Young friends touring Europe pick up a transplanted sibling in Kiev who surprises them with an extreme tour to the remains of Chernobyl. These four are cavalier, athletic and about as old as the tragedy—as far as they're concerned, they're having a jaunt to edgy Pompeii. With a premise this insensitive you can expect low-rent scares and a plot that's unaware some people on earth think about the movies they watch. The closest thing Chernobyl Diaries has to savvy is a found footage intro that briefly travelogues the kids' trip before their Kiev reunion—it's the only time the look is faithfully employed—and the real low-expectation mark is the derivative gag the film treats like a third act shocker.

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As the living epitome of an austere "European" sensibility that's led to heartfelt and harrowing masterpieces from The Piano Teacher to The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke's won acclaim for his oeuvre, and even some American name-recognition among more serious cinephiles. His latest, Love, is both a departure from and a representation of his work to date, an intimate tale of two long-married 80-somethings in the twilight of their years, facing the challenge of what happens when the light begins dipping irreversibly to darkness. The box office will be limited to the a...

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Released a week shy of Men in Black's 15th anniversary, Men in Black 3 is exactly what you'd expect: amiable mediocrity and nicely laid-back performances with pricy special effects plugging in the gaps where jokes should be. Though American audiences rebelled against the slightly more manic sequel, all three films are effectively the same. Once again, smart-talking Agent J (Will Smith) and amusingly unflappable Agent K (Josh Brolin) must save the Earth from imminent alien conquest and general catastrophe. This time, however, it's happening in 1969 after J travels back to team up with a younger version of his partner (back in 2012, Tommy Lee Jones is around for what's effectively a 2nd-billed cameo).

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Three is the charm for DreamWorks Animation's entertaining installment of their popular Madagascar franchise. In fact, Europe's Most Wanted is so full of laughs and great characters, it's easily the best in the series. Like Toy Story 3, the Madagascar gang just gets better with time, and this new adventure is funny, exciting and heartwarming. Opening where the second left off with the zoo gang stuck in Africa, the sequel quickly transports them to the south of France where they concoct a plan to find their way back to New York by taking jobs with a traveling circus.

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It's a practice to cast friends in independent films—it's free and if your friends are also filmmakers, their appearance does double duty as PR—and if your social/professional circle is on the rise, your film could read like a veritable who's-who of Hipsterati. That's the case with Alex Ross Perry's The Color Wheel, a film about how outwardly alienating our circles are (much to the detriment of our careers) and how caustic our supposedly nurturing intimacies can be at the same time. If you believe what you see here, everyone in the Northeast is petulant, either because they're regressing or painstakingly going through the motions of "adulthood." If you're looking for parents, you won't find them.

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A suffocatingly current post-romantic comedy about a girl named Lola (Greta Gerwig) who's dumped three weeks before her wedding, Lola Versus arrives with a pedigree that suggests it should be better than it sounds. It isn't. The implacably trite script, directed by Daryl Wein from a script he co-wrote with Zoe Lister Jones, is too content with mild laughs and sitcom-simple life lessons to ever make much use of its richly talented cast. Gerwig's floaty charm is complimented by the likes of Hamish Linklater, Joel Kinnaman and a bunch of other young actors who've become exciting new faces precisely because they've managed to avoid material this bland.

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Given the prestigious opening night slot at Cannes, director/co-writer Wes Anderson finds himself in competition for the first time at the French film festival—and Moonrise Kingdom is worthy of prizes. The director of quirky fare with a rabid cult-like following (Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, The Life Aquatic, The Fantastic Mr. Fox) has made a charming, magical and really funny new work about two unique young kids discovering love over one unforgettable summer, and it's the director's most accessible movie yet. Opening in America on May 25, strong word of mouth and a marquee cast could turn this Kingdom into Anderson's biggest box office hit to date, and it should prove a critical hit and awards magnet.

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