Among all the available options, the God in “Legion” chooses to end the world by turning small children, the elderly and people with offbeat clothes and accessories (ice cream truck drivers, guys wearing party hats, etc.) into monsters. God, equipped with an army of bad-ass, sword-swinging angels, and, well, dominion over everything, decided to outsource Armageddon to the least qualified, it seems. File this decision under the “works in mysterious ways” category if you must, but know that this inexplicable apocalypse is actually the least of the many problems that plague “Legion.”

The biggest problem may be the story itself. Writer/director Scott Stewart, who until now mostly worked as a visual effects artist, seems to have taken a script from “The Terminator” and replaced all instances of the word “robot” with “angel” and “the future” with “heaven.” Except in this case, the angel sent from heaven—Michael, played by a far-too-serious Paul Bettany—wants to protect the pregnant lady he’s charged with finding, so maybe “Legion” is kind of like “The Terminator” with bits of “Terminator 2” mixed in. That lady is Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), who’s biding her time at a dingy diner at the edge of the desert until her baby pops out.

God, apparently tired of humanity, wants to wipe everyone out, and all the angels, save for Michael, agree. (It’s worth asking what, exactly, put God over the edge, but you can file that under “mysterious ways,” as well). The baby, it seems, will save humanity from utter destruction at the hands of a bunch of robots—I mean, angels—and eventually convince God that humanity is worth keeping around.

Whatever plot points Stewart didn’t crib from “The Terminator,” he glossed over using some shaky theology, and from this weak foundation, “Legion” leaps fearlessly into utter awfulness. It’s not even the sort of so-awful-it’s-good kind of awful. “Legion” is a straight-up bad movie, bereft of interesting characters, memorable dialogue or even cool fight scenes.

The angels in “Legion” look awesome—fully armored, equipped with swords and giant maces, covered in tattoos in some angelic language—but only one angel actually shows up, and that’s not until the end. We should be treated to what the film’s title promises—a legion of angels smashing their way through buildings and bashing humans. Instead, we get old ladies and ice cream men with bad teeth and gangly limbs scrabbling up the walls of a dirty diner. With such cool visual possibilities, why stop there? Are all the angels on a coffee break?

“Legion” settles for mediocrity in every other area, too, so it’s not much of a surprise. The cast, headed by Dennis Quaid (who, based on his recent appearances in “Pandorum” and “G.I. Joe,” is mostly interested in collecting an easy paycheck these days), is full of TV refugees who are simply adequate. But it’s not like they’ve got much to work with—Stewart’s script is just as full of clunky dialogue as it is half-baked ideas about angels.

Worst of all, nothing much really happens. Some monsters attack, and then there are prolonged periods during which Quaid and the other survivors stuck in the diner with Charlie and her angel have boring conversations. Then some other monsters attack and, well, you get the idea. That the monster attacks are almost as dull as the conversations is an unfortunate indicator of the movie’s quality.

Perhaps that’s the underlying message of “Legion”—that God does exist and is, unfortunately for us, mostly boring, lazy and unoriginal. Or maybe it’s just “Legion” that’s boring, lazy and unoriginal. Either way, let’s hope global warming or nuclear destruction work out for us—those are at least some apocalyptic scenarios worth getting excited about.

“Daybreakers” promises so much: visceral vampire action, clever world building, and a thoughtful tweak on the vampire mythos, all wrapped in an allegory about dwindling natural resources. Brothers Peter and Michael Spierig, who wrote and directed “Daybreakers,” deliver on a handful of these promises and make half-hearted attempts at the rest. It’s not a complete failure, but it’s more than a bit disappointing.

In the world of “Daybreakers,” it is 2019, and 10 years earlier, a plague turned most humans into vampires. Some turned willingly, lured by the promise of immortality. Others turned because they had no choice, and a handful became vampires against their will. Among that last group is Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a hematologist working on creating a synthetic blood substitute. After a decade of farming blood from humans (and hunting down the few remaining human survivors), the blood supply is running out—think of it as Peak Blood. Dalton is under pressure from his boss, Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), who controls the largest blood supply in America, to produce results. But Dalton, self-loathing vampire that he is, wants to find a cure for vampirism instead. Enter Elvis (Willem Dafoe), a former vampire who accidentally cured himself after crashing his badass muscle car on a sunny afternoon. Elvis and a band of human survivors ask Dalton to help them produce a cure. Meanwhile, vampire society deteriorates under the specter of total starvation.

