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Though not nearly as baffling as when David Lynch swore off celluloid or when Al Green went full gospel, French animator Michel Ocelot’s decision to go computer animation is still a damn, dirty shame. Best known for the beloved West African-set Kirikou films, Ocelot stands out from the ‘toon lot with his flat, two-dimensional images and his refusal to stray from drawing by hand. Now that even Disney is retreating back to cel animation, Ocelot makes a too belated segue into the world of 1s and 0s. And with that, one of the most instantly recognizable imagists of our time has made a film that could easily be confused with some anonymous videogame.

Azur & Asmar tells the story of Azur, a blond, blue-eyed boy, raised alongside Asmar, the dark-skinned son of the family maid. Those fearing some Fox and the Hound/Boy in the Striped Pajamas-style sermonizing needn’t worry. The kids are separated almost immediately by Azur’s cold-hearted pop and aren’t reunited until later when Azur, now a young adult, ventures to Asmar’s unnamed Middle Eastern homeland. To do what? Why, to track down the Djinn Fairy from a story Asmar’s mom used to spin when they were children and which, in this otherwise realistic film, is completely legit.

That’s one of the striking elements of Azur & Asmar—its strange, unwieldy mix of realism and fantasy, as well as its even wobblier melding of racial politics and eye-popping fantasy. Ocelot’s original (though cheerfully derivative) Arabian folk tale may be told through a Westerner’s eyes, but his take on Euro-Muslim relations proves sly and utopian. By the second half, race evaporates as an issue as the characters unite in their quest. (Although the Arab characters, curiously, remain unsubtitled Others.)

The film’s first half is too literal and chatty, but partly by design. Once the hunt for the Djinn Fairy is on, the film positively explodes in retina-searing colors: palaces designed in monochromatic tones, houses painted the brightest of blue, a scarlet-colored lion and so on. It’s so visually transplendent that it’s easy to ignore the characters bumbling in front of them. This is good: Bland and animatronic, they move with an awkward stiffness that makes Robert Zemeckis’ creepy motion-capture technology look positively lifelike.

Winner of the Palme D’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and current Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Laurent Cantet’s The Class would’ve ranked highly on my 2008 Best List had the marketing geniuses at Sony Pictures Classics bothered to let me see it.

Sour grapes aside, this is a marvelous film. Based on an autobiographical novel by François Bégaudeau, who co-wrote the screenplay and also stars, The Class finds endless complexity within the simplest structure. We spend an academic year in the classroom of Bégaudeau’s Mr. Marin, an effete, exhausted teacher working in a run-down Parisian neighborhood. He attempts to engage and enlighten a rough-and-tumble class of students of mixed races, most of whom return the favor with bad attitudes and bored disinterest.

But before you can start comparing it to that dumb Bruckheimer movie in which Michelle Pfieffer saved the ’hood by teaching gangsta kids Bob Dylan lyrics, I must point out that this is as far from a boilerplate inspirational teacher flick as humanly possible. Cantet keeps a deliberate distance from his subject, shooting the heavily improvised classroom interactions with discreet handheld cameras. The absence of any musical accompaniment or cinematic editorializing gives the project a loose, documentary feel. Everything feels organic, as if caught on the fly instead of staged for an audience. Only after the movie can you appreciate what tight thematic focus and control Cantet and Bégaudeau have over their material.

It’s also exasperating, viscerally conveying the day-to-day grind of a modern educator. Marin is presented as a flawed man doing the best he can within a broken system. The curriculum is outdated, the school board’s draconian rules are inflexible, and as is sadly true in all walks of life, people seem to listen to each other only about 50 percent of the time. Conflicts flare up, only to simmer down again in unexpected ways. By the end of the year, some have learned a lot, others not so much, and that’s just how it goes. See you in September.

In the age of shows that should’ve been movies (see: Lost and Heroes), it’s perversely refreshing to see something that pretty obviously should’ve been an epic TV show crammed into a standard-length movie. A franchise is surely what the makers of the ludicrous battling-psychics saga Push were after—not likely, given its feeble opening-weekend haul—but even as a stand-alone intro, you’ve got to half-admire the chutzpah of making something so willfully, mind-hurtlingly convoluted.

