JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA

This might surprise a grand total of none of you, but Bad Grandpa - which also goes by the more telling title Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa - isn't much of a movie. The first Jackass release to feature an actual narrative, and actual characters, in place of the usual parades of comically vile, violent challenges and stunts (though there are a few of those, too), director Jeff Tremaine's road-trip slapstick is mostly shapeless and certainly obvious, and nowhere near as hilarious as you want it to be.

Yet it's also a continually interesting and, in the end, rather sweet sociological experiment reminiscent of Borat, but a Borat without the mean-spiritedness. If Sacha Baron Cohen's outing, with its Candid Camera-style employment of "real people" clearly not in on the joke, reveled in displaying how crass and ignorant Americans could be, Tremaine's suggests just how tolerant and polite we can be - and given the circumstances presented here, that's apparently mighty tolerant and polite indeed.

SKYFALL

Longtime fans of the franchise can, and likely will, argue over whether Skyfall is one of the all-time best James Bond films or whether it just feels that way because it's now been six years since the last decent one. (Despite having friends who'll stump for everything from Moonraker to The World Is Not Enough, I don't know anyone who really cares for 2008's Quantum of Solace.) But here's a question that I'm not sure merits any argument: Prior to this latest adventure, has any other Bond movie looked quite so spectacular?

THE SWITCH

Since it's a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston that actually doesn't suck, it's temping to overrate The Switch, which opens with Aniston's Kassie preparing to be artificially inseminated, and BFF Wally (Jason Bateman) - who secretly loves her - swapping her sperm donor's donation for one of his own.