Eric Bana in Deliver Us from EvilJuly 2, 10:40 a.m.-ish: My screenings begin with the demonic-possession thriller Deliver Us from Evil, and I notice, during the "found footage" prelude, that the action begins on the Fourth of July. So, clearly, the film is being released at the right time. Ninety minutes later, I notice, during the climactic exorcism, that the action ends on 4/20. So, clearly, the filmmakers were high.

The Lego MovieTHE LEGO MOVIE

Two of the characters in The Lego Movie are Lego Minifigures of Superman and Green Lantern, the latter of whom, here, is an obsequious suck-up whom the Man of Steel can't stand. That's a good joke. These decided non-friends are voiced by Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, who famously played best friends in 21 Jump Street. That's a good in-joke. The Lego Movie is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also directed 21 Jump Street. That's a good in-in-joke. But the news that this new animated release is not only the cleverest, most hysterical comedy since 21 Jump Street, but an altogether stronger, more audacious piece of work than at least 90 percent of everything Hollywood gave us last year? No joke at all.

Matt Damon in ElysiumELYSIUM

In Neill Blomkamp's Elysium, the sophomore sci-fi effort from the writer/director of District 9, the Earth of 2154 is a poverty-infested hell-hole that the richest of humans have evacuated for the gleaming, rotating space habitat of the film's title. An orbiting gated community of luxury, privilege, and (from what we can tell) almost universally white people, it's the utopia that our hero, Matt Damon's steelworker Max, longs to escape to, particularly after a fatal dose of radiation limits his time left on Earth to five days. (Medical advances on Elysium have eradicated disease completely; after one cycle through a futuristic CAT-scan machine, even cancer cells are killed.) The unaddressed joke of Blomkamp's film, however, is that Elysium - with its sterile mansions and perfectly mowed lawns and vacuous non-entities sipping champagne from crystal flutes - looks like a dismally dull place to be compared to the lively, recognizably human Earth, even in its decimated state. What's less of a joke is that Elysium itself, once we land on the titular site in its last half hour, is also dismally dull - or at least, dishearteningly formulaic - compared to the Earth-set goings-on of the film's first 70 minutes.

Naomi Watts and Tom Holland in The ImpossibleTHE IMPOSSIBLE

Juan Antonio Bayona's The Impossible, based on one family's experiences in the wake of 2004's horrific Asia tsunami, is a supremely well-designed, emotionally draining disaster tale, and its opening minutes filled me with great dread. If only that dread were caused by the approaching tsunami.

Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Dyan McDermott, and Will Ferrell in The CampaignTHE CAMPAIGN

As the movie's trailers have been running since what feels like the last presidential campaign, it's understandable if viewers enter the Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis political spoof The Campaign worried that all of the hilarious bits have already been spoiled for them. The wonderful surprise of director Jay Roach's comedy, however, is that they haven't - not unless viewers have somehow been privy to a trailer that lasts 85 minutes.

Jeremy Irvine in War HorseWAR HORSE

A grandly scaled adventure about a boy who gets a horse, then loses the horse, then joins the British infantry to find the horse, War Horse is the sort of triumphant, lump-in-the-throat epic that director Steven Spielberg should be able to pull off in his sleep. Consequently, the highest compliment I can pay the movie is that its helmer, at all times, appears to be fully awake here. There's palpable filmmaking energy in nearly every shot, and several passages in this World War I family drama are so thrilling and painful and spectacularly well-choreographed that they rank among the finest in Spielberg's career.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 1

We're now four films into the five-part series of Stephenie Meyer adaptations, and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is the first one that I wouldn't hesitate to call unpredictable. As someone who couldn't care less about the tortured love triangle involving the human Bella (Kristen Stewart), the vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson), and the lycanthrope Jacob (Taylor Lautner), I was confident that this moody romance would perk up with an added dash of Rosemary's Baby, once the now-married Bella found herself pregnant with Edward's child. (So the undead have living sperm, then?) But how could I have guessed this would be the exact moment that, at least for me, the movie stopped being interesting?

Jude Law in ContagionCONTAGION

I'm presuming, and hoping, that a bunch of you spent your weekend's cineplex allowances on Contagion, director Steven Soderbergh's bleak, elegant, deeply disturbing thriller about the planet's decimation by a new strain of flu-like virus. I'm also praying that none of you saw it while on a date, because I can barely imagine how awkward the drive home must've been. One cough or casual touch from your movie-going companion and you'd be frantically ransacking the car for hand sanitizer and a surgeon's mask.

InsidiousINSIDIOUS

It features every cliché in the haunted-house handbook. It borrows liberally from other, iconic horror movies. It's by the director of the original Saw and the slightly more bearable killer-mannequin flick Dead Silence. And for all of the momentary jolts provided by the loud bangs and shrieking violins on its soundtrack, the most shocking thing about Insidious is how irrationally good it is.

RangoRANGO

I spent the past several days enjoying a vacation halfway across the country, and am consequently getting my reviews written a few days later than usual. In terms of reviewing the animated Rango, though, I'm quite grateful for the delay, because I so rarely get the chance to write about movies that I love after I've seen them a second time. Had the vacation lasted longer, I might've even gone for a third.

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