The 'Spy Next Door' trailer

After making a name for herself in 2006's 'The Devil Wears Prada,' Emily Blunt has looked to secure that next rite of passage for an actress with big career aspirations: the Victorian period drama.

And she's mostly well-received by critics for her work in the independently distributed 'The Young Victoria,' even though the consensus is -- as is typical with this slow-paced genre -- the movie comes off a little flat. Read the reviews and tell us what you think.

The New Yorker: "From the start, it feels handsome, steady, and stuck; the ties that bind the historical bio-pic are no looser than those which constrain a royal personage, and the frustration to which Victoria would later admit ('I had led a very unhappy life as a child -- had no scope for my very violent feelings of affection') is legible in the face of Emily Blunt, who takes the title role."

Boxoffice Magazine: "The term "heritage cinema" seems to have been invented for British films that dwell on elements of the nation's chequered history, much of which finds a ready market overseas. The 'Young Victoria' is no exception -- a beautifully mounted and costumed odyssey into the early life of the monarch. With a script by Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for Gosford Park, 'The Young Victoria' positively sizzles with impeccable pedigree."

Entertainment Weekly: "On Wikipedia, you can find the first photograph of Queen Victoria (it's from 1844), and though she looks younger and more relaxed than the famous image we're used to -- the frowning dowager in her black lace widow's kerchief -- she's a far cry from ... well, Emily Blunt. Blunt, however, is such a wily and playful actress that in 'The Young Victoria,' she makes her twinkly ivory radiance fit the role. Her beauty comes off not as the usual period eye candy but as an expression of Victoria's inner grace -- her deceptive ability to go with the flow."

The Village Voice: "Man, British heritage cinema can be dull when assembly-lined for the export market. Laboring under lampshade millinery, hair that looks like cake, and more sumptuous banqueting than we should ever have to sit through, Emily Blunt is cute, sassy, and wildly improbable as the titular Majesty-in-waiting, who, in life, was a short, dumpy policy wonk and energetic social reformer."

The New York Observer: "In the otherwise somber 'The Young Victoria,' vivacious Emily Blunt, who did so much for stiletto heels in 'The Devil Wears Prada,' puts a modern spin on the famously poised and longest-reigning monarch in British history. This is a lavish and lovingly detailed period piece that attempts to re-create England's last golden age, but the enchanting Ms. Blunt is the whole movie, and it wouldn't register even a small bleep on the Richter scale without her. She puts the Vicki in the young Victoria."

Time Out New York: "This isn't your great-great-great grandfather's highness, all unamused frowns; this Victoria is a wide-eyed Emily Blunt, cooing at her doggie and getting busy with her future husband (Rupert Friend). (Director Jean-Marc) Vallée and his lead get high marks for kittenish revisionism. In all other respects, however, this movie is indistinguishable from every other throne-and-scepter biopic to hit the screen."

Metromix: "Of course the sets are lavish. Blunt also acquits herself nicely to a withdrawn role, and for a few minutes the film makes internal politics within the palace seem interesting. Mostly 'The Young Victoria' is just an unfocused tale of royal fussiness-surrounded by a bland love story, which is then followed by a closing note about all the wonderful things Victoria went on to do. It's presented as if to say, 'By the way, here's why you should care about what you just slept through.'"

The Herald Sun (Australia): "With original casting choice Keira Knightley quite rightly having been deemed too skinny'n'chinny for the lead role, Emily Blunt takes over with surprising aplomb. Which is just as well, because the script for 'The Young Victoria' is a tad flat."

After previously teaming on 'Two Weeks Notice' and 'Music and Lyrics,' writer-director Marc Lawrence and Hugh Grant are back together on the romantic comedy beat with 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' which co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker.

For their part, critics have not been kind, noting a distinct lack of chemistry between Grant and Parker. Take a look at the reviews and tell us what you think.

The Hollywood Reporter: "As with most mainstream comedies, you get nearly all of the story line and most of the best jokes in 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' from its trailer. This fish-out-of-water romantic comedy about a warring upscale Manhattan couple forcibly relocated to the American heartland is marginally better than writer-director Marc Lawrence's 'Music and Lyrics' and 'Two Weeks Notice,' but not even the estimable comic chops of Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker can lift it above the level of ordinary."

The Orlando Sentinel: "Sandra Bullock hitched her career to writer and later writer-director Marc Lawrence when he scripted 'Forces of Nature.' She stayed with him through the 'Miss Congeniality' hits and up to 'Two Weeks Notice' (2002). Then Bullock weaned herself from Lawrence's brand of gimmicky, wan and witless comedies and lived to stage a comeback this year. But Bullock passed Lawrence on, like a bad penny, to Hugh Grant, her co-star in 'Two Weeks Notice.' And Grant can't seem to kick the Lawrence habit. 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?,' Grant's third film with Lawrence, may be his overdue intervention. Unfunny and tone-deaf, it pairs Grant with Sarah Jessica Parker, with whom he has no chemistry, and gives neither of them anything funny to say or play."