The plague not only turned everyone into a vampire but made everyone super stylish, as well. “Daybreakers” has a great future-noir look to it—sharp-dressed vampires zip around in electric cars and sip from cups of coffee mixed with blood. The subways have been augmented with “subwalks,” underground tunnels where vampires can walk safely during daylight hours. Most cars are equipped with a daytime driving mode, with sun-shields over the windows and cameras mounted on top of the vehicle. Vampires deprived of blood devolve into snarling, bat-like creatures. The Spierigs’ careful attention to detail throughout most the film results in some first-rate world building. The vampire society is fleshed out and real, and that helps sell the film’s ambitious premise.

If only the characters were so detailed. The Spierigs’ previous film, 2003’s “Undead,” was a low-budget zombie/sci-fi comedy anchored by its cast of charming, kooky survivors. But in “Daybreakers,” Dalton and Elvis are little more than bare sketches. This isn’t so bad for an actor like Dafoe—he hams it up nicely as a redneck gear head who likes to quote the King. But Hawke seems adrift. His character isn’t as cool as Dafoe’s or as evil as Neill’s capitalist bloodsucker. Hawke’s motivations are weak and his moral conflicts are vague. As a hero, he’s difficult to care about. Without strong characters, all the fantastic efforts at world building are for naught—a strong foundation means nothing when it’s topped with flimsy characters.

The climax of “Daybreakers” proves to be just as disposable. The cure sought by Hawke and Dafoe is goofy and nonsensical, and the massive blood riots and vampire mutations promised at the outset amount to a fracas at a coffee stand and the roundup of maybe a dozen devolved vamps. The stakes feel high at the outset of “Daybreakers,” but by the end, the decline and fall of vampire civilization isn’t worth more than a shrug.

There’s one area where the Spierigs follow through, and that’s in the visual effects department. The brothers teamed with Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop for the effects, and “Daybreakers” boasts a seamless blend of computer-generated and practical effects. The devolved vampires (dubbed “subsiders” by the vampire media) especially look great, and it’s a testament to the limits of CGI when it comes to monster making (“Avatar” notwithstanding). As the vampires grow more ravenous, limbs fly and blood spurts all over the screen, and the Spierigs mostly deliver on their promise of monster mayhem.

Unfortunately, “Daybreakers” is a victim of its own high expectations. Because it excels in so many places, its failings are all the more glaring and disappointing. Even then, “Daybreakers” is still entertaining, and a welcome departure from the bloodless vampires of “Twilight” and its ilk. “Daybreakers” burns out on its own premise instead of fading away gracefully. Vampire civilization may be doomed, but “Daybreakers” promises that, flaws and all, vampire flicks still have some life in them.

But it feels like it should be great. Perhaps it’s the century’s worth of baggage associated with the character—the four novels and 56 stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle and the countless film and TV adaptations, literary homages, comic books and everything else that followed. When it comes to Sherlock Holmes, it’s all been done in one way or another, from pitting Holmes and company against occult conspiracies (see Mark Frost’s 1994 novel “The List of Seven,” which finds Conan Doyle and a Holmesian secret agent named Jack Sparks fighting Satanists) to putting the detective in the future (including his appearances in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”).

This time around, it’s Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), an upper-crust occultist whose seemingly supernatural schemes are whipping London into a frenzy. The case is bedeviling Holmes and Watson, played here with considerable wit and charm by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, respectively. The detective and the doctor bring Blackwood to justice at the beginning of the movie and he’s hanged in short order, only to return from the grave and implement a plan that, according to his taunts, will end the world as Holmes knows it. Meanwhile, Holmes’ former lover Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a femme fatal from New Jersey, similarly vexes the detective, though whether she’s working for or against Blackwood is, of course, a mystery.

There are plenty of mysteries for Holmes to solve throughout the movie, but under the direction of Ritchie, he solves just as many quandaries with his fists and other weapons as he does with his intellect. Ritchie (“Snatch,” “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”) makes movies about men who live outside the law and spend their time coming up with ways to double- and triple-cross each other. When the various reversals peter out, Ritchie’s characters commence with punching each other and blowing things up. This isn’t a complaint—Ritchie’s films are solidly entertaining, and “Sherlock Holmes” fulfills that promise perfectly.

