TAMMY: 1 ½ STARS

The last time Susan Sarandon went on a cinematic road trip she was teamed with Geena Davis in a film that reinvented the buddy picture and earned praise from critics who called it a "neo-feminist road movie."

This time out the Sarandon shares the front seat with Melissa McCarthy. Where "Thelma & Louise" learned about loyalty and sisterhood, Tammy and Pearl only pick up tips about drinking and driving, how to rob restaurants and how to destroy a jet ski.

Tammy (McCarthy) is down on her luck. She hit a deer with her car -- "Oh man," she says, "not another one." -- got fired from Topper Jack's, and discovered her husband (Nat Faxon) is having an affair with the neighbor (Toni Collette). And it's not even dinnertime.

Like so many before her, Tammy decides to hit the road to clear her head. Trouble is, she doesn't have a car or any money. Luckily Grandma Pearl (Sarandon) has both and is keen on taking a trip.

"You're not getting the car unless I go," she says. "At this point you're the best chance I have to get out of this house."

The pair head off for Niagara Falls (going the wrong way naturally), stopping along the way just long enough to cause trouble as Pearl picks up a man in a bar (Gary Cole) before hiding out with Pearl's cousin Lenore (Kathy Bates) and her girlfriend Suzanne (Sandra Oh). After a blow out with grandma at Lenore's July fourth party Tammy finally has a close, hard look at her life.

Road movies are episodic by nature. Their stories move from place to place, from character to character, all bound by a theme. Unfortunately "Tammy" simply moves slowly from scene to scene, content to rely on McCarthy's comedic appeal at the sacrifice of anything more than pratfalls and awkward humor.

In other words "Tammy" earns a laugh or two when McCarthy falls down, less so when she is standing upright, which is most of the movie.

McCarthy is a charming performer, but it's beginning to feel like she doesn't do anything than play the obnoxious loser with a heart of gold buried beneath a thick shell of one liners and non sequiturs. What worked so well in "Bridesmaids" now feels been-there-done-that.

She isn't aided by the supporting cast, because despite the cumulative comedy cred of actors like Allison Janney, Dan Aykroyd and Toni Collette are all saddled with thankless roles that give them very little to do. Kathy Bates is more of a live wire, but shame on director Ben Falcone (who is also McCarthy's husband and the film's co-writer) for not giving her costar Sandra Oh more to do. She is essentially set dressing, a flesh prop with a nice wardrobe.

By the end of the credits "Tammy" doesn't feel like a comedy—although there are several giggles sprinkled throughout— as much as it does a waste of talent. Sarandon isn't a gifted comedian but McCarthy is, but neither is working to their strengths.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL: 1 ½ STARS

Imagine "Tango & Cash" with a demonic twist.

In "Deliver Us From Evil" Eric Bana is Sarchie, an NYPD cop partnered with Butler (Joel McHale), his wisecracking sidekick.

Like Messrs. Tango and Cash, they are fearless but somewhat mismatched. Sarchie is a cop with "radar," a nose for trouble, while Butler is a wisenheimer who, when a disheveled suspect grimaces at him, foaming at the mouth, says, "Do you think she's single?"

A series of seemingly unrelated 911 calls—a domestic dispute, an incident at a zoo and a possible home invasion—change the story from cop drama to supernatural police procedural. Strange things happen. Holy candles won't burn in the house of one of the 911 callers. One of the perps speaks Latin and scratches until her fingers bleed.

Skeptical at first Sarchie refuses to blame "invisible fairies" for the strange behavior, but working with a Jesuit Priest, Father Mendoza (Édgar Ramírez), Sarchie and Butler become convinced there is more at play here than just human nature.

The investigation leads them to a trio of men, (Chris Coy, Dorian Missick and Sean Harris) soldiers who returned from Iraq with PTDS (Post Traumatic Demonic Possession.) Piecing together the links becomes a dangerous job for Butler, Sarchie and even the officer's family (Oliver Munn and daughter played by Lulu Wilson).

"Delivers Us From Evil" relies on jump scares—those "boo" moments that get your heart racing—and while a few of the jumps work, most simply deliver a jolt with nothing behind it, but there is at least one shock cat lovers are going to h-a-t-e.

There is plenty of atmosphere—apparently it rains all the time in the Bronx—and a few creepy moments—was that a snake or an old pipe?—but the truly eerie stuff is underplayed when a movie like this should be really dialing up the action.

It's all a bit dull. There are no truly memorable moments. We've seen the exorcism stuff before—without the head spinning and pea soup—in everything from "The Exorcist" to "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" but the thing that really sinks the movie's momentum aren't the stock characters or lack of new thrills but the exposition scenes that explain the obvious. Director Scott Derrickson, who also made the considerably creepier "Sinister," doesn't trust the audience to follow the simple story so he has the characters walk us through it almost one line at a time.

"Deliver Us From Evil" doesn't feel like a summer movie. Usually we look to July and August to deliver us from lame movies but this one has the feel of those horror flicks starring a familiar-but-less-than-household-name that fills up theatres in January and February.

EARTH TO ECHO: 2 STARS

"Earth to Echo" is something new, a found footage film for kids, but also a throwback to the kind of 1980s sci-fi adventures made popular by Spielberg and his pal ET.

Tuck (Brian "Astro" Bradley), Munch (Reese C. Hartwig) and Alex (Teo Halm) are BFFs, inseparable preteens who are about to have their lives upended. Construction of a new highway is scheduled to flatten their Nevada neighborhood and we meet them on the eve of their last day together.

Before they can schedule their final sleepover, however, strange things start happening—their iPhones start "barfing up" weird images of maps on their screens. Perplexed, they set out on an adventure to see where these strange phone signals will lead them. Their journey takes them to the desert where they find some sort of space gizmo—not a robot but an injured life form from above—that resembles a cute intergalactic baby owl.

Lost and alone, the creature, named Echo for his habit of responding with mechanical beeps to the boy's speech, needs the kid's help to find his spaceship and get back home. With the help of Emma (Ella Wahlestedt), a resourceful classmate, they spend their last night helping Echo and trying to piece together the connection between the highway construction and the mysterious goings-on in their neighborhood.

I suppose the found footage gimmick is meant to add intensity to the story, or be a novel promotional tool for the movie, but in the execution, mostly just leaves the viewer feeling seasick. The gimmick doesn't add much to the storytelling, except the standard found footage explanation of how and why they're going to manage to document everything that's going to happen that night. (In case you're curious these children have spyglasses, camcorders and GoPro portable cameras.) Next time out I'd prefer a locked down camera on a tripod and less teaching for the Gravol.

Stylistic choices aside, "Earth to Echo" is amiable but not terribly exciting. It has a distinct direct-to-video vibe, despite at least one eye-popping sequence of a truck being dismantled and reassembled. Story wise it plays it safe, to the point of being bland, without any of the grit that made kid's adventures like "Goonies" and "Gremlins" so much fun.