THE LONGEST RIDE

I don't mean to alarm you, but this past Friday, a seismic event occurred at national cineplexes: A movie based on one of Nicholas Sparks' romantic melodramas opened, and not once - not once! - did its dewy young lovers wind up kissing in the rain.

IT FOLLOWS

Any horror fan who came of age with Halloween, Friday the 13th, and their many sequels knows the ironclad rule regarding imperiled teens: If they have sex, they're gonna die. So maybe you'll have to be of a certain generation - or have an affinity for a certain breed of shocker - to get the most from It Follows, writer/director David Robert Mitchell's intensely witty, pretty damned scary tale of a young woman diagnosed with a literally murderous, and ambulatory, STD.

INSURGENT

As was destined to happen at my well-attended-by-teenage-girls screening of Insurgent, I heard plenty of nervous titters when Shailene Woodley and Theo James finally unzipped their faux X-Men garb and got (PG-13) busy with one another, and solemn silence during most of the rest of this tear-stained, thematically pushy action adventure. But I did hear one other occasional sound, because nearly every time Miles Teller opened his mouth for a throwaway retort or vicious insult, the girls in my crowd laughed, and were completely right to. As Teller's Peter is an eternal thorn in our heroes' sides and a grade-A prick to boot - a character you'd presume more deserving of hisses than giggles - this was somewhat surprising. It was also hugely cheering. Those teen patrons may have collectively enjoyed the rampaging mediocrity of this Divergent sequel, but they also, just maybe, recognized true greatness when they saw it.

CHAPPIE

The sci-fi-action-comedy-thriller Chappie is the tale of an insentient creature who gains a soul and learns to love, just like Pinocchio and WALL•E and Short Circuit's Number 5. But this is a film by Neill Blomkamp, the writer/director of the violence- and profanity-laden District 9 and Elysium, so don't expect Disney-style warmth or Guttenberg-ian sweetness from this similarly R-rated outing. Instead, prepare to be amazed - though "stupefied" is the more appropriate term - by just how mawkish a movie can be despite boasting a title character who proves expert at carjacking, and whose most frequent malapropism involves his spirited twist on a 12-letter cuss word.