Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Mia Wasikowska Review: Sexual panic is the last thing you'd expect to prod Alice to get her ass down a rabbit hole. But, hell, this is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, not your third-grade teacher's version. Scholars of British author Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) will no doubt shriek, "Off with Burton's head!" for the liberties he takes in this 3-D mix of live action and animation. In the script that Linda Woolverton (The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast) has woven, often forcibly, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, things have changed — dramatically. Peter Travers reviews Alice in Wonderland in his weekly video podcast, "At the Movies With Peter Travers." For starters, Alice is no longer seven years old. As played with feminist fire by Mia Wasikowska (so... Rating: 2.5 Stars

Starring: Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Don Cheadle Review: Simultaneously full of itself and full of shit, Brooklyn's Finest is a cop movie so shallow, dumb, derivative and infuriating that it feels like a parody of bad cop movies. From the glaringly obnoxious opening scene of a parked car with its turn signal blinking, blinking, blinking, to the spray of clichés that blast the audience without mercy, this movie is the cinematic equivalent of waterboarding. ( Peter Travers reviews Brooklyn's Finest in his weekly video podcast, "At the Movies With Peter Travers.") We're meant to weep at the tragedy of three cops out of Brooklyn's hardscrabble 65th Precinct. Should Sal (Ethan Hawke) go on the take to support his wife and kids? Will Eddie (Richard Gere) make it to retirement? Can undercover cop Tango (Don Cheadle) come in from the cold before... Rating: Not Rated

Starring: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup Review: Oscar-nominated as Best Foreign Language Film from France, A Prophet is a prison film like The Godfather is a gangster film. Meaning this knockout punch of a thriller surpasses its trappings to speak in a universal language about the ways power corrupts the human condition. Newcomer Tahar Rahim is astounding as Malik, 19, an illiterate Arab who begins serving six years by bootlicking César (Niels Arestrup), an imprisoned Corsican crime boss. César tests Mailk by forcing him to kill a fellow Muslim prisoner. Arestrup is altogether remarkable as a Dr. Frankenstein outmaneuvered by the monster he helps to create. Director Jacques Audiard (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) scores a triumph of the highest order with the defiant poetry of his vision. A Prophet is a new crime... Rating: 4 Stars

Starring: Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Seann William Scott Review: Kevin Smith has taken so much stupid heat for being "too fat to fly" that it would be sweet to report that Cop Out is a return to form for the writer-director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. But Smith didn't even write this hit-and-miss gag machine. ( Peter Travers reviews Cop Out in his weekly video podcast, "At the Movies With Peter Travers.") The credit goes to the Cullen brothers, Robb and Mark. Smith directs, that's it, and oversees a fun rapport between Bruce Willis and comedy MVP Tracy Morgan as NYPD partners trying to track down an invaluable baseball card before getting killed by Mexicans and annoyed to death by a stoner burglar (Seann William Scott). An early scene of Morgan scaring a perp with tough dialogue from movies reminded me of primo... Rating: 2 Stars

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Catrall Review: In the craptacular month of February, when Hollywood typically drowns us in all-star drool like Valentine?s Day, it?s indecent luck having two films in play directed by indisputable masters. First Scorsese?s Shutter Island, and now Roman Polanski?s The Ghost Writer. The Polish director, currently under house arrest in Switzerland awaiting possible extradition to the U.S. for having unlawful sex with a minor in 1977, is in deep doo-doo. But not, in this critic?s view, as a filmmaker. The Ghost Writer, based on the Robert Harris bestseller, shows Polanski in brilliant command of a political thriller that ties you up in knots of tension while zinging politics and showbiz like two sides of the same toxic coin. Polanski, who won a 2002 Oscar for the Holocaust-themed The Pianist,... Rating: 3.5 Stars

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Michelle Williams, Mark Ruffalo Review: Martin Scorsese makes movies as if his life depends on it, never skimping on ferocity and feeling. From Mean Streets to The Departed, Scorsese?s crime films turn the genre on its empty head, shaking out the clichés to uncover the violence of the mind. His latest, Shutter Island, sizzles with so much nerve-frying suspense that it?s hot to the touch. The time is 1954. The place is Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, located off Boston Harbor on a remote island that?s locked as tight as Alcatraz. A Category 5 hurricane is brewing as U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), ferry in to capture Rachel Solando, a killer of her own children who?s escaped from her cell. The Gothic terror kicks in when the storm literally breaks down... Rating: 3.5 Stars