The movie has plenty of nice elevating touches, though. Robert Downey Jr.’s Holmes is twitchy and cranky, a man whose almost supernatural intellect is tempered by manic behavior, poor social skills and fits of melancholy. Without a case, Holmes is reduced to lolling about his apartment in a stupor, hiding in the dark and testing new chemical compounds on his beleaguered bulldog. Downey attacks the role with his usual charm and cockiness, and his Holmes fits in nicely (though a bit more sweaty and messy) alongside other iterations of the character. It’s also somewhat accurate, as the original Sherlock Holmes stories subtly hint that the great detective may suffer from some sort of mental illness.

Best of all, Holmes is allowed to think. In a few early scenes, usually when Holmes is about to give someone a good thrashing, Ritchie pauses the action and takes us step-by-step through Holmes’ plan—distract the opponent, block a punch, break his jaw, block another punch, crack his ribs, etc.—before speeding up the action and allowing it to come to fruition. (This, too, is accurate—Conan Doyle’s stories made it clear Holmes was well-versed in a variety of fighting styles.) These moments make Holmes’ later deductions seem like the natural outgrowths of a powerful mind and not the sudden pronouncements of a crime-solving robot.

The Holmes-Watson relationship also is fleshed out nicely. Law and Downey work well together, and this chemistry makes their frequent bouts of bickering feel like the natural result of two friends who are both fond of and infuriated by each other. Their dialogue together is snappy, their action scenes are cool and they, too, fit nicely in with the other rogues, cads and lads that populate Ritchie’s films.

And much like Conan Doyle’s original stories, Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” begs for a string of sequels, the foundations for which are laid out in the film’s final moments. All the elements are in place—a good cast, a showy director, and a cracking story—for a near infinite number of future “Sherlock Holmes” movies. They might not be masterpieces, but they’ll all surely be very good, which is sort of an impossible feat all its own.

“Paranormal Activity” borrows the found-footage conceit of “The Blair Witch Project,” with a dab of “The Exorcist” thrown in for good measure, but the use of a handheld camera never feels gimmicky. The movie uses a simple framework to generate a lot of scares, but it does one better by also exploring all the small things that cause ostensibly stable relationships to go terribly awry. Katie and Micah (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) have moved in to a two-story house in San Francisco. Bumps in the night, strange sounds, and other weird activity has Katie convinced the house is haunted, and so Micah gets a video camera and attempts to capture the ghost on film. When it becomes clear that the couple is not dealing with an ordinary ghost but instead facing a demon that is fixated on Katie, Micah becomes relentless in his quest to capture something on film and fix the problem. As a result, the situation gets worse, and Micah and Katie’s new home becomes a living hell over the course of three weeks.

Is “Paranormal Activity” the “scariest movie ever,” as some early hype suggested? Well, that’s a matter of opinion—there are plenty for whom a movie like “The Exorcist” is about as terrifying as a pleasant springtime stroll, and there are just as many other viewers who find even the goofiest “horror” flicks to be intolerably frightening. You won’t jump out of your seat at every moment in “Paranormal Activity,” but you will be held captive to an overwhelming sense of dread. It’s an unsettling movie, more concerned with lingering creepiness than sharp, sudden scares. Midway through the film, some night-time footage shows Katie as she gets out of bed and stands motionless, staring at Micah. As the film fast-forwards, we see Katie maintain this disconcerting pose for two hours, before she finally turns and walks out of the room and into the dark, foreboding hallway. Nothing jumps out of the darkness, but the scene has an eerie feeling similar to that of watching a sleepwalker.

Small touches like this are what give “Paranormal Activity” its power. There are no false scares or alternative explanations—no open windows or wayward cats causing the bumps, stomps, and inexplicable footprints that characterize the haunting. Without these usual crutches, Peli forces us to accept that what’s happening on camera to Katie and Micah is not only real, but utterly unknowable and unavoidable. One scene, involving an attic crawlspace, develops in a surprising way that ends up being more frightening than if an actual monster had been lurking about.

