Flash Of Genius (2008)

Flash of Genius is a conventional crowdpleaser but not, I'm pleased to report, a shameless one. Chronicling the true story of a college professor's fight to reclaim his invention – the intermittent windshield wiper – from the car company that stole it, the film does many of the things you'd expect, but it may also surprise you. Don't let its Telluride placement fool you: this is a staunchly mainstream, unchallenging film, the sort of underdog-vs.-corporate-behemoth story you've seen time and again. But it's a decent rendition, hitting the right notes without insulting our intelligence.

Now, the intermittent windshield wiper is not exactly the light bulb. If you're not familiar with the term, the wiper is "intermittent" in the sense that it can pause between wipes – a problem that apparently puzzled engineers at all the major car companies until Kearns cracked it the late 60s. But part of what's nifty about the film is its ability to create suspense and curiosity around something so seemingly mundane. Kearns' first demo of his device to Ford is exciting in a very goofy way, but exciting nonetheless.

Being vaguely familiar with the plight and ultimate triumph of Dr. Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear), I expected most of Flash of Genius to be a legal procedural, the story of how a lone college professor outmaneuvered the Ford Motor Company and won back the rights to his invention. But here's the biggest surprise: until the final half hour, this isn't a courtroom drama but a psychological one. It's not about the thrill of David taking on Goliath, but the helplessness of being pitted against an impersonal, uncaring foe with limitless time and resources. Kearns is consumed by the injustice and the need to fight back, no matter the odds or the toll the battle will take on his wife (Lauren Graham) and their six kids. For a while, the film is less concerned with the logistics of the fight than with its effect on Kearns, and that proves interesting. There's a moment early on when he ruminates on what makes a man a success, and his wife subtly suggests that he should consider his family as well as his invention as part of the success calculus. He ignores her completely, which turns out to be prescient and sad.

To its credit, the movie maintains this theme as it details Kearns' multi-decade battle: there's some redemption for him and his family, but everything doesn't turn out hunky-dory. A nearly 20-year legal war takes its toll. Flash of Genius is at its best when it recognizes that fact, and would have been better had it done more to acknowledge that whatever victory Kearns achieves has to be considered pyrrhic. The legal system doesn't let him down, exactly, but the price of vindicating his rights would have been too high for virtually everyone else.

The last act concerns itself with the inevitable courtroom wrangling. Kearns' lawyer, played with terrific smugness by Alan Alda, ditches him years before the case gets to trial, and the by-now-impoverished inventor is forced to represent himself. The movie has fun with this, particularly when Kearns has to put himself on the stand. We're meant to root for him and marvel at his ingenuity in court as in his makeshift basement laboratory.

This is entertaining enough in the usual ways, with the added bonus that Kearns isn't actually a lawyer. It's also perfectly predictable, and not nearly as interesting as what came before. Does anyone remember David Mamet's The Winslow Boy, another film about a protracted and arguably foolhardy legal crusade for honor and right, and the toll it took on a family? There, the trial and the delivery of the verdict happened off-screen. I wish first-time director Marc Abraham and screenwriter Philip Railsback had had the guts to do the same here.

But what ultimately keeps Flash of Genius in the realm of mere adequacy, I think, is that there isn't much to Kearns beyond his dogged determination. Kinnear's portrayal is endearing, but neither he nor the screenplay ever really gets a sense of the man. He's a generically likable protagonist. Had he been more, the film's attempts to explore his psychological deterioration may have become moving instead of merely intriguing.

Rock Band 2 (2008)

MTV Games; Xbox 360, PlayStation 3; Teen)

Rock Band 2 is here — and, yes, it may seem a wee bit premature for this reunion tour, seeing as the first game took the stage just 10 months ago. This explains why, at first strum, RB2 doesn't seem much different from the original: Notes still cascade down the screen in familiar fashion. Players still play one of four parts (lead and bass guitars, drums, and vocals). The instruments still play the same (though you can purchase new wireless versions of the Fender Stratocaster and drum controllers). And the songs may sound very familiar (for an extra 5 bucks, you can import most of the songs found on the RB disc into RB2 — while all of the tracks you paid extra to download will automatically transfer over).

