‘FRIGHT NIGHT’

★★ (out of four)

Most horror movies, good or bad or in between, at least have an easy time establishing a consistent tone — scary or campy, or a deft mix of both, if the director really knows what they’re doing and can effectively juggle different sub-genres. Craig Gillespie’s remake of the 1980s camp classic “Fright Night,” however, never seems to find its place. A choppy and confused blend of old-fashioned vampire horror and more self-aware, borderline-meta camp, the movie never properly gels (especially when it tries to add genre homage into the mix, best exemplified in the scene where original “Fright Night” star Chris Sarandon shows up in an unimaginative token cameo as an ill-fated motorist).

‘RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES’

★★★ 1⁄2

More morality play than typical summer blockbuster, this “Planet of the Apes” envisions a not-too-distant future in which human greed and arrogance lays the groundwork for the primate-run society first seen in the 1968 film with Charlton Heston. Our primary human protagonist is medical researcher Will Rodman (James Franco, looking way too spaced out to be believable as an M.D.), an altruistic lad who is working tirelessly to find a cure for Alzheimer’s, the disease that is slowing destroying his father (John Lithgow). After a lab mishap involving an aggressive ape leaves him without a prime test subject for his regenerative “cure,” Will secretly takes home that ape’s offspring, named Caesar (played by Andy Serkis, king of the blue-screen), to conduct private research.

‘COWBOYS & ALIENS’

★★ 1⁄2 

I always appreciate it when a film makes an effort to show me something I haven’t seen before, and I’m willing to forgive a great many oversights in exchange for that spark of creativity. “Cowboys & Aliens” (based on the comic book by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, but credited to no less than eight screenwriters) offers up an intriguing blend of the Western, adventure and science-fiction genres, and that alone is a novel enough concept to pique my interest. The film has a lot of fun with the madcap mixup and even includes several blink-and-you’ll-miss-them nods to such genre staples as “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “The Searchers,” and I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anything quite like it. 

‘HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HOLLOWS: PART 2’

★★★ 1⁄2 

There’s something to be said for a book franchise that has almost single-handedly instilled a love of reading into a whole generation of youths, and a movie franchise that has brought genuine joy to hundreds of millions of people. In the end, the positive residual effects of Pottermania easily trump the cynicism and greed that went into its creation. And despite its status as a studio product, I defy any old-fashioned, entertainment-seeking moviegoer to see “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” and come away dissatisfied.