Movie Listings for June 29-July 5 Movies Ratings and running times are in parentheses; foreign films have English subtitles. Full reviews of all current releases: nytimes.com/movies. "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" (R, 1:45) Timur Bekmambetov directs this initially amusing, finally tedious version of Seth Grahame-Smith's novel in which the 16th president of the United States (Benjamin Walker) goes all Buffy on a vampire army, splitting bloodsuckers like rails. Manohla Dargis ★ "Battle Royale" (No rating, 1:54, in Japanese) This pulpy Japanese film from 2000, directed by Kinji Fukusaku, shares a grim and irresistible premise with "The Hunger Games." In a dystopian future, teenagers are sent off to a deserted island to hunt and kill one another. This version is bloody, melodramatic and relatively low-tech, but its mixture of adolescent self-pity and comic-book histrionics - and Mr. Fukusaku's unpretentious rigor - make it a minor pop masterpiece. A. O. Scott ★ "Bernie" (PG-13, 1:44) Richard Linklater directs this gaudily vibrant, at times morbidly funny true crime story, set in the East Texas town of Carthage, about the time when the sweet Bernie Tiede (Jack Black) murdered sour Mrs. Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) and everyone ended up rooting for Bernie. Dargis ★ "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (PG-13, 2:04) This staid but likable story of British retirees starting a new life in India insists that it is never too late to leave your comfort zone and explore new horizons. Besides its sterling cast (Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith), its ace in the hole is its pungent depiction of Jaipur's teeming streets. Stephen Holden "Brave" (PG, 1:33) After 17 years of feature filmmaking, Pixar has - ta-da! - its first female protagonist, Merida, a brave, ginger-mopped princess who wants to chart her own fate. The animation, as might be expected, is beautiful, but the story is filled with dreary gender clichés. Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman directed and helped write the script. ★ "A Cat in Paris" (PG, 1:10) This animated caper about art thieves, detectives, a young girl and her loyal cat is silly, suspenseful and whimsically immune to the laws of physics or probability. Scott ★ "Dark Shadows" (PG-13, 1:53) A wonderful Johnny Depp stars in Tim Burton's spookily beautiful riff on the creaky soap opera from the 1960s and "70s. This is the longtime collaborators" eighth movie together and Mr. Burton's most pleasurable movie in years. ★ "Dark Horse" (No rating, 1:25) Todd Solondz's latest film is the epic tale of Abe (Jordan Gelber) a tubby 35-year-old who lives with his parents (Mia Farrow and Christopher Walken) in suburban New Jersey. Doted on by his father's office manager (Donna Murphy) and smitten with a depressive woman named Miranda (Selma Blair), Abe is a seething ball of resentment and aggressive, delusional self-confidence. Repellent as Abe is, Mr. Solondz insists that he's worthy of compassion and turns the drama of his life, which is alternately banal and surreal, into a film of almost disturbing tenderness. "The Dictator" (R, 1:23) Sacha Baron Cohen's latest comic avatar is Admiral General Aladeen, despot of the imaginary North African nation of Wadiya. Opportunities for provocation and topical satire are squandered in this lazy, lumbering exercise in semi-self-conscious insult humor. Anna Faris is cruelly misused as a New York hippie who becomes Aladeen's unlikely accomplice and love interest. ★ "Elena" (No rating, 1:49, in Russian) Post-Soviet Russia in this somber, gripping film from Andrei Zvyagintsev is a moral vacuum where money rules, the haves are contemptuous of the have-nots, and class resentment simmers. Its title character, powerfully embodied by Nadezhda Markina, is a rich man's second wife whose loyalty is divided between her husband and the proletarian family of her son by a previous marriage. Holden "First Position" (No rating, 1:30, in English, Spanish, French and Hebrew) The tears are often held tremulously back and the many hurts smiled away in Bess Kargman's appealing, largely upbeat documentary about young ballet dancers duking it out, sometimes on point and in tulle, for top honors at the Youth America Grand Prix.