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-.