Like in the first film, an ensemble cast of slumming stars earns paychecks acting out various contrived scenarios in and around New York City (the center of the universe in rom coms), all leading up this time to the dropping of the Times Square ball on New Year’s Eve.

Of the eight storylines concocted by Valentine’s Day screenwriter Katherine Fugate, I couldn’t have cared less about six, including Hilary Swank being in charge of the ball, Katherine Heigl feuding with ex Jon Bon Jovi, Ashton Kutcher and Glee star Lea Michele getting trapped in an elevator and Josh Duhamel rushing to get back to the city for an important romantic appointment.

Swank, simply put, does not belong in a comedy, and, what’s more, proved incredibly ineffective in making me not want to throw up during the excruciatingly “inspirational” televised speech her character gives at one point. Bon Jovi sings better than he acts, Michele sings more than she actually talks and Duhamel’s vignette is a blatant rip off of An Affair to Remember.

The segment I cared for least involved Sarah Jessica Parker refusing to let teen daughter Abigail Breslin go to the ball drop with cute boy Jake T. Austin. Rom-com vet Parker is fine, actually, but Breslin’s rebellious and disrespectful behavior towards her, at least as written, was barely tolerable. Granted, I’m not a parent, but I still wouldn’t let a kid act the way Breslin does.

In the why-is-he-in-this-thing category is Robert De Niro, who plays a dying man just wanting to live long enough to see the ball drop one last time. (Halle Berry is his improbably pretty nurse, Cary Elwes his doctor.) Whatever respect I had left for the man after all the junk he’s made over the last decade is nearly gone. Is he really this hard up for cash?

The better segments include Seth Meyers and Jessica Biel (a funny pair, those two) as a couple competing with Til Schweiger (?!) and Sarah Paulson for first-New-Year’s-baby prize money, which has a nicely touching resolution, and Zac Efron as an energetic, bro-calling bike messenger helping timid Michelle Pfeiffer fulfill her list of ambitious New Year’s resolutions in creative ways.

Every now and then a true laugh pops up—air bags, Marshall flick regulars Hector Elizondo and Larry Miller—but otherwise this is basically just sap in movie form. Even how the characters are connected isn’t quite as interesting as it is in the first film. If you really want to be entertained, skip to the end credits and watch the gag reel. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/Romance

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 5/1/12

Wilson and Sudeikis play a couple of over-40 pals who are so unhappy with their sex lives that their wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) grant them the title pass, basically a week off from marriage during which the guys are free to have sex with other women.

To appease the teen boys and college guys, the brothers throw in plenty of the kind of gross-out moments they’re known for–male and female nudity, a woman spraying diarrhea on a shower wall, Sudeikis getting caught by cops doing something he shouldn’t in a minivan–plus plenty of explicit talk about sex and such.

But they balance out the outrageous stuff with surprisingly meaningful writing and by having situations play out a little differently than you might expect. This goes mainly for the relationships that develop between Wilson and a hot Australian girl (Nicky Whelan) and Fischer and an older man (Bruce Thomas), as well as Applegate’s flirtation with a college-age baseball player (Tyler Hoechlin).

As well the brothers make sure all the characters are interesting, even the supporting ones, like Whelan’s coffeehouse co-worker (Derek Waters), Wilson and Fischer’s twenty-something babysitter (Alexandra Daddario), and the forty-something woman (Kristin Carey) who seduces Sudeikis. Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) plays what is easily the funniest character, a fifty-something playa who gives the guys advice on how to pick up women.

The main cast is what makes the movie really work, though. Wilson is unexpectedly affecting as the practical pal with middle-age worries, and his speech about the spot on his chest where his wife and kids have all fallen asleep is the film’s emotional highlight. Sudeikis deftly delivers laughs with his perpetual potty mouth and desperate attempts to get lucky, while Applegate is adequate and Fischer simply shines, especially during the nicely-handled scenes in which she’s charmed by said older guy.

If you just want laughs, there are plenty of them, including Wilson imagining the consequences of buying said babysitter some beer; a pompous guy boasting about his Prius, which is parked next to a Hummer; Wilson and Sudeikis being oblivious to the security cameras as they walk around said guy’s new house; the use of the “Law & Order” chime as each hall-pass day starts; Sudeikis wearing a strange mask to help him sleep; the guys going to Chili’s to find women; and pal Stephen Merchant’s hilarious envisioning of what would happen if he had a hall pass. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/Romance

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 6/14/11

The fart jokes were not funny at all and really did not make any sense either. I was just glad that I did not see any testicle kicking or more than a few fart jokes. And the parts when a frog tells Juliet that her butt looks fat or that she looks hot made me feel sick that children think that that is funny. The ironic twist to the original ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was not so great, as they had Juliet be a super athletic super ninja. I thought they were garden gnomes, but people who want a sporty princess in a movie are in luck.

Once the Terrafirminator lawn mower (Hulk Hogan) is bought by Gnomeo’s small companion, Benny (Matt Lucas), is where the good part comes in. Of course the ending is not too great for kids my age and maybe a little bit older. Maybe too happy or maybe too fun or whatever it might be. But, I would suggest this to young kids and maybe young parents too. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Adventure/Comedy

Rated G

DVD Release Date: 5/24/11

I don’t like him. Can you really blame me?

