G.I. JOE: RETALIATION

If you handed a box of crayons to a group of eight-year-olds with action figures, they'd probably come up with a more entertaining storyline for G.I. Joe: Retaliation than the one we're stuck with, which is your standard blockbuster nonsense about a megalomaniac's plan for world dominion and the crack team of well-armed, quip-ready hotshots attempting to thwart him. In a welcome surprise, though, director Jon M. Chu's follow-up to 2009's G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra is, unlike its forebear, quite a bit of zippy, throwaway fun, a fast-moving and happily unpretentious diversion with jokes, and good ones, obviously written specifically for viewers well over the age of eight.

NO STRINGS ATTACHED

Against all expectations, at least my expectations, director Ivan Reitman's No Strings Attached is a perfectly enjoyable piece of midwinter fluff, engaging and breezy and of no consequence whatsoever. Yet I'll admit to being somewhat shocked when, two days after seeing it, I replayed the notes I quietly recorded during my screening, and discovered that I didn't whisper even one criticism or complaint in the whole of its 105 minutes, which is a claim I can't even make about The Social Network.

Then again, the movie is a formulaic romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher, so I suppose the complaints do take care of themselves.