Narratively the original HOODWINKED was a mess, but there were moments of general inspiration within cliché and tired routines. The sequel is just cliché and tired routines. The original was done independently on the cheap and looked it, but this one feels cheaper because it has no purpose other than to cash in on the surprise success of the original.

Unlike the mysterious RASHOMON-like plot of the first film, this picture is pretty straight forward. It’s perfectly structured as a “good” screenplay is supposed to be structured, but leaves no surprises along the way. Red (Hayden Panettiere, TV’s HEROES) is off training with the Sisters of the Hood, while Wolf (Patrick Warburton, TV’s SEINFELD) is manning the spy agency they now work for. After Red’s Granny (Glenn Close, FATAL ATTRACTION) is kidnapped by Verushka the witch (Joan Cusack, WORKING GIRL), Red is called back to investigate.

What could a 3-D family film from Martin Scorsese be like? With HUGO now as an example, the answer is magical. And it's a magic that Scorsese is best suited to bring to life — the magic of the movies. At one point, a young boy visits a movie studio and the director leans down to him and tells him if he's ever wondered where his dreams come from this is where they are made.

Based on Brian Selznick's celebrated illustrated novel THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET, the story follows its title character (Asa Butterfield, THE BOY WITH THE STRIPED PAJAMAS) as he survives as an orphan in the clockworks of a Paris train station. After his father (Jude Law, A.I.), a clock maker, died, he has been trying to finish a project they were working on together — fixing an automaton. This mechanical human is a complex one that seems to be designed to write something and Hugo believes it will give him a message from his dad. But the boy loses his notebook filled with calculations to Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley, GANDHI) after the toyshop owner catches him trying to steal. What Hugo doesn't know is that Georges is Georges Melies, the once famed filmmaker who is best known for A TRIP TO THE MOON, where a rocket sticks into the eye of the man on the moon.

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.

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.

This is the least rewarding of the cinematic HARRY POTTER experiences mainly because it doesn't satisfyingly work as a film on its own. Unlike the LORD OF THE RINGS series, each film worked as a solo film, while setting up the continuing journey. DEATHLY HALLOWS - PART 1 tries to find its EMPIRE STRIKE BACK moment to end on, but without making Voldemort declare he is Harry's father, this film left me wanting more, but not in a good way. And yet I want more.

This PART 1, PART 2 nonsense will mean nothing after July 2011. After that DEATHLY HALLOWS can be enjoyed on DVD or Blu-ray or whatever comes next in home entertainment as one complete film. But because I am not clairvoyant I can't comment on the complete DEATHLY HALLOWS, because I have only seen half the film. PART 1 is kind of like the equivalent of tantric sex; all build up and no climax. But for POTTER fans, it's still sex… unless they're kids, because it's a family franchise, right?

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.

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.

Director Lee Unkrich and the entire Pixar team have found a fitting conclusion to the TOY STORY trilogy. It is worthy to stand by the masterpieces that came before it. The story deals with many of the same issues the previous films did, but extends them organically. The first film was Woody dealing with the possibility of being replaced as owner Andy's favorite. The second film was about what it means to be a toy. Now the third film deals with the existential question of what does it mean to be the toy of a child who has outgrown toys.

After a rousing fantasy sequence that brings the tangent filled imagination of a child to life, Woody (Tom Hanks, FORREST GUMP) leads the other toys in one last ditch attempt to get Andy (John Morris) to play with them. It doesn't go so well and the endless optimist Woody prepares the toys for their new life in the attic. Naysayers fear they'll end up in the trash or on eBay. Through a series of misunderstandings, Woody ends up in Andy's box to college and the others in a trashbag at the curb. After a narrow escape, Buzz (Tim Allen, TV's HOME IMPROVEMENT), Jessie (Joan Cusack, WORKING GIRL) and the others make their way to the donation box, hoping daycare will allow them to be played with again.

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).

It has been reported that Ursula K. LeGuin granted Studio Ghibli the rights to her EARTHSEA series largely based on her love for Hayao Miyzaki's work. When Miyazaki was not available to direct the film, the studio hired his son Goro instead. Hayao publicly said his son was not ready to write and direct his first feature film. They should have listened to the master.

The land of Earthsea is out of balance. Dragons have been spotted over the sea. The King walks to his study and is stabbed by a young man who turns out to be his son Prince Arren (Matt Levin, BLADES OF GLORY). Arren flees and winds up in the desert where he meets the Archmage Sparrowhawk (Timothy Dalton, HOT FUZZ), who takes the young man under this wing. When they arrive at the city of Hortown, Arren has a run in with slaver traders led by Hare (Cheech Marin, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN), who try to enslave the scared young woman Therru (Blaire Restaneo), who is the ward of Sparrowhawk's old friend Tenar (Mariska Hargitay, TV's LAW & ORDER: SVU), a former witch. Sparrowhawk soon learns that the evil wizard Cob (Willem Dafoe, ANTI-CHRIST) is behind the turmoil in Earthsea. The male wizard who looks like Cher needs Arren to obtain immortality.