21 JUMP STREET (R) 2012’s biggest surprise to date has to be this brilliantly dumb comedy from star-producer-story contributor Jonah Hill. A pair of pathetic new cops, Schmidt and Jenko (Hill and comedy revelation Channing Tatum), blow their first bust. As a result, they are transferred to a special undercover unit that sends fresh-faced policemen into local schools to nab drug dealers and the like.

THE AVENGERS (PG-13) The various Avengers—Robert Downey, Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, another new Hulk (this time Mark Ruffalo gets to unleash the beast) and the rest—have assembled, and together they are a blast. But before they can battle Thor’s mischievous brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who is intent on enslaving the world with his other-dimensional army, Earth’s mightiest heroes have to sort out a few things among themselves. Joss Whedon and Zak Penn capture the bickering essence of a super-group. Every single one of these heroes benefits from Whedon’s trademark snappy banter and his way with ensembles. These characters thrive by not having to carry the movie on their own (the Hulk especially benefits from sharing the spotlight). Whedon has always loved the lady leads, and he gets more out of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow than anyone else would have. Critical grumbling about The Avengers is minimal thanks to Whedon’s meticulously crafted screenplay and directorial vision (he heads his own verse for a reason) and the engaging ensemble. Once the paperwork is finalized so the team can go into action for the bang-up finale, The Avengers lives up to all the hype and expectation.

BATTLEFIELD AMERICA (PG-13) How much you’re going to like Battlefield America (don’t confuse it with a sequel to the slice of John Travolta-meets-L. Ron Hubbard awful that is Battlefield Earth) depends on how excited this next statement makes you: “From the writer, director & creator of You Got Served.” Pumped yet? Chris Stokes hits the dance floor again with a new group of kids. The plot, if you care, involves a businessman bankrolling an instructor to get some misfits ready for an underground dance competition

BATTLESHIP (PG-13) For a giant, dumb summer movie that could only be called Bay-esque, Battleship doesn’t sink itself. Earth gets more than it bargained for after scientists send signals into space in an attempt to add some extraterrestrial Facebook friends. The ETs that answer are not friendly, answering with massive Transformer-y ships and personality-less shock troopers. Fortunately, Earth has Taylor Kitsch, Landry from “Friday Night Lights,” Rihanna and Brooklyn Decker to fight the giant peg-bomb launching invaders. FX-laden, wannabe blockbusters based on board games can certainly be worse than this flick directed by Peter Berg (with a soundtrack programmed by a classic rock DJ named Mad Dog). A whole lot of seen-it-before and just enough something new keep this hulking behemoth afloat. Props to the writing Hoebers who fit in a sequence where the characters actually play a life-or-death version of Battleship; I haven’t seen such a great deadly game night since Never Say Never Again. The best/worst salvo I can launch at this flick is that it made me really yearn to play Battleship for the first time in years. Two hundred million dollars bought Hasbro a hell of a commercial.

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (PG-13) No better Avengers counterprogramming could exist than this British dramedy starring Oscar winner Dame Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Oscar winner Maggie Smith and Oscar winner Tom Wilkinson and directed by Shakespeare in Love Oscar nominee John Madden. A bevy of Brits travel to the subcontinent to stay at the posh, newly renovated Marigold Hotel, but the adverts prove misleading. Still, the hotel does begin to charm its English patrons. Based on the novel by Deborah Moggach.

CHERNOBYL DIARIES (R) In this new flick from Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli (visual effects vet Bradley Parker makes his directorial debut), six American tourists (including multiplatinum recording artist Jesse McCartney) hire an extreme tour guide to take them to Pripyat, the ghost city left by Chernobyl. The visitors soon discover they are not alone. Peli jettisons the found footage gimmick upon which his previous features have relied. The trailer looks appropriately creepy, but that title is terrible.