Beyond the supernatural horror in “Paranormal Activity,” there’s the more grounded horror of a relationship slowly unraveling. Along with offering some important lessons about dealing with the supernatural (don’t use Ouija boards, don’t provoke the entity, call a demonologist, etc.), “Paranormal Activity” is also a bit of a manual about how not to be an utterly terrible boyfriend. Micah’s initial quest to capture some ghostly footage seems to be harmless at best and juvenile at worst, but as the supernatural incidents escalate, Micah grows to believe that, with just a little more evidence, he can “solve” the problem. Even discounting the possibility of demonic malevolence, Micah’s behavior is grounds for a break-up. But factor in the seemingly real presence of a demon and Micah is, in fact, putting Katie’s life in danger.

This is Featherston and Sloat’s first feature and they look and act naturally enough that the movie retains its realistic conceit. They talk and poke fun with ease, and, later on, bicker, argue, and grow to resent each other with the same sort of casualness. We see Katie knit and make jewelry and watch Micah play guitar, small suggestions that the characters have some sort of life outside the camera.

There is one place that “Paranormal Activity” stumbles, and that’s the ending. After relying on some subtle touches to create genuine creepiness in the rest of the movie, Peli resorts to a cheap, way-too-slick looking scare to cap off the film. It kills the tension and believability, a rotten thing to happen at the last minute. According to reports, the new ending is a result of tinkering by Paramount after some early test screenings. The ending doesn’t ruin the movie, but it does hold it back from being truly great. If you’ve got a demon in your house—or a good ending for a wonderfully creepy flick—don’t mess with it.

No matter what our foibles and flaws, zombies bring out the best and the worst in the still-living, and a few days stuck in a world populated by gore-caked ghouls hungry for flesh is a self-improvement tool that puts Oprah, Dr. Phil and the rest to shame. Zombies are gross, deadly and grim reminders of our base instincts, but damn it all if they don’t help us become better people (or, for those who fail to heed the zombie’s lesson, become lunch).

Any self-improvement movement must have a guide-book, and that’s partially the function that “Zombieland” fills. When it comes to living with (and dispatching) the undead, there are plenty of rules to abide, and as the “Zombieland” cast demonstrates, ignoring those rules most often leads to serious peril. As the movie opens, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a college student/shut-in, goes over the ground rules: keep yourself in shape, go the extra mile when killing zombies, and always wear your seatbelt. And—this is a big one—don’t get too attached to anyone, since, in Zombieland, they might very well end up trying to snack on you later.

But that’s exactly what happens as Columbus meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gun-toting good ‘ole boy who’s good at one thing only: killing zombies. Tallahassee’s a whiskey-drinking hard-ass and Columbus is a perpetually-spooked kid with irritable bowel syndrome, but they get along okay. That is, until they meet Wichita and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin), a pair of sisters who con Columbus and Tallahassee out of their guns and cars not once, but twice. (In Zombieland, no one uses their real name, part of that whole maintaining-emotional-distance thing.) None of them trust each other, but eventually, they learn to live with one another (thanks to encouragement in the form of ravenous zombies) and set out for an allegedly zombie-free amusement park.

If this sounds suspiciously like 2004’s “Shaun of the Dead,” but with an amusement park instead of The Winchester Pub, you’re right. Director Ruben Fleischer owes just as much to Edgar Wright’s zombie comedy as it does to “Dawn of the Dead” (both the original and the remake) and “28 Days Later.” At this point, the novelty of the zombie comedy has worn off, and it’s not enough to just be a zombie comedy—to survive in this sub-sub-genre, a movie must not only actually be funny, but it’s got to deliver the gory goods as well. “Zombieland” is perfectly passable at both, but it never does anything to rise above its predecessors.

Like a lot of comedies, if you’ve seen the trailer for the film, you’ve seen all the funny parts. Zombies are dispatched with pianos, banjos, hedge clippers, and other assorted objects, and some zombie-related quips score laughs. But the slow-mo zombie attacks get old after a while. So do all those rules, which show up in big, blinking letters on screen whenever someone follows (or ignores) them. It’s one of those meta gags that’s amusing at first but gets laborious as the movie goes on. Driving most of the film’s comedy is Eisenberg and Harrelson; they’ve got a good odd-couple chemistry that works well here, though it would be out of place in any other sort of buddy comedy. Any time Harrelson wears a cowboy hat in a movie, you’re almost guaranteed a good time, and “Zombieland” is no exception.

