Family Film Reviews

"Leap Year" (PG, 1 hr., 35 min.)

There's hardly an original idea in this slow-to-percolate romantic comedy about an uptight career woman who discovers she has mistakenly chosen security over romance, both in love and in life. What saves "Leap Year" from oblivion is the low-key charm of the two leads, the light touch of director Anand Tucker, and the breathtaking Irish landscapes. Kids (especially teen girls) may like the movie's emotional froth and take to its message about not being possessed by your possessions. The film goes to considerable, relatively witty lengths to spoof people who obsess over designer duds and exclusive addresses -- people who leap to save the least important but most expensive items when they think the building's on fire. Our heroine wrecks her $600 spike heels in cow manure and sees her Louis Vuitton luggage tossed haphazardly about.

Amy Adams plays Anna, a "stager" who works for real estate agents sprucing up condos with art objects and the smell of baking cookies to attract prospective buyers. We intuit that Anna's need for money, status and stability comes from a chaotic childhood with an undependable dad (the briefly seen John Lithgow). Her cardiologist boyfriend (Adam Scott) is certainly stable and attentive, but a little too impressed with status in all its forms. Eager for him to propose, Anna decides to follow him to Ireland, where he's gone on business, and to propose to him on Leap Day, Feb. 29, in a folk tradition that "allows" women to pop the question once in four years. Bad weather diverts her plane to Wales. She makes it by boat to rural Ireland, where Declan (Matthew Goode), the grumpy-but-cute owner of a tiny inn, agrees to get her to Dublin for a price. Flat tires, herds of cows, missed trains, castle ruins and much more slow them down -- long enough to discover each other, of course. It's interesting that Declan must have another moneymaking talent to make him acceptable to an American audience -- he's an ace chef. (He rings a chicken's neck in one scene off-camera.)

There is rare, mild (and largely muffled) profanity, playful, understated sexual innuendo (as when the not-yet-lovers must awkwardly share a hotel bed), and drinking.

Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR MANY KIDS 6 AND OLDER:

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" PG -- There's a lot of plot but not much of a movie here as the Chipmunks take a break from their rock-star careers and enroll in high school. As in "Alvin and the Chipmunks" (PG, 2007), this "Squeakquel" again mixes live-action and computer-animation. Its weakly cobbled-together story warms over a lot of film cliches about high school, but kids 6 and older seem to enjoy it. Alvin's mischief during a concert in Paris injures the Chipmunks' guardian Dave (Jason Lee), who must stay in the hospital. He sends the boys back to Los Angeles and his slacker cousin Toby (Zachary Levi of TV's "Chuck") winds up caring for Alvin (voice of Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Theodore (Jesse McCartney). They're sent to high school, where girls like them but jocks bully them (toilet-dunking "swirlies"). Alvin joins the in-crowd, and the mean music promoter from the first film (David Cross) returns with a sister act, the Chipettes -- Brittany (Christina Applegate), Eleanor (Amy Poehler) and Jeanette (Anna Faris). There is flatulence humor, very mild sexual innuendo and a few crude expressions. One Chipmunk is briefly menaced by a bird of prey. A lady's wheelchair bumps down stairs, injuring her.

"The Princess and the Frog" G -- Disney's new animated feature is a highly enjoyable, if not transporting, confection. The characters have eccentric charm and true emotion, as do Randy Newman's tunes. The hand-drawn film re-imagines "The Frog Princess," with a young African-American heroine, Tiana (voice of Anika Noni Rose), in a beautifully depicted early 20th-century New Orleans. Tiana grows up to be a gifted chef with dreams of opening a restaurant. Segregation and the limits it imposes are subtly portrayed. When international playboy Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) hits town, a voodoo "shadowman," Dr. Facilier (Keith David), turns Naveen into a frog. Tiana meets the frog/prince at her rich friend Charlotte's (Jennifer Cody) mansion. Perched on a windowsill, all green and slimy, he begs the shocked Tiana to kiss him, but the kiss turns her into a frog, too. The amphibious duo flee to the bayou in search of a voodoo priestess who can change them back. It's scary when they're chased by alligators, but they're also befriended by a horn-playing gator (Michael-Leon Wooley) and a Cajun firefly (Jim Cummings). Dr. Facilier's demons are spooky. One animal dies. There is crude, but kid-friendly humor.

