being a classic great short in the way it gets into its premise quick, keeps the pace fast and ends with a note of poignancy. At six minutes, it is driven by action, but the action reveals the personalities of the characters and even allows for growth.

On a technical note, the use of stereoscopic 3-D to create physical depth within the worlds inside the characters’ bodies is ingenious. For once, 3-D was actually used for a story purpose.

I went into this film knowing only the basics about the title character. Jonah Hex is a severely scarred bounty hunter with some supernatural abilities. His family was murdered. The film didn’t really expand my knowledge and in some ways confused me even more. At 80 some minutes, there were times I thought I was watching a reel of the cut scenes from the JONAH HEX videogame.

The film begins with Hex (Josh Brolin, MILK) voicing a montage of his time fighting for the Confederacy. He explains why war suited him and why that changed. Then the story jarringly cuts to Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich, BURN AFTER READING) burning Hex's family alive and branding his former soldier as he explains that he's doing so because Hex betrayed him and murdered his son, who was Hex's best friend. Then we jarringly cut to what seems like an excerpt from the JONAH HEX motion comic filling us in on how Hex nearly died, gained some powers, has something to do with crows and that Turnbull presumably died in a fire. For all intents and purposes, the first act of the film is simply told to the viewer instead of shown.

M. Night Shyamalan can be a good filmmaker. For me, his last three films, including this one, have been disasters. Others would push that number higher. I'll defend THE VILLAGE and SIGNS — they had interesting characters and grand themes that drove their narratives. The same qualities that drove his most successful work, THE SIXTH SENSE. The director seems to have lost those skills. Even with quality source material to work with, he was unable to deliver a coherent, let alone a compelling, story.

All the players from the anime-inspired Nickelodeon series are present. In a world where four tribes of people can control the elements of air, water, earth and fire, there is one Avatar who rises in each generation that can control them all and bring peace to the planet. Aang (Noah Ringer, upcoming COWBOYS & ALIENS) is the latest Avatar, but when he is told of his fate and that he will not be able to have a family as a result, he runs away and ends up trapped in ice. After a hundred years, he and his flying bison Appa are freed by Southern water tribe members Katara (Nicola Peltz, DECK THE HALLS) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone, TWILIGHT).

In this animated world, villainy is a corporate venture. Master criminals live among the average citizens, clearly out in the open. The gothic mansion of baddie Gru sticks out in the same row of suburban family homes. To fund criminal ventures, the villains apply for loans from the Bank of Evil (formerly known as Lehman Brothers).

Gru (Steve Carell, GET SMART) wants to be the top criminal mastermind, but he has competition in the newcomer Vector (Jason Segal, I LOVE YOU, MAN), who just stole the Great Pyramid, which he has stowed in his backyard, painting it blue so that it blends in with the skyline. Gru; along with his mad scientist cohort Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand, GET HIM TO THE GREEK) and hundreds of his minions, yellow pill-shaped sidekicks who get giddy over troublemaking; go to the Bank of Evil to get the funding for his biggest caper yet — steal the Moon. But before he can get to the Moon, he has to build a rocketship and steal a newly created Chinese shrink ray. The key to getting the ray — three orphans named Margo (Miranda Cosgrove, TV's ICARLY), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher).

Director Francis Lawrence (I AM LEGEND) and writer Richard LaGravenese (THE FISHER KING) do a rare cinematic achievement when having a book as the source material — they make the story better. They made all the right choices in what to cut, keep and change. The changes make the film more dramatic, but not in a maudlin way. Everything that happens is more immediate. The Depression-era setting only reminds us of the melodramas of that age, which this film fits in with surprisingly well.

Jacob (Robert Pattinson, TWILIGHT) was taking his last final in veterinary sciences at Cornell when he gets word that his parents have died in a car accident. They had mortgaged their house and business to pay for his education, so the bank takes everything. Now orphaned, he decides to jump a train. Luckily, he ends up on a circus train in the car of Camel (Jim Norton, STRAW DOGS), a friendly, drunk roustabout who helps him get work. When it’s found that he is an Ivy League vet, he is taken before the boss, August (Christoph Waltz, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), an intimidating man who isn’t unfamiliar with violence as a way of making people do what he wants.

TOY STORY's story is not over. Pixar has decided to extend the franchise in a series of shorts, this one being the first. Woody and the gang are preparing for some R&R as their new owner Bonnie is headed off on a Hawaiian family vacation over the winter break. Stowed away in the little girl's backpack are Ken and Barbie, who are extremely disappointed when they discover they're at Bonnie's house and not a luau on the beach. So in order to rescue the couple's first vacation together, the rest of the toys team up to bring paradise to a preschooler's bedroom.

Director Gary Rydstrom, who received an Oscar nod for his hilarious Pixar short LIFTED, brings his great timing to this film as well. While his other short relied on pitch perfect physical comedy, he brings the same sensibility to this talkier piece. Even though the script for this short has a lot more dialogue, the jokes are many sight gags. He knows exactly how to lay the joke out to maximize the laugh. Even when a joke is expected, he knows how to give it a twist in order to elicit a chuckle.

None of the Pixar shorts based on their features have been as good as their classics like GERI'S GAME or PRESTO, but this is the best of them. In addition to being funny, it also has a nicely contained story, instead just being a series of gags like MIKE'S NEW CAR or JACK-JACK ATTACK. But then the others were not based on TOY STORY nor did they have Pixar's sweet, innocent and retro take on Mattel's toy icons Barbie and Ken. What a sweet couple. Will they ever kiss?

John Lasseter's follow-up to his ode to car culture is the least like any other Pixar film. The spy spoof is an unabashed genre flick. WALL*E was sci-fi, but had a compelling love story at its core. Where the original CARS had an aww-shucks charm in its tale of finding pleasure in the simple side of life, this part two sets that aside for international intrigue, mistaken identities and fish out of water tomfoolery. It's of course done at the high performance quality level that Pixar has set since 1995.

The new adventure puts well meaning, but unsophisticated, Mater the tow truck (Larry the Cable Guy, WITLESS PROTECTION) at the center of the story. He is eagerly awaiting his best friend Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson, THE ROYAL TENEBAUMS) to return to Radiator Springs after the racing season is finished. Lightning has turned down an invitation to compete in the first World Grand Prix in order to spend some time with his friends. But when the arrogant Italian Formula One car Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro, THE BIG LEBOWSKI) insults Lightning on TV, Mater calls in and pretty much leaves Lightning with no other option than to compete.