Review Roundup: Scary Movie 4, The Wild

Two films open wide today, one of which involves Shaq and Dr. Phil chained together (yes, someone has unearthed that old chestnut again), while the other features animals escaping from a zoo to rescue their ... wait a minute. That just sounds so familiar, I'd swear I saw it somewhere before. (Finding Nemo? No, that wasn't it, that was about fish. Toy Story 2? No. Well, sort of, actually.) In sum, a surprising number of critics don't hate Scary Movie 4, and Ty Burr pretty much sums up the reaction to The Wild when he describes it as "Technologically incredible, aesthetically pretty hideous, and narratively lumpy." Details below.

• Scary Movie 4: As there is between our own Scott and Rob, a fair amount of disagreement over this one exists among critics. While no one is really saying its very good, there are some who enjoy the movie for what it is, and feel that its gags succeed more often than their fail. In the other camp, however, are those who think it's a tired, pathetic excuse for a spoof film, and that the series really should have curled up and died a few installments to go. Both groups like Anna Faris, though -- that's something.

• The Wild: Most critics agree that this is just another in the long line of painfully average animated films (and, yes, they all mention its uncanny resemblance to Madagascar) that have hit theaters recently. If you look hard enough, however, you can find a couple of positive reviews (it has a good message, apparently), but they're few and far between.