REEL CRITICS:

“Semi-Pro” is Will Ferrell’s latest attempt at a semi-funny sports parody. He previously skewered ice skating in “Blades of Glory” and youth soccer in “Kicking and Screaming.”

This time around he centers on the shenanigans of the old ABA Basketball League in 1976 as it desperately tries to merge with the NBA.

Ferrell plays the manager and chief promoter of the Flint Tropics, a third-rate basketball team based in the gritty Michigan industrial town.

They play their games in the local county fairgrounds and have trouble filling the 2,000-seat arena. Woody Harrelson is a washed-up NBA player who brings his championship ring to charge up the Tropics’ fan base. Together they hope to finish with one of the top four records of the final ABA season to ensure they get to join the NBA.

Everything that follows is as predictable as sunrise and sunset.

If you’ve seen Ferrell’s other movies you know there are several funny moments alongside stupid, slow segments that are not funny.

Mediocre half-baked comedy is always the central theme of his movies. And “Semi-Pro” is no exception, being half-bad and half-good at the same time.

Bewitched, bothered and beheaded

“The Other Boleyn Girl” is a silly mashup of “Dynasty” and “Masterpiece Theater” minus the catfights and shoulder pads. It’s a toss-up as to what will roll first: your eyes or Anne’s head.

Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) is jealous that little sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson) has beaten her to the altar.

King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) is now officially bored with his queen. A shrewd Duke of Norfolk decides to be proactive and pimps out his niece Anne as the king’s potential mistress; she doesn’t seem to mind. But her meeting with the king goes badly, so Anne’s father eagerly promotes Mary as a way of securing the family’s fortunes.

Mary’s reluctant but in this movie Henry is quite the hottie, and she winds up falling in love with him. This turns Anne into Joan Collins and sends the movie into a tailspin of melodrama.

As we all know, Anne reconnects with Henry and works him until he abandons his wife, mistress and the church for her. Anne promises him a son, but of course that doesn’t happen — she must have gotten that plot mixed up with “Star Wars: Episode III.”

And yes, there’s something about Mary — Henry can’t be completely horrible to her, the girl just can’t say no to anybody. The only one in the Boleyn family with any sense is the mother (Kristin Scott Thomas), who gets to slap her hubby upside the head before it’s all over.

But all is not lost. Anne does bear Henry a daughter, Elizabeth, who will someday grow up to be Cate Blanchett.

JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office. SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a financial services company.