OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL

As numerous effect-heavy entertainments have proved over the years, few film actors, and even fewer good ones, look altogether comfortable performing in wholly pixelated landscapes opposite wholly digitized characters. Yet I'm not sure I've seen any star look less connected with his artificial environment than James Franco does in Oz the Great & Powerful, director Sam Raimi's mega-budgeted and intensely disappointing prequel to The Wizard of Oz.

SNITCH

As a film star, Dwayne Johnson possesses a lot of gifts - or, at least, sufficiently impressive gifts for what his résumé has required. Though God knows he's physically intimidating, Johnson is also our most thoroughly genial of ass-kickers, with even his most violent of big-screen endeavors leavened by a welcome lightness of touch and hint of amused self-mockery. And as he has proved in all those bland family entertainments over the years, Johnson still manages to appear game and committed in movies that don't deserve his considerable charisma, often salvaging entire scenes through unexpectedly silly gestures or readings that show just how inventive a comedian he can be. (I was happy for 10 whole minutes following his brief channeling of co-star Michael Caine in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. They were about the only 10 minutes during the movie in which I was happy.)

SAFE HAVEN

Whatever else it is, and it's not much else, Safe Haven is the least boring Nicholas Sparks adaptation I've yet seen, mostly because it's so unequivocally bonkers.

WARM BODIES

See if this sounds familiar: A sweet, lonely, non-human - but decidedly male - being with a limited vocabulary toils through a portion of Earth all but completely devoid of life, performing the same mundane, regimented activities day after day. Occasionally, he augments the dreariness by collecting tchotchkes from more civilized days, which he stores in his makeshift home-slash-warehouse, and comforts himself by playing old music on a recognizably antiquated device. One day, a beautiful female enters his life, and although he's initially nervous about making contact, he proceeds to woo her by offering safety and shelter, making her laugh, and subtly expressing his undying devotion. The female, however, soon leaves, but our protagonist doesn't take her evacuation lying down. Instead, he follows his beloved, and subsequently sets into motion events that not only might reunite the pair, but might lead to the rejuvenation - indeed, the very survival - of the entire human race.

If you didn't know the movie in question was titled Warm Bodies, and didn't know it was a romantic comedy about a zombie who becomes enamored with a girl with a pulse, wouldn't that description sound just a teensy bit reminiscent of WALL•E?