To wit: There are no fewer than 10 different telekinetic, telephatic and clairvoyant abilities in Push, ranging from “watchers” who can see the ever-changing future (Dakota Fanning, rocking an Avril Lavigne-esque “punk” wardrobe) to “movers” who can physically move people and objects with their mind. The latter ability belongs to hero Chris Evans, an expat hiding out in pretty Hong Kong. He gets roped into intrigue involving a group of shadowy U.S. government baddies led by Djimon Hounsou (a “pusher” who can “push” lies into another’s mind); a runaway super-psychic who’s also his ex-girlfriend (Camilla Belle); a rival Chinese gang; and an old-fashioned MacGuffin stored, amusingly, in a briefcase.

This should already be enough plot, and yet there’s more, more and still more: “stitches” who can heal or unheal wounds; “shifters” who can temporarily make one object look and feel like another; “bleeders” who kill and destroy by screaming; and on and on until you almost wish notes had been handed out before the film began. They’re all plot shortcuts to meet virtually any screenwriting need. When one character needs to have part of his memory wiped, of course there’s some dude on a boat whose power is “wiping.”

The script by David Bourla does a decent job with its roughly 100 elements, and even throws in a couple witty touches. It almost doesn’t matter that the characters are unmemorable or that Bourla’s story, and many of its gimmicks, fall apart under a couple seconds of scrutiny. Classically terrible over-director Paul McGuigan (Lucky Number Slevin) keeps things moving at the required manic, breakneck speed, ensuring that, while it’s flickering, Push is enjoyable batshit silliness. As long as there’s no sequel.

Not Reviewed

Remember The Devil Wears Prada? Homely gal with journalistic ambition gets a job at fashion mag and changes her life accordingly. Shopaholic is like that, but in reverse. (Opens Fri., Feb. 13.)

A remake of the original Jason Voorhees flick, this film opens just in time for Valentine’s Day. How romantic. (Opens Fri., Feb. 13.)

Ongoing

In the Alice in Wonderland-esque children’s tale, a neglected, blue-maned little girl (voiced, fairly obnoxiously, by Dakota Fanning) discovers an alternate version of her new hopelessly rural apartment building. There, inattentive Mom and Dad (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman—try to picture that couple) are excessively attentive and delish cooks to boot. Everything would be hunky dory but for the black buttons everyone sports in lieu of eyes, which, alas, is mandatory for longtime stays. Cue increasingly sinister tone and vigorous workouts for those sleek Real-D specs. B- (M.P.)

A project that’s bounced around Hollywood for more than a decade, Benjamin Button—based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short about a man who ages in reverse—has wound up in the hands of an excessively talented filmmaker in desperate need of a movie that’ll actually make money. C- (M.P.)

In 1941, four criminal brothers headed deep into the Belarusian forest, building a kibbutz where they and fellow Jews could hide from Hitler’s goons and wait out the war. The Bielski brothers saved hundreds of lives, but these wondrous facts don’t provide enough nobility for boring director Edward Zwick. This is such a damned good story, he’s determined to oversell it. C- (S.B.)

Nichola Burly stars as a woman reeling from a bad breakup and thus dragged out of rainy old Leeds by two skanky friends for a wild, therapeutic weekend on the sunny beaches of Spain. These classy ladies have barely checked into their hotel before they’re already hooking up with a bunch of hooligans—the crew of a ridiculously luxurious pleasure yacht docked nearby. Plenty of bad dance music, hard drugs and amateur sex tapes ensue—as does an unfortunately fatal application of the titular, urban-legend kink. Led by Tom Burke’s purring, harelipped drug dealer, Bluey, these frightened, morally bankrupt boys stupidly attempt a cover-up, terrorizing their female passengers whenever they’re not busy betraying one another. C- (S.B.)

Doubt is a “parable” of a monstrous nun (Meryl Streep) at a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 who’s trying to destroy a progressive-minded priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) with baseless accusations of “unhealthy” dealings with the school’s lone black student. B (M.P.)

Serious geeks decide to steal Star Wars: Episode 1 from George Lucas’ ranch before the film’s release. (Not reviewed.)

Based on Peter Morgan’s smash 2006 stage play, the film attempts to chronicle the travails of shlock TV host David Frost (expertly played by Michael Sheen) as he overpays and underprepares for an epic stretch of interviews with “Tricky Dick” Nixon (Frank Langella). C (S.B.)

Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a grizzled old Korean War vet who, after the death of his wife, tends to while away the days sitting on his front porch guzzling cans of PBR, offering salty observations on the decline of his white-flight Detroit neighborhood. Barking ridiculous, dated slurs for every minority in his sight, he’s like Dirty Harry in the sunset years. B+ (S.B.)

Ginnifer Goodwin stands more or less at the center of an all-star cast as Gigi, a persnickety, borderline deranged single gal. C+ (M.P.)

