WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING Review

When it comes to "What to Expect When You're Expecting," what you end up failing to expect is how bad the whole affair turns out to be. Based on Heidi Murkoff's bestselling 1984 self-help book of the same name, the thing about this fictional adaptation is that even the title is a sham. This doesn't even begin to prepare expecting mothers at all for what to expect when they're expecting. Unless their life is, well I don't know, a Hollywood movie.

Director Kirk Jones seems to be channeling his inner Garry Marshall as this clearly will remind audiences of his big ensemble rom-coms "Valentine's Day" and "New Year's Eve," but this time with pregnancy. Instead of watching glamorous A-list stars fall in love, we're watching them take the next step of childbearing. Still glamorous, and still coated in swift manufacturing and a shine of high-gloss. It's all so overly produced that you'll wonder if you're watching mannequins instead of real people.

The screenplay gives us every type of expecting mother. Not to mention every type of unique and colorful job imaginable perhaps required to not confuse one character with another. We begin with Jules (Cameron Diaz), a tough-love weight-loss TV guru who just won a celebrity dance show with her boyfriend, Evan (Matthew Morrison). Next is Holly (Jennifer Lopez), a famous photographer who, wouldn't you know it, does underwater scuba photo shoots. She and her husband, Alex (Rodrigo Santoro), plan to adopt a baby from Ethiopia.

Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) is perhaps the most down-to-earth with her husband Gary (Ben Falcone). A bookshop owner and renowned breast feeding advocate, she and her hubby have been trying to conceive for years. All unsuccessful attempts -- until now. But, of course, there's more. Gary is constantly having to put up with his overly competitive dad (Dennis Quaid) who is, wouldn't you know it, having twins with his much younger blonde bombshell of a wife, Skyler (Brooklyn Decker). Overshadowed by his dad yet again.

Then there's the youngest couple with the competing food trucks. After playfully betting over who gets the most business from an event at which they're both vending, Rosie (Anna Kendrick) and Marco (Chace Crawford) have a one-night stand and, wouldn't you know it, she gets knocked up. Interlaced between these five couples is the "Fight Club" styled baby daddy group who banter over stroller outings. It's meant to bring in the laughs, but it mostly falls flat as hard as Chris Rock, the ring-leader of the group, may try.

The Jennifer Lopez storyline comes across as a recycled version of "The Back-Up Plan," or whatever that was. That and the celebrity couple scenes become painfully uninteresting, like a pick your poison of predictable story arcs. It's all sugar-coated and sweet, mostly light and reassuring. There are flutters of dark moments, but they're never warranted. It's too superficial with nothing genuine, every character exaggerated into a caricature. There have to be more honest movies about pregnancy out there like perhaps Jessica Westfeldt's "Friends With Kids."

What keeps it from being flat-out excruciating is the highlight of a pregnant freak-out exhibited by Elizabeth Banks, the movie's only moment of real humor. She teams up nicely with two small-role players from "Bridesmaids," Rebel Wilson and Ben Falcone. Also appreciated is the low-key effort from Oscar-nominated Anna Kendrick and Chace Crawford who make their relationship the most real.

Still, though, much like the upchucking of the featured mothers-to-be, each storyline here is regurgitating the same tropes and end moral; that is, being pregnant sucks, small children are an inconvenience, but it becomes all worth it in the end when, as a new parent, you're holding that little bundle of a miracle in your arms.

THE AVENGERS Review

Marvel's "The Avengers" gives us much, much more of the same we've come to expect from all the Marvel movies of years past. It has basically become its own genre even outside of the superhero genre. What keeps this from becoming a clustered onslaught of big personalities all coming together into a bloated mess is the real hero of the party: writer/director Joss Whedon. He brings a fanboy enthusiasm to the massive blockbuster and gives audiences exactly what they want.

Much in the way he helped write "The Cabin in the Woods," which turned the horror genre on its head, here he does something similar. He thwarts our expectations while winking at us all the way with his tongue firmly placed in cheek. "The Avengers," believe it or not, is in many instances hilarious. The humor Whedon brings to the table is a quirky surprise and really makes the movie. The one-liners are countless with a unique self-knowing comic book brand of wit and snark. With this, Whedon very well may have given the Marvel movies their own new flavor. It's like the playful polar opposite of the wealth of emotional pathos Christopher Nolan achieves with his "Dark Knight" franchise.

With six superheros gracing the screen, it's never too much with each one getting his or her own time to shine. Remember, though, there is lots of homework before diving in. You'll have to have already seen "Thor," "Captain America" and "Iron Man 2" to get the idea of what's going on. There are the familiar faces: Chris Hemsworth as Thor from the mystical realm of Asgard swinging his mighty hammer; Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, who's a genius millionaire with an amazing suit of armor; and Chris Evans as the first avenger Captain America who was frozen over time and has recently thawed to join a new decade.

Then there are the less familiar faces -- those who either received only cameos or haven't even been introduced yet. First there's the new Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, played by Mark Ruffalo. Simply forget Ang Lee's "Hulk" or that newer one with Edward Norton, "The Incredible Hulk," ever existed because this newest iteration from Ruffalo is the real deal. Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents finish the team, including Natasha, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johannsson), and the powerful arrow-wielding Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). They  all report to the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). This is an organization whose purpose is vague -- perhaps just to protect the planet, or something.

The Avengers are assembled because of a new threat from Thor's villainous adopted brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who controls the Tesseract, a cube of energy that can open a hole in the universe. With it, Loki plans on unleashing his horde of flying reptilian-machine monsters on Earth. The duration between the introduction of this evil plan and the Avengers actually going out to stop it is a lot within the two-and-a-half hour running time. Within this gap, though, is plenty of opportunities to watch as the six heroes banter, bicker and form camaraderie. These interactions between our Avengers is when Whedon works to surprise us. The only problem is that he goes for the heavier stuff, too, which falls flat. In between the jokes he gives his characters existential crises to chew on, but it feels like dramatic fodder for the sake of dramatic fodder. Do we honestly care about Loki's threat? Nah. We just want to watch the Hulk playfully sock Thor in the face again.

