Avatar James Cameron’s long-game gamble pays off - for the most part. The film creates a planet called Pandora, a race of tall, blue cat-people called the Na’vi, and gives them both a dazzlingly colorful rain forest reality - part Rousseau, part George Lucas on inhalants. The 60 percent of the film that comes from the computer is tantalizingly realistic; the roughly 40 percent that’s live action is less convincing. With Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, and Zoe Saldana. (162 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
The Book of Eli Denzel Washington plays a lone dude in post-nuclear America carrying a Very Important tome that frontier boss Gary Oldman wants. It’s basically “The Road’’ with twice the plot, four times the ammunition, and half the brains; it’ll probably make 10 times the money. Costarring Mila Kunis; directed by the Hughes brothers. (118 min., R) (Ty Burr)
Broken Embraces The new film from Pedro Almodovar is both complicated and ridiculously romantic, jumping back and forth between 2008, where a blind mystery writer (Lluis Homar) plots his next move, and the early 1990s, when the writer was a sighted filmmaker in love with his leading lady (Penélope Cruz). The movie is shaped like a heart and structured like a pretzel. It’s narratively anticlimactic but a visual thrill. In Spanish, with subtitles. (125 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
Crazy Heart A familiar tale - fading country musician hits bottom, looks up - enlivened by a great, generous jewel of a performance by Jeff Bridges, our shaggiest of leading men. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a single mom who falls for him against her better judgment; Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall turn up, too. Songs by T Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton. (111 min., R) (Ty Burr)
Daybreakers Michael and Peter Spierig wrote and directed this work of science fiction about an Earth populated with civilized vampires who are almost out of human blood. Ethan Hawke plays a vampire doctor trying for a blood substitute who gets friendly with a band of renegade humans, led by Willem Dafoe. The movie has an unexpected conceptual and formal brilliance, with images that come thrillingly close to art. (98 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
The Hurt Locker This war film focuses on the work of an Army bomb squad and one particularly gifted soldier (Jeremy Renner), who seems to have no fear of roadside bombs. We see and feel how when he disarms a bomb, it’s almost no different from watching a conductor seduce an orchestra or a chef produce a meal. (88 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
Leap Year It’s unclear what Amy Adams did to deserve this movie, but all that’s missing here is a set of jailhouse bars over her scenes. She plays a Boston yuppie who goes to Dublin to propose to her doctor boyfriend (Adam Scott) and winds up smitten with her Irish driver (Matthew Goode). Adams doesn’t own her character’s sense of superiority. She apologizes for it. Although, given the circumstances, it’s hard to blame her. (97 min., PG) (Wesley Morris)
The Lovely Bones A spectacular, cringe-inducing failure as both a book adaptation and a film. Peter Jackson has taken Alice Sebold’s challenging novel - narrated by a murdered girl about the relationships that grow up after her death - and made one disastrous choice after the other. A fine cast (Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci) is wasted. (135 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus A Terry Gilliam movie, which means it’s a grotty, pleasurably indulgent mess. Christopher Plummer plays the 1,000-year-old sorcerer of the title, wearily battling the devil (Tom Waits) through the midnight streets of modern-day London. The late Heath Ledger’s performance has been completed by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell; it’s a gimmick that mostly works. (122 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
In Search of Beethoven Phil Grabsky directs this engaging feature-length introduction to Beethoven’s life and creative achievement. Prominent historians and musicologists provide insight without getting bogged down in the details, and there are snippets of handsome performances from many of the field’s rising and established stars. It’s accessible for classical newcomers yet has enough texture to interest veteran listeners. (139 min., unrated) (Jeremy Eichler)
It’s Complicated Officially, this is a Meryl Streep movie. As a well-to-do baker and businesswoman having an affair with her married ex-husband (Alec Baldwin), Streep deploys all her best moves. But Baldwin’s gusto comes as a shock. He doesn’t steal the movie from her so much as counterpunch with charisma. Written and directed by Nancy Meyers. (122 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
Sherlock Holmes The latest big-screen version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective is a sly, noisy ride: “Pirates of the Caribbean’’ for smart people. Robert Downey Jr. brings his brain, his wits, and his gift for underplaying even as he understands he’s been hired by director Guy Ritchie to play Sherlock Holmes, action hero. With Jude Law (excellent) and Rachel McAdams (less so). (130 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
A Single Man Colin Firth has been our stalwart Hollywood Brit for so long you may have forgotten he can act. Based on the landmark 1964 novel, this casts the star as a closeted gay man mourning the death of his lover - it’s about the grief that dare not speak its name. Fashion designer Tom Ford directs sensitively but without much subtlety; Firth brings the latter. (99 min., R) (Ty Burr)
Skin A drama based on the unhappy story of Sandra Laing (Sophie Okonedo) who was born with black African features to white parents (Sam Neill, Alice Krige) during South African apartheid, raised as white only to feel, in adulthood, more accepted by her oppressed black compatriots. The movie crashes through the levels of fascinating irony until neither the lives nor the story make sense. A few good things have come from the bad of apartheid. This movie isn’t one of them. (88 min., PG) (Wesley Morris)
2009 Sundance Shorts Ten short films from last year’s Sundance Film Festival. The batting average is high: The best, Destin Cretton’s halfway-house drama “Short Term 12,’’ has been shortlisted for a 2010 Oscar, but many of the other films are just as good. (115 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)
The White Ribbon The pristine paradise of a small, Protestant village in pre-World War I Germany is beset by all sorts of unspeakable horrors whose culprits continue to go uncaught. The Austrian writer and director Michael Haneke is determined to keep the ends loose. But that lack of closure turns out to be thrilling. Haneke lays his grim fable and its mysteries at our feet, where we see a picture of future evil develop. (140 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
An archive of movie reviews can be found at www.boston.com/movies. Theaters are subject to change. 
