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This weekend marks Mel Gibson’s big return to the silver screen, and Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers is here to tell you his take on the vengeance flick Edge of Darkness. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Gibson — Signs in 2002 was his last major role — and the man we used to know as Mad Max, Brett Maverick and Martin Riggs doesn’t quite have those matinee-handsome looks anymore that made him a star all those years back. Still, Gibson is effective as a Boston cop who seeks revenge against those responsible for killing his daughter before his eyes.

For the dead of winter, Edge of Darkness is an “OK B-film,” Travers says, with director Martin Campbell adequately turning his epic six-hour British miniseries into a sub-two-hour revenge film. Still, the third act sort of falls off the rails as Gibson’s own policeman operates outside the law, but if you’ve really, really missed Gibson’s onscreen persona these past eight years, then you should probably go check out Edge as Mel doesn’t disappoint.

Since January is traditionally the worst month for new film releases, this week’s At the Movies is a guide to what not to see this weekend. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers’ Scum Bucket runneth over starting with The Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a hockey player whose
punishment for telling a girl that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist is a two-week community service as the fairy. Yes, it’s for kids, but that’s not a good enough excuse for how horrible this film is.

Similarly terrible is Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford. In this film, the man who played Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Blade Runner turns in a Lifetime-worthy performance as an eccentric doctor who helps Fraser create a cure for Pompe disease. It’s based on a true story, and while the reality of the story might be riveting, the film itself is TV movie quality.

Since January is traditionally the worst month for new film releases, this week’s At the Movies is a guide to what not to see this weekend. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers’ Scum Bucket runneth over starting with The Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a hockey player whose
punishment for telling a girl that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist is a two-week community service as the fairy. Yes, it’s for kids, but that’s not a good enough excuse for how horrible this film is.

Similarly terrible is Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford. In this film, the man who played Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Blade Runner turns in a Lifetime-worthy performance as an eccentric doctor who helps Fraser create a cure for Pompe disease. It’s based on a true story, and while the reality of the story might be riveting, the film itself is TV movie quality.

Can’t make it to Park City for this year’s Sundance Film Festival? Peter Travers has you covered: Follow him on Twitter this weekend for the latest updates and insights from this year’s fest.

It’s still January *At the Movies*, and even though the month is regarded as a proverbial cinematic cesspool, Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers has found a pair of worthwhile films hitting theaters this weekend, including Denzel Washington’s Book of Eli. In this post-apocalyptic action film from directors the Hughes Brothers, Washington plays a ruthless killer in possession of civilization’s last Bible. The film is full of religious parables, but counter-weighted by copious amounts of ultra-violence.

Much like we saw in The Road, the apocalypse will evidently come with desaturated colors and sepia tones. Still, this is the first Hughes Brothers film in over a decade, and Denzel as always steals each scene. During Oscar season, it’s OK to look past a film like this, but in the dog days of January, Book of Eli is one of the better pictures out there. Also worth checking out: Fish Tank, a nearly great small British film about a teenager’s trials and tribulations.

The Monday box-office reports are sounding like a broken record. Yes, it’s *Avatar* again, the smash hit from James Cameron’s blue period scoring a worldwide total after just 24 days in release of $1.3 billion. That makes *Avatar* the No. 2 movie of all time at the global box-office, topped only by Cameron’s other intimate epic, *Titanic*, which topped out at $1.8 billion. Result: *Avatar* is gaining fast.

Last week, I asked you to weigh in on *Avatar*’s chances of winning the Best Picture Oscar this year, and whether you think it deserves to win. The response was heated and divided. Most of you enjoyed the movie without thinking it belonged in the Oscar time capsule.

Daybreakers star Willem Dafoe stopped by the Rolling Stone offices to answer Peter Travers’ burning questions this week: why is he the only vampire actor to be nominated for an Oscar? Why is he called Willem? And perhaps most importantly, why does he defend Body of Evidence? “Sometimes movies are taken and held up as whipping boys and people pile all their envy, confusion, anger, jealousy on it,” he says.

Dafoe reveals he wouldn’t want to be frozen in time (“The fact that we don’t know when it’s going to end makes life a good game”), admits playing creepies even gets to him (“*Antichrist* haunted me”) and explains how the epic death scene from Platoon went down. Watch him slap a tambourine in precious parts of his body and tangle with Travers in the latest edition of *Off the Cuff*.

This week *At the Movies*, Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers is pleased to announce that despite January’s reputation as the studios’ bad film dumping ground, there’s actually — gasp — a pair of good movies entering multiplexes this first weekend of the new decade. The first one is Daybreakers, an unconventional vampire film starring Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe, who recently joined Travers for an episode of *Off the Cuff* (come back Friday to check it out!).

In Daybreakers, the year is 2019 and vampires have wiped all but five percent of humans off the face of the Earth. The problem? Not enough blood to go around. Hawke places a scientist working on a blood substitute who also has an ulterior motive: to instead turn the vampires back into humans using his formula. Dafoe is the vampire who helps him along the way and his partner in ass-kicking when the villainous vampires come looking for a fight. The script is funny, the film balls out bloody, and it’s a welcome departure from all the chick flick vampire films like New Moon that have crowded the genre.

Also out this week is Youth in Revolt, a R-rated comedy based on C.D. Payne’s book and starring twee actor Michael Cera.

Hollywood had its biggest year ever with $10.6 billion — I said billion! — in the till for 2009. And we weren’t just paying more for the price of a ticket. Admissions were up by four percent. But if we are defined as a culture by the movies that win the popular vote, you may be pulled up short by this list of the Top 10 winners of 2009. Take a look, then we’ll talk:

1 *Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen* $402 million

2 *Avatar* $352 million (and growing)

3 *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* $302 million

4 *Up* $293 million

5 *The Twilight Saga: New Moon* $288 million

6 *The Hangover* $277 million

7 *Star Trek* $258 million

8 *The Blind Side* $209 million

9 *Monsters Vs. Aliens* $198 million

10 *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs* $197 million