A Lake Bell comedy about marriage

As someone who loved Lake Bell's comedy In a World, I was looking forward to Bell's next movie, I Do ... Until I Don't. Oops. My expectations weren't entirely rewarded by Bell's new comedy about couples who participate in the filming of a documentary about marriage. The film is being made by an embittered British woman (Dolly Wells) who believes that marriages should have an opt-out clause that comes into effect every seven years. Bell's Alice is married to Noah (Ed Helms), who -- along with his wife -- struggles to make his window blinds business grow. Carol's hippie sister (Amber Heard) lives with her lover (Wyatt Cenac) in what they proudly bill as an open marriage. Cybil (Mary Steenburgen) is married to Harvey (Paul Reiser); it's her second marriage and it's gone stale. Steenburgen almost always is a joy to watch, and Bell and Helms are fine, as is everyone else in a strong cast, but I Do ... Until I Don't turns out to be wan and predictable. I wouldn't give up on Bell, though. She seems intent on writing, directing and starring in comedies that have something to say. She has the talent to strike again and make it work.

'Pets' with a cartoon kick

The Secret Life of Pets asks a question that's rich in both comic and dramatic potential. When owners leave their pets behind and head off to work, what do those lonely animals do? The team behind Despicable Me and Minions answers the questions in ways that turn The Secret Life of Pets into a jaunty series of cartoon-like episodes. Here's what happens: A terrier named Max (voice by Louis C.K.) lives a wonderful existence with an owner who loves him and whom he adores. Max's life is upset when his owner introduces a new pet into Max's environment, a large, floppy dog named Duke (Eric Stonestreet). Instant antagonists, Max and Duke are nonetheless destined to form a lasting bond. They do this by escaping into the streets of Manhattan, where they meet Snowball (Kevin Hart), a rambunctious rabbit who leads a movement aimed at liberating all animals from the humiliations of domestication. Additional characters include a rather large cat (Lake Bell) and a Pomeranian (Jenny Slate). Secret Life builds toward an action-oriented finale that no doubt will appeal to younger audiences, but struck me as a tad charmless. I don't know if Secret Life of Pets will knock Finding Dory off its box-office pedestal -- it probably will -- but both movies feature work from Albert Brooks, who, in this case, provides the voice of a hawk. I'm not sure that's a step up from the fish to which Brooks gave voice in Finding Dory, but I look forward to the time when he gets back to being human.

Senseless, relentless and cruel

Owen Wilson and Lake Bell play a mom and dad fleeing Asian rebels who are portrayed as savages.

No Escape, a rank helping of violence, makes the fate of one American family the focal point of attention in an unnamed Asian country that's consumed by rebellious street violence. Owen Wilson and Lake Bell, actors who usually work in comedies, are miscast as a Mom and Dad who wind up on the run with their two daughters (Sterling Jerins and Claire Geare). Pierce Brosnan turns up as a disheveled bum who's more than he seems. Brosnan's character sounds the movie's excuse for a theme (western money interests have screwed the Third World) and performs a couple of last-minute rescues. Guess it helps to have played Bond. Absent any significant thematic thrust, the movie comes off as another example of fear-mongering in which decent Americans are threatened by hostile, uncivilized thugs. Director John Erick Dowdle, who wrote the screenplay with his brother Drew, serves up lots of punishing violence and one vertiginous sequence in which Wilson's character tosses his daughters over a chasm between two tall buildings in order to save them. Dowdle works the movie's family over, but No Escape increasingly feels like an exercise in purposeless cruelty. Early in the movie, Owen's Jack Dwyer, who has come to the country as a mid-level businessman, leaves his wife and kids at the hotel where they're being housed. He wanders the city's market in search of a newspaper. Judging by how little Jack seems to know about the country he's in, you may wonder whether he's ever bothered to read one.

A comedy finds its voice

"In a world ... "

Remember when it seemed as if every Hollywood trailer began with those three words.

They were delivered in deep, sonorous and often momentous tones by the late Don LaFontaine , the man who provided the voice-over narration for more than 5,000 trailers. LaFontaine's voice became instantly recognizable to a generation of moviegoers who knew its sound even if they didn't know the name of the man to whom it belonged.

The new comedy In a World -- a debut film from director and actress Lake Bell -- takes a witty, engaging look at the contemporary world of voice-overs. Bell immerses us in a little-known corner of show-business, centering her comedy on a young woman (played by Bell) who's trying to make her mark.

Funny without feeling compelled to put pedal to the comic metal, In A World reminds us that every sphere of human activity -- regardless of how obscure -- tends to produce a hierarchy, an absurd pecking order built on a foundation of rampant egotism.

Bell's Carol faces major psychological and social roadblocks. She's trying to break into a male-dominated field currently ruled by her father (Fred Melamed), a voice-over actor who has had a major career and an ego to match.