'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' Trailer


'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' showtimes and tickets
More 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' reviews on RottenTomatoes

The Miami Herald: "In 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker are supposed to pass for a married couple, but they have all the chemistry of two actors who just met and shook hands moments before the cameras rolled."

Screen International: "Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker co-star to limited effect in 'Did You Hear About The Morgans?' a serviceable but uninspired romantic comedy with a familiar fishes-out-of-water backdrop. Writer-director Marc Lawrence previously worked with Grant on 'Music & Lyrics' and 'Two Weeks Notice' but this latest collaboration might struggle to match even the mid-level box office performances of those earlier romcoms."

Chicago Tribune: "Pure, communal silence can be a wonderful thing, and if you haven't experienced any lately, I commend you to see the first available screening of the new romantic comedy 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' Each of its theoretical punch lines is preceded by an eerie second or two of dead air, followed by the jokelike "payoff," guiltily delivered by one of its game cast members, followed by a longer awkward pause. It's not just the sound of crickets you hear watching this movie. It's the sound of dead crickets."

The Seattle Times: "In the flat romantic comedy 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' writer/ director Marc Lawrence at least got the casting right: Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker, on paper at least, sound as if they should create charming, funny sparks. But once he's put them together, Lawrence seems to just stand back and wait for something to happen, like a scientist who's combined two elements and is expecting an explosion. I saw the movie early this week, and I'm still waiting; presumably Grant and Parker are too."

L.A. Weekly: "Let's be honest here: 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' is multiplex meringue compared to the meat-and-potatoes cinema at this most award-whoring time of year. Which is fine. Better than fine, frankly, as Hugh Grant yet again proves he's the most reliable deadpan smart-ass this or that side of the Atlantic -- and the actor Paul Rudd should aspire to be once he grows out of his bromantic period."

St. Louis Post Dispatch: "If you didn't hear about 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?' here's what you need to know: It's a fish-out-of-water comedy by Marc Lawrence ('Forces of Nature'), who emerges every couple years to steal another paycheck."

Did Sandra Bullock make a wise choice by steering clear of 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?'

Yes	3 (75.0%)
No	1 (25.0%)

The Sun: "'Avatar,' out next Thursday, is truly an event movie. The Sneak still recalls sitting in a cinema 12 years ago watching awestruck as 'Titanic' slipped beneath the Atlantic waves. And your critic is sure that, even when he is pushing a Zimmer, he will remember the moment the main spaceship of the baddie corporation goes down in 'Avatar.'It is overwhelming, and that is because you are emotionally tied up in the characters and the story."

The Independent: "A paraplegic marine sent to a new planet, armed with a virtual body, to ingratiate himself with locals in order to gain their trust and subsequently destroy them? Sounds like the plot of a bad sci-film film. But as it turns out, it's the plot of a highly entertaining sci-fi film -- that being, of course, 'Avatar,' one of the most anticipated films of recent years."

Do these reviews make you want to see 'Avatar'?

Yes	1708 (74.9%)
No	348 (15.3%)
Maybe	225 (9.9%)

Variety reports that writer Peter Iliff ('Patriot Games,' 'Varsity Blues,' 'Under Suspicion') has been hired to adapt the cheesy 1990s TV game show into a live-action film. There's also a release-date target: sometime in 2011.

Don't look now, but that 'American Gladiators' movie adaptation you heard about last spring is actually moving forward.

Variety reports that writer Peter Iliff ('Patriot Games,' 'Varsity Blues,' 'Under Suspicion') has been hired to adapt the cheesy 1990s TV game show into a live-action film. There's also a release-date target: sometime in 2011.

In case you haven't heard, Johnny Ferraro, producer of the 'American Gladiators' TV show that ran in syndication in the U.S. from 1989-1996, on the NBC network schedule for two Hulk-Hogan-hosted cycles starting last year, plans on making a 'Gladiators' movie.

He's enlisted the help of producer Scott Mednick, who has already successfully transitioned the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' franchise onto the big screen. Mednick also has credits on '300,' 'Superman Returns' and 'Where the Wild Things Are.'

Details are still sketchy, since there's still no script, but the plan seems to be to adapt the muscular body builders and wannabe porn stars for the original TV runs - who went by names like "Hammer," "Beast," "Mayhem," "Phoenix" and "Venom" -- into movie superheroes.

On the surface, this may seem like a waste of production dollars. After all, NBC wasn't entirely successful in rekindling interest in the 'Gladiators' brand recently.

