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Created Feb 16, 2011 01:16PM PST • Edited Feb 16, 2011 01:26PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   OK 2.5

   Seth Rogen plays an obnoxious rich heir to a newspaper empire, who decides to become involved in the news, rather than just reporting the news.

   While entertaining at times, the movie seemed to not be onpar with other superhero-type movies, such as The Dark Knight. Rogen does an ok job playing the obnoxious lead character, but haven’t we seen him do this type of acting in other movies as well? Very cool cars and some special effects, along with a requiste number of car chases and fights help to break up Seth’s comedy.

   Making a good movie of this genre requires a careful balance of comic relief with action, and I felt this particular effort tried to much of the former.

4. Acting

   OK 2.5

5. Male Stars OK 2.5

   Seth seems to play to bad-boy role he has enjoyed in so many of his other roles. I struggled to find him convincing in any type of office position at the newspaper.

6. Female Stars Barely OK 2.0

   Cameron Diaz seems to be stuck into an odd role. I wasn’t sure she really wanted to be there. There really weren’t any other significant female roles.

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

   Jay Chou, who plays Kato, has the necessary martial arts and fighting skills to be effective in his role. His heavy accent, which can be hard to understand at times, is minimized at points in the film by having him slow down his speech to annuniciate.

   Christoph Waltz gives a fine performance as a bad guy who is searching for some respect. His ability to create a creppy-bad-guy feeling (which we enjoyed in Inglorius Basterds) comes through in his role in this film.

10. Film

    OK 2.5

11. Direction OK 2.5

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    Very nice special effects had me wondering what the cars could do next, and what inventions Kato may still have up his sleeve.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

17. Sex Innocent 1.4

    No overt sex scenes, but the consistent objectification of women by Seth may be offsetting to some viewers.

18. Violence Fierce 2.4

    Lots of fighting, gunfire, and some amputated/crushed parts.

    Although it was mostly “comicbook” type stuff, you may want to be careful about bringing younger kids to it.

19. Rudeness Salty 2.3

21. Reality

    Supernatural 3.6

    While there are some knuckleheads in Seattle running around playing superhero, they have never achieved the success of the characters of this film. So, while my first instinct was to really label this as fantasy, I have to acknowledge there are some trying to accomplish these roles.

    That being said, some of the plot lines and assumptions made in the film were not realistic, as were the limitations of current mechanical technology that were blurred in the movie.

22. Circumstantial Supernatural 3.6

23. Biological Supernatural 3.6

24. Physical Supernatural 3.6