Family Film Reviews

"Whip It" (PG-13, 1 hr., 51 min.)

It is a testimony to the strength of its cast that this slapdash movie (written by Shauna Cross, based on her book) works at all. The subject has real juice: A Texas teen finds new self-confidence and a sense of identity when she joins a rough-and-tumble roller-derby team. Apparently, the sport, which came into being before World War II, sort of died out, and had a rebirth in Austin, Texas, around 2000.

Drew Barrymore makes her directing debut and proves strong in working with actors but rather weak on narrative detail and continuity. The character she plays, for instance, skater Smashley Simpson, has a broken nose and two black eyes in one shot and they're totally healed in the next, though it's part of the same scene. But that's a fixable fault. The fact that Barrymore gets good work out of actors, that's most important.

Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page of "Juno" fame -- PG-13, 2007) is 17 and chafing under her traditional mother's (Marcia Gay Harden) insistence that she competes in a prim and proper teen beauty pageant in their small town. She's got cabin fever, big time. Tricking her mom into taking her to a head shop in nearby Austin (to buy shoes, not drug paraphernalia), Bliss encounters a group of raucous, tattooed young women on roller skates and learns they're members of a roller-derby team with monikers like Rosa Sparks (pop star Eve) and Maggie Mayhem (Kristin Wiig of "Saturday Night Live"). Telling her parents she's taking an SAT class, and with her best friend (Alia Shawkat) helping her out, Bliss joins the team, called the Hurl Scouts, as Babe Ruthless. One of their archrivals, Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis), takes an instant dislike to Bliss and really slams her on the track. Bliss also starts a romance with a rock musician (Landon Pigg). Her easygoing dad (Daniel Stern) helps keep the peace once her mom finds out about her daughter's sneaky scheme. One of the strengths of "Whip It" is that there are no real villains, not even Bliss' persnickety mom, among these particular humans.

There is cigarette smoking (by an adult), beer drinking by teens, and an implied sexual situation with Bliss and the musician (removal of outer clothing). There is midrange profanity, crude sexual slang and mayhem on skates. High-schoolers may ignore the flaws and roll with "Whip It."

Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR MOST KIDS 6 AND OLDER:

"Toy Story & Toy Story 2 Double Feature in Disney Digital 3D" G (NEW) -- There's no reason why kids who love the "Toy Story" films and are looking forward to "Toy Story 3" (coming out next June) won't enjoy seeing the first two films digitally remastered with 3-D effects. The difference is mainly that the colors (as is often true with 3-D) seem a bit washed out. But the cowboy doll Woody (voice of Tom Hanks) and space traveling doll Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) et al. are still lovable and their adventures as part of a little boy's toy collection -- which comes to life when he's not around -- still comical and occasionally poignant and somewhat scary. Made in 1995 and 1999 respectively, the pioneering Pixar films look just a bit out of date today, because the technology develops so fast. But it is the story that must be strong enough to hold kids' attention, and it's still there.

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" PG -- Deliriously funny and ingenious in its use of 3-D, this animated comedy (loosely based on the children's book) will tickle kids 6 and older. In fact, the hilarity will delight all ages. A few things could scare the littlest ones: There is a dangerous spaghetti tornado, an avalanche of leftovers, and a harrowing midair struggle with an out-of-control food-flinging machine. There is mild toilet humor and one character swells up after eating peanuts, but is OK. In a little economically depressed island town off the Atlantic Coast, inventor Flint Lockwood (voice of Bill Hader) creates a machine that converts water into food. Only he can't control it. It blasts into the sky and rains cheeseburgers, then steaks, ice cream and more onto the town. The mayor senses a tourism bonanza. A perky TV weather reporter, Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), covers the story and Flint senses a kindred spirit in her, but then the pasta twister hits and they must stop his machine!

