Beautiful Creatures (2013)

I’m calling it the “Vonnegut Rule.” Anytime a teen drama needs to quickly illustrate its hero is a cool-sensitive outsider, he will be seen reading Vonnegut. Always “Slaughter House Five.” We get that scene moments into “Beautiful Creatures,” another YA adaptation about teens amongst supernatural angst and humanity-ending danger. Our reader is Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich), a high schooler with a DOA mom and MIA dad who falls for the new girl (Alice Englert) in class, because she’s witchy, and has, in fact, invaded Ethan’s dreams for months: Violent memories not his own. I know nothing of the books. But writer/director Richard LaGravenese’s movie peaks midway with a family dining room table fight that literally sends table and room spinning as one silent cousin sits, eating. (Why can’t the film be about him?) The remainder is blasé and anticlimactic, with part of the cast –- Emma Thompson -– camping it up “Batman” TV style, and the rest –- Ehrenreich and Englert –- crying over doomed love, all of them wrestling Southern accents that come and go, often in a single scene. Read some Vonnegut instead, eh? C

Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000, UK release)

In this second feature about the Irish gangster Martin Cahill, Kevin Spacey plays a thinly fictionalized Belfast crook who’s so impressed with his own thieving ways, the man’s smirk and ego overtake his abilities. Or maybe I mean Kevin Spacey the actor falls into this trap. It’s hard to tell as his Irish accent bounces and goes so much it could make a man puke his Lucky Charms. Spacey is coasting in a film made in 1998, but unseen in ’Merica until 2003. With reason. He plays “Michael Lynch” (that is, Cahill of “The General”) a gang leader with two wives (who are sisters), a bundle of children, and a talent for eluding prison as he robs banks, dole offices, and –- in a scene that shits on fact -– an art museum. Director Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s story is so vacant of any danger it makes a crime all its own. But Spacey –- filmed before “American Beauty” -- smirks self-satisfied. His worst gig. Colin Farrell appears, pre-stardom. Sorry, Colin. C-

The Phantom Tollbooth (1969)

I am a rabid Chuck Jones fan. There was or is no better animator, with Jones even surpassing Miyazaki and Disney in my book. No man has better drawn the way a dog stretches under a back scratch, or how any being –- man or beast -– can toss an askew glance at a Murphy moment of despair. So when I sat for Jones’ celebrated full-length “The Phantom Tollbooth,” I wanted to bask in childhood glory. Damn. This tale of a snotty child (Butch Patrick, Eddie of “The Munsters”) who drives a magical kiddie car through a magical tollbooth from live-action San Francisco into an animated world, is not just sparkless, it’s a text book lesson in how not to entertain children. It’s devastatingly preachy with slimy goblins warning of the dangers of doldrums, and kings and fairies warning of the sin of using too many words, or not enough, and watch your posture, and don’t complain! Well, I shall, thank you. Remember how cool those “School of Rock” shorts were? This is School of Impatience. The basic plot -– two kingdoms of letters and numbers are at war –- provides endless possibilities, and demands a smarter remake. C+

Alex Cross (2012)

Halfway through watching a shocking dull and vacant Tyler Perry sleepwalk his way through playing James Patterson’s famed detective “Alex Cross,” the actor who should be playing the role arrives for a cameo that kills. Giancarlo Esposito. You know his face. “Breaking Bad.” “Usual Suspects.” He scorches screen as a mob boss called on by Cross as the stalwart detective sinks to “Untouchables” methods to bag the psychotic assassin/kick boxer/artist (!!) who killed his wife. That’s the main plot, set up by a starved-looking Matthew Fox (“Lost”) as the thrice-talented loon slow-tortures and kills a woman and then goes gonzo across Detroit in a mysterious spree that leads to a massively unsurprising conspiracy of typical James Patterson pedigree. But forget the forgettable plot. Back to Perry. Love or hate his “Madea” films, he is undeniably entertaining, and can own a screen. Here, he’s outclassed by furniture. A stiff on moving legs, sans zombie makeup. Is he tired? Put off by the rough (but PG-13) material laid out by director Rob Cohen? I have no idea. “Cross” opens DOA, and save Esposito’s blip, stays a flatliner. D

Oblivion (2013)

Futuristic thriller “Oblivion” is a surprising effort from Tom Cruise and director/writer Joseph Kosinski for all the wrong reasons: It’s a dud film timed for Earth Day. Every scene, fight, character, and reveal is recycled from better films in my DVD collection. 

Cruise is Jack, a memory-wiped repair guy on a wasted 2077 Earth who looks after massive machinery that provides energy for humanity, now stored up on a spaceship and ready to bolt for distant refuge. Jack is alone but for his monotone (and ginger-haired) companion (Andrea Riseborough) who runs his life. A robot in high heels, her.

“Oblivion” is a knock-out artistically, but it’s also -– in case you haven’t been paying attention -– a nonsensical awful reverse of “Moon,” a new-classic sci-fi films. Yes, Jack meets another Jack. Really. Duncan Jones could sue. Also lazily ripped: “2001,” “Star Wars” and “Independence Day,” among others. No moment of this thriller thrills, it rehash future where reveals land like bricks.

When Cruise’s hero inexplicibly (mind wipe!) recalls a football game, I forgot I like him as an actor. Kosinski made “Tron: Legacy,” another great-looking sci-fi epic stuck in the past. Pattern? C