“Zombieland” treads the line between being a good time and a great time, but it never quite makes the jump. An unexpected mid-movie cameo by Bill Murray helps, but to say too much would spoil the surprise. The comedy and tragedy are well-balanced, but neither element is as subtle or inventive as “Shaun of the Dead.” “Zombieland” is just a bigger, more slickly produced version of the kind of yucks and guts we’ve all seen before. Like most of us, “Zombieland” isn’t bad, but it could be better. Given how all-encompassing the market for zombie merchandise is growing, a self-help guide for frustrated zombie movie makers probably isn’t far off. It will be a necessary read for any return trip to “Zombieland.”

But the line between fact and fiction quickly becomes unrecognizable. “The Informant!” at first appears to be part white-collar crime drama, part character study, in the vein of Michael Mann’s “The Insider.” But as the film unfolds and Whitacre shifts from the executive who cried wolf to whistleblower par excellence and finally into something else entirely, “The Informant!” seems more in line with “Burn After Reading,” the Coen Brothers’ black comedy from last fall about bumbling idiots caught up in the very deadly world of espionage. While “Burn” had the benefit of being fictional, “The Informant!” carries with it a grain or two of truth, and this makes the movie all the more engaging–and slightly frustrating.

Matt Damon stars as Whitacre, an up-and-coming division president at ADM. He’s got a wife, two adopted children and a six-figure salary. After concocting a story about some corporate espionage by a one of ADM’s Japanese rivals (in order to stall on an important project), Whitacre decides to confess to an FBI agent how ADM and its competitors regularly meet to fix prices on their products. Whitacre positions himself as a white knight going up against a sinister corporate behemoth and soon is gleefully wearing a wire, setting up secret meetings and snitching regularly to his FBI handlers (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale). Whitacre isn’t the altruist he appears to be, though his façade fools everyone, from his doting, gullible wife (Melanie Lynskey) to a series of federal investigators. As the feds wrap up their investigation of ADM, they discover their white knight’s armor is gray, verging on black, and Whitacre reveals the cries of a whistleblower may, in fact, be a distraction.

Obscured by some additional girth, big glasses, an ill-advised mustache and what looks to be a bad toupee, Damon literally disappears into the role. He wanders around with his mouth agape, marveling at the hidden cameras and secret microphones the FBI has set up at his behest. Whitacre narrates the film, sharing inane observations and remarking about on-screen events, and it’s hard to tell whether Whitacre’s outward naïvete is camouflage for his inner cunning or if he really is just a big dork who’s out of his element. One of Whitacre’s observations concerns two kinds of butterfly—one carries a deadly poison in its wings, while the other, which looks exactly like its poisonous brethren, is entirely harmless. That’s Whitacre in a nutshell—a nebbish who runs with the big boys only by virtue of appearing to be dangerous.

Looks can be deceiving, especially to one’s self, and Damon nails Whitacre’s transformation from a desperate man who lies in order to save himself into a commensurate liar who spins elaborate yarns just for the sake of watching himself work. As Whitacre, Damon has an affable, goofy charm that is, ultimately, vexing. By the end of the film, he’s lied to everyone, including the audience, but you can’t hold it against him.

It’s a good thing, too, because Damon’s performance carries “The Informant!” As Whitacre secretly tapes business meetings and smuggles out sensitive documents, he constantly references early-‘90s legal thrillers like “The Firm” and “Rising Sun.” Fortunately for Whitacre, there’s not even a hint of such danger in “The Informant!” That juxtaposition creates a touch of dramatic tension, but it’s not enough to keep the second half of the film from feeling directionless. The rest of the cast is good, particularly Lynskey, who, in the few scenes she’s in, subtly hints she may be just as sneaky as her husband. But for the most part, the other characters exist only to alternatively congratulate, chide and grow exasperated with Whitacre.