DARK SHADOWS (PG-13) Having tried but never quite sunk my teeth into both previous versions of Dan Curtis’ gothic soap opera, I had few preconceptions going into Tim Burton/Johnny Depp’s high-concept reimagining. Sadly, the duo merely delivered a pretty-looking, rather dull oddity. (Burton’s output has become increasingly miss-and-hit.) Tossing much of the soap’s suds and upping the camp, the big screen Dark Shadows still involves many of the series’ major players: vampire Barnabas Collins (Depp), Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), Dr. Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), Angelique (Eva Green), Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley), Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote) and Carolyn Stoddard (Chloe Grace Moretz). That list of names will mean little to the scores of uninitiated young Burton/Depp fans looking for another Alice in Wonderland, which this horror comedy most certainly is not. That movie’s billion-dollar success has fortunately allowed Burton to indulge his quirkier side at Collinswood. Still, his latest movie becomes shockingly boring after the extremely amusing early scenes of 200-plus-year-old Barnabas adapting to the 1970s. Depp produces another entertaining character, a la Jack Sparrow, but as the movie approaches the two hour mark, he grows as tedious as the blockbuster he solely supports.

THE DICTATOR (R) Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles may have left their guerrilla mockumentary tactics behind, but their offensive strategy still elicits massive bombs of laughter, even in this much more conventionally structured comedy. Cohen’s Admiral General Aladeen, the dictator of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya, is stripped of his beard and power on a trip to speak to the United Nations. With the help of a crunchy feminist (adequately supplied by an atypical Anna Faris) and a should-be-dead nuclear scientist (“The League” MVP Jason Mantzoukas aka El Cuñado), Aladeen must infiltrate a peace summit before his beloved oppressive regime becomes a democracy. The brilliant gags far outclass the low-brow misses; the soundtrack—filled by “Wadiyan”-language versions of “Everybody Hurts,” “9 to 5” and “The Next Episode”—is the film’s best running joke. Cohen continues to stake his claim to the chameleonic comic crown left by Peter Sellers, but what should he do with it once he gets it? Outside of the scathing climactic critique of American democracy (all true, of course), The Dictator lacks the witheringly pointed satire of Borat and Bruno. It surely is hilarious though. 

DR. SEUSS’ THE LORAX (PG) Released on Dr. Seuss’ 108th birthday, this pleasant animated adaptation of the beloved children’s author’s environmental fable fails to utterly charm like the filmmakers’ previous animated smash, Despicable Me. The Lorax may visually stun you, and Danny DeVito’s brief time as voice of the Lorax could stand as his greatest role, one that will go unrecognized by any professional awards outside of the Annies.

FOOTNOTE (PG) 2011. The rivalry between a father and son who both teach Talmudic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reaches a new competitive peak when the father, Eliezer (Shlomo Bar-Aba), is honored for his work. This Israeli feature by writer-director Joseph Cedar was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award and Cannes’s Palme d’Or; it also won nine Awards of the Israeli Film Academy, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay.

THE HUNGER GAMES (PG-13) While a successful adaptation of a difficult book that near everyone has read, The Hunger Games has little cinematic spark. It’s a visual book report that merely summarizes the plot. It’s a well-written book report, but it’s still a book report. Seabiscuit director Gary Ross was not the most obvious choice to direct this dystopian adventure in which 24 teenagers are randomly selected for a contest in which only one will survive.

JOHN CARTER (PG-13) Civil War veteran John Carter (“Friday Night Lights”’ alum Taylor Kitsch, whose career is poised to blow up or implode in 2012) is transported to Mars, where 12-foot-tall barbarians rule. WALL-E director Andrew Stanton becomes the latest Pixar filmmaker to make the jump from animation to live action. I’d love to see his film be as successful as Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol. With Bryan Cranston, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Willem Dafoe and Thomas Haden Church.

THE KID WITH A BIKE (PG-13) 2011. Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Rosetta and The Child) wrote and directed this feature about a young boy (Thomas Doret), abandoned by his father, who spends his weekends with a local hairdresser (Cecile de France). Unfortunately, he also gets mixed up with a local criminal. His mode of transportation: a bike. The Palme d’Or nominee picked up Cannes’s Grand Prize of the Jury and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes.

MEN IN BLACK III (PG-13) Confession time: I never saw Men in Black II. I’m OK with that oversight. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones reprise their roles as Agent J and Agent K. Apparently, Smith’s J time travels back to 1969 to stop an alien from assassinating his partner, whose younger version is played by John Brolin. Director Barry Sonnenfeld returns and could really use a hit. With Alice Eve, Jemaine Clement, Emma Thompson and Bill Hader as Andy Warhol.

