GodzillaGODZILLA

To get the inarguable out of the way, director Gareth Edwards' new take on Godzilla is an incalculably stronger piece of work than Roland Emmerich's woebegone 1998 version. Its visual effects are superb, and occasionally stunning. Its supporting cast boasts some obscenely gifted actors. It has been crafted with professionalism, confidence, seriousness of purpose, and obvious respect for its cinematic forebears. And taken overall, I found the experience so deathly boring that in the midst of its incredibly loud, debris-strewn action finale, I actually fell asleep. On two separate occasions.

Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd in How Do You KnowHOW DO YOU KNOW

There's actually quite a bit of good to be said about writer/director James L. Brooks' How Do You Know, not least of which is that it's nowhere near as unbearable as Brooks' last offering, 2004's Spanglish. Unfortunately, that's not the same as saying the movie itself is good.

Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal in Love & Other DrugsLOVE & OTHER DRUGS

In my 2009 review of the director's turgid World War II drama Defiance, I opened by asking, "Am I the only person who wishes that Edward Zwick would go back to making sharp, bitchy comedies like his 1986 Rob Lowe-Demi Moore romance About Last Night ... ?" Well, less than two years later, Zwick has returned to those romantic-comedy roots with Love & Other Drugs. Because, apparently, I needed another reminder to be careful what I wish for.

Johnny Knoxville in Jackass 3DJACKASS 3D

Well, it finally happened. Having frequently wept with laughter during MTV's Jackass series, 2002's Jackass: The Movie, and 2006's Jackass Number Two, Johnny Knoxville and his incorrigible extreme-stunt companions, in director Jeff Tremaine's Jackass 3D, got me crying for an altogether different reason.

Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel, and Alexis, Brooke, or Brynn Clagett in Life as We Know ItLIFE AS WE KNOW IT

For whatever else it is, the romantic comedy Life as We Know It is certainly the year's most inaptly titled movie, since it doesn't present a version of life as anyone would know it.