MOVIES
Movies are rated on a letter-grade scale, from A to F. Opinions by R-J movie critic Carol Cling (C.C.) are indicated by initials. Other opinions are from wire service critics.
Motion Picture Association of America ratings:
G - General audiences, all ages.
PG - Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 - Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children under 13.
R - Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or guardian.
NC-17 - No one under 17 admitted.
NR - Not rated.
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
(B-) It doesn't always come together, but visionary "Frieda" director Julie Taymor's magical musical mystery tour through the '60s boasts so many visual splendors (to say nothing of imaginative renderings of more than 30 Beatles tunes) you're tempted to overlook the stale, trite romance between a working-class Brit named Jude (Jim Sturgess) and a starry-eyed, all-American idealist named Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) somewhere in New York City. (131 min.) PG-13; sexual situations, drug use, nudity, profanity, brief violence, mature themes. (C.C.)
AMERICAN GANGSTER
(C+) The greatest gangster story ever told? Not by a long shot. But it's not for lack of trying. If anything, this saga -- about a Harlem heroin kingpin (Denzel Washington) and the scrappy Jersey cop (Russell Crowe) out to bring him to justice -- tries too hard to prove its credentials as a classic. Alas, it's got two great stars, but only one great star part (Washington's), throwing the movie off-balance. It's still worth seeing, especially for the terrific performances, but it's hardly the knockout it wants to be. (158 min.) R; violence, pervasive drug content and profanity, nudity, sexual situations. (C.C.)
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD
(A-) Bull's-eye: A venerable outlaw saga gets a haunting new interpretation in Andrew Dominik's witty, pictorially voluptuous account of outlaw Jesse James' betrayal at the hands of a once-devoted gang member. Brad Pitt is properly scary as a paranoid, end-of-the-trail James, while Casey Affleck (also a standout in "Gone Baby Gone") delivers a knockout performance of glorious complexity as James' disillusioned acolyte, a forerunner of all the celebrity- worshipping, attention-grabbing 20th-century assassins to come. (160 min.) R; violence, brief sexual references. (C.C.)
BEE MOVIE
(B -- what else?) Just out of college, bee student Barry B. Benson (voiced by Jerry Seinfeld, who also co-writes) rebels against a career in honey and ventures outside the hive, where he encounters a sympathetic florist (voiced by Renée Zellweger) -- and decides to sue the human race for stealing honey. Matthew Broderick, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Alan Arkin, Oprah Winfrey and Kathy Bates also buzz in and out of this fast-flying comedy from the DreamWorks animation mill. As might be expected from Seinfeld, Jerry bats a zinger for every stinger -- and more than half of them hit the mark. (90 min.) PG; mild suggestive humor.
BELLA
(B-) In this People's Choice award-winner from last year's Toronto film festival, an ex-soccer star (Mexican pop and telenovela star Eduardo Verastegui), now a chef at his brother's New York restaurant, plays hooky with a waitress (the wonderful Tammy Blanchard) who's just discovered she might have a bun in the oven. A whisper of mystery and sprinkling of magic loft this parable of broken souls somewhere above the New York streets where it so comfortably tells its tale. (91 min.) PG-13; brief disturbing images, mature themes.
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
(B+) You can't go home again, but amnesiac spy guy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) keeps trying, racing to uncover the final clues to his past -- in New York, where it all began. The rare threequel that more than lives up to its predecessors, thanks to a top-chop cast (including David Strathairn and Joan Allen) and director Paul Greengrass' ability to combine exhilarating action with a weighty sense of dread. (114 min.) PG-13; violence, intense action sequences. (C.C.)
THE BRAVE ONE
(C) Jodie's got a gun: A New York public radio host (Jodie Foster) becomes a pistol-packin' urban avenger after slimy thugs beat her fiancé to death and leave her for dead in Central Park. Despite Foster's full-bore intensity (and co-star Terrence Howard's steady presence as the cop on her case), "The Brave One" proves that artists the caliber of Foster and director Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game") are just as capable of making a soulless revenge thriller as any Hollywood hack. (122 min.) R; strong violence, profanity, sexuality. (C.C.)