It’s hard to see how the movie could play out any other way, though. Corporate crime and multi-million-dollar fraud is serious business, but Soderbergh has the good sense to keep things light. A more serious touch might have left the movie feeling ponderous and uninteresting. “The Informant!” largely takes place in non-descript hotel rooms and bland offices and the soundtrack calls to mind kitschy elevator music. Whitacre’s non-sequiturs and slapstick attempts at undercover work (he tries surreptitiously to fix a malfunctioning hidden tape recorder during a crucial meeting) are almost a parody of the smooth operators found in Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” flicks. The sugary coating and knowing laughs in “The Informant!” take the sting out of the fact that real big-time crooks, like Whitacre and his bosses at ADM, rarely get caught and almost always exploit the court system to their advantage. After the near-catastrophic economic collapse of last fall, it’s a story that’s all too familiar and easy to believe.

In this case, though, the hand belongs not to fate but Tarantino, who’s created a singular movie that’s part revenge-fantasy, part comic book and an all-around unabashed love letter to the cinema. It’s a bold and brightly colored movie, bloody and utterly shameless and supremely confident in every move it makes. “Basterds” is a homage to WWII mission flicks like “The Dirty Dozen” and Italian director Enzo Castellari’s similarly titled 1978 “Inglorious Bastards,” but its closest cousin is this summer’s “Drag Me To Hell,” another quirky piece of old-school filmmaking that makes its own rules and revels in the pure fun of going to the movies.

The movies are on the mind of everyone in “Basterds” and by the end, Tarantino transforms cinema from a passion into a weapon. But like any good fairy tale, there must be a “once upon a time,” and in the world of “Basterds,” the fairy tale begins on a dairy farm in Nazi-occupied France. Col. Landa and a squad of SS goons raid the farm in search of a hidden Jewish family; the only survivor is Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), who vanishes into the countryside. As Shosanna escapes, the Basterds, a secret American military unit, infiltrates France. Let by Lt. Raine, a hard-ass hillbilly with a wicked scar on his neck, the Basterds are a team of bloodthirsty Jewish soldiers set loose to inspire fear and terror among the Nazis. They scalp their victims (every man must deliver 100 Nazi scalps, Raine informs them at the start of their mission), mutilate any survivors they leave behind and rain glorious vengeance on any unlucky Nazis that cross their path.

Years later, fate brings the Basterds, Shosanna and Landa together again, this time at the movies. Now known as Emmanuelle and running a small cinema, Shosanna finds herself the target of the unwanted affections of Pvt. Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), a young Nazi war hero whose exploits as a sniper are being made into blockbuster propaganda flick, “Nation’s Pride.” Zoller’s affection for Shosanna helps get the gala premier, which includes the entire Nazi high command, moved to Shosanna’s cinema. Shosanna sees an opportunity for revenge, and so do the Basterds, who are notified of the premier by way of Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), a celebrated German actress who’s actually a spy for the Allies.

The specter of the cinema haunts “Basterds” throughout. Watching Basterd Sgt. Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz (director and frequent Tarantino guest player Eli Roth) crack Nazi skulls with a Louisville slugger is the “closest thing we get to going to the movies,” says Aldo Raine. When Zoller asks Shosanna why she lists the names of directors on her theater marquee, she tells him it’s because “Here in France, we respect directors.” At one point, the movie pauses to wax about the flammable nature and destructive power of nitrate film. A British film critic-turned war hero helps plan the assault on the cinema, Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) is tagged as the evil version of Hollywood producer David O. Selznick, and an ill-timed autograph session nearly spells doom for von Hammersmark. In Tarantino’s world, even the outer-reaches of the cinematic world—encounters with stars, film scholarship, the architecture of movie theaters—has power.

But even more powerful are the images themselves. As “Nation’s Pride” flashes across the big screen during the climax of “Basterds,” the Nazi luminaries cheer and clap each time Zoller (playing himself in the film within a film) takes out another Allied soldier. So too will you in the real-life “Basterds” audience when The Bear Jew, Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger) and the rest of the Basterds pummel, scalp and otherwise obliterate Nazis. For each side in a war, the tune of the siren song of propaganda may change, but it always plays powerfully to the audience. “Nations’ Pride” isn’t so much different than “Basterds,” but Tarantino isn’t moralizing so much as acknowledging how movies captivate and allure.

The Basterds are allowed to murder Nazis with abandon and we’re allowed to cheer because Nazis are evil, and that sort of comic book morality provides the necessary juice for the bloody revenge fantasy aspect of “Basterds.” Call it “I Spit On Your Swastika” or whatever you like–it’s gory and primal and unsettling, but it’s not so different than the comic books of the early 1940s, in which Jewish creators like Jack Kirby and Joe Simon proudly featured Captain America beating the snot out of a comical Hitler on the front cover of their books.

