Most people will take one look at Nimród Antal’s “Armored” and be immediately tempted to write it off as the kind of B-movie action thriller that you’d only watch if you were stuck home alone on a weekend. It really isn’t that bad, but with all the talent that’s involved, it should have been a whole lot better. Columbus Short stars as Ty Hackett, a decorated war hero who returns home to take care of his younger brother after their parents pass away. Although his godfather, Mike (Matt Dillon), gets him a job working alongside him as a security guard for an armored truck service, Ty still struggles to make ends meet. Desperate to get some quick cash before he loses his house to the bank, Ty begrudgingly agrees to join Mike and their co-workers in a plot to steal the $42 million they’re transporting and make it look like a robbery.

After all, it’s a foolproof plan with no “bad guys.” At least, that’s what everyone thinks until a nosey bum is accidentally killed in the process and Ty locks himself inside the truck with half of the payload. With the clock ticking down to their scheduled check-in with headquarters, Mike and his team get to work on removing the door, only for a meddlesome cop (Milo Ventimiglia) to get in the way. The further along the movie gets, the more ridiculous it becomes, with a series of preventable plot holes riddling the story like a piece of Swiss cheese. The film’s biggest crime, however, is its misuse of the cast. You’d think Antal would want to make the most of actors like Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, and even Skeet Ulrich, and yet each one is barely given more than a few lines. Had they played a bigger role in the movie, “Armored” might have been more entertaining, but as it stands, it’s something you’ll likely forget the minute it’s over.

Click to buy “Armored”

Be that as it may, the up-beat social issue/sports drama starring Sandra Bullock did indeed do extremely well this week. Taking a look at the Box Office Mojo chart, the $29 million film earned a very nice estimated $20.4 million for Warners and Alcon Entertainment in its second weekend and has so far earned a really terrific total amounting to roughly $129,264,00 so far.

As a comparison, my favorite movie of the year (that I’ve seen…I’m way, way behind), “Inglourious Basterds,” was considered quite the success. With a $70 million budget, after 16 weeks it has earned $120,467,000 for Harvey and Bob Weinstein. “2012” cost $200 million to make, a rather obscene sum that was unthinkable not so long ago, and in four weeks in wide release has earned a mere $148,787,000. I haven’t seen “The Blind Side,” but it just makes me happy that a modest movie about people is proving, I think, to be significantly more profitable than at least one pretty obviously bloated spectacle.

As for that other movie about teen vampires, werewolves, and waifs, B.O. Mojo’s Brandon Grey is here to tell us that “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” dropped another 63% this week. However, it’s opening week take was so stunning that meant it still took in a respectable estimated $15.7 million for Summit. It’s total domestic bankroll at this point is about $255.6 million and, as per Variety‘s Pamela McClintock, the worldwide total for “New Moon” is $570.1 so far. All that, with a budget of only about $50 million for a fantasy film. The “Twilight” films might not be seen by anyone as great cinema, but they are pretty awesome business.

For you schadenfreude fanatics, Nikki Finke reminds us that both “The Blind Side” and the “Twilight” franchise were placed into turnaround by Fox and Paramount respectively. However, it’s always possible that those other studios would have found a way to mess up those pictures or their marketing, so who knows how things would have turned out with different studios?  In any case, no one wins all the time.

As for the actual new films in wide release this weekend, it’s not too pretty. As expected, the downbeat Afghanistan war-oriented drama, “Brothers,” came in at the #3 spot, but with an unimpressive estimated $9.7 million, though the modest budget ($3 million lower than “The Blind Side”) will help Jim Sheridan’s remake of a Danish hit to perhaps break even in the long run or do a bit better if Oscar notices it. Still, considering the three major, youngish stars, it’s another testament to the apparently declining value of star power. Are people finally getting sophisticated enough about filmmaking that they understand that actors, as crucial as they are, don’t actually make up the stories or point the camera? Nah. It’s gotta be something else.

In this case, I think the film was probably hurt by a dour ad campaign and the wrong kind of timeliness. People who care about what’s going on in Afghanistan, particularly those who have loved ones in the military or are in the military themselves, probably don’t want to spend their leisure/fun time thinking about it right now, and people who don’t care about it…don’t care about it. A little bit more critical buzz might have been nice as well.

As for the other three new releases, it kind of unpleasant, so I’ll start with the good news, which is that the Oscar and critical support building behind “Up in the Air” is paying off. In limited release in 15 theaters, the adult-oriented R-rated comedy from Jason Reitman earned $1.185 million for an airborne per-theater average of $79,000.

Okay, back to the bad news. Nimrod Antal’s PG-13 heist thriller, “Armored,” was sequestered from critics prior to its release, but actually got a could-have-been-worse 44% rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Still, audiences  weren’t overly impressed and the film came in #6 and earned an uninspiring $6.6 million for Screen Gems in under 2000 theaters.