THE COMEBACKS
(D-) Losing college football coach Lambeau Fields (David Koechner) vows to whip his ragtag team into winning shape in lowbrow sports-movie spoof that targets everything from "Rocky" to "Field of Dreams" -- and scatters cheap giggles along its sludgy surface. Still, one has the sneaking suspicion that there's a coach like this one desperate or dumb enough to use this movie to get his guys up for a game. (84 min.) PG-13; crude and sexual content, drug material.
DAN IN REAL LIFE
(B-) It's more like reel life than real life, but this romantic comedy provides genuine laughs, along with genuine heart, as a widowed advice columnist (gracefully goofy Steve Carell), on his way to his family's annual reunion, meets a potential Ms. Right (sparkling Juliette Binoche), only to learn she's the girlfriend of his playboy brother (Dane Cook). "Pieces of April" writer-director Peter Hedges proves he's just as much at home in the mainstream as he was on the indie fringe. (99 min.) PG-13; sexual references. (C.C.)
DEEP SEA 3D
(B) Get up close and personal with ocean wildlife, unveiled in the reach-out-and-touch weirdness of Imax 3D at the Luxor. This giant-screen documentary introduces exotic denizens of the deep so extravagantly extraterrestrial, nothing created by Hollywood's special effects labs could possibly compete. (40 min.) G; all ages.
DINOSAURS 3D: GIANTS OF PATAGONIA
(B+) Now at Luxor's Imax theater, this excursion traces the evolution -- and extinction -- of giant prehistoric beasts that rip each other's faces off in thrilling computer-generated segments showcasing species we didn't see in "Jurassic Park." Paleontologist Rodolfo Coria proves a congenial tour guide, while Donald Sutherland's droll narration emphasizes a quality all but extinct in large-format documentaries: humor. (40 min.) NR; very large, very loud dinosaurs.
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
(D+) Cate Blanchett reprises her star-making role as the willful, fair-minded and ever-virginal Queen Elizabeth I, who's forced to battle Mary, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton), the Spanish Armada -- and her attraction to dashing adventurer Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen). The costumes are opulent, the music obnoxious. Silence would be a blessing to this less-than-equal sequel, which substitutes symphonic din in place of drama. Stay with the first picture. (114 min.) PG-13; violence, sexuality, nudity.
FRED CLAUS
(C+) America's Meathead, Vince Vaughn, plays the ne'er-do-well older brother of jolly old St. Nick (Paul Giamatti), who lets Fred work off some debts by coming to the North Pole to help out. Mistake! Comes on rowdy, but ends up as more of the same sticky holiday candy. Not even the starry supporting cast -- which includes Miranda Richardson, Elizabeth Banks, Kathy Baker, Ludacris and Oscar-winners Rachel Weisz and Kevin Spacey -- can save this cinematic fruitcake from Vaughn's "Wedding Crashers" director, David Dobkin. (116 min.) PG; mild profanity, rude humor.
THE GAME PLAN
(C) Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson acquits himself nicely enough in this overcooked kitsch-fest, in which he plays a preening pro quarterback forced to get over himself when he meets the 8-year-old daughter (adorably bratty Madison Pettis) he never knew he had. Kyra Sedgwick, Morris Chestnut and Roselyn Sanchez co-star in a family-friendly Disney romp that's as artificial as it is predictable. (110 min.) PG; mild thematic elements.
GONE BABY GONE
(B+) Ben Affleck directs his younger brother Casey to impressive effect in this gritty thriller about a private detective combing the mean streets of South Boston for a missing child. The set-up's familiar, but the delivery's anything but, thanks to terrific performances -- including those from Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Amy Ryan and especially Ed Harris as a tormented cop. The moral conundrums their characters face may have you pondering their decisions for days. (114 min.) R; violence, profanity, drug use. (C.C.)
