Cameron Diaz, Kate Upton, and Leslie Mann in The Other WomanTHE OTHER WOMAN

Unduly high expectations, as we all know, can sometimes ruin your movie-going experience. Unduly low expectations, on the other hand, generally yield nothing but benefits, and so I'd like to thank film-critic consensus for making me so fearful of Nick Cassavetes' The Other Woman. This revenge comedy may be indefensibly weak, but the unbridled and unwarranted zeal with which so many people are attacking it - The Dispatch/Rock Island Argus used Richard Roeper's description "excruciatingly awful" as the review's headline - makes me feel that some defense might be necessary.

Bonnie Wright and Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter & the Chamber of SecretsHARRY POTTER & THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

Although I didn't care for last year's Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone, I was more than willing to greet the new Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets with an open mind.

Russell Crowe in GladiatorGLADIATOR

Ridley Scott's Gladiator, a surprisingly pungent and entertaining historical epic, displays, among other things, the pleasures of a great audience-grabbing plot (based loosely on actual events).