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FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS Well, at least it's better than No Strings Attached. Other than that, there's not much to say about Friends with Benefits, the calendar year's second film about a guy and a gal attempting to be nothing more than "fuck buddies" but ending up emotionally entangled anyway. Whereas before we had a coasting Natalie Portman working against deadwood Ashton Kutcher, here we find Mila Kunis matching up nicely with Justin Timberlake. Their chemistry is the best thing about this often smug film centering on the relationship between a New York headhunter (Mila as Jamie) and an Angeleno (Justin as Dylan) who moves to the Big Apple to accept a lofty G.Q. gig. Kunis and Timberlake sparkle in each other's presence, and they manage to outshine their more seasoned co-stars: Woody Harrelson is scarcely believable as a gay sports editor who suggests to Dylan that they "troll for cock" together, while Patricia Clarkson and Richard Jenkins figure in ungainly subplots as, respectively, Jamie's hippie mom and Dylan's Alzheimer's-afflicted dad. Helmer Will Gluck (Easy A) and his co-writers originally feint in the direction of mocking formulaic romantic comedies, but by the end, they've surrendered to the genre's worst impulses. So while I agree with Kunis's character that Katherine Heigl rom-coms are awful, I also think a film needs to be a lot better than Friends with Benefits if it wants to engage in the activity of bashing rival multiplex fillers. **
FRIGHT NIGHT If you weren't around in 1985, the original Fright Night is worth a Netflix rental, thanks to its fleet-footed approach to the vampire genre and a lovely performance by Roddy McDowall as Peter Vincent, a late-night horror-show host who helps teenage hero Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) defeat the bloodsucker (Chris Sarandon) who lives next door. The new souped-up version isn't bad as far as these needless remakes go: It's for the most part well cast, contains some slyly wicked scenes that equal anything in the original, and expands some of the characters in interesting ways. It's a shame, then, that the movie botches its version of Peter Vincent, and even more unfortunate that the third act is a furious mishmash of unsatisfying plot developments, unexceptional confrontations and, depending where and how it's viewed, 3-D blurriness. On the plus side, 22-year-old Anton Yelchin is believably conflicted as the teenage protagonist, Toni Collette nicely fleshes out her role as his mom (the part in the original was a nonentity), and Colin Farrell is aces as Jerry, the suave, sexy vampire who prefers tight T-shirts to billowy capes. Changing the setting to a Las Vegas suburb, where transient neighbors aren't as likely to be missed should Jerry elect to sup on one, is also an inspired move. Yet Peter Vincent (named in '85 as a tribute to horror legends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price) is no longer a poignant figure — a fading actor-host with nothing but memories — but has instead been reconfigured as a boozy Vegas magician (played by Doctor Who's David Tennant) who (insert eye roll here) sports a Batman-esque past that largely leads to the late-inning shenanigans. Given this character's British accent, flowing mane, boozy disposition and initial air of insouciance, it's a wonder they didn't bypass Tennant altogether and just send the limo to pluck Russell Brand off the Arthur set. **1/2
GREEN LANTERN Considering all the advance negative buzz that had been building with the steadiness and scariness of a Category 5 hurricane, Green Lantern isn't the catastrophe that had been foretold as far back as the Book of Revelation. To compare this effort to such truly abysmal efforts as Catwoman and Batman & Robin would merely be an exercise in misguided grandstanding; at the same time, the middling results suggest that, the excellence of X-Men: First Class notwithstanding, Hollywood might consider cooling it on the super-sagas for a while (fat chance) and seek inspiration from other types of comic characters. Little Lulu or Andy Capp, anyone? When all is said and done, Green Lantern is really no different than the film which kicked off this summer season: As with Thor, this one also features slick special effects, a likable (if vanilla-flavored) leading man and effective use of 3-D, but it likewise gets bogged down in protracted exposition and has trouble sorting out its cluttered screenplay. Ryan Reynolds stars as Hal Jordan, a test pilot who becomes the first human to become a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic watchdog group tasked with protecting the universe. The preeminent threat at the moment is a fearsome entity known as Parallax; his agent of evil on earth is Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a nerdy scientist who promptly becomes a telekinetic mutant with a bulbous, oozing head. Hal's battles with Parallax and Hector are ably handled by director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale), and they allow the FX crew to show off their hard work. But whenever the movie isn't moving at a fast and furious speed, the banality of the script takes center stage, and we're left with another costume caper that doesn't quite know what to do with itself whenever its characters aren't playing dress-up. **1/2
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