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We haven't seen Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts in a movie like "Larry Crowne" in decades. When you've got "Oscar winner" and "blockbuster hits" on your resume, feather-light character comedies fall off your radar.

"Crowne" is a pleasant but fluffy, inconsequential romantic comedy. It plays to their strengths - Hanks' American Everyman decency and pluck, Roberts' romantic longing punctuated by that megawatt smile and toothy laugh. Package the "Charlie Wilson's War" co-stars in a movie ripped from the Recession zeitgeist and it's like a great big hug to America's over-50 and newly-unemployed. It's Will Ferrell's "Everything Must Go" without any hint of edge.

Hanks has the title role, another hyper-competent blue collar working man (think "Cast Away"). He went straight from high school to the Navy to a job at a home-improvement chain store. And when they rather curtly lay off the divorced, mortgaged Larry, they say it's because his lack of a degree will always "retard your movement" up the ladder.

That's how Larry winds up at East Valley Community College. A college degree, he figures, is how he can "make sure that (being laid off) never happens again."

He's talked into taking a speech course, to give him confidence in interviews, because "it will CHANGE your life." And sure enough it does, because it's taught by the hard-drinking, unhappily married burnout, Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts).

Hanks directed this and co-wrote the script with his pal and protege, Nia ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding") Vardalos. The script tilts heavily toward the Vardalos style - broad, obvious characters, even broader wish-fulfillment story. It takes an effort worthy of another Greek - Hercules - to keep this from collapsing into cloying.

The film is a veritable make-work project for scores of character actors. There's Mercedes' sci-fi writer "and porn surfer" slacker husband, played by Bryan Cranston; the patronizing banker who will take Larry's house (Rita Wilson, aka Mrs. Hanks); Frank, the owner of a diner where Larry gets part-time work (Ian Gomez, aka Mr. Vardalos); the goofy neighbors having a perpetual yard sale (Taraji P. Henson and Cedric the Entertainer), and the self-important economics professor, played by George Takei and his booming laugh.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays the cute coed who takes Larry under her wing, gives him a hipster wardrobe, renames him "Lance Corona" and brings him into her boyfriend's scooter gang. The beau is played by Wilmer Valderrama, and Larry has bought a scooter after seeing how much it costs him to fill up his SUV.

The players are reliably unsurprising, as is the story. This is not about an education opening a middle-aged man's mind, it's about a middle-aged man learning just how much he has to offer the workplace, the world and a woman, thanks to what college gives him.

As with his first directing effort, "That Thing You Do," Hanks shows no interest in finding a real "villain" here or generating the conflict that sort of obstacle to Larry's happiness inspires. It's a nice movie made by a guy with a nice image.

And as such, it's perfectly pleasant big-screen comfort food - meatloaf, potatoes and apple cobbler served as bubbly Tom Petty and ELO tunes waft from the soundtrack. Neither we nor they have forgotten that Hanks and Roberts can deliver something this far within their comfort zone. Perhaps the only surprising thing about "Larry Crowne" is that at this stage of their stellar careers, they'd choose to.

Review

"Larry Crowne"

** 1/2

• Rated PG-13: For brief strong language and some sexual content.

• Director: Tom Hanks.

• Cast: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bryan Cranston.

• Running time: 92 minutes.

If "Transformers 3" isn't the summer's lousiest whiz-bang movie, it's only because there's so much competition. It's not even the best "3-D anthropomorphic automobiles and explosions" movie of the month. The demolition derby of "Cars 2" seems a work of staggering genius in comparison.

Like "X-Men: First Class," this spectacle recasts a central showdown of the Cold War as a chapter in science-fiction lore.

In this telling, the noble Autobots and evil Decepticons with fiendish glowing eyes battled for control of their home planet. When the tide turned against the good guys, they retreated to Earth, while an ark containing the key to their world's recovery crash-landed on the moon in 1961. The Space Race was actually a competition between America and Russia to salvage the downed spacecraft's technology. Oh, and Chernobyl? Same story, later chapter. These days, the Autobots have become a freewheeling branch of the U.S. armed forces, zooming off to such locations as "Middle East: Illegal Nuclear Site" to lay the smackdown on swarthy upstarts.

We pick up our story with the Autobots' human ally Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) three months out of college and still unemployed, to his parents' chagrin. True, he helped save the world twice, but in today's job market it's all "what have you done for me lately?

