Fate or chance, which rules our lives? Is there a higher power that is guiding our path or is everything just a series of random choices that lead us through our lives. Is it a combination of the two? The big moments are charted out, while we have the illusion of free will in the smaller choices. Is there some cosmic force that would stop us if we wandered off the path? These are some of the questions presented in this romantic fantasy thriller.

David Norris (Matt Damon, GREEN ZONE) was the youngest man ever elected to the House of Representatives. He's a heavy favorite for the senate, but an immature prank tanks his campaign. In the hotel bathroom, working on his concession speech, he meets dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA), who is hiding out from security because she crashed a wedding at the hotel. They have an instant connection. He gets her number. They share a passionate kiss. But the men in hats are going to intervene.

I've been mulling over what to say about Gore Verbinski's first foray into feature animation. Like it's main character it has so many dual identities. Its photoreal animation is a truly original, while its script seems cobbled together from dozens of at right angle sources. The film has adult ideas that few American animated films ever have, but it seems lost at what audience it's really targeting. It's a Western. It's a comedy. It's an existential examination.

A chameleon with no name, who sounds like Johnny Depp doing Don Knotts, is trying to find his muse in a Beckett-esque performance for himself in his terrarium. Then he hits a bump along the road, literally. His tank is thrust out of the back of his owner's car along a desert highway. A squished mystic armadillo called Roadkill (Alfred Molina, SPIDER-MAN 2) tells him to go out into the desert and that everyone needs to cross the road at some point.

So if you're one of nine superpowered aliens from a destroyed world hiding out on Earth when the creatures that wiped out your kind are in hot pursuit, what do you do? If you're John Smith in this film, you stop to develop a roll of film with your Earthling girlfriend. You really can't make this stuff up.

John Smith is played by the up-and-coming hunk Alex Pettyfer (BEASTLY). He is an alien hiding out on Earth with his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant, TV's JUSTIFIED), who poses as his father. The evil Mogadorians are hunting the nine superpowered aliens in numerical order. The numbering system is never explained. Number 3 has just been killed and John is Number 4.

Disney's 50th animated feature has a bit of everything that one might think of when one thinks of a Disney animated film. For the classic touch, there is a princess rescued by a dashing male hero, a wicked mother, animal sidekicks, musical numbers and magic. For the modern touch, there are irreverent splashes and gags galore. The former parts work much better than latter and in the end traditional storytelling wins the day.

Rapunzel (Mandy Moore, SAVED!) was saved from death as a child by a magic flower that gave her hair magical healing properties. Gothel (Donna Murphy, SPIDER-MAN 2) had been using said flower for years to turn back the effects of time, so she decides to kidnap the baby princess and raise her as her own, keeping her locked away in a tower in the forest. The devious woman tells the girl that the world is evil and that she is safer hidden away. But the now 18 year old girl wants to venture out and see firsthand the lanterns that happen to rise in the distance on her birthday.

Due to its subject matter, this film should be called sci-fi. But its tone is far closer to a somber period piece. Mark Romanek, whose only other feature film was the sad thriller ONE HOUR PHOTO, has kept the same straightforward tone of the book from Kazuo Ishiguro, whose novel REMAINS OF THE DAY was adapted into a somber film as well. Romanek never sensationalizes the material into some kind of conspiracy thriller. He asks one philosophical question and spends the film answering that question in an emotionally powerful way.

Kathy (Carey Mulligan, AN EDUCATION), Tommy (Andrew Garfield, RED RIDING TRILOGY) and Ruth (Keira Knightley, PRIDE & PREJUDICE) have grown up together at the highly controlled boarding school Hailsham. The headmistress Miss Emily (Charlotte Rampling, SWIMMING POOL) does not stand for anyone breaking the rules. The children were told stories that if they left the grounds even for a second they might be savagely murdered. They wear wristbands to make sure they are all accounted for. The new teacher Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY) begins to question the morality of how the children are being treated, but her views are seen as subversion.

Best videogame adaptation ever! Wait, but it's adapted from Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel. This send-up of videogame culture is frantic and funny. It uses videogames as a style with wit and ingenuity. Director Edgar Wright, the maker of SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, has taken a simple, quirky love story and blown it out into a grand cinematic spectacle that had me smiling form the moment the 8-bit version of the Universal logo came up on the screen.