Culled from Cornelia Funke’s German kiddie fantasy novel, Inkheart is only the latest bibliophilic flick to stump for the power of reading while taking away any need for an imagination. And wouldn’t you know it stars Brendan Fraser. C (M.P.)

Dustin Hoffman’s Harvey Shine spends the first half-hour being shat upon. First, he loses his job as the author of commercial jingles. Then, his semi-estranged daughter (Liane Balaban), informs him that she’d prefer her non-shlub stepfather James Brolin to give her away. Meanwhile, we catch the less caustic shenanigans of single gal Emma Thompson, as she fields endless calls from pesky mom Eileen Atkins and is dragged on a run-of-the-mill blind date. C (M.P.)

As San Francisco’s cherished local legend—the first openly gay man ever elected to a public office in America—Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk is a buoyant, expansive figure. As droll as he is shrewd, the character is delightful to watch. The real Harvey Milk’s lanky stance, queeny mannerisms and honking Noo Yawk accent aren’t just fodder for a typical Oscar-friendly dead celebrity impression—they’re pushing this actor out of his gloomy old comfort zones. A- (S.B.)

Ten years after a tragic mining accident turned its lone survivor into a pickaxe-wielding boogeyman, the mysterious gas mask-wearing marauder returns to wreak havoc. C- (S.B.)

Consider this Bridget Jones’ Diary with the added bonus of Harry Connick Jr. and without all that pesky British charm. (Not reviewed.)

The inevitable Biggie Smalls hagiography fails as soon as the first post-credits words hit the screen: “March 9, 1997.” It’s not just that it’s textbook to start a biopic at the end. It’s an omen that there’s no chance the film will remotely approximate its subject’s singular mix of storytelling, humor, confidence, vulnerability and eerily prophetic morbidness. C+ (M.P.)

Steve Martin returns as Detective Clouseau, though Beyoncé decided to skip this time around. (Not reviewed.)

Kate Winslet essays Hannah Schmidt, a mysteriously private and weary mid-30s tram conductor in post-WWII Germany who seduces 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross). After a couple sweaty months Schmidt abruptly disappears. It’s eight years before Berg sees her again, this time when he’s a law student sitting in on her war crimes trial. C+ (M.P.)

Based on Richard Yates’ 1961 novel, this phenomenally dull new film from director Sam Mendes has absolutely nothing new to say, yet says it loud and insistently anyway. In a fiendish bit of stunt casting, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite for the first time since a certain fateful boat trip 11 years ago, starring here as Frank and April Wheeler, a tedious married couple prone to squabbling at great length about the tragic soul-crushing emptiness of their giant house, fancy car and beautiful children. D- (S.B.)

Teenage nobody Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is a mere few questions away from beating the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. But Malik’s been accused of cheating, and as the shadowy, belligerent authorities go through his taped performance, answer by answer, we’re treated to his ramshackle, Dickensian childhood as an orphaned slum kid from Mumbai, riding the rails and eking out various desperate existences alongside his more crafty and ethics-handicapped brother. C+ (M.P.)

It’s reactionary father-knows-best- because-he-used-to-murder-people-for-a-living nonsense, implicitly reinforcing all sorts of xenophobic paranoias and insidious patriarchal hierarchies. This is a lurid, sleazy button-pusher movie, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t work like gangbusters. B- (S.B.)

Kate Beckinsale’s not even back for this bargain-basement third go-’round, as it’s a wildly misguided prequel that inexplicably decides to dramatize a tale that was already explained in the second feature. D- (S.B.)

Tom Cruise is far more famous these days for bizarre behavior than blockbuster openings, so in desperate need of career rehab, here he stars as Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg, Nazi with a conscience, and architect of the suitcase bombing that nearly killed Hitler in the waning days of WWII. C+ (S.B.)

Director Ari Folman stars in this animated feature detailing his personal attempt to come to terms with atrocities he witnessed during Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon. C+ (S.B.)

Faced with a health crisis, wrestler Randy the Ram’s (Mickey Rourke) forced to consider retirement, and that’s when the movie begins questioning how we define ourselves. If a man is what he does for a living, who does he become when he can’t do that anymore? The Ram tentatively tries to muster an existence beyond the mat, attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood.) Only Cassidy seems to understand. Brilliantly played by Marisa Tomei, Randy’s favorite stripper is secretly a single mom, and the two foster a friendship outside the sleazy club’s VIP room. A- (S.B.)