MIRROR MIRROR (PG) Not much clicks in 2012’s first reimaging of Snow White (the darker Snow White and the Huntsman drops in June). Julia Roberts does not an Evil Queen make; the anachronistic dialogue is wincingly unfunny and the live action cartoon, overflowing with Stooge-y slapstick, is a tonal decision only pleasing to undiscriminating children, many of whom found Mirror Mirror to be rousingly delightful. It’s not.

PIRANHA 3DD (R) The needle-teethed, bloodthirsty pack of prehistoric piranha might be back, but not many of the people responsible for that fun-filled exploitation flick are. The Feast trio—director John Gulagher and writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton—is replacing Alexandre Aja; that’s not a trade up. Moving the all-you-can-eat buffet from Lake Victoria to a water park seems like a smart move. Now, it’s up to the execution. With Danielle Panabaker, Ving Rhames, David Hasselhoff and Katrina Bowden.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (PG-13) 2012’s second Snow White movie (she’s also a television star on ABC’s “Once Upon a Time”) tweaks the fairy tale with the pale beauty (Kristen Stewart, Twilight) and the huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, Thor), sent by Charlize Theron’s Evil Queen to kill her, instead teaming up to overthrow her majesty. Director Rupert Sanders is an unknown entity; thankfully, the cast includes the familiar faces of Toby Jones, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost and Bob Hoskins. Written by Drive’s Hossein Amini.

THE THREE STOOGES (PG) Apparently, a modern update of Three Stooges is not an idea as utterly bereft of laughs as one would imagine. As staged by the Farrelly Brothers, the violent misadventures of Moe (Chris Diamantopoulos), Larry (Sean Hayes, “Will & Grace”) and Curly (Will Sasso, “MADtv”) now involve a murder plot, a reality TV show and saving an orphanage at which Larry David entertainingly plays a nun. Fans of the Stooges should be pleased as the chosen trio and their younger counterparts—Skyler Gisondo, Lance Chantiles-Wertz and Robert Capron—are swell stand-ins for the originals.

WE HAVE A POPE (NR) 2011. An Italian man is elected to be Pope against his wishes, prompting an embarrassing lack of enthusiasm for God's chosen post in this comedy directed by Nanni Moretti. The cardinals bring in a psychiatrist to help the new Pope deal with his anxiety.

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING (PG-13) Expecting a cinematic extinction level event on par with Garry Marshall’s star-whoring Valentine’s Day/New Year’s Eve, What to Expect When You’re Expecting pleasantly met my vastly lowered expectations. What to Expect would have been a decent Apatow/Bridesmaids knockoff had it slimmed down to one main plot—an expectant couple played by Elizabeth Banks and Mr. Melissa McCarthy (Ben Falcone) compete with his race car legend father (Dennis Quaid) and his pregnant trophy wife (Brooklyn Decker)—and shed the extra plot poundage involving Jennifer Lopez adopting an Ethiopian baby, Anna Kendrick and Chace Crawford’s uh-oh moment and Cameron Diaz’s star pregnancy (with that wet blanket from “Glee,” Matthew Morrison). The almost interstitial scenes with the daddy club of Chris Rock, Rob Heubel, Thomas Lennon and Amir Talai amuse, as does Rebel Wilson as Banks’s mostly clueless employee. Like unfortunate clockwork, every time the movie started to get things comically right, the scene would shift to JLo’s woes or the young couple’s romantic predicament. Still, I expected little, and the romantic dramedy delivered a bundle of tiny, intermittent joy that, like some babies, cried more than it laughed.

WRATH OF THE TITANS (PG-13) Is the problem that they don’t make them like they used to or that they make them too much like they used to? Wrath of the Titans, the tedious sequel to the boring remake of Clash of the Titans, is fully stocked on seen-that-before moments. Demigod Perseus (former next big thing Sam Worthington) is asked by his godly pops, Zeus (Liam Neeson), to help save humanity again. Apparently, Zeus’ bro, Hades (Ralph Fiennes), and Zeus’ other kid, Ares (Edgar Ramirez), are scheming with Zeus’ Titan dad, Cronos, to stage a monstrously large prison break, and the half-god is the only person who can stop it. Battle: Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman brings the exact same bag of shaky action tricks to ancient Greece, but believe it or not, Battle: LA is more exciting.