Family Film Reviews

"The Spy Next Door" (PG, 1 hr. 32 min.)

A sorry absence of charm and humor, coupled with a torturously contrived plot make "The Spy Next Door" a painful experience for adults, even with Jackie Chan doing his comic martial-arts thing. Nonetheless, kids between 8 and 12 may get some enjoyment from its mix of slapstick and derring-do. That age group may not be bothered by the the film's less-than-charismatic child actors, who have a tough time delivering the stilted lines given to them. It's particularly unfunny to see a preteen boy forced to flirt with older girls and say lines full of mild sexual innuendo that don't suit him or his character.

Chan plays Bob Ho, a secret agent on loan from China to the U.S. government. (This alone may give grown-ups pause.) When he's not foiling international Russian oil saboteurs, Bob lives as a bespectacled milquetoast across the street from Gillian (Amber Valletta), a beautiful single mom. Gillian, who knows nothing of Bob's secret life, has been dating him for a while and really likes him. They'd like to marry, but her children Farren (Madeline Carroll), Ian (Will Shadley) and little Nora (Alina Foley) think Bob's a loser. Gillian won't take the plunge without their approval. (Her older daughter also harbors a baseless belief that the dad who abandoned the family will return.) When Gillian leaves to visit her ailing father, Bob stays with the kids. He's just retired from spying, and he's determined to win over Gillian's brood and give them a stable life. Then the Russian criminal he caught in the prologue escapes, and Bob is pulled back into that world. A piece of crucial information has been downloaded unknowingly by young Ian, which of course puts the kids in danger, too. There are numerous martial-arts stunts and fights with blades and fists.

The sheer implausibility of the story, the weakness of the script and the unseasoned child actors in the cast make it nearly impossible for Chan alone to save the day with his martial-arts skills (which are slowing down a bit) and sunny personality. In addition to nonlethal mayhem and mild (sometimes age-inappropriate) sexual innuendo, there is rare mild profanity.

Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR MANY KIDS 6 AND OLDER:

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" PG -- The cobbled-together story in this "Squeakquel" (to "Alvin and the Chipmunks," PG, 2007), again mixing live-action with animation, warms over a lot of 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 where 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 jocks bully them (toilet-dunking "swirlies") and Alvin joins the in-crowd. The mean music promoter from the first film (David Cross) returns with a sister act, the Chipettes. 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 old-style hand-drawn animated film beautifully re-imagines "The Frog Princess," with a young African-American heroine, Tiana (voice of Anika Noni Rose) in early 20th-century New Orleans. Characters have eccentric charm and real emotion, as do Randy Newman's tunes. Tiana grows up to be a gifted chef. 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.

-- OK FOR MOST KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"The Spy Next Door" PG (NEW) - A sorry absence of charm and humor, plus a torturously contrived plot make "The Spy Next Door" a painful experience for adults. Kids between 8 and 12 may get some enjoyment from its mix of slapstick and derring-do, nonetheless. Jackie Chan plays Bob Ho, a secret agent on loan from China to the U.S. government. (This alone will give grown-ups pause.) When he's not foiling Russian criminals, Bob lives as a bespectacled milquetoast, across the street from a beautiful single mom Gillian (Amber Valletta). Gillian and Bob have been dating and they'd like to marry, but her children Farren (Madeline Carroll), Ian (Will Shadley) and little Nora (Alina Foley) think he's a loser. When Gillian must leave to visit her ailing father, Bob offers to watch the kids. When the Russian criminal he catches in the film's prologue escapes, Bob, who just retired from spying, is called back. There are numerous martial-arts stunts and fights with blades and fists. The kids are of course put in danger. The film's young actors lack the skill to make their stilted lines sound natural, and the boy is forced to use mild sexual innuendo in a way that doesn't suit his preteen age. There is rare, mild profanity.

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

"The Lovely Bones" (NEW) -- Director Peter Jackson's rendering of Alice Sebold's novel is so uneven in tone that its impact as a tale of undying parental love and as a crime thriller is undermined. The film is thrown off repeatedly by a jarring, sugary, special-effects depiction of heaven (or its waiting room) as some changeable storybook landscape. Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a murdered 14-year-old girl, narrates her story from the afterlife. Though her rape and murder by a neighbor (a terrifically creepy Stanley Tucci) are very graphic in the book, Jackson only implies the crime on film, thankfully. Still, the way the neighbor lures Susie to his lair, recaptures her when she tries to escape, then disposes of bloody evidence, are chilling enough to make the movie a poor choice for middle-schoolers. From beyond, Susie observes her stricken father (Mark Wahlberg), defeated mother (Rachel Weisz), angry sister (Rose McIver), and the undetected killer. Susan Sarandon drinks and smokes her way through it all as Susie's swingin' grandmother. There is a beating unrelated to the murder and some profanity.