The twiddling of your thumbs becomes worth it, however, once the final climactic battle set in Manhattan gets set up. This 45-minute barrage of swift, thrilling, exuberant action and CGI is an absolute knockout. And it looks phenomenal, too. The colors are bright, the effects are big and brassy, and it's a concluding set piece that is worth the price of admission alone -- and perhaps even worth the 3D.

For all the hype and anticipation surrounding this whiz-bang superhero conglomerate, Joss Whedon delivers the goods. In a sense, this massive Marvel outing is the beginning all over again. Just when we thought this might be the big finish for Marvel, instead it acts as a kickstarter to a whole new strain of Marvel movies. And quite honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS Review

Don't let anyone ruin this one for you. Not even the TV spots and trailers for "The Cabin in the Woods" can prepare you for what's coming. Written by Joss Whedon (creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Drew Goddard (who penned "Cloverfield"), also serving as first-time director, these two long-time collaborators take the slasher flick genre and turn it absolutely on its head. They take every trope you can imagine, chop them up, throw them in a blender, mix them all around and serve them to us in what can only be described as maniacal and mischievous. Part "Evil Dead," part "Truman Show" and part "Scream," this experiment in mechanics and deconstruction is also one hundred percent nuts.

We begin with five archetypal characters heading out for a weekend of sleazy, carefree fun in some backwoods cabin. There's Curt the jock (Chris Hemsworth of "Thor"), Jules the slut (Anna Hutchison), Holden the nerd (Jesse Williams), Marty the pothead (Fran Kranz) and Dana the virgin (Kristen Connolly). The last stop before reaching the cabin is an abandoned gas station inhabited by a creepy old man warning them of the terrors that lies ahead. Of course, they ignore him and press on.

It turns out this old man is the first piece in a twisted test being conducted by a lab of scientists -- headed by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford with a demented sense of humor. These guys push levers and turn dials to manipulate the scenario adding different storytelling elements to see how their characters will react, witness what decisions they'll make.

Think I've spoiled something for you? Think again. This is just the beginning. From here things get out of control. Not to mention a little too cocky. Self-aware cleverness and self-reflexive humor are characteristics that can get too overbearing, and that is exactly the case with Whedon and Goddard here. They're toying with the audience, but toward the end something happens -- something crazy -- and when it clicks in, you have to decide how far you're willing to go down the rabbit hole. I won't go into more detail because any spoiler would completely botch the experience of seeing it for yourself.

What I will say is this: it makes a devilish transformation. Beneath the apparent ingenuity and originality lurks something cruel and uncomfortable. It gives off the air of being something more than it really is. The initial joke is defeated later by nonsensical chaos, which is grisly fun but not brilliant. "The Cabin in the Woods" is the movie equivalent of a one-night stand. It's fine for a quick and dirty mindfuck, but you don't really know how it leaves you feeling afterward.

APOCALYPSE THEORY Review

From Brandon and Cameron Laventure, "Apocalypse Theory" is a student-made film shot entirely in East Lansing. It tells the story of the last two weeks before the end of the world focusing on two groups of friends at a university. While it's not overtly mentioned and the film could be taking place on any campus, the college experience the filmmakers wanted to recreate was that of Michigan State. Fitting then that the first scene opens on St. Paddy's Day, a notorious day of binge drinking on campus. Even more fitting that while the end of the world looms in the very near future, these students spend their days drinking without a care -- just as they would without the threat of impending death.

Both brothers wrote the screenplay while Cameron Laventure serves as director. At a robust running time of nearly two hours, the movie certainly could have spent more time in the editing room. Some scenes drag while others could be cut entirely, and an argument could be made for it being better off as a 60-minute short. The filmmakers ambition, bravery and high aspirations, however, cannot be ignored. Their goal was to capture life at MSU, and in that they succeeded.

Life as a freshman living in the dorms is presented through the eyes of Ethan (Alex Poling) while his older brother, Allen (Zack Sztanyo), represents college life as a senior living in a world of endless house parties. Also included is the bizarre sport of slacklining, the even more bizarre sport of humans vs. zombies, the Wells Hall preacher and even a doomsday version of Johnny Spirit -- all perfect aspects of MSU.

But the experiences conveyed in "Apocalypse Theory" aren't exclusive to just MSU's campus. They resonate in a universal way of college living with several truly inspired scenes that contain more sincerity than most Hollywood iterations of college life combined. Take for example a conversation in a library between the two brothers over what we're only to assume is Facebook chat, a group sitting in a dorm room playing the drinking game Kings or a hilarious teaching assistant who couldn't care less. Take any one of those scenes -- we've all been there. And cinematography from Maria Palmo photographs it all, most notable during a moment of drunk desperation which she shows us through appropriately blurred vision.

Among all this is the reason for the world's end. A conspiracy arises in the form of a missing professor, a physics book scrawled with ominous gibberish and a risky experiment. It's during the uncovering of this mystery when the midsection of the movie drags. It's more effective when the filmmakers are focusing on the parties and the drinking than when they actually delve into the conspiracy.

It creates for uneven tonal shifts that otherwise take away from the film's central point, which is these kids simply partying their lives away -- literally. And it makes for a compelling parallel to university students having to eventually face the real world as they wait for their carefree college years to end. Ethan says it best to his younger brother: "Life's just a party, and party's weren't meant to last."