The opening shot of writer/director Sofia Coppola’s meticulously sumptuous The Beguiled shows a young girl carrying a basket and singing without a care in the world – her steps providing the tune’s rhythm – in a tunnel of trees. It’s sunny out, but the converging crowns mean she’s walking in the dark wood. When she happens upon an injured Union soldier (Colin Farrell) while picking mushrooms, it’s impossible to avoid a single thought: Big Bad Wolf.

The girl helps the man back to her secluded Virginia boarding school for girls – which just happens to have seven female residents. They’re not dwarves, but Corporal John McBurney (once his wounded leg is mostly healed) does help with some groundskeeping. So he’s also Snow White.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Kit Harington in PompeiiPOMPEII

About a half-hour into Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii, the film's protagonist - a gladiator-turned-slave amusingly named Milo - hears the unfamiliar sound of the nearby Mount Vesuvius preparing to erupt. "It is the mountain," says Milo's comrade Atticus. "It grumbles from time to time." So do movie reviewers, and this latest 3D action spectacle by the director of Mortal Kombat, Death Race, and a trio of Resident Evil flicks would, at first glance, appear to be exactly the sort of thing I'd personally grumble about: a predictably corny, derivative, overscaled costume party with loads of generic violence and nothing in the way of subtlety or emotional nuance.

Yet while it's easy to name the movie's most direct influences, Gladiator and Titanic chief among them, what I didn't at all expect was for this swords-and-sandals outing to be so thoroughly, cheerfully indebted to 1970s disaster epics in the vein of The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure; Pompeii, to its cheeky credit, is kind of like 1974's Earthquake with the ancient Roman city cast in the role of Los Angeles.

Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks in Saving Mr. BanksSAVING MR. BANKS

Saving Mr. Banks concerns the efforts of the crinkly-eyed Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) in getting the persnickety, Hollywood-averse British author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) to sign over the book rights to Mary Poppins. (Spoiler Alert: He does.) And as it's a Disney movie about a Disney movie with Disney products and Disney people - including Uncle Walt himself - popping up nearly every time you blink, the cynic in me resisted director John Lee Hancock's dramatic comedy for as long as humanly possible. Then Thompson's seemingly impenetrable Travers broke down while watching the Banks family sing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" at Mary Poppins' first public screening, and I was a goner. Aw crap, I thought while wiping away tears. Two more minutes and I would've been fine.

Bradley Cooper, Zach Gailianakis, and Ed Helms in The Hangover Part IIITHE HANGOVER PART III

Not long into The Hangover Part III, our mishap-prone heroes portrayed by Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis are seen sipping beers at a karaoke bar, discussing the best way to handle their latest mess initiated by Ken Jeong's eccentric gangster/eternal thorn-in-the-side Mr. Chow. Though this might constitute a minor spoiler, the casual drinks consumed in this scene are, to my recollection, the only drinks - indeed, the only judgment-impairing substances of any kind - consumed in the entire movie. That makes director Todd Phillips' outing a Hangover without hangovers. In the end, it's also a Hangover without The Hangover.

James Franco in Oz the Great & PowerfulOZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL

As numerous effect-heavy entertainments have proved over the years, few film actors, and even fewer good ones, look altogether comfortable performing in wholly pixelated landscapes opposite wholly digitized characters. Yet I'm not sure I've seen any star look less connected with his artificial environment than James Franco does in Oz the Great & Powerful, director Sam Raimi's mega-budgeted and intensely disappointing prequel to The Wizard of Oz.

John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Ben Affleck in ArgoARGO

It sounds like an all-too-Hollywood idea for a high-concept suspense thriller: A sextet of State Department employees are trapped in Iran, and their only hope for escape lies with an ingenious CIA official who plans to free the Americans by having them pose as a location-scouting team for a Canadian science-fiction movie. Yet within its first minutes, director/star Ben Affleck's Argo - based on a recently declassified chapter of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80 - registers as terrifically, nerve-rackingly authentic, even if the film's most enjoyable elements are, in truth, as Hollywood as they come.

Colin Farrell in Total RecallTOTAL RECALL

Beyond its rather stunning scenic design, the best thing about director Len Wiseman's new Total Recall update is Kate Beckinsale, which is pretty surprising, considering that this admittedly capable, inarguably gorgeous performer really hasn't been the best thing about any of her previous movies.

Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway in One DayONE DAY

When Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) first meet in director Lone Scherfig's One Day, it's the morning after their 1988 university graduation, and a few minutes before the happily drunken pair tumbles into Emma's bed. They don't wind up consummating their flirtation, but the young Brits - and best-friends-to-be - seem perfectly content to smile and snuggle while the sun rises, and Emma makes the observation that the new day, July 15, is the English near-holiday of St. Swithin's Day. Or, as Scherfig's comedy/drama/romance might cause me to think of it from now on, St. "Well, Isn't That an Astounding Coincidence?" Day.

Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, and Jason Bateman in Horrible BossesHORRIBLE BOSSES

It's kind of a shame that the Farrelly brothers' Three Stooges movie is currently in the process of filming. Is it too late for the directors to re-cast it with Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day in the leads?

Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher in No Strings AttachedNO STRINGS ATTACHED

Against all expectations, at least my expectations, director Ivan Reitman's No Strings Attached is a perfectly enjoyable piece of midwinter fluff, engaging and breezy and of no consequence whatsoever. Yet I'll admit to being somewhat shocked when, two days after seeing it, I replayed the notes I quietly recorded during my screening, and discovered that I didn't whisper even one criticism or complaint in the whole of its 105 minutes, which is a claim I can't even make about The Social Network.

Then again, the movie is a formulaic romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher, so I suppose the complaints do take care of themselves.

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