-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY, AND 2 PGS MORE FOR TEENS:

"Fame" PG (NEW) -- This pallid update of the original 1980 "Fame" (R) takes an idea that was sentimental back then, but also galvanizing -- teens at a New York City magnet high school working like demons to master one performing arts discipline or another -- and reduces it to music video snippets. The film is so hyper-edited, it looks as if the actors all shot their bits separately, even within the same scene. Set in a fictionalized version of New York's fabled LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, this "Fame" traces the four years spent there by, principally, Jenny (Kay Panabaker), who struggles to sing and act; Marco (Asher Book), who sings and acts like a pro and barely tries; Denise (Naturi Naughton) who plays classical piano, but longs to sing pop; and Malik (Collins Pennie), who has big acting talent, but too much anger about his past. Teachers are: dance (Bebe Neuwirth), classical music (Kelsey Grammer), theater (Charles S. Dutton), voice (Megan Mullally). The principal is played by Debbie Allen, who was in the original film and the 1980s TV show. There is an attempted seduction that is nongraphic, other mild sexual innuendo, a brief bit of teen drinking, and rare mild profanity. Kids 10 and older who are into the arts will likely be drawn to see this "Fame," and it won't do them any harm.

"Whip It" (NEW) -- It is a testimony to the strength of its cast that this slapdash film (written by Shauna Cross, based on her book) about a Texas teen who finds confidence and identity on a rough-and-tumble roller-derby team works at all. Drew Barrymore makes her directing debut and proves strong with actors and weak on narrative continuity and detail. Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page of "Juno" fame -- PG-13, 2007) is 17 and chafing under her traditional mother's (Marcia Gay Harden) insistence that she competes in a prim and proper teen beauty pageant. She sees a group of raucous, tattooed young women on roller skates and learns they're members of a roller-derby team in nearby Austin with monikers like Rosa Sparks (pop star Eve), Smashley Simpson (Barrymore) and Maggie Mayhem (Kristin Wiig of "Saturday Night Live"). With her best friend's (Alia Shawkat) help, Bliss sneaks out to join the team and becomes Babe Ruthless. She also starts a romance with a rock musician (Landon Pigg). Her easygoing dad (Daniel Stern) helps keep the peace after her mom finds out. There are subtle drug references (no drug use), cigarette smoking (by an adult), beer drinking by teens, and an implied sexual situation with Bliss and the musician (kissing, removal of outer clothing). There is midrange profanity, crude sexual slang and mayhem on skates. OK for high-schoolers.

"The Invention of Lying" (NEW) -- This smart, irreverent little comedy, thanks to terrific writing and a crackerjack cast, works to great effect for two out of three acts, then loses steam. Even so, it cleverly satirizes the human need for faith and mystery (i.e. religion) and little lies that save people's feelings. Mark (Ricky Gervais, who co-wrote and co-directed) is our narrator. He lives in a world where everyone tells the tactless (and funny) truth because they're wired that way -- an alternate universe where "there is no fiction" and no religion. So the beautiful Anna (Jennifer Garner) tells Mark he hasn't got a chance with her, because he's pug-nosed and poor. After he gets fired, Mark discovers he has the ability to lie and that everyone will believe him. He tells his dying mother that a happy afterlife awaits. The afterlife story catches on worldwide, and Mark becomes a sort of con man/prophet, speaking for "The Man that Lives in the Sky." The script includes fairly explicit sexual language and innuendo, homophobic slurs, suicide jokes, midrange profanity, and drinking. For sophisticated high-schoolers.

"The Boys Are Back" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- A sentimental story about a widower (Clive Owen) who tries to raise his young son (Nicholas McAnulty) and reconnect with the teenager (George MacKay) he abandoned as a 6-year-old when divorcing his first wife, this movie works too hard to make us cry. Full of montages and watery images, it takes what is already an emotional saga (based on a memoir by Simon Carr) and drowns it. Owen plays Joe Warr, a British-born sports writer living in Australia. When his wife dies of cancer, he struggles with grief and how to be a more attentive dad to his sad little boy. Ignoring advice from his in-laws, he takes the boy on a crazy road trip. Then they come back to live in their trashed house. When Joe's teenage son visits from England, the half brothers hit it off, but the older boy finds their life scary. Dad drinks too much, for starters. There is mild profanity, and a bar fight. OK for teens, some of whom will still be moved by the film.

"Bright Star" PG (LIMITED RELEASE) -- The romantic poet John Keats, penniless, consumptive, and in love with his London neighbor Fanny Brawne, is torn between his art and his heart in this lovely, passionate, intensely atmospheric fact-based film by Australian director Jane Campion. (The title comes from a Keats sonnet: "Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art. ... ") High-schoolers of a dreamy or literary bent ought to find the story irresistible, though they could be put off at first by the Brit-Lit sound of educated Londoners, circa 1818. As the love between Fanny (Abbie Cornish) and Keats (Ben Whishaw) grows serious, it remains chaste, though there is kissing, cuddling and a clear sense of longing. His crass friend Charles Brown (Paul Schneider) tries to get Keats to drop Fanny, afraid she'll distract the frail poet from his work. Yet Keats wrote deathless poems and love letters to her. There are scenes of people sick with tuberculosis, having (nongraphically) coughed up blood. There is an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, social drinking and brief smoking.

