The Bounty Hunter's the Exact Opposite of Sexy and Hilarious!

Milo (Butler) and Nicole (Aniston) are ex-spouses still licking their wounds. Since the split, Milo got himself booted off the police force and works as a bounty hunter. She's become a hotshot reporter.

When she ditches a hearing for a minor offense and he's assigned to grab her for jumping bail, calamity and hilarity ensue! No, not really. Somewhere in development, like Milo and Nicole's union, this script took a wrong turn.

Maybe it's the marketing that's misleading. The Bounty Hunter is being sold as a comedy, yet the first 15 minutes are devoid of laughs. Not a peep, twitter or chortle. And it doesn't get much better after that—despite several attempts at jokes and the stars' tremendous efforts to pull funny faces, the script fails miserably to entertain; most of the dialogue is tiresome bickering between our two leads.

The whole affair is very straight-to-DVD. Just think, a quality film could have taken up the precious real estate sucked up by this movie.

The plot actually isn't so bad—it had potential, at least. Nicole's investigation into a suspicious suicide starts to catch up with her, and she and Milo start to poke around while constantly dodging danger.

Unfortunately, it feels like this juicy plot twist comes a good hour and 15 boring minutes into the picture—too little, waaaay too late. What could have been a down-and-dirty Nick-and-Nora road movie is just another flick that should have shipped straight to the video store.

The Runaways Pretty Much Rocks, Despite a Few Sour Notes

This movie about the first all-girl rock band wants it both ways: Yes, the Runaways were awesome, but there was also something more than a little inappropriate about putting teenage singer Currie onstage wearing little but a corset to belt out "Cherry Bomb." And 30 years later, there's still something inappropriate about putting teenage actor Fanning onstage doing the same.

But the film doesn't spend time pondering such things, as former David Bowie/Marilyn Manson video director Floria Sigismondi prefers to revel in the superficial: At times, she seems more in love with period hairdos than anything else, and it needs to be said that blown-out, slo-mo shots of a person's dazed, drug-addled face as signifier for personal downfall is not just Rock Video 101, but David Lynch 101 as well.

Despite all that, the actors make this work, and there is where Sigismondi shines—the recent The Yellow Handkerchief proves that not everybody can get a good performance out of Kristen Stewart, but she's solid here. (Also helpful, the real Jett served as producer to make sure the performance, including Stewart's guitar-playing and singing, was spot-on).

Fanning...well, she's always been good. No surprise. But it's Michael Shannon—generally most recognizable for playing quiet psychopaths—who dominates the screen here as the flamboyant Fowley.

Fans of '80s teen movies will want to keep an eye out for Fast Times at Ridgemont High's Robert Romanus as a dorky guitar teacher who gets nowhere when he tries to teach Joan Jett acoustic folk songs.

How to Train Your Dragon Swift, Smart and Only Slightly Dangerous

Meet Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), a fledgling Viking so gawky that a puffy fur vest and boots only make him look scrawnier. Hiccup is the son of Stoic (Gerard Butler), who is everything that his son is not: a brilliant side of beef with a long track record against the traditional Viking enemy: dragons.

Dragons—dubbed with terrifying breed names like Night Fury and Silent Death—invade the town regularly, picking off cottony sheep and setting fire to pretty much everything else. Hiccup, wanting to fit in, aims to kill dragons someday, just like his dad. Trouble is, he doesn't appear to be very good at it.

Turns out, Hiccup isn't so much a dragon killer as he is a dragon whisperer. After downing a mysterious, inky-black Night Fury one night, Hiccup tracks it down and frees it, creating a friendship borne of equal parts common interest and lunches of raw fish.

If the black dragon Toothless looks familiar, you may be a connoisseur of good character design; animator Chris Sanders, who created Stitch for Lilo & Stitch, is a codirector here.

Sanders elicits the same rounded head and nubby teeth that made the Disney alien so unforgettable. Unlike way too many movie animal companions, Toothless has his own agenda and doesn't bother with sentimental crap, which makes his sleek little head all that much more endearing. One wonders if Sanders, or someone else close to the production, has a very young, very energetic house cat.

Critics may quibble with the voice casting—why are Stoic and Gobber the town blacksmith (Craig Ferguson) Scottish, and Hiccup and his love interest, Astrid (America Ferrera) not? But, eh, it's a cartoon, and the voice actors, with only a couple of exceptions, avoid the smug, contemporary delivery style that has made other DreamWorks animation titles (Shrek, anyone?) so insufferable.

In fact, almost everything about this movie feels fresh and original in Sanders' hands. The animation is some of the best we've seen since Monsters, Inc.—some might even say Avatar—and there are plenty of jokes for the grown-ups as well as the kids. But it's the core relationship between dork and dragon—no sap, just two solid characters—that makes the film more than your average kid flick.

The 180—a Second Opinion: Without giving away a spoiler, the end includes a bit of plot that shows admirable braveness on the part of the producers and studio; queasy or overprotective parents may not agree.

Clash of the Titans Is Hit and Myth

In this revisionist telling of Greek legend, humankind is beginning to rebel against the capricious gods of Mount Olympus, so the angry Hades (Ralph Fiennes, apparently with laryngitis) gets the blessing of big brother Zeus (Liam Neeson) to whup some mortal ass. Little does Zeus know, Hades has a bigger scheme in motion: Terrorized by monsters, including the Kraken, mortals will hate and fear the gods even more. This is a boon to the underworld god, who thrives on such emotions, but Zeus needs prayer and love to stay strong. Stir up human anger enough, and he'll be vulnerable to a hostile takeover from below.

Caught in the middle is Perseus (Sam Worthington), illegitimate son of Zeus, who has his own grudge against Hades for killing his adoptive parents. Told by immortal beauty Io (Gemma Arterton) that killing the Kraken may weaken Hades enough for him to be harmed, Perseus sets out to do so on a quest that involves serpent-haired Medusa (Natalia Vodianova), giant scorpions, Hades' deformed disciple Calibos (Jason Flemyng), and wooden Djinn of the Deus Ex Machina tribe. All in after-the-fact 3-D, which isn't awful but also ain't worth the extra ticket premium, since the only thing that really pops out is the end credits.

Children of the '80s tend to have fond memories of the original Clash of the Titans, yet for its day, it was almost exactly the equivalent of modern mindless blockbusters. Looking at it objectively, it is fun, but really little more than an effects showcase and an amusing game of spot-the-stunt-casting. That the stop-motion monsters are seen as somehow more charming than the newer digital ones seems merely emblematic of a general lack of respect for computer animators, relative to those who worked with tangible models.

So while there's much that can be mocked here, the new battles are just as fun in their own way—the scorpions in particular are awesome. This is Clash by way of Lord of the Rings, Todd McFarlane action figures and God of War: The eye candy is phenomenal!

Unfortunately, Perseus is a bit of a jerk in this version. Far from the noble hero who wanted to marry the princess and save the city in the original, he's now simply on a personal vendetta. Said princess is a total afterthought as a character, and new love interest Io, who might as well be renamed Little Miss Exposition, is kinda icky when you stop to think about the fact that she's been watching over Perseus since his infancy.