“Everybody’s Fine” apparently wasn’t really doing so well. The attempt at a heart-warming family comedy-tearjerker starred Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell, but apparently even grandma wasn’t too interested in this one. It came in at the #10 spot on its opening weekend with only an estimate of a little above $4 million  from over 2000 theaters. Again, stars of any age group aren’t really doing it right now.

Not that having no stars is a good thing either. The week’s under-ballyhoed youth-oriented alleged horror-comedy, “Transylmania,” boasted a really dumb name and a trailer so unfunny  I dare not link to it a second time lest I bring a rain of destruction upon this blog and all who view it. Eight critics did venture into a theater to review the movie. Of course, they all hated it. Actually, if those eight tickets all went to the same theater, they would have wound being more than a third of the film’s beyond horrific opening weekend per-screen average of $232. It earned a truly sad $274,000 in over 1,000 theaters.  By comparison, 1985’s “Translyvania 6-5000” with, among others, Jeff Goldbloom, Ed Begley, Jr., Norman Fell, and Michael Richards was a blockbuster.

Of the four new releases said to be appearing in 1,000 to 2,000+ theaters this weekend, the most promising, both artistically and commercially, is “Brothers,”  a remake of a widely acclaimed Afghanistan war-themed 2005 drama from Denmark. Distributed by Lionsgate, the movie is an intense love triangle involving the not-actually-dead young Afghanistan war vet played by Tobey Maguire, his not-actually-a-widow played by Natalie Portman, and his black sheep brother, Jake Gyllenhaal — who looks so much like a brother to Maguire that he once is supposed to have nearly replaced him in one of the “Spiderman” sequels.  (If they worked Elijah Wood into the cast, they would have achieved the baby-faced, raspy-voiced star trifecta.)

Director Jim Sheridan of “My Left Foot,” “In the Name of the Father,” and “In America” has a real flair for intense tales that dance around the edges of melodrama and then sometimes dive right in. The one-two-three punch of the very well known youngish stars would make you think this should come in with a decent amount of money — at least in the double digits. However, considering the growing news and controversy around the Afghanistan war, the topic might be a bit too timely for audience tastes. Also, a film like this should probably should at least crack 70% on the Tomatometer, especially, but hitting it of with something  in the neighborhood of 50–60% of critics will have to do. Worse reviewed films have received Oscar nominations, however.

Next up is another remake of a foreign language hit, this time of an Italian comedy-drama/tearjerker from 1990 that starred the great Marcello Mastroianni and was directed by Giuseppe Tornatore of “Cinema Paradiso.” (Not at all a favorite of mine, by the way.) Disney’s PG-13 “Everybody’s Fine” brings us Robert De Niro as a widower trying to reconnect with his children and grandchildren and costars Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell. A sentimental tale for the holidays with this kind of star power should have some wattage in theory, though  apparently the “tracking” is kind of stinking for this film which isn’t really wowing the critics either. Our own Jason Zingale liked it mainly on the strength of DeNiro’s performance but this one feels like the movie you settle for if grandma, or maybe great-grandma, wants to see something nice and you can’t get into the “The Blind Side.”

The same definitely cannot be said for two remaining films which are pretty clearly going after the youth and/or male audience. “Armored” is a PG-13 heist thriller that appears to involve, guess what, armored car drivers. Stars Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne and (for the foreign market, no doubt), Jean Reno won’t hurt this film, but I don’t think they’ll save the box office for Screen Gems either, much as I think they’re all pretty cool. The trailer — which features my hero, Fred Ward, doing some warmed-over “Hill Street Blues” shtick — looks fairly tired. Notably, critics aren’t being shown this film from memorably named director Nimrod Antal.

The filmmakers are probably using ten-foot stakes to keep critics away from “Transylmania,” a truly lame-looking attempt from newcomers Full Circle Releasing to set a National Lampoon-style college comedy in a vampire’s lair masquerading as a university. An idiotic title,  lame “Twilight” parodies, almost no familiar faces, and sub-sub-sub-sub-“Buffy” style hijinks don’t look promising commercially to me. Judging from craptaculacious trailers I’ve seen online, the only thing interesting about this apparently laugh-free horror farce is that it comes from a new releasing company and no one seems sure exactly how many theaters it’s going to be in. Both McClintock and DiOrio (in his video clip, not in the text) say it’ll be in around 1,000 theaters, but Box Office Mojo merely says it’s release is “limited.” The more limited, the better, I’m thinking.

Still, all may not be lost for fans of old fashioned quality movie-making. Debuting in limited release at 15 theaters is “Up in the Air,” from star George Clooney and director Jason Reitman of “Thank You for Smoking” and “Juno.” After today’s award from the National Board of Review (discussed in the post immediately below this one), the Oscar hype on this one is about to join the mile high club.