GOOD LUCK CHUCK
(D+) Bad luck for the audience: This boorish exercise in high-testosterone low comedy casts Dane Cook as a dentist (Dane Cook) whose former girlfriends always become engaged to other guys. Poor Jessica Alba turns up as a klutzy aquarium specialist who might be his Ms. Right, but even her cutie-pie appeal withers in the face of the sexed-up, dumbed-down humor. (96 min.) R; strong sexual content including crude dialogue, nudity, profanity, drug use.
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX
(B-) Familiarity breeds contentment, not contempt, in the bleak fifth chapter of J.K. Rowling's beloved tales, as an authoritarian bureaucrat (smilingly sinister Imelda Staunton) seizes power at Hogwarts magic academy -- and casts a suspicious eye on Harry (quietly intense Daniel Radcliffe), who rebels when the powers-that-be doubt that villainous Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) has returned. Not great or wildly imaginative, but good enough to get the job done. (138 min.) PG-13; fantasy violence, frightening images. (C.C.)
HORRORFEST 2007
(Not reviewed) From post-apocalyptic cannibals to ancient blood cults, eight "films to die for" haunt local theaters: "Borderland," "Crazy Eights," "The Deaths of Ian Stone," "Lake Dead," "Mulberry Street," "Nightmare Man," "Tooth and Nail" and "Unearthed." NR or R; horror violence/gore, profanity, sexual situations, nudity, drug use.
INTO THE WILD
(A-) Some people march to a different drummer -- including wannabe Thoreau Christopher McCandless (quietly powerful Emile Hirsch), who abandons law-school plans for an unsettling odyssey toward a fateful solitude in Alaska. Writer-director Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's non-fiction best-seller makes for exhilarating, harrowing -- and thoroughly compelling -- moviegoing, with Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn and an Oscar-caliber Hal Holbrook as unforgettable characters McCandless meets on the road. (153 min.) R; profanity, nudity, brief violence. (C.C.)
THE KINGDOM
(B-) A terrorist bombing at a U.S. compound in Saudi Arabia launches an FBI agent (Jamie Foxx) and his crack investigative team (Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman) on a mission to flex American muscle and find out whodunit. Peter Berg ("The Rundown," "Friday Night Lights") directs this kick-butt action thriller with hammer-down intensity, but don't expect any piercing insight. (110 min.) R; intense, graphic brutal violence, profanity. (C.C.)
LIONS FOR LAMBS
(C) Silver-screen icons Tom Cruise (as a rising-star Republican Senator), Meryl Streep (as a savvy Washington, D.C., reporter) and Robert Redford, who also directs (as a liberal political science professor) lead this parade of talking heads, a staged (and stagy) three-part critique of political action, and reaction, in the Age of Terror. There's bound to be at least one character whose opinions you endorse. Whether there's a character you care about is another matter entirely. (92 min.) R; combat violence, profanity. (C.C.)
LIONS 3D: ROAR OF THE KALAHARI
(B+) This award-winning National Geographic production, filmed in the wild by Tim Liversedge, goes 3D, focusing on a lion king's battle with a young challenger for control of his throne -- and a valuable water hole in Botswana's Kalahari desert. It's not a new movie, but this remastered giant-screen version, now at the Luxor's Imax theater, has been magically transformed: you're not merely there, you're a lion, an honorary member of the pride. (40 min.) NR; animal violence.
LUST, CAUTION
(B+) Oscar-winning "Brokeback Mountain" director Ang Lee returns with another provocative tale, a sexy, suspenseful espionage thriller, set in Japanese-occupied 1940s Shanghai, about a young actress (the terrific Tang Wei) who loses herself in her real-life role when she's assigned to spy on, seduce and help murder a Japanese collaborator (the smouldering Tony Leung). Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" covered similar territory, but this casts a spell all its own. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (158 min.) NC-17; explicit sexual situations, violence, nudity, adult content. (C.C.)
