Hancock (2008)

This film treads an interesting line between comedy and drama, and never seems sure which one it actually wants to settle on. It drastically switches modes halfway through the movie, and as a result comes off as disjointed and all over the place. However, it's a very pleasant all over the place. When it's dramatic, it's not over-the-top. When it's comedic, it's amusing and made me chuckle. It's not often that superheroes have a fatal flaw besides whining too much about having a superpower (that's right, I'm talking about you, Spider-Man)... a refreshing look at the genre, and a fairly good action, romance, comedy, and drama flick along the way. Not bad for trying to hit every genre out there. 3.5 stars.

License to Wed (2007)

I am not one of those people who get all upset every time someone makes a comedy that points a finger at something resembling religion. I loved Bruce Almighty and the musical Altar Boyz, and I would love to see Saved!. But this movie was offensive on religious grounds as well as comedic ones. Robin Williams as a member of the clergy is just about the scariest thing I can think of, and his religion-based humor was not only tasteless, but also just boring. Mandy Moore plays a mindless zombie who floats through the movie without putting any thought at all into how she's acting or what she's saying. Surely she has to realize that these "exercises" are the requests of an insane man, and no rational person would subject themselves to them. Which is why John Krasinski earns the movie's 1 star, as he accurately portrays an average, sensible, ordinary guy, who realizes that trying to reenact a fight he and his fiancee have never had is hardly the building blocks for a good relationship. He reacts with appropriate shock and confusion when his fiancee loses all her personality and opinions and doesn't see why it should be a problem for him to suddenly carry four screaming kids around a grocery store, two of which are fake. Unfortunately, he plays it so well that there's no way he can make the ending ("oh ho ho, you meant well all along!") plausible. What nonsense. 1 star.

The Wedding Date (2005)

This movie starts off promising. The characters are given personality that is neither too quirky nor too cliched, and I began wondering how this was going to play out. (It's a romantic comedy -- it'll never be TOO difficult to figure out what happens, but this promised to be an interesting meander through the formula.) However, about 30-40 minutes in, the characters lost what made them interesting and turned into stereotypes in stereotyped relationships with stereotyped awkward/heartbreaking situations. Lovely beginning, but the ending is far from being a good example of the genre. 2.5 stars.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

For a superhero movie starring Edward Norton, this was distressingly lackluster. Heck, for *any* movie starring Edward Norton, this was distressingly lackluster. Except for a brief moment at the end which made my entire family sit up and go, "Oh!" there was very little about this movie that stood out. It wasn't necessarily a *bad* movie -- just far away from my expectations of its awesomeness. 2.5 stars.

Squirm (1976)

When a terrible writer puts a squicky idea down on paper, hands it off to a terrible producer who cries, "YES! THIS IS THE MOVIE I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!" and passes it off to a terrible director, who casts terrible (and most likely to stereotype the south) actors in the roles, then uses terrible special effects to portray the plight of these terrible characters, accompanied by terrible music that has little or nothing to do with what's actually happening in the movie... THAT'S when you get this movie. So... future scriptwriters, be warned. Worth a single star because of laugh value. The MST3K version of this pretty much rules. 1 star.

Flawless (2007)

This movie wasn't quite flawless, but it was made so nicely that it really is difficult to find much to complain about in it. On the other hand, it's also difficult to find something to shower praises on. It's a clever, intelligently made thriller that makes use of all the talent and potential of its two actors, has an interesting plot and a plausible ending, and yet I find myself barely able to remember it. It's a good, pleasant watch but not much more than that. 3 stars.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

The two stars I'm giving this movie are solely for the first 30-40 minutes. It starts off promisingly, with great moments mocking the sci-fi B-movies of the 1950s. And "Time Warp" might be one of the most bizarrely funny thing ever in musicals. Tim Curry's entrance is bizarre, but distinctive and memorable. But then the plot begins to descend into madness and it becomes interesting as nothing more than an experiment in absurd shock value. The songs remain fairly decent, but the utter crap that is the rest of this movie's plot mean that the first two stars for the first 30 minutes are the ONLY stars this movie is going to get. Too bad, because those first 30 minutes promised something much more substantial than we ended with. 2 stars.