Quick Reviews: Captain America, Friends With Benefits

And without further ado, here are the two films I saw most recently...

Captain America: The First Avenger: A little better than "Thor" and "X-Men: First Class," definitely better than "Green Lantern" on the Summer Superhero Scoreboard. Chris Evans is not a great actor, which actually makes him well-suited to play this particular hero. Hate that his chest was shaved/waxed to within an inch of its life. My grade: B-plus.

Friends with Benefits: Not a remake of, and better than, "No Strings Attached." Funny, though a little predictable (aren't all romantic comedies?). Good chemistry between Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. And quite a bit of Justin's butt. Woody Harrelson plays a gay sports editor (co-worker of Timberlake's character), which normally might be refreshing. But my friend Kurt felt the character was too much of a stereotype, while I was more put off by Harrelson's overacting. My grade: B-plus.

Quick Review: 2012

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel...well, not exactly fine, but I survived. After seeing "2012" director Roland Emmerich create so much devastation in movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Independence Day" we pretty much know what to expect here: death and destruction on a massive scale, hokey dialogue, lots of cliches, bad characters who mostly get what's coming to them, good characters (both lucky and plucky) who mostly survive, and a hideous song in the soundtrack (in this one it's "Time For Miracles" by Adam Lambert). The highlight for me (besides all the destruction, of course) was Woody Harrelson in a small role as a conspiracy nut whose ravings about how the Mayans predicted coming disaster help persuade a not-too-successful writer (John Cusack) just in time to rescue his kids, his ex-wife and her boyfriend as massive earthquakes begin destroying California. It doesn't seem like the type of movie John Cusack should star in, but we all have to make a living, I guess. Essentially, I've seen worse. And Roland Emmerich is openly gay according to his Wikipedia page, so there's that. My grade: C-plus.

Quick Review: Zombieland

So, Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera: if they ever appeared in the same movie, would that cause a rift in the space-time continuum? Are they not the same person? Skinny, pale, sensitive, etc.? In "Zombieland" Eisenberg plays a college student in Austin, Texas who has managed to survive the collapse of society (caused by an outbreak that led to most people turning into zombies). He's trying to get to Columbus, Ohio to find his parents and meets up with Woody Harrelson, who's on his way to Tallahassee, Florida. Harrelson's character insists that no real names be used, so they refer to each other by their destinations.

Columbus and Tallahassee run into two girls, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), at a grocery store. After various plot twists, they're on their way to an amusement park in California because the girls heard there are no zombies there. There's lots of zombie violence and some good lines; Columbus narrates throughout, highlighting his list of rules for surviving in Zombieland (number 1, for obvious reasons: cardio!). On the way to the amusement park they hit Hollywood, and decide to sleep at the home of a major star. This segment, featuring a cameo by said star, is easily the best part of the movie. I will not spoil it by revealing the star's name, but the whole thing is utterly brilliant. My grade: B-plus.

Reminder: there's a link on the home page that leads to a list of my grades for every movie I've seen in 2009.