We meet Melamed's Sam in a scene in which he tells Carol that she'll have to move out of his house because his new, 31-year-old girlfriend (Alexandra Holden) will be moving in.

Melamed, whose immense shaggy body is exposed in scenes set in a steam bath, qualifies as one of the most unusual screen presences around. He appeared as overly solicitous home-wrecker Sy Ableman in the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man. Here, Melamed becomes a reigning pasha of the voice-over world, a man so full of himself he believes he can pass his mantle to a younger successor, an equally puffed-up voice actor named Gustav Werner (Ken Marino).

And, of course, Sam enunciates as if careful pronunciation were all that's needed to demonstrate an obvious superiority of character.

Once ejected from her father's home, Carol takes up residence with her sister Dani (Michaela Watkins). Dani lives in a small apartment with her husband (Rob Corddry), a film editor who works at home. Dani works as a concierge in a Los Angeles hotel.

Not only does Bell capture the highly competitive world of vocal acting, but she also has made a smart and funny comedy that includes characters who are colorful, a little odd and mostly good company.

Principal among these is Louis (Demetri Martin), an insecure sound engineer who helps Carol's career and who also has a crush on her.

The movie eventually begins to revolve around a highly sought after voice over job, the trailer for a quartet of movies called The Amazon Games. The promotional plan for Amazon Games calls for revival of the legendary phrase, "In a world."

Bell, who has played secondary roles in movies such as What Happens in Vegas and who has appeared in TV shows such as The Practice, demonstrates talent both before and behind the camera.

In so doing, she's accomplished something commendable: She's made a movie about people whose preoccupations often make them seem silly, but who still refuse to be confined by the rigid borders of caricature.

Will love get in way of wanton sex?

Portman's fine; Kutcher, not so much. No Strings Attached falters.

Having won a Golden Globe and a variety of critics' association honors for her performance as a disturbed ballerina in The Black Swan, Natalie Portman seems a shoo-in for a best actress Oscar. The new and, alas, negligible romantic comedy No Strings Attached, isn't exactly a warm-up for Oscars' big prize, but it probably won't do anything to diminish Portman's glow.

No Strings Attached isn't much of a movie, but consider this: Portman's playing a role that might have gone to such rom-com divas as Drew Barrymore, Katherine Heigl or Jennifer Aniston. If you see the movie, think about what it might have been had any of those actresses taken Portman's place.

Proving herself an able enough comic actress, Portman holds the movie together as it zips through a variety of situations that are designed to delay the inevitable union of on-again/off-again lovers.

No Strings marks the first movie to be directed by Ivan Reitman (father of Jason) since 2006's My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Reitman's spry direction and screenwriter Elizabeth Meriwether's mildly off-color script keep No Strings from feeling precisely like every other rom-com that's been cluttering the nation's multiplexes.

Meriwether builds her R-rated script around a provocative question: Is it possible for two young people to carry on a torrid sexual affair without wanting to deepen their relationship?

That brings me to Ashton Kutcher, the movie's other marquee name. Kutcher piles on his all-too-familiar sheepish charm, and, at one point, bounces his naked butt across the screen. When it comes to rom-coms, he may be the male equivalent of the Barrymores, Heigls and Anistons, which means he's entirely too predictable.

Here's how the story goes: Portman's Emma, a medical resident at a Los Angeles hospital, proposes a sex-only affair to Kutcher's Adam, an assistant on a TV sitcom. Scorched by a large helping of paternal humiliation - his dad (Kevin Kline) is dating one of his ex-girlfriends -- Adam agrees to Emma's proposition.

Adam and Emma go at it with enthusiasm until Adam begins craving some real intimacy. The emotionally defended Emma doesn't want to detract from her consuming schedule. She's also terrified of commitment.

No Strings is not without sour notes, the loudest of them sounded by Kline, who starred in Reitman's 1993 comedy, Dave. Kline plays Kutcher's father, a faded TV star whose embarrassingly randy behavior pushes the dejected Adam into a drunken evening during which he kicks off his relationship with Emma.

Gifted a comic actor as he is, Kline can't entirely remove the odor of unpleasantness from the role of an older man who craves the fawning attentions of younger women.

There's an increasingly familiar quality to its overall arc, but Meriwether's script makes room for some decent one-liners. Too bad it doesn't allow for more significant contributions from the supporting cast. The only minor character who gets any decent play is Adam's co-workers, an obsessive talker played by Lake Bell.

I'm told that folks who sleep together but maintain every other form of distance are called "friends with benefits." Think of No Strings as a mediocre movie with benefits, most of them due to Portman who - up until the script calls for her to suffer - seems to be having loads of fun. Why not? Someone had to have a good time.