Problem: 1. Sex doesn't figure into The Baxter, Showalter's strained romantic comedy; exaggerated arrested development does, of a guy kind that congratulates adult men on their dweebishness, assuming that dweebishness is of the hipster Brooklyn variety.
2. If [Showalter's] acting is misjudged, his direction is merely uninspired.
3. The Baxter is more than a little out of step in a summer peppered with crude or idiosyncratic wallflower romantics.
4. Allusions to '40s screwball and later offerings like Annie Hall have a mild resonance as The Baxter struggles to get its footing.
5. The Baxter is an ideal date movie because it's sweet, it's funny and it doesn't insult anyone's intelligence.
6. Savvy viewers will see through this pastiche of shopworn goods.
7. Changeups are commendable and all, but Showalter may be guilty of playing too far from his strengths.
8. A strained affair that screams wannabe from the opening frame.
9. With seemingly thousands of romantic comedies to slay, Showalter wound up joining the party instead of peeing in the punch.
10. Conceptually...The Baxter is hobbled, and all Showalter has is his concept.
What is the consensus?
****
Answer: The Baxter is good-natured, but there are simply not enough laughs to fuel this comedy.


Problem: 1. Lean, fast-moving, and filled with game-changing fight sequences that have a brutally beautiful (or beautifully brutal) quality, Gareth Evans's Indonesian martial-arts film The Raid: Redemption lives up to its viral hype.
2. Writer/director Gareth Evans' full throttle guns-n-fisticuffs Indonesian action flickis a hardcore bloke fest.
3. Mindless, visceral enteratinment, The Raid showcases Evans' considerable technical and visual skills: You can see this campy, potentially midnight flick out of sequence and still get it.
4. For now, Evans can take pride in the fact that he's set the bar for cinemayhem impossibly high.
5. Gareth Evans has delivered quite the action thriller with The Raid. Its premise is brilliant in its simplicity, its hero worthy of our cheers and villains deserving of our fear and scorn. Shaky cam is dead. Long live this new era of action cinema.
6. Gareth Evans has delivered one of the most stirring action films in eons with The Raid, a relentlessly brutal and endlessly enjoyable flick that never runs out of inventive ways to kill people.
7. Gareth Evans's mostly no-nonsense, floor-by-floor ass-kicking panorama is admirably humble.
8. An extraordinary endurance test for audiences, with silat (Indonesian) martial arts action that is more protracted, more violent and more authentically staged than anything I have seen in the genre
9. The fighting seems the same, repeated endlessly and unimaginatively and not different from what scores of such films offer. Without humor or originality, this is straight video game.
10. An unrelenting, action-packed can of whoop-ass that delivers one of the most fun moviegoing experiences of the past decade.
What is the consensus?
****
Answer: No frills and all thrills, The Raid: Redemption is an inventive action film expertly paced and edited for maximum entertainment.


Problem: 1. Good cast chemistry and a wonderfully colorful 60's styled backdrop makes this retroactive romantic comedy the best madcap sex romp around so far in this hyper-techno movie year.
2. Whaddaya know -- here's a Doris Day movie starring Renée Zellweger.
3. A finger-snapping, knowingly artificial romantic comedy romp with a wink in its eye and a spring in its step... easily the most unabashedly mirthful film in ages.
4. I love this film.
5. Amazingly simple and breezy stuff but how completely and unexpectedly refreshing it is.
6. I'm not sure I can retrieve the words required to describe how colossally awful this movie is.
7. What's refreshing is that Down with Love neatly sidesteps the superior 'modern' tone that creeps into other notable recent films that depict that era -- think Auto-Focus and Catch Me If You Can.
8. Both Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger do better than expected - but nothing will ever make us forget Doris Day.
9. "There won't be a dry panty in the house!"
10. ...bubbly and cute, but instantly forgettable.
What is the consensus?
****
Answer:
Looks great, but Zellweger and McGregor have no chemistry together, and the self-satisfied, knowing tone grates.