“Breaking and Entering” — Writer-director Anthony Minghella leaves viewers with their faces pressed to the glass, looking in on but not really involved with this dramatic study of a London couple and an immigrant mother and son whose lives cross over a series of burglaries.

Rich performances from past Minghella collaborators Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Ray Winstone, along with Robin Wright Penn, bring more depth and soul to the film than the somewhat superficial characters and overly contrived situations warrant. Law plays a landscape architect drawn together with a teenage Bosnian thief and his mother. An emotional frostiness in much of Minghella’s work, including “Cold Mountain” and best-picture Academy Award winner “The English Patient,” is distinctly present here, hindering the audience’s ability to connect with the people on screen. R for sexuality and language. 119 min. Two and a half stars out of four.

“Charlotte’s Web” — Gary Winick would seem an unlikely choice to direct this live-action, computer-animated adaptation, with an A-list cast providing the voices of the classic children’s book’s talking animals. (Julia Roberts as Charlotte. With Oprah Winfrey as Gussy the goose and Robert Redford as Ike the horse.) Winick co-founded the production company Indigent, known for stripped-down movies shot on digital video like “Chelsea Walls,” “Pieces of April” and Winick’s own “Tadpole,” in which a 15-year-old boy falls in love with his stepmom. But he also directed “13 Going on 30,” the charming Jennifer Garner comedy that struck just the right balance of childlike enthusiasm and grown-up insight. And he’s done the same here. Winick stays mostly faithful to E.B. White’s beloved book about a runty, idealistic pig (voiced movingly by 10-year-old Dominic Scott Kay) whose life is saved first by a little girl (the perfectly cast Dakota Fanning), then by a resourceful (and literate) spider. Corny? Overly simplistic? Perhaps. But those were grown-ups snuffling and wiping away tears at a recent screening — not kids — as the story reaches its heart-tugging conclusion. And there’s no shame in that. G. 90 min. Three stars out of four.

“The Good German” — An unsatisfying gimmick by Steven Soderbergh, who tries to inject modern sensibilities into old-style black-and-white film noir. Soderbergh gets much of the mood and atmosphere down but fails to emulate the sense of wily playfulness that made old film-noir characters so rich and engaging even against the background of dark and sober stories. Most of the cast, including Soderbergh’s producing partner George Clooney, are so dour that the movie often drags along lifelessly. The exception is Cate Blanchett, marvelously transforming herself into a haunted creature traumatized by World War II, who could fit right into a Hollywood classic alongside Marlene Dietrich or Ingrid Bergman. Clooney plays a correspondent in Berlin just after the war, encountering an old flame (Blanchett) at the center of a murder mystery. Tobey Maguire co-stars as a black-marketeer, but with his boyish persona he lacks the weight to play a bad guy. The film was shot using vintage lenses and techniques of old Hollywood. R for language, violence and some sexual content. 105 min. Two stars out of four.

“Home of the Brave” — Director Irwin Winkler presents a rather plain and predictable study of the problems facing American war veterans integrating themselves back into ordinary life after serving in Iraq. The well-intentioned movie follows four vets (Samuel L. Jackson, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Jessica Biel and Brian Presley) struggling to cope with emotional and physical trauma after their National Guard unit returns to Spokane, Wash. Given its relevance and immediacy, the subject matter automatically carries emotional resonance, the movie sparking some fine moments of reflection about the difficulties in picking up where you left off after a terrible time at war. But rather than dealing authentically with postwar trauma, the filmmakers let several of their story lines veer abruptly into extremes that strain credibility. R for war violence and language. 105 min. Two stars out of four.

“The Pursuit of Happyness” — There is never any doubt that Will Smith’s Chris Gardner will muddle though, that he’ll find a job, make some money, secure a home and achieve the elusive, intentionally misspelled state of the film’s title. After all, this is “inspired by a true story,” and after all, this is Will Smith. They don’t make movies about homeless guys who remain homeless by the time the closing credits roll — and if they do, they certainly don’t release them at Christmas. It’s all predictable stuff. Yet Smith does make you root for him, because beneath that bad mustache and cheap suit he’s actually acting and not just playing the clown, something he hasn’t done in truly convincing fashion since 1993’s “Six Degrees of Separation.” The scenes in which he runs around San Francisco, seeking comfort and shelter for himself and his young son, have a convincing familiarity — probably because that really is Smith’s son, 7-year-old Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, playing the part. And at its core “The Pursuit of Happyness” is a good story — one that’s literally rags to riches, and didn’t need the many tweaks and embellishments that have been added. PG-13 for some language. 116 min. Two stars out of four.