A flawed decision to split the final installment of the Harry Potter books into two films results in a formless narrative that overstays its welcome. For as detailed as director David Yates attempts to be with slick visual effects that periodically invigorate the movie, the overemphasized spectacle merely illustrates the film's lacking storyline. Grade: C.  

China's coming maelstrom of cultural tension is a central theme in Chinese/Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan's gritty, verite-style documentary about a family struggling to adapt to its country's evolving, increasingly globalized economy. Lixin presents it all with impressive, often poetic restraint. Grade: B.  

A pompous philandering author, his dutifully long-suffering wife, a handsome groundskeeper and the titular young journalist (Gemma Arterton) constitute the foundation of this Stephen Frears adaptation of a graphic novel by Posy Simmonds. The ever-reliable Frears fashions this material into a dependable comedy with classic rather than typically broad Hollywood sensibilities, despite the inherent possibilities for misplaced mass appeal. Grade: B.  

After blowing the relationship film 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith,' director Doug Liman gets a second chance with 'Fair Game,' and the stakes are actually higher because this one is based on the true story of Valerie Plame (Naomi Watt), a CIA operative outed by the Bush administration after her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), dared to call the Bush administration out for misquoting facts to "prove" Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction. Liman, Watt and Penn come through. Grade: A-.  

France jumps into 2010 as the year of the crime drama with a violent splash. Vincent Cassel is credibly persuasive as the notorious French gangster of a thousand faces, Jacques Mesrine, a ruthless criminal with style and attitude to spare. Based on Mesrine's memoir, director Jean-Francois Richet pulls out all the stops to create an action-packed crime drama that tallies its characters brutal acts with breathtaking car chases and prison escape sequences. Grade: B-plus.  

Part two of the lean, explosive, unsentimental French biopic of that country's most notorious gangster of the modern era, Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel), has just as much rivetingly realistic, kinetically filmed excitement and great acting as part one, which is just finishing its run at the Esquire Theatre. Grade: A.  

Longtime visual-effects specialists turned directors Colin and Greg Strause present yet another familiar alien invasion that owes huge debts to 'Independence Day,' 'Signs' and, to a lesser extent, the found-footage feel of 'Cloverfield.' But once all these elements get shoved into the juicer, all of the good pulpy elements gets ground out of it, leaving us with a decidedly flavorless strain. Grade: D-.  

If you only see one movie this year, Charles Ferguson's financial meltdown documentary is the one to see. Matt Damon narrates this essential soup-to-nuts explanation of the Wall Street and government players whose illicit methods brought down the global economy. Grade: A.  

Cinematically speaking, director Tony Scott just doesn't know when to shut up. In this fact-based action drama, he has got an inherently propulsive premise to work with. So what do Scott and screenwriter Mark Bomback do with that story? They throw some utterly pointless background domestic drama at our main characters, played by Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. Grade: C-.  

This smooth-running dramedy is a warm, familiar story that audiences will recognize exactly for what it is and appreciate all the same, likely because it isn't quite so heavy. And in a world where all performances are viewed equally, Rachel McAdams would be a highly touted possible Best Actress nominee for her effort here. Grade: B.  

Charles Ferguson's latest blood-boiler, 'Inside Job,' tackles the most important topic of our time: the Wall Street meltdown of 2008. Ferguson and crew (including narrator Matt Damon) give us an accessible, long-lensed view of a complex topic and its 30-year trajectory — from Ronald Reagan's 1980s-era laissez-faire, trickle-down economics to the Clinton administration's repealing of the Glass Steagall Act to the further relaxing of financial regulations and enforcement in the George W. Bush era to the unfortunate post-crash, business-as-usual hiring of the Obama economic team.  

Jeffrey Combs hears the same set of questions every time he makes an appearance at a convention like HorrorHound Weekend, the huge annual horror movie convention put together by the folks at Cincinnati-based 'HorrorHound' magazine. He'll be joined by almost the entire central cast of 'Re-Animator' for a 25-year reunion panel discussion at the event, plus Malcolm McDowell of 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'The Exorcist's Linda Blair. "People want me to say that my favorite role is the one that happens to be their favorite role," Combs says.  

Ntozake Shange's stage play used a series of poems, told in a bracingly bare spoken word format by women, black women, identified by the colors of the rainbow, who endured the abuses of life, the daily trials and tribulations. Unfortunately, an able cast is let down in Tyler Perry's film adaptation via his inability to frame things in any way outside his rudimentary narrative boxes. Grade: D-plus.  

Dayton filmmaker Michael Webber makes his directorial debut with this compelling, refreshingly restrained documentary about people who possess exotic animals as pets and the various issues that arise in such cases — everything from the ethical dilemma of caging "wild" animals to the increasingly more acute problem of public safety when they escape. Grade: B.  

Critics gripe about formulas, but give credit where credit is due: If ever there were a formula that has proven its durability, it's the odd-couple road comedy. Director Todd Phillips brings us the story of Type-A architect Peter (Robert Downey Jr.) and spacey, would-be actor Ethan (Zach Galifianakis) forced by improbable circumstances to share a car ride from Atlanta to Los Angeles in time for the scheduled C-section birth of Peter's first child. Grade: B.