“THE MUPPETS”

★★★ 1⁄2 (out of four)

“The Muppets” marks the troupe’s first big-screen outing in 12 years (following the ill-conceived “Muppets from Space”), and takes a refreshingly postmodern look at the franchise, tackling head-on the perceived irrelevance of the Muppets in contemporary society. As the movie opens we are introduced to Walter, a puppet “born” to human parents in the late ’70s, when Muppet fever was sweeping the nation. Water and his human brother, Gary (Jason Segel, who also co-wrote the screenplay), are somewhat isolated in their ’50-inspired Smalltown, USA existence, and remain diehard Muppet fans through the decades even as the rest of the country forgets about them. 

“THE TWILIGHT SAGA — BREAKING DAWN: PART 1”

★ 1⁄2

Let me start off with the positive: “Breaking Dawn: Part 1” is not as terrible as I assumed it would be. I’ve never seen a “Twilight” movie before (just as I’ve never punched myself in the throat, or intentionally smashed by hand with a hammer, mainly because I’ve an instinct for self-preservation), but the 15-minute snippets I’ve seen here and there on television have led me to the unmistakable conclusion that these films are, hyperbole aside, some of the worst movies ever made. Completely devoid of anything even remotely resembling competent acting, effective screenwriting or impressive production values, they are, in a word, worthless. Actually, “worthless” is too kind a word — “harmful” seems more appropriate.

“PIRANHA 3D”

★★★ 1⁄2

I’ve always subscribed to Roger Ebert’s philosophy that it isn’t what a film is about that’s important, but how it is about it. To demonstrate: “Piranha 3D” could easily have been a complete failure — indistinguishable from the string of lifeless, torturously boring, bargain-basement, direct-to-DVD titles that line the walls at Blockbuster. Yet by embracing its genre history, by totally abandoning any pretense of seriousness, and by delivering exactly what viewers expect (and in great quantities), the film rises above its station as a cheap exploitation picture. Instead of coming across as sloppy or derivative, it instead functions wonderfully as both a straight-up genre piece and a clever, self-aware satire of the same genre constructs in which it indulges. This is pretty heady stuff for a movie about a swarm of man-eating fish.

“THE EXPENDABLES”

★★★ 1⁄2

This is what I’m talking about when I say that modern action movies should offer more creativity and flair — nobody expects great dialogue or fantastic acting in a “braindead action movie,” but for God’s sake, don’t you want engaging set-pieces and likable characters and awesome kills and coherent action sequences and everything else that makes an action movie enjoyable? As an old-school throwback to ’80s action sensibilities, “The Expendables” delivers all this in spades, and in the process underlines everything that is wrong with Hollywood’s traditional approach to the genre.