It is announced right from the start that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera, JUNO) is dating a high school girl. Now you might be thinking that a 22 year old dating a 17 year old is one year short of being right, but Scott seems too innocent to expect anything more than a kiss. Scott just likes the adulation of Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) even though his sister Stacey (Anna Kendrick, UP IN THE AIR) thinks there's twisted fantasy fulfillment going on in him dating a Chinese Catholic school girl with the uniform and all. But he seems satisfied with her simply being amazed at his knowledge of the origin of Pac-Man's name. She of course thinks he's awesome because he plays bass in a band called Sex Bob Omb.

The NATIONAL TREASURE trio of star Nicolas Cage, director Jon Turteltaub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer come together to try and strike magic again. But with a title SORCERER'S APPRENTICE, the film actually has little magic. There are a lot of pyrotechnics and visual effects, but none of it brings the whimsy or awe that the title suggests.

In one of those opening voice over sequences that quickly explains the mythology of the world, we learn that Merlin (James A. Stephens, SHERLOCK HOLMES) had three apprentices to help him protect his sorcery secrets from archenemy Morgana (Alice Krige, TV's DEADWOOD). Balthazar (Cage) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci, THE MATRIX RELOADED) were Merlin's faithful servants, but Horvath (Alfred Molina, AN EDUCATION) betrayed him to Morgana. In a move of self-sacrifice, Veronica bonded herself with Morgana, forcing Balthazar to lock her in a nesting doll called the Grimhold, where he later imprisons other Morgana followers like Horvath. Before Merlin dies, he tells Balthazar to search the globe for the Prime Merlinean (really?), a sorcerer who would inherit all the abilities of the great one.

The third in the TWILIGHT film series is the best. That said, it's nothing groundbreaking, but at least it doesn't take itself too seriously. The original TWILIGHT was made for teenagers who watch soaps. NEW MOON was made for teenagers who never smile. ECLIPSE was made for teenagers with a sense of humor.

In this edition, we begin and end in a field of purple flowers. Edward (Robert Pattinson) tries to convince his love Bella (Kristen Stewart) to marry him, but not insist that he turn her into a vampire if they wed. She doesn't want to bear growing old while he stays young forever. At school, they run into shirtless werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who warns Bella that Edward and his vampire family are hiding things from her. The vampire Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard, SPIDER-MAN 3) is back and looking to kill Bella as revenge on Edward for killing her love. And then there is also the army of young vampires, led by Riley (Xavier Samuel, ROAD KILL), headed right for their small town as well.

This action comedy attempts to recreate the globetrotting thrillers like CHARADE and NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Innocent people are wrapped up in international espionage. The plot tries to keep us guessing. Romance grows as the leads run from a host of nefarious characters. Casting was a big part of those previous film's successes and this film gets that element right, but the others less so.

The film begins with Roy Miller (Tom Cruise, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE) watching June Havens (Cameron Diaz, MY SISTER'S KEEPER) at the airport. They have a funny way of bumping into each other. But something seems odd when they end up on the same flight and June gets bumped, than given a seat anyway on a nearly empty plane. During the flight, she flirts with Roy and they seem to have a connection going. But when she goes to the bathroom, all hell breaks loose. Roy is attacked by everyone on the plane, which ends up in a nosedive. Roy informs June that people will come for her and say that he is crazy, but that she should not believe them. The evidence up to this point doesn't support his case.

Mike Newell's film is the best movie adapted from a video game made thus far. It also happens to be the first good movie based on a video game. But the bar was set pretty low so Prince Dastan could easily jump over it with the help of Mr. Spectacle producer Jerry Bruckheimer. While I'll probably need the sands of time to travel back and remember the film by the end of the summer, the journey while I was sitting in the theater was a nice trip.

King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN) had two sons — Tus (Richard Coyle, TOPSY-TURVY) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell, ROCKNROLLA). One day out in the market, he has a run in with Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal, BROTHERS), an orphan boy who saves another young child from having his hand cut off by palace guards. Taken by the boy's spirit, the king adopts Dastan as one of his own.