MARTIAN CHILD
(B-) A widowed science fiction writer (John Cusack) seems to have found the perfect orphan (Bobby Coleman) to adopt: a boy who insists he's from Mars. Cusack (reunited with his "Max" director, Menno Meyjes) and Coleman make this whimsical trip worthwhile before it surges over the top into the Black Hole of Mush. (107 min.) PG; mature themes, mild profanity.
MICHAEL CLAYTON
(B+) One man's corporate failure is another man's moral triumph in this brainy legal thriller about a world-weary fixer for an elite law film (a peak-form George Clooney) who's had it with cleaning up behind-the-scenes messes. Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton and Sydney Pollack anchor the ace supporting cast of a movie that's best suited to those willing to pay attention as the manipulative characters plot their moves, score their points -- and gauge the price they'll eventually have to pay. (120 min.) R; profanity, including sexual dialogue. (C.C.)
MR. WOODCOCK
(C+) A successful self-help author (Seann William Scott) discovers that he can't follow his own advice after he returns home to surprise his mother (Susan Sarandon), only to receive an even bigger shock when he encounters her new flame: his former, much despised gym teacher (Billy Bob Thornton). A fitfully amusing comedy that capitalizes on Thornton's deliciously subversive talent for tormenting the young. (87 min.) PG-13; crude and sexual content, mature themes, profanity, mild drug references.
MYSTERY OF THE NILE
(B+) This Imax documentary, playing at the Luxor, chronicles the first descent of the Blue Nile from source to sea, a 3,250-mile, 114-day odyssey that brings explorers face-to-face with rapids, crocodiles, bandits, malaria, sandstorms and the fierce desert sun. (47 min.) NR; all ages.
P2
(B-) This not-so-jolly-holiday horror workout cannily exploits one of the urban woman's greatest fears as a workaholic lawyer ("Alias' " Angela Nichols) finds herself locked in a parking garage late on Christmas Eve, running for her life from a psycho security guard (Wes Bentley). Swift and stealthy, bloody but not punishingly so, this is a minimalist nightmare with flair. (98 min.) R; strong violence/gore, terror, profanity.
RENDITION
(C) The CIA erroneously abducts an Egyptian-born businessman (Omar Metwally) for interrogation and torture in the wake of a suicide bombing. This baldly manipulative political thriller reduces issues of burning domestic urgency to a rubble of burnt melodrama. Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin and Peter Sarsgaard play the Americans, ugly and otherwise; "Rendition" makes you wish they had just skipped the movie and taken out a full-page newspaper advertisement instead. (122 min.) R; torture/violence, profanity.
RUSH HOUR 3
(C-) After taking Las Vegas by storm in "Rush Hour 2," detectives Lee (Jackie Chan) and Carter (Chris Tucker) head to Paris, where they tangle with Chinese Triads in another formulaic odd-couple-cop-buddy romp that's equal parts dinner-theater revue and live-action Saturday-morning cartoon. (91 min.) PG-13 for sequences of action violence, sexual content, nudity and language.
SAAWARIYA
(C) Bollywood goes Hollywood with this Indian musical romance, produced by Sony Pictures, about a chance encounter in a remote small town that changes the lives of two people -- one (Ranbir Kapoor) a wandering charmer on vacation, the other (the unspeakably beautiful Sonam Kapoor) awaiting the return of her mystery man (Salman Khan). Despite its elaborate construction and energy, this hot-house hallucination from director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is basically inert. When the most intriguing thing about a film is its production design, you know you're in trouble. In Hindi with English subtitles. (142 min.) PG; mature themes, brief nudity, profanity, incidental smoking.