But hold onto your spandex. NBC has a lot of trouble launching anything these days, and the 'Gladiators' brand carries weight internationally.

In addition to a solid seven-year weekly syndication run, which had a decent core audience in the States, 'Gladiators' was distributed into more than 90 countries, 14 of which adapted the format themselves.

In case you never caught the show, it revolved around Average Joe contestants, who would try to beat a regular crew of muscular "gladiators" in numerous challenges in order to win cash prizes. Challenges included things like trying to get past a hulking gladiator on a balance beam.

1. Will Ferrell ($3.29)

2. Ewan McGregor ($3.75)

3. Billy Bob Thornton ($4)

4. Eddie Murphy ($4.43)

5. Ice Cube ($4.77)

7. Drew Barrymore ($7.43)

8. Leonardo DiCaprio ($7.52)

9. Samuel Jackson ($8.59)

10. Jim Carrey ($8.62)

That includes Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story,' which was left off the shortlist just like the muckraking filmmaker's most commercially successful effort to date, 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' was in 2004.

'The Beaches of Agnes,' Agnès Varda
'Burma VJ,' Anders Ostergaard
'The Cove,' Louie Psihoyos
'Every Little Step,' Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern
'Facing Ali,' Pete McCormack
'Food, Inc.,' Robert Kenner
'Garbage Dreams,'Mai Iskander
'Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders,' Mark N. Hopkins
'The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,' Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
'Mugabe and the White African,' Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson
'Sergio,' Greg Barker

Read the reviews after the jump and tell us what you think.

Read the reviews below and tell us what you think.

The New York Times: "Richard Kelly, the writer and director of the much-loved 'Donnie Darko' and much-loathed 'Southland Tales,' has a thing for the apocalypse. Like those films, his latest, 'The Box' is sincere and sinister and inevitably ambitious, a serious work that insists on its own seriousness even when it edges toward the preposterous. As in his earlier films, he is again using genre (and pretty actors) as a vehicle to ask questions about the human condition (and conditioning) amid a thicket of high, low and trash cultural allusions and against a backdrop of impending doom. But the end isn't nigh in Mr. Kelly's world. It's here."

The Los Angeles Times: "Have you ever actually tried watching paint dry? A sloth walk? Grass grow? You can have all the 'thrills' with none of the chills courtesy of 'The Box,' the painfully sluggish new sci-fi morality play from 'Donnie Darko' creator Richard Kelly. It's as if its stars, Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as the financially strapped yuppie couple Norma and Arthur, were on a continuous, prime-time-mandated 10-second delay."

MSNBC: "'The Box' is like a magician's prop: It gives the illusion that it's full of stuff -- ideas, portents, clues, meaning -- when actually, it's as empty as the heroines' heads in Diaz's 'Charlie's Angels' flicks."

'The Box' Trailer

'The Box' showtimes and tickets

Hollywood Reporter: "OK, there is really only one box, but as a convoluted yet unconvincing story evolves, metaphorical boxes get pulled out of boxes as the plot winds its way through suspense, psychological thriller, science fiction, conspiracy theory and horror genres with an overlay of Christian religious motifs and a dab of existentialism. Oh, there's also a lot of nose bleeding."

Newark Star-Ledger: "Yet even as Kelly adds unnecessary detail, he takes the story on interesting tangents. There's a man struck by -- and changed by -- lightning (a nod, perhaps, to the Matheson story 'One for the Books'). There's some murky doings at NASA, a dose of old Jean-Paul Sartre, and lots of groovy sideburns and wallpaper (the story is set in '76)."

Screen International: "Richard Kelly's third feature is more accessible than his second, the impenetrable and financially disastrous 'Southland Tales,' but less arresting than his first, cult classic 'Donnie Darko.' Playing like an over-extended if well-mounted 'Twilight Zone' episode, 'The Box' has more commercial potential than its writer-director's earlier efforts, thanks to the casting of Cameron Diaz and the popularity of a new wave of 'Zone'-influenced TV shows ('Lost,' 'Fringe,' et al). Yet it still seems unlikely to appeal much beyond its limited core audience of weird-loving fantasy/sci-fi fans."

Variety: "Pushing a few of the right buttons and plenty of the wrong ones, 'The Box' reps a dicey mainstream effort by enfant terrible Richard Kelly following the doomed exploits of 2006's 'Southland Tales.' Expanding a Richard Matheson story into a '70s-set thriller in which a couple is besieged by space-age conspiracies, nose-bleeding zombies and quotations from Jean-Paul Sartre, the pic reveals the hazards of taking 'Twilight Zone' material too far and too seriously. Still, Kelly's trademark mix of sci-fi, surrealism and suburbia occasionally entertains, while Cameron Diaz should carry the cult helmer into more commercial playpens."