‘SUPER 8’

★★ 1/2 (out of four)

Here is a film that is fashioned from the Spielberg model, from the themes of childhood innocence right down to the director’s trademark photography techniques. Director J.J. Abrams (the television power player who has attempted to make the leap to the big screen, with limited success, with “Mission: Impossible III” and “Star Trek”) has aped Steven Spielberg so well that, sans credits, one could conceivably mistake “Super 8” as being directed by the master himself — that is, if you’re only looking at the surface.

‘X-MEN: FIRST CLASS’

★★★ 1/2 

Matthew Vaughn is no Christopher Nolan, and “X-Men: First Class” is no “Dark Knight.” Vaughn does not completely reinvent the genre here, nor does he dabble in philosophy and subversive themes, as Nolan does. Vaughn plays things relatively straight (a little homosexual subtext notwithstanding), but he assembles his old-fashioned picture with deft precision and confidence. Nolan wrote the book on how to completely retool a franchise from the ground up, but Vaughn deserves his own accolades for providing a template for how to resurrect a good-as-dead film series while still remaining true to the predecessors’ tone and overall style.

‘THE HANGOVER PART II’

★★★

I went into “The Hangover Part II” with the understanding that I would be witnessing a cynical act of studio-sanctioned pandering, and that’s exactly what I got. Yet, since I was going in with lowered expectations, I was able to let my guard down and appreciate this crass cash-grab on its own limited terms. And, lo and behold, I had a good time. I suppose the importance of creativity is diminished when one is faced with the prospect of a drug-dealing capuchin monkey riding a motorcycle. Or a heterosexual man being seduced by a Thai lady-boy, or any number of the other lewd gags the film lays out with record speed.

‘PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES’

★★★ 

You see, against all odds and despite what you may have heard from basically everybody you’ve ever met, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” is not a bad film. It is not aggressively stupid, as some have charged, nor is it woefully boring. Its horridness will not inspire you to burn effigies, and it is not among the worst films you will see this year. In fact, in many respects, it is indistinguishable from the rest of the movies in the series.

But that’s the problem. Uninspired, inert and listless on every conceivable level, “On Stranger Tides” is perfectly content to simply exist alongside its predecessors without setting itself apart in any meaningful way. The result is a summer spectacle without the spectacle. With nothing even remotely new or interesting to offer audiences, the film just sits there, waiting for you to be impressed simply by virtue of the fact that you are watching a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.