GREEN ZONE

Set in Baghdad during the early months of 2002, director Paul Greengrass' action thriller Green Zone casts Matt Damon as a stalwart, driven military officer who gradually discovers that the American government lied about the proliferation - even the existence - of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. This might strike you as old news, and it is. The disappointing surprise of Green Zone, though, is that the movie itself should feel like such old news, and in ways that have nothing to do with Greengrass and Damon re-teaming after the considerable artistic and popular successes of their Bourne Supermacy and Bourne Ultimatum films.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Beginning with 2001's Planet of the Apes remake, Tim Burton has cast domestic partner Helena Bonham Carter in all six of his most recent feature films, and he's never made better use of her beguiling, somewhat perverse charisma than in his new take on Alice in Wonderland.

COP OUT

I bow to no one in my adoration for Chasing Amy, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks, and Clerks II. Still, I think it's safe to say that even those of us who frequently love the movies of New Jersey auteur Kevin Smith have always kind of wished he'd find a different director for them. His profanely hilarious, emotionally direct scripts can be exhilarating, but can you imagine how much better they might've played under the guidance of someone who actually knew where and how to position a camera?

SHUTTER ISLAND

Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's operatically paranoid adaptation of Dennis Lehane's 2003 suspense thriller, is easily the best movie of 2010 thus far, so it seems a bit churlish to wish that was higher praise. Don't get me wrong: Even running a wildly overlong 138 minutes, the film is mostly terrific, and one of the very rare works of its kind in which your interest actually increases during the final reels. Yet given Scorsese's glorious technical acumen and the efforts of a ridiculously gifted cast, I still left the cineplex feeling that it just missed greatness, and not even greatness along the lines of GoodFellas or The Departed - more like the genre excellence of Scorsese's 1991 remake of Cape Fear. Shutter Island is a strong, worthy offering, yet as far as this year's releases go, it's only a few degrees more satisfying than Youth in Revolt or Daybreakers. But hey, it's early - I'll happily take it.

PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF

Just because the title is rather unwieldy, and the film is about an adolescent with otherworldly abilities, and this kid has male and female tag-along pals with powers of their own, and there are a lot of CGI effects on display, and the director is Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets helmer Chris Columbus, don't think that Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is necessarily indebted to J.K. Rowling. The latest Harry Potter movie, after all, found its hero contending with a Half-Blood Prince. This adventure, on the other hand, finds its son-of-Poseidon protagonist attending Camp Half-Blood. See? They're not even remotely similar.