I did, however, end up liking No Strings Attached. The story of “friends with benefits” and how it never actually works, with Natalie Portman as a medical intern, and Ashton Kutcher as a Hollywood production assistant/fledgling writer. After Kutcher ends up at Portman’s house after a debaucherous night, they make their no-love-just-sex arrangement.

It is at this point you stop caring about the main characters for a bit, because you know it’s going to get “complicated.” Kevin Kline as the hard-partying-fomer-tv-star dad was the point where I warmed up a little bit to the movie. Then when you first meet Natalie Portman’s doctor roommates, Mindy Kaling from The Office and Greta Gerwig from Greenberg, they are funny and interesting. After meeting all the secondary characters, you warm back up to the “stars” because they’re friends with these interesting people.

It’s largely predictable, and occasionally rude, but in the end, I didn’t turn it off. If you’re looking for light laughs with no commitment (sorry, had to be done) then check out No Strings Attached.

As a disclaimer, I should let you know I was the only person I know who liked this. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/Romance

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/10/11

The Illusionist

Like Tati’s other stories, this one is not strongly plot-driven. It is, rather, an establishment of setting and mood punctuated by endlessly clever yet understated comic setpieces. Though all of Tati’s films have an undercurrent of nostalgic melancholy, Illusionist serves up a sharper, more intimate sting, presumably due to the more personal nature of the story he wrote, and perhaps why he never could produce it himself.

This is a gorgeous film to look at. Chomet’s style of animation, both here and in Belleville, recalls Disney’s middle-period animated features from the 60′s through the 80′s, which were a riot of pencil-drawn spontaneity and dusky watercolor depths. His character designs blend sharply exaggerated caricature and naturalistic proportions. His use of computer-aided animation is more prominent here, but never heavy-handed or gimmicky. At one point, we even see the real Tati meet his re-animated counterpart.

It’s also plenty funny, but, true to Tati, more full of wise winks and smiles than belly laughs. Chomet and Tati share a love of visual humor–neither director’s films have much essential dialogue–teasing us, for instance, with a shot from behind of a Scotsman on a little motorboat, his kilt blowing in the wind. Or a nice little scene where the penniless magician takes a job at an auto garage and tends to a rich Texan’s ostentatious Cadillac–classic Tati, with Chomet’s satirical barbed twist (the license plate reads “B1G-A55″).

It’s appropriate that a film about a magician should itself be intrinsically and self-evidently magical. But I’m convinced that those who approach The Illusionist familiar not only with Chomet’s work but with Tati’s will find it downright exhilarating, as I did. Therefore I will end this review with an aggressive plug for Tati’s films–particularly 1967′s Playtime. To use my favorite facile tagline for it, it’s like the cinematic equivalent of “Where’s Waldo?” Be sure to watch it on as big a screen as you can–with Criterion’s Blu-Ray disc if possible. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Comedy/Drama

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 5/10/11

As in the ‘30s radio serial, and ‘60s TV series featuring Bruce Lee, it centers on newspaper publisher Britt Reid (Rogen) and his confidant, Kato (Jay Chou), who moonlight as masked crime fighters posing as criminals in order to infiltrate the criminal underworld. Here they try to stop a Russian mobster (Christoph Waltz) from uniting Los Angeles’ crime families.

The movie as a whole is meant to be a lark, I guess, but it still would have helped to have a main character to root for. We don’t get that with Rogen, who helped write the thing. He plays the same old slacker man-child he always does, albeit a rich one. So instead of a hero who takes getting shot at seriously, we get a boorish frat boy who thinks it’s cool to go after gun-toting bad guys. He’s what Batman would be if Bruce Wayne were full of himself.

As well Rogen doesn’t act so much as goof his way through his lines, which results in some pretty awful scenes, like when he interviews Cameron Diaz to be his new secretary. Scowling is about the extent of his actual emoting. None of this would matter, of course, had there been someone to pick up his slack. Diaz has little to do besides spraying Rogen with mace, Chou looks the part but lacks Lee’s charisma, and Oscar-winner Waltz tries hard to be funny but somehow falls flat (though he does get the world’s coolest gun).

The numerous action scenes are what make the film watchable. For sure Gondry’s good with massive explosions–the bulldozer getting blown into the air is especially cool–but he also gives the shootouts, car chases and Chou’s martial arts brawls an entertainingly off-kilter energy. Watch how, when Chou jumps over a car’s hood to get at some thugs, the car suddenly looks like it’s being reflected in a slew of mirrors. Or how Chou pops into a bad-guy SUV and takes out the thugs inside.