-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY, PLUS A PG MORE FOR TEENS:

"Leap Year" (NEW) PG -- There's practically nothing original in this slow-to-percolate romantic comedy about an uptight career woman who discovers she has chosen security over romance, both in love and in life. What saves "Leap Year" from oblivion is the low-key charm of the two leads, the light touch of director Anand Tucker, and the breathtaking Irish landscapes. Kids (especially teen girls) may enjoy the emotional froth and take to the message about not being possessed by your possessions. Amy Adams plays Anna, a "stager" who spruces up condos for real estate agents eager to attract buyers. Her surgeon boyfriend (Adam Scott) is attentive, but busy and, like Anna, too impressed with material status. Eager for him to propose, Anna decides to follow him to Ireland, where he's gone on business, and to propose to him on Leap Day, Feb. 29, in a tradition that "allows" women to pop the question once in four years. Bad weather diverts Anna's plane to Wales. She makes it by boat to rural Ireland, where Declan (Matthew Goode), the grumpy-but-cute owner and ace chef of a tiny inn, agrees to get her to Dublin for a price. Flat tires, herds of cows, missed trains and much more slow them down -- long enough to find each other, of course. There is rare, mild (and largely muffled) profanity, playful, understated sexual innuendo (as when the not-yet-lovers share a hotel bed), and drinking. Declan rings a chicken's neck off-camera.

"Sherlock Holmes" -- Wildly exaggerated fight scenes are only part of the contemporary tone that British director Guy Ritchie brings to this kicky take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved Victorian detective. Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson handle droll repartee and emotional nuance with fine film-star panache. Ritchie gets carried away at times, however, allowing the movie to become self-consciously cute. Yet it is always engaging. The original story pits Holmes against a satanic aristocrat (Mark Strong). Emotionally, Holmes is not happy with Watson's plans to marry (their relationship remains subtly ambiguous), and is distracted when his own one-time love (Rachel McAdams) appears. Downey's Holmes is often overwhelmed by his own mental gifts and tries to mute them with drugs and liquor. (He tests sedatives on his bulldog.) The mayhem includes fisticuffs, gun and knife play, electrocution, a hanging, explosions, abductions, sexual innuendo, implied nudity, dissected animals, and a maggoty corpse. OK for high-schoolers, but too intense for some middle-schoolers.

"Nine" -- Director Rob Marshall and his team have achieved something splendid in "Nine," adapted from the 1982 Broadway musical. The musical in turn was adapted from Italian director Federico Fellini's autobiographical 1963 film "8 1/2." It's about a great film director who is creatively blocked and obsessed with women. This movie is both a contemporary musical (the numbers have that MTV look) and a touching homage to all things Italian and Fellini-esque. The starry cast performs with panache. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Guido, the director; Marion Cotillard is his wife; Penelope Cruz his latest mistress; Nicole Kidman his actress/muse; Judi Dench his costume designer/pal; Kate Hudson a reporter eager to seduce him; singer Stacy Ferguson, aka Fergie, an earthy woman from Guido's boyhood; and Sophia Loren his mother. "Nine" has steamy sexual innuendo, implied sexual situations and suggestive dancing, so it is less appropriate for middle-schoolers. Characters smoke and drink a lot. For high-schoolers into the arts.

"Avatar" -- James Cameron's futuristic sci-fi epic mixes live-action with digital animation in wondrous ways. (Try to see it in 3-D.) The story and dialogue, however, are leaden and pedantic. Yet teens may find Cameron's idea that Western exploitation of indigenous peoples would continue even away from Earth an eye-opening view. "Avatar" is set in the year 2154 on Pandora, a mineral-rich moon in the Alpha Centauri star system. The indigenous Na'vi there are nearly-naked (but modestly so) tall, bluish humanoids with tails. They bond spiritually with all of nature. Jake (Sam Worthington), a former Marine whose legs are paralyzed, comes to Pandora to work for Grace (Sigourney Weaver), a scientist. She lets Jake walk again by transferring his consciousness into a manufactured Na'vi body -- his avatar -- so he can mingle with the Na'vi and earn their trust. But a security officer (Stephen Lang) for a mining firm is eager to start killing Na'vi so the digging can start. Jake meets a Na'vi warrior, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and romance blossoms. There is intense, fairly bloodless mayhem, an implied sexual tryst, remarks that recall racial slurs, and some profanity. OK for most teens.

