I mean, he really loves the Maryland Film Festival.

As I watched Fast Five, I found myself wondering: Do the makers of HGH (human growth hormone) actually have stock in this movie? I’m not suggesting that both Vin Diesel and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson are on the juice—okay, maybe I am a little—but their bulging biceps (and necks and, uh, skulls) will at the very least inspire others to try the stuff. (Just say no, kids.) More importantly, the film itself seems to be on steroids. It’s a low IQ, high-octane, adrenalized speed ride. I kind of loved it.

Look, if you’re looking for character development, thoughtful dialogue, a sensical plot, you’ve come to the wrong place. But if you’re looking for fast cars, fast women, macho wise cracks, and “how on earth did they pull that off?” stunts, you simply can’t do any better.

Happily, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker have now come to terms with the fact that the Fast franchise may very well be the apex of their careers and they seem okay with it. As federal-agent-turned-fugitive Brian O’Conner, Walker’s acting remains somewhere between laughably wooden and pleasingly deadpan (...

Anytime a beloved book is adapted for the screen, there are going to be some grumblings about the casting (enraged The Hunger Games fans, I’m talkin’ to you).

And so it was when I first heard about the cast of Water for Elephants, everyone’s favorite book of 2006.

Pretty-boy bloodsucker Robert Pattinson as Jacob, the ardent young veterinary student who hops a train and accidentally joins a traveling circus? No way! Ryan Gosling would be perfect in that role.

Snub-nosed all-American cutie Reese Witherspoon as Marlena, the graceful horse trainer and acrobat who enchants him? But Marion Cotillard was clearly Marlena.

The only cast member I sort of got behind was Inglorious Basterd’s Christoph Waltz as August, the circus’s sadistic ringmaster (I’d envisioned Daniel Day Lewis when I read the book, but as second choices go, Waltz is not too shabby).

Oh, how I’d love to report that my reservations were unfounded. . .

...

With Hanna, director Joe Wright (Atonement) is trying to create something that is part art film, part international action film, and part fairy tale (Terence Malick meets Run Lola Run meets The Brothers Grimm, you might say). And, at least for its first hour or so, his strange hybrid casts an undeniable spell.

When we first meet 16-year-old Hanna (mesmerizing Saoirse Ronan) she is hunting a buck in the forest with a bow and arrow. She has wild, nearly-white hair and placid blue eyes, and she moves swiftly and stealthily after her prey. She shoots the buck, it staggers forward a few yards, and collapses, not yet dead.

“I missed your heart,” she says matter-of-factly. She then pulls out a gun and shoots the deer in the head.

Hanna is being raised in the forest by her father Erik (Eric Bana)—and he’s teaching her more than just survival skills. He’s training her to be an elite assassin and a world scholar. But he knows that their little idyll is temporary. Soon, she’ll want to leave the nest and explore the world on...