That violence works in tight concert with some great performances. Waltz received a “best actor” award at Cannes for his role as Landa, and if there’s any justice, he’ll score many more in months to come. Unflappable and cheerfully methodical, Landa is the best villain to stroll across the screen in recent years. While Tarantino plays Goebbels, Hitler and the rest for laughs, Landa is utterly normal and, as such, absolutely menacing. And while Waltz let’s Landa’s emotions flash only in rare moments, Laurent makes Shosanna compelling precisely because her character can barely contain any of her emotions. When Shosanna appears on screen, she exerts a hold just as powerful as any of the flashy violence elsewhere in the film and it’s easy to forget for a moment the other Basterds roaming about. Pitt, Roth and the rest are no slouches, either, but Waltz and Laurent are mesmerizing.

As the action winds down, Lt. Raine is allowed to pause for a moment and survey some work the Basterds have done. “I think this is my masterpiece,” he says, smiling. “Basterds” may be Tarantino’s masterpiece, a definitive, bloody statement on the ability of film to create, destroy and transform. It doesn’t end happily ever after for all the Basterds, but for those who do make it out, there’s no doubt they’ll retire to the cinema for some R&R once the shooting’s stopped and the last Nazi’s been scalped.

Here are the ways in which “Revenge” is the movie that most embodies, celebrates and ridicules America. There’s nothing America loves more than believing in crazy conspiracies, aliens and fake religions. In this case, the ancient predecessors of the Transformers built the pyramids to disguise some sort of giant machine that was supposed to destroy the sun. Except they met some primitive humans and decided not to use the machine (well, except for one evil robot, who was banished some place and became the “Fallen” referred to in the title). Thousands of years later, people still believe this crazy stuff, particularly John Turturro, reprising his role as a government spook who likes to take his pants off and talk to himself. (There is also nothing more American than removing your pants when the mood strikes, no matter what the situation. We are, after all, a relaxed people.) There’s also a brief detour into Robot Heaven during the bombastic climax. Robot Heaven is full of mist and robot angels and it’s so ridiculous that it can only be a joke. None of this may make sense now, but don’t worry: it doesn’t make sense in the movie, either.

America is also all about blowing shit up, in both real life and in the movies, and that’s something “Revenge” does a lot with great technical skill. There are flaming comets, robot eviscerations, destroyed battleships, demolished buildings and a number of other things that go boom. They all usually explode in slow-motion, which is American for “dramatic emphasis.” Michael Bay is really great at putting everything in slow motion, including two dogs running away from an explosion. But blowing things up is Bay’s job, and blaming him for this is like blaming a plumber for fixing your pipes, so why get mad? When “Revenge” doesn’t resemble a commercial for cars and explosions, it looks a lot like a recruiting video for the U.S. military, which is unmatched in the ability to make things explode. All these interests dovetail nicely.

Bay’s ability to make things erupt in dramatic, expressive fireballs is matched only by writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Ehern Kruger’s prowess at cheap humor and bad jokes. Coincidentally, bad jokes and cheap humor are one of America’s chief exports, and “Revenge” makes up half of the country’s gross domestic product of yuks this year. And how could it not, in a movie that features robots with testicles, robots humping Megan Fox’s leg, and two dogs that hump each other on a bird house (before they run away in slow motion)? If John Turturro saying, “I am beneath the enemy’s scrotum,” is too subtle for you, you may be interested in the pair of racial stereotype robots. They talk jive, have gold teeth and “don’t do much reading.” There’s also a senior citizen robot that walks with a cane and farts out a parachute (this robot transforms into a jet; if you’re tempted to ask why a robot jet needs a parachute or a cane, maybe “Revenge” isn’t the movie for you). Of course, America doesn’t have the market on stereotypes cornered, but our pop culture does a pretty okay job at it.

