Scarlett Johansson in Under the SkinUNDER THE SKIN

Under the Skin, a dreamlike sci-fi/horror tale by director Jonathan Glazer, might just be the most fascinating, entrancing, thrilling movie I've ever seen given nearly unbearable viewing conditions.

Greg Kinnear and Kelly Reilly in Heaven Is for RealHEAVEN IS FOR REAL

So far this year, audiences for faith-based films at the multiplex have been treated to Son of God, God's Not Dead, and Noah, and now there's director Randall Wallace's Heaven Is for Real to add to the mix. Have the Hollywood powers-that-be heard something about an imminent Rapture that the rest of us haven't? Should I now be feeling awkward and guilty about my raucous laughter at This Is the End?

Joel Kinnaman and Gary Oldman in RoboCopROBOCOP, ABOUT LAST NIGHT, and ENDLESS LOVE

I caught a triple-feature this past weekend, and lemme tell ya, it made me feel like a teenager again. Specifically, it made me feel 19, my age when the original RoboCop debuted; 18, my age when the original About Last Night debuted; and 13, my age when the original Endless Love debuted. I don't know what confluence of release strategies resulted in this trifecta of Reagan-era remakes, but I guess I should be grateful to Hollywood for the collective trip down memory lane. I'd be more grateful if the movies themselves were better, but ... .

Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield in Ender's GameENDER'S GAME

In writer/director Gavin Hood's sci-fi adventure Ender's Game, our titular hero (Asa Butterfield) is a 12-year-old who's bullied both at school and at home, whose gestating anger leads to frequent violent outbursts, and whose frighteningly focused skills at computer-simulated war games not only earn him the respect of his peers but, eventually, the grateful thanks of every man, woman, and child on the planet. It is, in short, a Revenge of the Nerd fable to out-Carrie Carrie, and about the strongest argument for 24/7 video-game compulsion that any young game-hound could wish for. Just keep playing, you can hear the movie whispering to its console-obsessed demographic. One of these days, you'll show 'em. You'll show 'em all.

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in GravityGRAVITY

Alfonso Cuarón's space thriller Gravity opened this past weekend, and if you haven't seen it yet, you really should. Like, now. I'm serious. Step away from whatever electronic device you're using to read this and get in line at the cineplex - or, if the cineplex isn't currently open for business, drive over there and wait. Don't be one of those people who procrastinates until the movie hits home video and then whines about missing it on its initial release. Because I'm telling you: You're gonna want to catch Cuarón's latest on the big screen, and preferably on the biggest screen possible with your 3D glasses firmly in place. No kidding, folks: This thing is going to blow your mind.

Vin Diesel in RiddickRIDDICK and THE ULTIMATE LIFE

A few weeks ago, before heading off to see Kick-Ass 2, a friend asked if I thought 2013 was, as he felt, the year of the completely unnecessary, unrequested sequel. As I had, by that point, already sat through The Smurfs 2, RED 2, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, The Last Exorcism: Part II, and Scary Movie V - to say nothing of The Hangover: Part III, Fast & Furious 6, and Grown Ups 2, all of which someone must have requested - I told him yes.

Had he asked the same question this past Friday, before my double-feature of Riddick and The Ultimate Life, I would have told him hell yes.

Matt Damon in ElysiumELYSIUM

In Neill Blomkamp's Elysium, the sophomore sci-fi effort from the writer/director of District 9, the Earth of 2154 is a poverty-infested hell-hole that the richest of humans have evacuated for the gleaming, rotating space habitat of the film's title. An orbiting gated community of luxury, privilege, and (from what we can tell) almost universally white people, it's the utopia that our hero, Matt Damon's steelworker Max, longs to escape to, particularly after a fatal dose of radiation limits his time left on Earth to five days. (Medical advances on Elysium have eradicated disease completely; after one cycle through a futuristic CAT-scan machine, even cancer cells are killed.) The unaddressed joke of Blomkamp's film, however, is that Elysium - with its sterile mansions and perfectly mowed lawns and vacuous non-entities sipping champagne from crystal flutes - looks like a dismally dull place to be compared to the lively, recognizably human Earth, even in its decimated state. What's less of a joke is that Elysium itself, once we land on the titular site in its last half hour, is also dismally dull - or at least, dishearteningly formulaic - compared to the Earth-set goings-on of the film's first 70 minutes.

Kevin James, Adam Sandler, and Chris Rock in Grown Ups 2GROWN UPS 2

I'm presuming that you're reading this while seated. But just in case you aren't, you might want to grab the nearest chair, because in Grown Ups 2, the strongest, funniest, and damn near only performance in the movie is given by Taylor Lautner.

Yes. Taylor Lautner.

And the apocalypse just got a little bit closer.

Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, and Dave Franco in Now You See MeNOW YOU SEE ME

Given its premise, its cast, and the fact that it's a summertime release without a superhero or a number (or both) in the title, it was easy to feel jazzed about the prospect of Now You See Me, director Louis Leterrier's effects-driven caper about larcenous Las Vegas magicians scoring the heist of the century. Unfortunately, it took all of three minutes for that anticipatory excitement to turn, for me, into irritation, which then turned into active aggravation, which then turned into a disengaged torpor that lasted until the end credits rolled. Ta da.

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes in The Place Beyond the PinesTHE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES

You may not remember this if you're 25 or younger, but between the mid-'70s and mid-'90s, we were sometimes treated to Very Special Episodes of long-running sitcoms. These episodes, which were usually twice as long as their shows' 22-minute standard, found beloved characters momentarily wrestling with Weighty Themes and tackling Important Issues, and were frequently showered with critical praise and awards despite, or maybe because of, their general self-consciousness and bloat. (Michael J. Fox and Helen Hunt surely owe several of their Emmys to VSEs.) They're mocked now, and they were kind of mocked then, and so it might seem like a particularly condescending insult to say that director Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines feels like nothing so much as a Very Special Episode of a gritty, edgy indie drama.

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