WALL•E

Pixar's WALL•E is the best 100 minutes I've spent at the movies this year. It may wind up being the best 100 I'll have spent at the movies all year. (The first half seems perfect, and the second half seems merely to be Pixar working at full inspiration, which is the closest thing to perfect.) Prior to WALL•E, I found it impossible to decide whether Toy Story 2 or Finding Nemo or The Incredibles was my favorite of the studio's features. Now they're all fighting for second.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK

Up until its final reel, when the movie lapses into a tiresome big-screen adaptation of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, The Incredible Hulk is a pretty entertaining superhero blockbuster, in large part because it doesn't much feel like a typical superhero blockbuster.

SEX & THE CITY

The experience of the Sex & the City movie was, for me, akin to pissing away a weekend afternoon watching two-and-a-half hours' worth of sitcom episodes, in succession, on DVD; by the time the closing credits rolled, I felt quite entertained, a little exhausted, and vaguely guilty for not doing something more productive with my time.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN

All things considered, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is pretty good, and on a purely technical level, it's more than pretty impressive. In his second stab at C.S. Lewis, director Andrew Adamson has fashioned a continuation that's both darker and lighter than 2005's The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe - the film is admirably grim for a Disney outing, and unlike its predecessor, it maintains a sense of humor throughout - and most of its visuals are extraordinary. Yet I still can't build up much enthusiasm for it, because like many recent works of its kind (including The Golden Compass and the last two Harry Potters), the movie wows you with everything except personality. Prince Caspian is epically scaled, gorgeous, and hollow - a Pirates of the Caribbean without Johnny Depp.