Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds trade bodies, but this comedy does little to switch up a familiar movie formula
Movies
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Chimpan-tastic!
As both a simian simile and a wonder of technology, this reboot is a triumph — the year’s finest action movie
Cowboys & Aliens: Two Great Genres, One Mediocre Movie
Hollywood sharpies spend endless hours at pitch meetings dreaming up hybrids of famous movies, and sometimes they hit pay dirt. “It’s like Jaws, but on a spaceship”: Alien. Then the hybrid blossoms into its own format until it …
Top 20 Worst Summer Blockbusters
Maybe it’s the heat, but there’s something about the dog days of summer that sends people running to bad blockbusters in droves. TIME takes a look back at the worst big-budget flicks of steamy seasons past.
Captain America: Been There, Saved That
Approach Captain America: The First Avenger with caution. It could leave you super-pooped and quite possibly super-duped
Friends with Benefits: Soft Porn, Meet Snarky Charm
Romantic comedies tend to be lousy. This is a given that director Will Gluck’s Friends with Benefits uses to its advantage. It revels in poking fun at the formula that of course it won’t be able to avoid: pretty people fall in …
Another Earth: Sister from Another Planet
Screenwriter-star Brit Marling enters a new atmosphere in the dreamy sci-fi film Another Earth
Happy Sweet 16: Top 10 Reasons Why Clueless Is Still Awesome
As our favorite ’90s teen movie turns sweet 16, TIME takes a look at its best moments
Top 10 Long-Running Movie Franchises
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,” will be one of 2011’s highest-grossing films. TIME takes a look at other gargantuan film franchises.
Life, Above All: A Frank Capra Vision of a Devastating Plight
A wise child in desperate straits is the soul of this affecting South African drama
Tabloid: The Honey Blonde and the ‘Manacled Mormon’
After Errol Morris’s more sobering films, this larkish documentary about a beauty queen gone bad plays like a vacation at a seedy seaside resort
The Undefeated: Her Holiness Sarah Palin
Stephen K. Bannon’s The Undefeated is a worshipful, no-warts biopic of Sarah Palin, a former Miss Wasilla who could be the next President of the United States — if she only had the time
Winnie the Pooh: A Sublimely Silly Old Bear
Disney aims for a new classic and succeeds