Pay attention to the opening scene, people: a boy who plays with superhero dolls is chewed out by his dad in the world’s most opulent newspaper-editor’s office. Because, as the film’s last scene hammers home with a clang, that’s what this movie is about: a schlubby, bighearted underachiever coming to terms with his successful but unloving father. You know, finding the man behind the bronze statue they erect above his grave. Director Michel Gondry isn’t going for subtle here. Nor, it seems, is he going for much else, except maybe the 3-D superhero movie as farce. The daffy surrealism that permeates his earlier work shows up here as a cute gimmick, good for illustrating an expository montage or manifesting a dude’s ability to zero in on the bad guys’ guns. The bloated car chases and fight scenes, on the other hand, are as depressingly real as any action movie can afford to make ’em. With Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz. (2011) — Matthew Lickona