Lately I've watched a bunch of movies including some new stuff and some old favorites, and I've come to realize a key element in whether I'll like a movie is the movie's target IQ.  The higher the movie's aim, the better I like it.  If I can't figure out what's going on, that's okay, but if the movie is working hard to make everything painfully obvious, that's painful.  Sometimes you have to re-watch a movie several times to get everything, and that's okay (in fact it's great, and fun) but sometimes you feel like you know what's going to happen, so why bother, and you walk out (or click Stop).

I must admit my usual genre right now is "romantic comedy", since I generally watch with Shirley, and this works against intelligence.  Many date movies are pretty horrible.  If I watched Adventure or Science Fiction I'd probably enjoy the movies more but I'd be watching them alone :)  At least we've learned to avoid Comedy altogether; how often is a "funny" movie actually funny?  Yeah, never.  They're always dumb.  I started watching "Night at the Museum" on the plane and I was astounded at the stupidity; I could not finish it.  But I re-watched "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and loved every minute.  YMMV!

[ Update: we saw Change Up tonight; not awful, not amazing, not dumb, but not smart ]