I almost forgot about Black Beauty, the duo’s sleek supercar that’s one of the sweetest-looking set of superhero wheels around, decked out as it is with green headlights, ejector seats, rocket launchers, side-door machine guns, wheel saws and, for our more enlightened era, a bean bag launcher. During the action-crazy finale, Rogen and Chou are still able to drive around in its front half after it gets cut in half going up in an elevator. That ability alone makes it more of a star than the humans around it.- [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Comedy/Crime

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 5/6/11

Black plays the title character, here reimagined as a long-time worker in the mail room of a New York newspaper whose crush on one of the paper’s writers (an appealing Amanda Peet) leads to him traveling to Bermuda where, thanks to a fancy CGI whirlpool, he ends up in the land of Lilliput, home to said pocket-sized people.

I do realize the film is meant to appeal to kids, as sophomoric gags abound, including the aforementioned robot with which Black does battle, but none more so than the sight of Black dousing a fire in the Lilliputian castle by relieving himself on it. And if Black falling on a Lilliputian soldier rear-end-first doesn’t get the little ones laughing, nothing will.

Black does little more than his standard slacker shtick as Gulliver, using phrases like “condish” and “grade-A courtage” to try and make the material seem more hip. But what seemed like very funny behavior in School of Rock just doesn’t work here. Admittedly, the film does mine a decent sight gag out of his flabbiness that involves cannonballs.

I can’t really fault director Rob Letterman for trying to impart a grow-up-and-be-responsible message, either, I suppose, but it’s a half-hearted effort at best. Black learns his lesson in the broadest way possible, so I didn’t buy it when he admits to Peet that “These little people have grown very large in my heart.” I rolled my eyes, in fact.

None of this is to say the film lacks laughs. Indeed, Chris O’Dowd is hilarious as an arrogant Lilliputian general who sees right through Black’s where-I-came-from stories (“Vice President Yoda”), while Jason Segel (I Love You, Man) earns some chuckles as a Lilliputian commoner with a crush on the kingdom’s princess (Emily Blunt, also funny) and Billy Connolly makes for a perfect king.

The only sequence I truly enjoyed (which borrows from the second story in Swift’s novel) was the one in which Black ends up on an island whose inhabitants are giants and where he’s captured by a little girl who keeps him in her dollhouse. Nothing else here made me laugh more than seeing Black being forced to wear a doll’s dress while being force fed a baby bottle. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Adventure/Comedy/Fantasy

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 4/19/11

This time ’round, Stiller’s put-upon male nurse must prove to ex-CIA father-in-law De Niro that he has what it takes to assume leadership of the family, while also dealing with an attractive pharmaceutical rep (Jessica Alba, pretty but unfunny) and the return of his wife’s (Teri Polo) too-good-to-be-true ex-boyfriend (Owen Wilson).

The film manages to wring out a few good, clean laughs here and there–De Niro’s cat almost eating Stiller’s son’s pet lizard; De Niro discovering Google; De Niro arguing with Harvey Keitel (who plays a construction worker)–but the majority of the humor is excessively and needlessly smutty, with a few vomit and fart jokes thrown in for good measure.

As well the novelty of watching De Niro lighten up and make fun of himself wore off some time ago, so watching the two-time Oscar winner get stuck with a needle by Stiller in a certain sensitive male body part is less funny than just plain sad. Same goes for his prolonged battle with Stiller in a bouncy castle and plastic ball pit.

I also wouldn’t have minded seeing more of Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman as Stiller’s colorful parents, but they’re pretty much sidelined here. Surprisingly, the funniest person turns out to be Wilson, whose naturally mellow mood works to hilarious effect as he casually emasculates Stiller in front of the family. He also figures in the film’s funniest scene, which involves jet-skiing monks. – [DVD]

Comedy

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 4/5/11

I mention this so my next line makes a little more sense.

I Love You Phillip Morris is kind of like a small child doing the conga all the way downstairs holding a DVD box. Sure, at first you’re interested; you say to yourself, what in the heck is the story here?

Much like Jim Carrey‘s Steven Russell, a married cop who becomes a gay con man. In prison Steve meets the love of his life, Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor), a naive southern man with a good heart who might be a little too trusting. You see the analogy working, this is kind of a new thing, not something you see every day.

Once you put together that the kid is dancing the conga, and really just doing it because it strikes his fancy, it becomes cute, kind of sweet really. Kind of like Steve and Phil’s time in prison: they pass each other notes, go on strange dates, and eventually Steve cons his way into Phil’s cell and let’s just say sparks fly. It’s a sweet courtship, albeit an unconventional one.

So anyhow this kid, he’s still doing the conga, and you begin to wonder if there is something wrong with him, you know, in the head. The tiny person doing the Gloria Estefan impersonation goes from cute to cloying at the drop of a hat, and soon, you just want his mom to take him somewhere else to briefly entertain then upset others. Such is the case with I Love You Phillip Morris. About two thirds in, just as the third act begins, the magic gone, you begin to wish it would end sooner. The mildly-frenetic-pseudo-Raising Arizona energy has gone from refreshing to bitter, and you just wait for the end.

Oh dancing child, oh Phillip Morris, you both had the best intentions. I know you wanted to entertain me, but you pushed too far, flew too close to the sun. I appreciate the effort, but you’ve let me down just a bit. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/Drama/Romance

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 4/5/11