The Way, Way Back (2013)

I got into “The Way, Way Back” fast. The title refers to those nerdy 1980s station wagons with the reverse seat in the far back that faced traffic, exile from all family interaction as you wondered if the truck in “front” of you crashed into the rear, would you survive? Not likely. Yes, I have mental issues. So does Duncan (Liam James), a 14-year-old stuck on a beach trip with his mother (Toni Collette) and her boyfriend (Steve Carell, against type and damn good), who riddles the boy with abuse. “You’re a three,” this dick chides the boy. Seat position is Duncan’s least worry. Seeking escape from boredom and his mother’s daftness, Duncan peddles a girl’s bike (too easy a joke) around the lazy town and finds himself at a cheapo water park run by a beach bum (Sam Rockwell, air quoting Bill Murray) who reaches out with friendship and a job. Duncan gets to drive. Directors/writers Jim Rash and Nat Faxon (“Descendants”) have crafted a great -– if overly familiar -- film about a kid who wants nothing more than to jump out that back window and run. I was him long ago. A-

Dinner with Schmucks (2010) and Bad Teacher (2011)

Nothing bores me more than a comedy that promises a nasty good romp, but delivers a dull time and a feel-good ending. In “Dinner for Schmucks,” Paul Rudd is an office drone eyeing life with the big suits upstairs. The price: He must invite a “loser” to a dinner party so the guy can be ridiculed. Rudd’s Ted’s pick is Barry (Steve Carell), a loner who makes intricate dioramas using dead mice. Directed by Jay Roach, “Dinner” is mush. Ted is so freakin' nice we never doubt where he’ll stand. Barry is played as a ridiculous punch line that we’re asked to sympathize with. I didn’t. In “Bad Teacher,” Cameron Diaz is Elizabeth Halsey, a money-grubbing brat who must support herself by teaching middle school. Halsey is written as a dullard with no spark of hidden magic that makes the viewer hate himself for loving the title weasel. “Bad Santa” made me squirm with glee. Here, I yawned. Jason Segal shrugs through his role as a smitten gym teacher, and Justin Timberlake all but erases himself as a rich dweeb. Brit actress Lucy Punch steals both movies as wildly differing antagonists, a crazed stalker and a grating educator, respectively. “Dinner”: C. “Bad”: C-.

Date Night (2010)

In “Date Night,” Tina Fey and Steve Carell play wife and husband, Realtor and accountant, and parents. Tired, rushed and dull, and from suburban Jersey. They are the nameless, voiceless extras you see in the far background of spy thrillers about exotic couples. But in this film, on their one night out to New York, Claire and Phil are the stars. Mistaken for blackmailers at a snobby Tribeca restaurant, Claire and Phil find themselves face-to-gun barrel over a stolen jump drive, and must run from potential killers (Common and Jimmi Simpson). So off they go, across NYC on the run. The great kick of this comedy is that the couple is absolutely out of their element the entire film, freaked by guns and reeking pay phones and car chases. Fey and Carell never lose sight of their characters’ normalcy, and that’s what makes them special. Various cameos pepper the film: Ray Liotta, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, etc., with Mark Wahlberg providing deadpan comedy gold as a shirtless James Bond hunk that normally would have the starring role. A-