THE LONE RANGER

Youll have to wait more than two hours for it, but in director Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger, you'll finally be treated to a scene that makes sitting through this hugely budgeted action-adventure-Western-comedy totally worth your ... .

Oh, who am I kidding? The movie still isn't worth your time. But as the scene in question is the only truly exhilarating one in the whole of this wildly over-produced and exhaustingly frenetic outing - an updating of the beloved radio and television serial that famously asked, "Who was that masked man?" - I might as well give it the praise it deserves.

THE HANGOVER PART III

Not long into The Hangover Part III, our mishap-prone heroes portrayed by Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis are seen sipping beers at a karaoke bar, discussing the best way to handle their latest mess initiated by Ken Jeong's eccentric gangster/eternal thorn-in-the-side Mr. Chow. Though this might constitute a minor spoiler, the casual drinks consumed in this scene are, to my recollection, the only drinks - indeed, the only judgment-impairing substances of any kind - consumed in the entire movie. That makes director Todd Phillips' outing a Hangover without hangovers. In the end, it's also a Hangover without The Hangover.

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.)

FLIGHT

Within the first 15 minutes of director Robert Zemeckis' Flight, you'll witness what must rank as one of cinema's most frightening, emotionally wrenching plane crashes. Yet in the end, and as harrowing as this passage is, I'm not sure that it's actually more terrifying or heartbreaking than the scenes of Denzel Washington's Whip Whitaker - the pilot whose heroic actions save 96 lives aboard that ill-fated flight - battling his urge to drink and, with only the mildest feelings of regret, losing that battle again and again and again.