Edge of Darkness is actually better than its lame title would suggest.

It's yet another vigilante film, this time focusing on Boston detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson), who has a still, mournful quality—and this is before his only daughter (Bojana Novakovic) is gunned down in front of him.

At first, Craven and the rest of the Boston PD, think he was the intended target, but as Craven investigates his daughter's murder, he finds himself neck-deep in a tangly conspiracy. Turns out, the nuclear power company his daughter was interning for was doing more than just developing alternate sources of energy for the government. And it turns out, trying to blow the whistle on them was not conducive to staying alive.

This is Mel's comeback film, after his controversial arrest three summers ago, and he's made a solid, if unambitious, choice. His Detective Craven is a stock figure—the loner with a righteous mission to defend his family—but Mel infuses him with a believable air of desperation and gravitas. The film gives him ample...

Heaven is hard. No, I'm not making a religious point about the difficulty of living a life worthy of a heavenly ascent. I'll leave that to the theologians. I'm talking about the depiction of heaven in film. Some have gone with a simple clouds-and-halos approach. Others, like the misbegotten What Dreams May Come, have gone for a vast technicolor dreamscape. Either way, it's a risk. And maybe that's why so many people said that The Lovely Bones was unfilmable.

Alice Sebold's novel is narrated from above by 14-year-old Susie Salmon (played in the film by Saoirse Ronan), who matter-of-factly tells us the story of her own murder and its effect on her family, especially her father, who obsessively pursues the killer.

Director Peter Jackson captures the wistful quality of the novel-the innocence of early '70s (a time before "milk carton photos and public service announcements"); the heady rush of first love (Susie is besotted by the poetry-spouting new boy in school); the happy clutter of a well-adjusted family—and it makes the intrusion of...

Okay kids, ready to take the Leap Year quiz? Let's see if you, too, could have written the script for this painfully predictable romantic comedy.

1. Amy Adams plays our heroine Anna. She's . . .

a. A control freak and closet romantic who has lost sight of the important things in life.

b. A real estate stager by day and dominatrix by night.

c. Secretly a man.

2. Adam Scott plays her boyfriend Jeremy. He's. . .

a. A self-absorbed surgeon without a romantic bone in his body.

b. A surgeon by day, ninja assasin by night.

c. Secretly a woman.

3. When Jeremy goes to Ireland for a medical conference, Anna decides to fly to Dublin to propose to him. What happens?

a. A near-hurricane diverts her plane and she ends up stranded in a quaint Irish village.

b. She arrives safely and proposes to Jeremy.

c. Upon arriving in Dublin, she immediately becomes obsessed with the works of James Joyce and forgets that Jeremy even exists.

...

I am totally loving Robert Downey Jr. v.2.0.

Downey Jr. has always been an extravagantly talented actor—but he was undisciplined, partly due to his well-documented personal problems and partly due to the fact that he was, well, young. But this seasoned Downey Jr. is in full command of  his gifts—and what's more, he's sexier than ever. (Did I just write that out loud?). Casting Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes? Yes, please!

So for its brilliant casting alone, I have to praise Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, even if I agree with those who feel that Ritchie strayed way too far from Arthur Conan Doyle's vision of the character (a Holmes who's kicking butt and taking names? gimme a break.) But the script—doctored by no less than five writers—at least gives Downey Jr. a chance to shine. He makes snappy one-liners, is sharply observant, and amusingly misanthropic—just like the real Holmes.

And like all great actors, Downey Jr. seems to raise the game of those around him. Jude Law, as an exasperated but loyal Watson, hasn't been this appealing in...