"Love Happens" -- Stars Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart deserve better than this soggy mess of a film. Teens who like a good romantic tearjerker, however, may still be moved by it. Eckhart plays Burke, a self-help guru who has made his name with a best-seller about handling grief, even though he has never dealt with the loss of his own wife. He drinks juice in public and vodka in private. Doing a book tour and seminar in Seattle (where his wife is buried), Burke (literally) bumps into Eloise (Aniston), a designer florist. Their hesitant courtship alternates with the seminar, where Burke tries to help a man (John Carroll Lynch) who has lost a son. In addition to drinking and smoking a hookah (no drugs implied), there is semi-crude comic sexual innuendo, midrange profanity, a joke about a dead husband's ashes and flashbacks of a fatal car accident.

"Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself" -- This latest comedy-laced morality tale from Tyler Perry feels even more formulaic than its predecessors (all PG-13s). Emotional punches land with a predictable thud. April (Taraji P. Henson -- "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," PG-13, 2008) sings in a club, drinks, and has a good-for-nothing married boyfriend, Andy (Brian J. White). When April's teenage niece Jennifer (Hope Olaide Wilson) and younger nephews (Kwesi Boakye and Frederick Siglar) try to burglarize that battle-ax Madea's (Tyler Perry in drag) house, Madea takes them to April. April grudgingly takes them in, and a handsome handyman (Adam Rodriguez) from the church helps her out. Andy is trouble, though. The film shows his threats and attempted rape of Jennifer (not graphic). There is grief at a parent's death, and a recurring theme about teen girls being molested. Not for middle-schoolers.

-- R's:

"Zombieland" (NEW) -- Gore and hilarity go together like tea and crumpets in this riotous horror spoof. From writing to acting to visuals, "Zombieland" works -- not least because of its vivid characters. Our narrator is Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), nicknamed for his Ohio hometown. He was a student at the University of Texas, he tells us, when a virus turned most of humanity into marauding, flesh-and-bone-eating zombies. A neurotic loner who has learned to wield a shotgun, he has many rules for survival. Then he meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a macho, Twinkie-loving cowboy who loves blasting zombies. Sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) con the guys out of their vehicles once or twice, but then, warily, the four team up. Bill Murray has a brief but great cameo. Besides the comically gross violence, the film contains profanity, crude sexual slang and brief zombie toplessness. OK for most high-schoolers.

"Capitalism: A Love Story" (NEW) -- Documentary filmmaker and proudly left-liberal gadfly Michael Moore ("Sicko," PG-13, 2007; "Farhenheit 9/11," R, 2004; "Bowling for Columbine," R, 2002) takes after what he deems the excesses of unregulated capitalism -- a trend he believes has hurt more Americans than it has helped ever since Ronald Reagan's 1980s presidency. Moore builds his argument around sad stories of people losing their homes, greedy real-estate folk racing to turn over the foreclosed properties, and Wall Street honchos who bundled "mortgage-backed securities" until they collapsed. He also uses his Catholic faith to argue that unregulated capitalism goes against Jesus' teachings of protecting the least among us. He tries to wrap all of Wall Street comically in crime scene tape. For high-schoolers who keep up with current events, this alternative point of view could be quite an experience. The R is for strong profanity.

"The Informant!" -- Discerning high-schoolers will find rich amusement in this tragicomic (mostly comic), fact-based story of an industrial whistle-blower. Director Steven Soderbergh has spun a deliciously deadpan American fable (based on Kurt Eichenwald's book) about Mark Whitacre (a beefy, mustachioed, terrific Matt Damon). A biochemist and VP at agribusiness biggie Archer Daniels Midland, Whitacre goes to the FBI in 1992 and tells them ADM has been price fixing. Special Agents Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Herndon (Joel McHale) gradually and drolly realize that Whitacre is an unreliable witness and up to his own shenanigans. It also becomes clear that Whitacre has mental health issues. A mild R, rated for strong, nonsexual profanity.