SAW IV
(D) Talk about taking an idea and torturing it to death: This horror sequel explores the origins of the demented Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), as FBI profilers help a veteran detective (Costas Mandylor) put the pieces of Jigsaw's puzzle together. It's somewhat better constructed than the second and third "Saw" sequels, though there's nary a scare, except for a line of dialogue that should chill any horror fan to the bone: "The games have just begun." Say it ain't so. (108 min.) R; grisly bloody violence and torture, profanity.
SEA MONSTERS: A PREHISTORIC ADVENTURE
(B+) Go under the sea -- and back in time -- with this Imax 3D documentary from National Geographic, now at the Luxor, about the 82-million-year-old creatures that swam the world's oceans -- from the Tylosaurus (the T. rex of the deep) to the most dangerous sea monster of all, the mosasaur. If you want to see something that just screams "Wow!", this combination of modern-day science and modern-day special effects is better than a lifelong angler's best fish story. (40 min.) NR; all ages.
THE SEEKER: THE DARK IS RISING
(C) Ho-hum hocus-pocus: A young man (Alexander Ludwig) discovers he's the last in a line of immortal warriors dedicated to battling the forces of the Dark -- and time-trips from the past to the future and back to follow the clues leading him to a showdown that could determine the world's very future. Director David L. Cunningham keeps things moving in this adaptation of Susan Cooper's Newberry Award-winning books, but it's still malarkey. (94 min.) PG; fantasy action, scary images.
STARDUST
(C) This adaptation of Neil Gaiman's fractured fantasy follows a small-town lad (Charlie Cox) who promises his beloved he'll retrieve a star that's fallen into a nearby magical realm. Claire Danes (as the star's human incarnation), Michelle Pfeiffer (as a scheming witch), Peter O'Toole (as a dying king) and Robert De Niro (as a flamboyant pirate who makes Capt. Jack Sparrow look like "The Ultimate Fighter") lead the starry cast, but the magic proves maddeningly elusive. (125 min.) PG-13; fantasy violence, risqué humor. (C.C.)
3:10 TO YUMA
(B) In post-Civil War Arizona, a downtrodden rancher (Christian Bale) joins a posse escorting a wily outlaw (Russell Crowe) to the prison-bound title train, setting up a psychological as well as a literal showdown. This rip-snortin' remake of the 1957 original isn't the second coming of the Western, dang it, but the dynamic Crowe-Bale duo demonstrates the satisfaction of watching two men -- one good, one bad, with more in common than either imagined -- facing off in a life-or-death test. (117 min.) R; violence, profanity, sexual references. (C.C.)
30 DAYS OF NIGHT
(C-) Bobbing for Adam's apples: An Alaska town buried in uninterrupted darkness for a month becomes a cafeteria for the undead in a horror movie with a promisingly good, bloody premise. Alas, it becomes progressively anemic -- at least for those hungering for a horror movie that's something other than a runaway meat wagon driven by the Marquis de Sade. Josh Hartnett, Melissa George and Danny Huston (who's impressive as leader of the vampire legion) lead the cast. (113 min.) R; strong horror violence, profanity.
WE OWN THE NIGHT
(B-) In '80s Brooklyn, a second-generation cop (Mark Wahlberg) clashes with his brother (Joaquin Phoenix), a coked-up nightclub owner linked to the Russian mob. Writer-director James Gray has traveled this road before (in "Little Odessa" and "The Yards," the latter with Wahlberg and Phoenix), which may explain why this seems solid and suspenseful, yet sometimes implausible and woefully familiar. (117 min.) R; strong violence, drug material, profanity, sexual content, brief nudity.
WHY DID I GET MARRIED?
(C) The best of Tyler Perry's string of therapeutic dramas -- which makes it mediocre rather than intolerable. Perry adapts his play, directs and stars (alongside Janet Jackson, Malik Yoba, Tasha Smith and Richard T. Jones) in a tale of married couples shocked by infidelity in their midst. You don't have to be black to enjoy this, but you do need a strong desire to watch people work out their issues using pop-psychology and self-help techniques. (118 min.) PG-13; mature themes, sexual references, profanity.
