INSURGENT

As was destined to happen at my well-attended-by-teenage-girls screening of Insurgent, I heard plenty of nervous titters when Shailene Woodley and Theo James finally unzipped their faux X-Men garb and got (PG-13) busy with one another, and solemn silence during most of the rest of this tear-stained, thematically pushy action adventure. But I did hear one other occasional sound, because nearly every time Miles Teller opened his mouth for a throwaway retort or vicious insult, the girls in my crowd laughed, and were completely right to. As Teller's Peter is an eternal thorn in our heroes' sides and a grade-A prick to boot - a character you'd presume more deserving of hisses than giggles - this was somewhat surprising. It was also hugely cheering. Those teen patrons may have collectively enjoyed the rampaging mediocrity of this Divergent sequel, but they also, just maybe, recognized true greatness when they saw it.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

The first words heard in the romantic tearjerker The Fault in Our Stars come from Shailene Woodley's cancer-stricken teen Hazel, who tells us, in voice-over narration, that Hollywood movies are never honest in their depiction of sad stories, and promises that when it comes to the sad story she's about to relate, "This is the truth." And in retrospect, the film lost me with those four little words, because almost nothing that happened over the next two-plus hours felt even close to true.