Ratings based on four-star system.

‘Dinner for Schmucks’
Rated PG-12
? 1/2
This remake of a French farce has a lot of funny people going for it. In it, a wealthy businessman hosts a monthly soiree for which his employees must bring an idiot to dinner, and the best idiot wins. Tim (Paul Rudd) feels conflicted about this, but into his life (and off the front of his car) bounces a pluperfect dolt, played by Steve Carell. While cast members like Jemaine Clement and Zach Galifianakis play well, this schmucked-up American edition does the chortling for us and then scolds us for laughing. Or, in my case, not.

‘Eat Pray Love’
Rated PG-13
??
It is easy to watch “Eat Pray Love,” the pretty, languid film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling journal of self-discovery. Director and co-adapter Ryan Murphy’s film will likely do the trick for a good percentage of those who loved Gilbert’s memoir. The movie has the advantage of getting more fun as it goes. Manhattan travel writer Liz, played by Roberts, gets up the nerve to leave her flaky husband and travel through Italy, India and Bali in search of fulfillment, fun and food.

‘The Expendables’
Rated PG-13
??
The cinematic equivalent of Ribfest, Sylvester Stallone’s “The Expendables” is all gristle and meat. The Expendables are mercenaries, and good ones. Most of the action takes place in the tiny, fictional South American island nation of Vilena, where the lads (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and company) have been hired by a shadowy CIA sort (Bruce Willis in a cameo featuring a cameo-within-a-cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger) to take out a dictator. Is it fun? Sort of. But it shoulda coulda been a ton of fun.

‘Lottery Ticket’
Rated PG-13
???
It’s hard out there for a kid from the projects who scores a lottery payoff, but must wait for the claim office to reopen. Suddenly everyone in the projects is after him. One foot in fantasyland, the other in the real world, the picture isn’t out for anything except laughs, plus a little astute sociology. Virtually everyone on screen knows where to find those laughs, how to deliver them and how hard to push them. This effort from first-time feature filmmaking collaborators, screenwriter Abdul Williams and director Erik White, is good — it’s fast, deftly paced and funny.

‘Nanny McPhee Returns’
Rated PG
??
This sequel is pushier and more frantic than the charming original. A fine fat hit in the U.K., this film transports us back to WWII-era rural England where the farm belonging to the beleaguered Green family is on the brink. The three Green children are forced to play host to their snooty London cousins, all watched over by the supernatural presence of Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson). Shenanigans ensue. Too much of the contrasting comedy in the movie is shrill, laden with routine computer-generated effects and pounded into dust by the score.

‘The Other Guys’
Rated PG-13
?? 1/2
A frustrating movie, albeit one with a lot of laughs, “The Other Guys” stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as New York Police Department desk jockeys who get a chance to transform themselves into high-risk, maximum-destruction superstars, chasing down a Bernie Madoff-type scam artist and destroying half their city in the process. While the filmmakers have overloaded the narrative, stretching it 20 minutes beyond its practical use, Ferrell is enough of a real actor to sell the stupidest stuff with the straightest of faces.

‘Salt’
Rated PG-13
???
“Salt” isn’t trying to reinvent anyone’s wheel. It’s quick (under 90 minutes minus credits) and, like the condiment whose name it shares, director Phillip Noyce’s run-like-hell thriller starring Angelina Jolie satisfies a basic human taste — something to go with the popcorn. I liked it. It knows what it’s doing. Jolie plays a supertough superspook confronted one day with a Russian defector who accuses her of being a sleeper agent in the employ of Russians dreaming of old-school world domination. Thus begin the running and the chasing.

‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’
Rated PG-13
???
This is a different kind of comic book-based movie, and not just because it’s funny first and everything else second. Director and co-writer Edgar Wright understands the appeal of the original Bryan Lee O’Malley graphic novels where Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) meets a New York transplant named Ramona Flowers, a tough babe in black leather who says he can date her if he vanquishes all seven of her “evil exes.” With epic battles and a successful satiric too-muchness, the film is raucous, impudent entertainment.

‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’
Rated PG
2 1/2 stars
In “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” loosely based on the Mickey Mouse segment in “Fantasia,” Nicolas Cage plays Balthazar, a good sorcerer who can live forever and is trying to protect modern-day New York City and environs from the ravages of bad sorcerers played by Alfred Molina and Alice Krige. Once Balthazar presses young Dave (Jay Baruchel) into apprenticeship, the duo and Molina shoot fire-jets and balls of energy at one another’s heads. All in all, this latest Disney live-action feature isn’t bad as these things go.

‘Step Up 3D’
Rated PG-13
3 stars
Entering NYU, Moose finds himself torn between two worlds, one respectable and relatively dance-free, the other filled with “b-boys, tickers, tappers, voguers and poppers.” The movie is like watching a musical from the early ‘50s but in 3-D, combining hip-hop battles with numbers paying homage to old-style classics. This movie is ridiculous. Of course. But it boasts a generous exuberance and, as entertainment products go, it’s surprisingly sweet. It requires only that you set your expectations correctly and that you don’t go into it with a grudge against dance on screen.

‘The Switch’
Rated PG-13
2 1/2 stars
This film is all over the place. Single and ready for a kid, TV producer Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) decides on artificial insemination. Her longtime friend and long-ago lover, Wally (Bateman), does not get the nod. The title refers to a switcheroo that Wally pulls at the “insemination party,” substituting his own donation for the cause. Seven years later, Kassie’s son’s quirks appear to have more in common with Wally than the presumptive birth father. Wally has a secret. The movie is about how long he can keep it.

‘Toy Story 3’
Rated G
3 stars
If “Toy Story 3” had sprung, Slinky Dog-like, from any creative think tank besides Pixar, it might be considered a classic. As is, it’s a good sequel. Young Andy is heading off to college, and the long-neglected toys are headed for the attic. After mistakenly getting thrown to the curb as trash, the gang — cowboy Woody, spaceman Buzz Lightyear, cowgirl Jessie, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head and the rest of the principals — has to bust out of the day care center in which they find themselves. Make no mistake: This Disney/Pixar release represents a franchise taken seriously by its custodians.

‘Twilight: Eclipse’
Rated PG-13
2 stars
“Eclipse” finds Bella (Kristen Stewart) inching closer to her decision to marry Edward (Robert Pattinson) and become a vampire, thus breaking the werewolf heart of Jacob (Taylor Lautner). The wolves and the vamps must unite to take on an army of vampiric “newborns.” Already, “Eclipse” has garnered praise as the best and most action-packed of the series — which I don’t understand. For me it’s ponderous and sloppily directed, and by far the most deadening when the dramatic necessity known as “talking” must be confronted, in between battles.
— Tribune Media Services