The Story: The prehistoric animals of the Ice Age franchise must deal with cataclysm and pirates. The Lowdown: A completely pointless animated film that’s mostly harmless, more of the same and horribly dull.

The Story: Two pot growers go after the Mexican drug cartel who’ve kidnapped their shared girlfriend. The Lowdown: A strong cast and solid direction can’t make up for a script that gives you no reason to care.

The Story: A man struggles to juggle his girlfriend and his lifelong best friend, who just happens to be an anthropomorphic teddy bear he wished into existence as a child. The Lowdown: A one-joke premise that’s mindless, rambling and downright stupid.

The Story: A male stripper deals with the trials and tribulations of wanting more out of life than being a male stripper. The Lowdown: An occasionally wonderful, (and thankfully human) look at the sex industry; it suffers from a weak third act, but is pitch perfect when it works.

The Story: With the end of the world coming in a matter of weeks thanks to an asteroid hurtling toward Earth, two neighbors set off into the world to find their loved ones. The Lowdown: A painless rom-com that’s just a bit too dramatically and comically inert, despite short fits of charm.

The Story: A corporate headhunter who moonlights as an art thief steals a Rubens from the wrong man. The Lowdown: A slickly made thriller that’s often surprisingly grim, but still impressively clever.

The Story: A deadbeat dad, who knocked up his high school teacher as a teenager, tries to reconnect with his now-grown, estranged son in an attempt to avoid going to prison. The Lowdown: The usual parade of Adam Sandler juvenilia and grotesqueness, but with a vague undercurrent of heart revolving around the idea of family.…

The Story: The escaped zoo animals of the first two Madagascar movies head to Europe, where they must go on the lam with a circus troupe in order to outrun a devious animal control officer. The Lowdown: A superfluous rehash of its predecessors that only exists to cash in on the popularity of those films.

The Story: In the 1920s, the Mexican people fight for their religious freedom against an oppressive government. The Lowdown: A professionally made historical piece that’s too long and too flimsy.

The Story: Agent J travels through time to stop his partner, Agent K, from being murdered by a ruthless alien criminal. The Lowdown: A harmless -- if superfluous -- sequel that works solely on how much you’ve liked its predecessors.

The Story: A long-time doormat team in high school football attempts to overcome its fair share of trials and tribulations in order to win its first-ever playoff game. The Lowdown: A documentary film that has been molded to fit the ideals of an uplifting sports movie, Undefeated raises more questions than it answers. Nevertheless, it's…

The Story: Aliens land on Earth, and it's up to a ragtag group of sailors to stop them. The Lowdown: Loud and noisy in the vein of Michael Bay, but entertaining because it understands what this kind of loud, noisy popcorn flick needs to be.

The Story: A documentation of a wide array of bullying -- and its consequences -- in America’s public high schools. The Lowdown: Despite offering little in the way of solutions (not to mention some factually dubious bits), this is a documentary that still packs an emotional punch.

The Story: A muck-up of a pirate decides to win the Pirate of the Year award, and finds himself tangled up in misadventures with the British aristocracy. The Lowdown: A clever and likable adventure from Aardman that never quite flirts with greatness, despite being quite entertaining.

The Story: A down-on-his-luck ex-cop must protect a young girl from a city of thugs out to get her. The Lowdown: Ridiculously convoluted, but occasionally impressive, and carried by the action-film gravitas of Jason Statham.

The Story: After finding a photo of an unknown woman while serving in Iraq, a Marine tracks her down in her Louisiana hometown and quickly becomes ingratiated into her life. The Lowdown: A schmaltzy, melodramatic and standard Nicholas Sparks’ film. Exactly what you'd expect from this subgenre.

The Story: A group of chimpanzees -- particularly a young chimp named Oscar -- fight for survival in the forests of Africa. The Lowdown: Too simplistic to be truly educational, and often too scatterbrained to feel like actual filmmaking.

The Story: A former CIA operative who’s been framed for the murder of his best friend is sent to a maximum-security prison in outer space to save the president’s kidnapped daughter. The Lowdown: Wholly derivative action/sci-fi film that is dumb fun, but could really stand to be a bit dumber and revel in its own…

The Story: Now all grown up, the friends that made up the American Pie films return to their hometown for their high-school reunion. The Lowdown: Generally unfunny sequel that catches up with a bunch of characters no one really cares about, but somehow retains the ability to not be wholly terrible.