Play RB2 for any extended amount of time, however, and your acute sense of déjà vu starts to subside. A new streamlined menu interface makes navigation a lot easier — a vital upgrade, given the number of songs in RB2's library, which developer Harmonix promises will be 500 strong by the holidays. Also making significant strides is RB's career mode, in which you create your own band and take your act on the road. This time around, it's more user-friendly and less restrictive. In RB, once you paired your avatar with one of the four musical parts, you were stuck with it for the entire career. Now, you and the other members of your group can go from vocals to guitar to drums as often as you want, plus guest musicians — even stringers who've never played with you before — can hop in and join you in a set. Continuing its legacy of irreverent hilarity, RB2 gives you the ability to hire support staff for your band, including unpaid interns, spiritual gurus — even your mom (who ''gives your band a 200 percent boost in clean laundry and worried phone calls''). The sequel also offers a ''No Fail'' option (sparing newbies the shame of being booed off the stage), as well as a drum-training mode to teach you the real-life basics of beats and fills.

There's still room for improvement, though. Getting friends to jam with you online can be an iffy process. It sometimes takes a while for remote bandmates to show up on your screen; other times, they don't show up at all, forcing you to restart the game. And we would've loved to have a meter that displays the remaining time in a song (to better cue our Overdrive energy). We're splitting guitar strings here — RB2 is clearly better than its predecessor and approaches the upper limits of how much fun you can have with a bunch of friends and some plastic instruments.

House Bunny 2008

Presumably, your college experience was a little more intensive than the one facing the girls in "The House Bunny." Maybe you had a job. Or some kind of internship. Or actually went to a single class.

With no real-world problems to worry about, the sorority sisters of Zeta Alpha Zeta struggle with the oldest of movie conflicts: Nobody thinks they're cool. At least until a former Playboy Bunny shows up to teach them that big hair and the right amount of cleavage can solve any problem.It's practically a scene-by-scene rip-off of "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Legally Blonde," which is only half OK, because the screenwriters of "The House Bunny" also wrote the latter movie. But the movie benefits from the multiple talents of Anna Faris, whose insane hotness makes people forget that she's also a gifted comic actress.

Faris has elevated other movies, most notably as a rock diva in "Just Friends," where she deftly made fun of everything you hate about Ashlee Simpson and Paris Hilton in 20 minutes of screen time. She does something different here, playing the nice but impossibly stupid Shelley Darlingson, who is exiled from the paradise of the Playboy Mansion (Hef contributes his usual great cameo) and has to fend for herself in the real world. She ends up as the house mother at the most unpopular sorority on a Southern California campus.

From there, the plot is beyond predictable. Seriously, write down every scene from "Legally Blonde" and "Revenge of the Nerds" on index cards, shuffle and then deal your movie. There's a montage where the girls fix their house, a sorority/fraternity council subplot where the Zetas have to defend their charter and even a scene in which the cute girls unleash a pig in the house. Throw in a panty raid and a rendition of "Mr. Touchdown," and your copyright infringement lawsuit is complete.

The sorority girls are also a collection of familiar stereotypes, except for the one played by Rumer Willis, whose sole purpose is to make fun of girls in body braces. (The Joan Cusack character was also the one unfunny thing about "Sixteen Candles." Maybe we're lucky that screenwriters try this cheap sight gag only once every 24 years.)

Colin Hanks plays a nice guy love interest for Shelley, which is so unbelievable that it becomes uncomfortable. And the narrative weakly shifts gears at the end, throwing in a predictable what-counts-is-on-the-inside message that contradicts the entire first three-quarters of the movie.

But we're being a bit too hard on this comedy, which does have quite a few laughs. Screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith may not have any original ideas, but they write some good lines and have a great actress to deliver them. "I love charity," Shelley exclaims, with a sincere/vacant look from Faris that makes it twice as funny. "One time, at the mansion, I even let Bob Saget grind on me during a slow dance."

Later, when she raises some money for a nursing home, she makes the check payable to "old people." Hopefully, in the sequel, she'll at least attend a few extension courses.