‘HALL PASS’

★★ 1/2 (out of four)

“Hall Pass” is easily their funniest, most charming and most genuinely heartfelt comedy since their 1997 magnum opus. Many of the funniest gags involve raunch-flick staples like pot brownies and public masturbation, but the filmmakers often get a surprising amount of mileage out of familiar material. The story moves along at a brisk place, and the Farrellys resist the temptation to turn their buddy flick into a mere reworking of “The Hangover.” The bad news, though, is that the filmmakers are still trying too hard. For every joke that works, there are five overly labored comic set-pieces that fall flat.

‘THE EAGLE’

★ (out of four)

Where to begin? For starters, the film takes the deadpan tone of a serious, old-school epic, making it feel like the most lifeless and uninspired adventure movie of 1957. (Watching Macdonald’s film, my mind couldn’t help but wander to Neil Marshall’s similar but vastly superior “Centurion,” which, in contrast, embraced its tawdry nature with infectious enthusiasm.) There is no rousing spirit or good-natured fun to be found in “The Eagle,” which is a slow-moving, dreary affair that has the attitude of an Old Hollywood production without any of the actual spectacle.

‘BLUE VALENTINE’

★★★★

The film, assembled in nonlinear fashion, tells the “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy doesn’t get girl back” story of Dean and Cindy (Gosling and Williams, respectively). As the movie opens, the couple is roughly five years into their tumultuous marriage. He’s a balding, chain-smoking alcoholic with a dead-end job, but seems content with a simple existence. She’s a stressed, frigid, overworked nurse who is not as content. They have a daughter together (it is soon established that she is not Dean’s biological child), and seeking a much-needed escape from domestic pressures, Dean suggests that Cindy accompany him to a “theme motel” for the night. From here the film delves heavily into flashback as we witness the couple’s charming, sexually charged courtship intercut with their significantly less friendly encounters in the oppressively blue-lit “future room.” It is a night of pain and humiliation, and it’s the last that they will spend together.

‘THE KING’S SPEECH’

★★★★

I must admit some trepidation when approaching films that rely on what could be perceived as “gimmick” performances — those “challenging” roles that Oscar voters love but, in actuality, offer very little to viewers looking for more than mere exaggerated caricatures (e.g. Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump,” Sean Penn in “Milk,” et. al.).

Despite the sustained critical raves for Colin Firth’s performance as the verbally impaired King George VI of England in “The King’s Speech,” up until seeing it I remained skeptical that even an actor as talented as Firth could transcend the limitations of such a role  — could craft a fully formed character and performance that is defined by more than a stammer.