American pop culture is also pretty okay at using sex to sell stuff, including movies aimed at children. This happens a lot in “Revenge,” because Megan Fox’s boobs, lips and ass have a major starring role. She also sometimes says things, but usually just poses or runs in slow motion. There’s another hot chick running around the movie, but she’s actually a robot trying to put the moves on Shia LaBeouf. Though Fox herself looks like a sex robot built in a lab and programmed to beguile dudes and ladies across the land, she is definitely human and wants LaBeouf to say he loves her. But he can’t, and this creates the sort of dramatic tension that can only be resolved with longing glances and having Fox’s boobs bounce around in slow motion.

Mostly, “Revenge” doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, even though a helpful robot appears every 30 minutes or so to explain the plot and tell all the humans (and the audience) what’s going on. Robots smash each other for some unclear aim and some humans try to help them, but even that summary doesn’t begin to penetrate the layers of ill-conceived plot points that make up “Revenge.” All of this distracts from what the movie should really be about: robots beating the hell out of one another. It happens often, but not often enough, and all that other stuff makes the film way too long by at least an hour or more.

America means well; at the very least, it means something. And “Revenge” does too, in its own way. Part toy commercial, part sales pitch for the flagging auto industry with a helping of pyrotechnics and a dash of sex appeal, “Revenge” adds up to what can only be an elaborate prank about American culture. What the joke is, or who it’s on, isn’t clear, but maybe some wise old farting robot will explain it to us in the inevitable third movie.

It’s a fitting project, then, for director Tony Scott, who most likely regards being described as “all flash and no substance” as a wicked compliment. “Pelham” tries to sex up the relatively un-sexy world of municipal transportation management, pitting train dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) against a train hijacker known only as Ryder (John Travolta). Stuck behind a desk in a high-tech command center, Garber is the only city employee Ryder will talk to during the hostage situation, which Ryder hopes to parlay into a $10 million ransom within the hour.

But as the pair wait for the New York bureaucratic machine to crank out the ransom money, “Pelham” slows to a crawl. The opportunity was ripe for some tense exchanges between Washington and Travolta, but since neither actor’s character is more than a sketch, their rapport never gets as deep or intense as it should. Brian Helgeland’s script goes to great lengths to give the two men some sort of common ground, saddling Garber with a subplot about taking bribes from a train manufacturer. It’s an unnecessary detail that detracts from the character and adds nothing but dead weight to what should be a lean script.

There’s a lot of dead weight that keeps “Pelham” from achieving the briskness it deserves. James Gandolfini is always great to watch on screen, but his turn as the city’s fussy, exasperated mayor is pointless, though amusing enough. John Turturro and Luis Guzman are also among the supporting cast, but they’re shuffled on and off screen so quickly that they barely stand out. All eyes should be on Washington and Travolta, but Scott continually shifts focus, darting from minor characters to overwrought chase scenes and so on, short circuiting any sort of real tension.

Part of the problem also may be Travolta, who’s just not all that great at being a bad guy. He’s more agitated than evil, and his facial hair, ugly neck tattoo and penchant for ending every sentence with “motherfucker” just don’t add up to any real menace. Later in “Pelham,” it’s revealed that Ryder is a disgraced Wall Street fund manager. While it’s tempting to think this is a sly commentary on our times (one can just picture Bernard Madoff stepping out of the clink with a self-made prison tattoo and an army of thugs), it really just makes Ryder all the more vanilla of a villain.

But that mild malevolence is matched well with Garber’s reluctant heroism, and as long as Washington remains behind his desk directing trains and negotiating with hijackers, his character is confident and strong. The film’s third act pushes him into the unlikely role of an action hero, commandeering cars, skulking down subway tunnels and packing heat, and it’s a change just as unbelievable as Ryder’s half-hearted villainy.

Lost somewhere in “Pelham” is an interesting story about the stultifying power and inefficiency of big city government. There’s a great moment late in the movie, when, after an attempt to get the ransom money from Brooklyn to Midtown ends in series of car accidents, the mayor asks his flunkies why they didn’t just use a helicopter to transport the cash. At this point, it’s not a question of whether Denzel Washington can save the day, but whether the city will get out of its own way long enough to prevent further disasters.

But in the end, ex-Wall Street goons and civil servants just don’t make for compelling players in life-or-death hostage dramas, even when they’re pushed to the brink and wrapped up in red tape. Scott tries mightily, but his usual overwrought, flashy camera work and an arbitrary sense of pacing don’t make “Pelham” as thrilling a ride as it should be.