"His big break comes from a bug-eyed, grinning tycoon (that master of oddballs, John Malkovich) who challenges Sam to "impress me." It's hard to say exactly why Malkovich's turn is funny. Same goes for Ken Jeong's cameo as a hypertense executive who's on to the big space-cars plot, or John Turturro's return as a secret agent turned millionaire expose author. They're not joke-funny so much as energetically off-kilter, winking at the postmodern irony of appearing in a movie about shape-shifting humanoid robots.

Michael Bay (the computer program created by producer Steven Spielberg to execute smash-bang summer blockbuster scripts) simply throws every possible emotional tone at the screen to see what sticks. If audiences laugh, it's a moment of comedy; if they shriek, it's horror.

Frances McDormand barrels her way through several scenes as the rather masculine National Intelligence Director, managing to create something like an entertaining character and preserving her dignity in the process.

The other female character of note is Sam's girlfriend, Carly (Victoria's Secret mannequin Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), who makes her entrance as a pair of spectacular legs and a world-class rump mincing up the stairs to their bedroom. In Bay's worldview women are either lissome damsels to be ogled, endangered and harassed, or fearsome emasculating shrews. Huntington-Whiteley, who has the emotional range of a voice-chip Barbie, is less affecting in her scenes with LaBeouf than is his tenderhearted Autobot bodyguard Bumblebee.

"Transformers 3" runs a soul-shredding 150 minutes, most of it a hash of time-killing subplots involving Russian gangsters, Patrick Dempsey as Carly's predatory boss, and Sam's tour of duty in the corporate mailroom. The last 50 minutes are spent leveling Chicago, as the 'Bots and U.S. armed forces throw down, with Sam, Carly, Lt. Col. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and retired Master Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson) leading the counterattack.

Leonard Nimoy voices a new robot character named Sentinel Prime, who plays a key role in the hostilities, and allows Nimoy to recycle his "the needs of the many" line from "Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan."

There is exactly one novel idea among the slapdash battle scenes, as our human heroes slip and slide through a toppling skyscraper whose foundations are being devoured by a mechanical hydra. That flash of invention aside, the nonstop annihilation becomes obnoxious. The constant pounding does drive up one's bloodlust to lynch-mob levels, encouraging us to revel in the sight of evil 'Bots being ripped limb from limb. Take heed, would-be evil-doers. Roland Emmerich, who destroyed Washington in "Independence Day," New York in the 1988 "Godzilla" and Los Angeles in "2012," staged his cataclysms with visual-spatial logic and jagged jolts of wit. Bay's approach is to make the robots bigger, the explosions explodier, and crank up the soundtrack until your skull goes numb. The appropriate response is a deafening yawn.

Review

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

* 1/2

• Rated PG-13: Intense prolonged sequences of sci-fi action violence, brief sexual humor, and language.

• Director: Michael Bay.

• Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, Tyrese Gibson.

• Running time: 150 minutes.

Jack Nicholson has that famous line in "As Good As It Gets" in which he says to Helen Hunt, "You make me want to be a better man."

This is going to sound corny, but here goes: "Buck" will make you want to be a better person.

Buck Brannaman, the real-life "horse whisperer" who inspired the novel and the 1998 Robert Redford film, just oozes decency, grace and class. And the fact that he doesn't seem to take himself so damn seriously only adds to his allure. He has a charismatic, no-nonsense style and a dry, low-key sense of humor that help him connect with people of all ages and backgrounds as he travels the country giving clinics 40 weeks out of the year.

Cindy Meehl's documentary about Brannaman does teeter on the brink of deifying him, however. Idyllic shots of the sun-streaked countryside add to the film's warm glow. But then again, it's hard to argue with her: He seems like a truly good guy doing truly good work. Among those who can attest to his abilities is Redford himself, who shares an amusing anecdote about how Brannaman became more than just a consultant on his movie.

Winner of the documentary audience award at this year's Sundance Film Festival, "Buck" introduces us to the lifelong cowboy who helps trainers and riders of all levels learn to work more patiently and effectively with their horses. His philosophy is that you can't break a horse in a violent way, as others have done for years. Rather, he believes that a human and a horse should coexist instinctively, and that an animal can be a reflection of one's soul.

It's an unusually kind and introspective approach, but the fact that Brannaman honed it and reached this point of peace and success in his life, given his horrific upbringing, is what's truly remarkable. Brannaman recounts the physical and psychological abuse he and his brother endured as young boys at the hands of their alcoholic father. When their mother was around, she served as a buffer; once she died, their protector was gone, too. (Strangely, there's barely a mention of his brother throughout the rest of the film.)

Decades later, Brannaman is matter-of-fact in sharing these details; they're just part of who he is, they gave him an empathy for vulnerable creatures. But the memory of what he suffered through gets childhood friends choked up to this day, and Brannaman still has a close, touching relationship with the foster mother who ultimately raised him.

