“AMERICAN REUNION”

★★1/2 (out of four)

Expectations were surpassed when it became clear that the film wasn’t merely a vehicle for raunchy humor (though it certainly was that as well), but also a surprisingly touching and emotionally mature teen love story that wore its heart on its sleeve. The movie was a tremendous success, launching a franchise that thus far has produced three sequels and four direct-to-DVD spin-offs. More importantly, it was instrumental in setting the standard for character-driven gross-out comedies in the decade that followed, and it is almost inconceivable that filmmakers like Judd Apatow and Todd Phillips would be successful today without the template provided by “American Pie.”

“THE HUNGER GAMES”

★★

I enjoy exploitation as much as the next red-blooded American, but if I’m gonna wallow, I gotta wallow in style. Unfortunately, “The Hunger Games” is devoid of such style, with Ross preferring constant and inexplicable close-up shots, even in the most inappropriate moments. The action scenes (which come at a brisk clip once the maddeningly detailed expository scenes are through) are incoherent blurs of motion — somewhat understandable, given the difficulty inherent to depicting 12-year-olds being wantonly butchered, but still presumably avoidable with a competent artist in the director’s chair.

“21 JUMP STREET”

★★★ 1/2

It is not a work of art. Clearly, it will not be winning any awards. But I will say this for it: When I walked into the theater, I had endured a particularly rough day full of sorrow and pity and pretty much every other bad emotion you can imagine, and the absolute last thing I wanted to do was watch yet another awful adaptation of an equally awful ’80s television show. Two hours later, I walked out of the theater smiling, lightly chuckling to myself in remembrance of some of the movie’s funnier gags, and generally just feeling a lot better about life and my place in the universe. The experience bordered on the spiritual.

“project x”

★★

I was going to give the movie a fair shake and — gasp! — actually grant it the consideration of a review. And why not? Because it’s a “found footage” comedy about teenagers partying? Because its sense of humor is base and degrading to society as a whole? (Oh noes! For the love of God, will somebody please think of the children?!) Nuts to that. At a time when roughly 97 percent of mainstream movies are assembly-line productions adhering to a rigid template of ineptitude, I’m willing to take a shot with something like “Project X.”