"Leap Year" PG -- What saves this slow-to-percolate romantic comedy is surely not originality, as it is totally derivative -- it is the low-key charm of the two leads, the light touch of director Anand Tucker, and the breathtaking Irish landscapes. Teen girls in particular may enjoy the emotional froth and the message about not being possessed by possessions. Amy Adams plays Anna. Her surgeon boyfriend (Adam Scott) is, like her, into material status. Frustrated that he hasn't proposed, Anna follows him to Ireland, where he's gone on business, planning to act out a folk tradition and propose to him on Leap Day, Feb. 29. Bad weather diverts her plane to Wales. She gets to rural Ireland, where Declan (Matthew Goode), the grumpy-but-cute chef/owner of a tiny inn, agrees to drive her to Dublin. Flat tires, herds of cows and missed trains slow them down long enough to find each other. There is rare, largely muffled, mild 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 fights are only part of the contemporary tone 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 execute droll repartee and emotional nuance with film-star panache. The movie threatens now and then to drown in its own cuteness, yet somehow it remains 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. Often overwhelmed by his mental gifts, he mutes them with drugs and liquor. (He also 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.

"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. Still, teens may find Cameron's premise that Western exploitation of indigenous peoples would continue even beyond 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, blue humanoids who can 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. But a security officer (Stephen Lang) for a mining firm is eager to start killing Na'vi. Jake meets a Na'vi warrior, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and romance blossoms as strife looms. There is intense, fairly bloodless mayhem, an implied sexual tryst, remarks that recall racial slurs, and some profanity. OK for most teens.

-- R's:

"The Book of Eli" (NEW) -- Denzel Washington is a powerful, mysterious presence as Eli, a hero/prophet in a post-apocalyptic world. Eli carries with him a book of great import (it is left unnamed until near the end) that he salvaged after "the last war." Co-directors/siblings Albert and Allen Hughes ("Touching Evil" on TV; R-rated films "From Hell," 2001, "Dead Presidents," 1995, and "Menace II Society," 1993) here combine ultraviolence with a strongly spiritual theme, which makes "The Book of Eli" an arresting parable. The film's intended message is muted and cheapened, however, by repeatedly deafening and bloody fights and shoot-outs. Eli is trekking across the land because a voice told him to take the book West. In a ruined city, he meets a power player, Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who rules the place with his thugs. Carnegie wants Eli's book. He thinks it will increase his own power. His mistress (Jennifer Beals) and her daughter (Mila Kunis) try to help Eli. The mayhem earns the R rating, as do scenes that imply intended sexual assaults (which are stopped), other milder sexual innuendo, and some strong profanity. OK for high-schoolers 16 and older.

"Youth in Revolt" (NEW) -- Heaping portions of archness and deadpan humor aren't enough to make this 90-minute film (based on C.D. Payne's 1993 novel, the first in a series) more than a mildly entertaining snack. Nor is Michael Cera's pallid portrayal of the young antihero Nick Twisp any kind of main course. Nick is a precocious, sexually obsessed, Holden Caulfield-ish teen who lives with his divorced mom (Jean Smart) and her variously stupid (Zach Galifianakis) or macho (Ray Liotta) boyfriends in a pre-cell-phone world. Too smart for his surroundings, Nick falls in love with a beautiful soul mate, Sheeni (Portia Doubleday), and risks everything to bed her and free her from her ultrareligious parents (Mary Kay Place and M. Emmet Walsh). He nearly burns down Berkeley, Calif., for one thing. Nick invents a profane, mustachioed alter ego (Cera again), who encourages him to act out. Not for under-17s, "Youth in Revolt" contains explicitly implied sexual situations, graphic sexual language and graphic animated drawings of sexual activity. Drug use is depicted, as well as drinking and smoking. There is strong profanity. 17 and older.

"Daybreakers" -- High-schoolers who appreciate the horror genre when it's overlaid with artistic pretensions will like "Daybreakers." Stunning in black-and-white with splashes of red, this very gory, futuristic vampire saga is an arresting mix of style and substance. It is not, however, for middle-schoolers or the weak of stomach. A pandemic has turned most humans into vampires. Ordinary humans have become an endangered species, hunted, rounded up and farmed for blood. Ethan Hawke plays Edward, a vampire hematologist with ethics who's trying to invent a blood substitute to spare humans. Blood supplies are dwindling and some vampires are mutating into crazed, batlike creatures. Edward falls in with a band of human survivors. Battles between factions are graphic -- beheadings, explosions of blood, entrails and heads, shootings, impalings. There is strong profanity and near-nudity.

"Crazy Heart" (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 film buffs 16 and older will savor it. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell all play important people in Bad's life. 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 this mildish and often hilarious R that will entertain sophisticated high-schoolers. Writer/director Nancy Meyers' 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, though John Krasinski as their son-in-law is panicky-funny. The film includes several nongraphic sexual situations, backview nudity, marijuana use, drinking, occasional profanity, sex talk and an adultery theme.