As sweet as Brannaman seems, though - and this is a guy who freely quotes Oprah Winfrey - he can also be tough. One dramatic segment about an hour into the film depicts his struggle with a particularly unruly 3-year-old colt; he has no qualms about berating its owner and suggesting that whatever chaos is going on in her own life is to blame for the animal's violent nature. Clearly hitting too close to home, he reduces this woman to tears.

You may find yourself emotionally moved by "Buck" as well, for far more positive reasons.

Buck

***

• Rated: PG for thematic elements, mild language and an injury.

• Director: Cindy Meehl.

• Cast: Buck Brannaman.

• Running time: 88 minutes.

Particularly in the movies, the French Riviera is as glamorous as it gets: a golden-hued playground for the likes of Grace Kelly and Cary Grant where open-top cars are cinematic law.

But today's teenyboppers have just as much pull as the idols of yesterday. The gauzy "Monte Carlo" stars not our most regal cinema heroes, but the young TV upstarts Selena Gomez (Disney Channel star, pop singer and Justin Bieber girlfriend), Katie Cassidy ("Melrose Place") and Leighton Meester ("Gossip Girl").

The 18-year-old Grace (Gomez) has just graduated high school in a small Texas town. She has long dreamed of visiting Paris, saving up tips from waitressing alongside her friend, the brassy 21-year-old high school dropout Emma (Cassidy).

Grace's mother (Andie MacDowell, in the briefest of roles) and her stepfather (Brett Cullen) are happy to let her and Emma go for a week, so long as they take Grace's new stepsister, the 21-year-old Meg (Meester). This upsets Emma because she sees Meg as a nervous wet blanket, and Grace for having a family holiday forced on her long-held dream.

In Paris, their trip sours, not because of the usual culprits (rude Parisians, discombobulating rotaries, too much foie gras) but a hyper-speed tour bus that blitzes through tourist sites and eventually leaves them behind. This (along with sudden rain) is enough to make the trip a disaster in the eyes of Grace.

She sums up the status allure of the French capital, lamenting that she's not "the kind of person" who can go to Paris.

But at that moment, the trio crosses paths with a wealthy heiress who looks exactly like Grace, because, well, she's also Selena Gomez. As Cordelia Winthrop Scott, Gomez plays a British, snobby look-alike to Grace. Urged on by Emma and buoyed by a confused hotel staff, Grace impersonates Cordelia, winning them a fancy room for the night and tickets on a private jet the next day to Monaco.

At Monte Carlo, the action generally swirls around the plush Hotel de Paris, as the girls live out a fantasy of luxury, complete with an international consortium of handsome men. Grace falls in with a young French aristocrat (Pierre Boulanger), Emma lands a dashing Italian (Giulio Berruti) while her hometown boyfriend (Cory Monteith) tries to track her down, and Meg hits it off with an Australian backpacker (Luke Bracey).

The disguise, naturally, begins to wear thin. But for the most part, the stakes never feel very high in "Monte Carlo." The girls occasionally bicker, but they're never much at each other's throats. Until the final scenes bring things to a head, there are surprisingly few close scrapes and not even one visit to the local casinos.

Impersonating a famous heiress, one would think, might lead to numerous comical situations. But then again, it's "Some Like it Hot," not "All Like it Hot." ''Monte Carlo" likes it lukewarm.

That's partially because Gomez, while endearingly earnest, doesn't command the screen. It's essentially her first semi-adult film, and one feels her stretching. Meester and Cassidy provide solid sidekicks, though that perhaps sells them short: They ultimately carry the movie. All of their storylines lead to self-discovery and sappiness.

Nevertheless, director Thomas Bezucha ("The Family Stone"), production designer Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski (who frequently works with Stephen Frears) and the composer Michael Giacchino ("Up," ''Super 8") do exceptionally well in giving the limp material (the script was loosely based on a novel by Jules Bass and co-written by Bezucha and numerous others) a first-rate production.

The tone is light and the pacing efficient. Giacchino's graceful score, in particular, stands above. Its French flourishes sound like a B-side to his superb score to "Ratatouille."

Though the raison d'etre of "Monte Carlo" is to glorify and benefit from the glamour of the Riviera, the girls - to their credit - ultimately reject it. In one scene, Emma watches "To Catch a Thief," but even from the lavish confines of the Hotel the Paris, Grace Kelly still seems unattainable, a world away.

"Monte Carlo," a 20th Century Fox release, is rated PG for brief mild language. Running time: 108 minutes. Two stars out of four.