Ratings based on four-star system.
‘Date Night’
Rated PG-13
??1/2

“Date Night” is a product substantially inferior to the material routinely finessed by stars Steve Carell and Tina Fey, on their respective hit TV shows, into comic gold. A married couple leave the kids with a sitter and hit Manhattan for dinner. In an effort to be seated at a trendy restaurant, they claim another couple’s vacated reservation, leading to mistaken-identity trouble. The script is weak, but the actors keep saving this one, including James Franco and Mila Kunis, whose only scene is a memorable one.

‘Death at a Funeral’
Rated R
??1/2
Ragged in its technique but pretty funny anyway, the remake of the 2007 British comedy “Death at a Funeral” won’t please everyone, but seeing so many good, resourceful actors mix it up has its satisfactions. The nominal leads belong to Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence, rivalrous brothers whose father has passed, and whose down-low life they know nothing about until a mystery man (Peter Dinklage, repeating his role in the original) shows up with incriminating photos. Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover and Zoe Saldana are also part of the high-powered cast.

‘Get Him to the Greek’
Rated R
???
Extremely raunchy, this film is also very funny. Written and directed by “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” director Nicholas Stoller, “Get Him to the Greek” follows Aaron (Jonah Hill), a record-company gofer charged with flying to London to fetch a substance-infested rock star on the wane, played by Russell Brand, for a comeback concert at LA’s Greek Theatre. Hill and Brand make a swell odd couple, and the film is a good, rude commercial comedy, one that is unexpectedly sincere in its exploration of the ways in which boy-men will be boy-men.

‘How to Train Your Dragon’
Rated PG
???1/2
The swoops and dives of this exuberant animated feature, in which the teen hero befriends the winged enemy, should prove as addicting to its target audience as similar scenes have in “Avatar.” On the Island of Berk, the Vikings have been putting up with dragon attacks for 300 years. Hiccup (voice of Jay Baruchel) meets one of the dreaded beasts and learns dragons are a misjudged species, which puts him at odds with his father (Gerard Butler) and the rest of the village. The flying scenes are fantastic, so seeing “Dragon” in 3-D really is a must.

‘Iron Man 2’
Rated PG-13
??1/2
“A passable knock-off”: That’s how the obscenely rich but heartsick industrialist played by Robert Downey Jr. characterizes the electro-weaponry wielded by his adversary (Mickey Rourke) in “Iron Man 2.” Much of this scattershot sequel to the 2008 smash feels like a passable knock-off as well. Here and there, director Jon Favreau’s diversion takes us back to the considerable satisfactions of the first “Iron Man,” but “Iron Man 2” has a harder time with matters of story clarity and momentum.

‘Just Wright’
Rated PG
???
Audiences may be stunned by the genuine display of niceness in this romantic comedy. Queen Latifah plays a physical therapist who has two months to rehab the man she secretly loves, the nicest guy the NBA, played by Common, after a knee injury threatens to derail his career. Director Sanaa Hamri deftly preserves the heart of this film. The reason “Just Wright” works is simple. It finds ways to let familiar characters move around inside a familiar premise like living, breathing, likable human beings.

‘Letters to Juliet’
Rated PG
???
Amanda Seyfried stars in this enjoyable rom-com as Sophie, a bright-eyed girl on vacation with her single-minded fiance in Verona, Italy. Here, centuries ago, Romeo met Juliet. Today lovelorn letters to the tragic heroine are left at a sacred spot. When Sophie replies to a letter written fifty years earlier, its author Claire, a remarkable Vanessa Redgrave, returns to Verona where the two join forces to scour the countryside for Claire’s long-lost Italian beau. It ain’t Shakespeare. But it’s no “Bounty Hunter” either.

‘Marmaduke’
Rated PG
?1/2
“Marmaduke,” the comic strip about life with a 200-pound Great Dane, earns a dull but harmless big-screen comedy aimed at the youngest moviegoers. Voiced by Owen Wilson, this canine narrates and chats up his fellow members of the House-pet Kingdom thanks to digital assistance, moving from Kansas to Southern California with his family: “Dr. No” (Lee Pace, not funny), Dr. No’s wife (Judy Greer, given nothing funny to do) and their “two-legger” children. SoCal turns out to be “like high school, for dogs,” complete with dog park cliques, bullies and, of course, dog surfing.

‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’
Rated R
??

By today’s standards, this reboot of Wes Craven’s iconic 1984 horror film is only medium-bloody, though it’s more than usually grim. Yet it affords precious little sadistic pleasure, partly because it “dares” to lay out more directly the pedophiliac demons plaguing Freddy the serial killer (Jackie Earle Haley). With Craven’s original, the blurred borderlines between dreamscape and reality gave the best images an eerie force and unpredictability. The remake works the same idea to death.
— Tribune Media Services