Michael Caine

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO (No-Spoiler Promise!) – In a Hollywood test tube, pour one part Michael Bay and his pure “Transformers” eye candy plus another part Quentin Tarantino with his rich writing and masterful characters. The resulting mutation is Christopher Nolan and his near-perfect Batman conclusion – “The Dark Knight Rises” – to one of the greatest trilogies of all time.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – With “The Dark Knight Rises”, Christopher Nolan epically follows through on most of the themes he set up in “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” with amazing technical skill and an ambitious sense of scope. No one can deny the effort and intensity of this closing chapter of the most acclaimed superhero saga in the history of film.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Sound the gong for one of the best films of the summer, as “The Dark Knight Rises” delivers an awe-inspiring blockbuster on virtually every level of storytelling and performance. Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and director Christopher Nolan create grand, metaphoric and visionary cinema.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – If you hear an unusual sound this weekend, it may be Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jonathan Swift spinning in their graves. The writers who have become an essential part of any growing person’s library have now been associated with a piece of 3D junk that insults the intelligence of everyone who sees it. “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” is not a trip worth taking.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Cars 2” is an unequal Pixar blend for adults and kiddies that never evolves into the storytelling success of its predecessor. The film, which draws thematic elements from “The Bourne Identity,” “Beverly Hillbillies” and “Transformers,” is a Honda needing a body shop as compared to the pristine Ferrari that was “Cars”.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – As movie animation domination continues, “Gnomeo and Juliet” throws its stone cap into the ring, and has a lively story that tweaks it source, while respecting its power. James McAvoy and Emily Blunt are the voices of the star-crossed lovers, with the addition of familiar vocals from Michael Caine and Ozzy Osbourne, among others.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

CHICAGO – After thinking it’d take “a couple months” to ink, director Christopher Nolan (of “The Dark Knight” fame) took eight years to painstakingly write the “Inception” script. And you can tell. It’s his first pure masterpiece.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Who needs the Dark Knight when there is Michael Caine, not as Alfred the Butler, but as the Vigilante Retiree and title character in “Harry Brown.” And he does it all without a rubber suit, just tons of firepower.

Rating: 5.0/5.0 (rarely perfect)

CHICAGO – With only three short words comprising the film’s enigmatic title, “The Dark Knight” also boasts three epic claims to fame: the role of a lifetime for the late Heath Ledger as the hauntingly deranged Joker, one of the best films of 2008 and one of the greatest superhero films of all time.

CHICAGO – As this year of heist films set in London continues (“The Bank Job” was last month), “Flawless” does adhere to the rules of successful application of this genre.