"Did You Hear About the Morgans?" -- Nothing quite saves this mess of a romantic comedy from its sloppy predictability or Sarah Jessica Parker's irritating performance. However, Hugh Grant's way with witticisms helps a lot, as do Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen as a gun-toting, rodeo-loving Wyoming couple. Teens may eke some enjoyment out of the verbal sparring and slapstick. Manhattanites Paul (Grant) and Meryl Morgan (Parker) are separated because Paul cheated. They witness a murder, so U.S. marshals relocate the couple to Wyoming while the killer is at large. U.S. Marshal Wheeler (Elliott) and his wife (Steenburgen) are their hosts. There is much mild sexual innuendo, brief nongraphic violence, mild profanity, smoking, and a threatening bear.

-- R's:

"Daybreakers" (NEW) -- Stunningly black-and-white with splashes of red, this very gory, futuristic vampire saga is an arresting mix of style and substance. High-school-age fans of the genre, especially those with an appreciation of horror films made with artistic pretensions, will like "Daybreakers." It is not, however, for middle-schoolers or the weak of stomach. Co-created by Australia-based sibs Michael and Peter Spierig ("Undead," R, 2003 -- released in the U.S. in 2005), the film lacks humor, but has strong dramatic content. A pandemic has turned most humans into vampires. Ordinary, mortal humans have become an endangered species, hunted and rounded up. Ethan Hawke plays Edward, a vampire and hematologist, who works for a large vampire blood supply company whose chief executive (Sam Neill) "farms" humans for blood, holding them in suspended animation, naked (semigraphic). But supplies are dwindling and some vampires are mutating into crazed, batlike creatures. Edward is trying to invent a "blood substitute" that will solve things for vampires and humans alike. He falls in with a band of human survivors (Willem Dafoe as a vampire turned human again). Battles between humans, mutated vampires and vampire military are graphic -- beheadings, explosions of blood, entrails and heads, shootings, impalings. There is strong profanity.

"Crazy Heart" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- Jeff Bridges adds another piercing character study to his resume as Bad Blake, a semi-washed-up country singer of great talents and even greater self-destructiveness. Based on a novel by Thomas Cobb, "Crazy Heart" is delicately written and directed by Scott Cooper, with perfect songs by T Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton. It recreates a slice of Americana so vivid you can taste and smell it, as well as see and hear it. Discriminating cinema buffs 16 and older will savor it. Maggie Gyllenhaal is poignant as a single-mom newspaper reporter who interviews Bad and falls for him. It's his relationship with her and her 4-year-old son that triggers Bad's ultimate reckoning about his life. Robert Duvall plays a good friend, and Colin Farrell has a fine cameo as Bad's one-time singing partner. A mildish R, the film is not for younger teens, as it deals in scruffy, vomitous detail with alcoholism, chain-smoking, and lack of hygiene. There's strong profanity and briefly steamy, semiexplicit sexuality. 16 and older.

"It's Complicated" -- Adults behave bawdily in "It's Complicated," a mildish and often hilarious R that will entertain sophisticated high-schoolers with little harm. Writer/director Nancy Meyers' flawed-but-fun comedy imagines a divorced woman, Jane (Meryl Streep), owner of an upscale bakery in Santa Barbara, starting an impetuous affair with her reprobate ex-husband, Jake (Alec Baldwin), who is tired of his much younger second wife (Lake Bell). She scandalizes hers and Jake's grown children, most of whom are bland and unconvincing. Only John Krasinski as their son-in-law keeps up, laugh for laugh. The film includes several nongraphic sexual situations, backview nudity, marijuana use, drinking, occasional profanity, sex talk and an adultery theme.

"Up in the Air" -- High-schoolers with a taste for smart cinema will be taken with this incisive dramatic comedy. George Clooney plays it cool, but with fine emotional nuance as the tragicomic antihero, Ryan Bingham, who travels the country firing people because their bosses fear to do it. Ryan loves to accumulate air miles and avoid human commitment. Then he falls for a female frequent flyer (Vera Farmiga); a young efficiency expert (Anna Kendrick) brings out his paternal instincts; and his sister (Amy Morton) tugs at family ties. Some of the people getting fired are nonactors who really lost jobs, and the scenes are truly poignant. There are implied sexual liaisons, backview nudity, some strong profanity and crude language, a suicide theme and drinking.