Family Film Reviews

-- 8 AND OLDER:

"TOOTH FAIRY" PG -- In this family fantasy, the always amiable, if not comically adept, Dwayne Johnson plays Derek, a professional hockey player known as the Tooth Fairy because he's knocked out so many opponents' pearly whites. Bitter because his career is waning, Derek starts to tell his girlfriend's (Ashley Judd) littlest child (Destiny Grace Whitlock) that there's no tooth fairy. That night, Derek sprouts wings and finds himself standing before the boss (Julie Andrews) in magical tooth fairy headquarters. He's sentenced to three weeks as a tooth fairy. His "caseworker" is a droll fairy bureaucrat (Stephen Merchant), and he gets magical shrinking paste and other tools from a wisecracking senior fairy (Billy Crystal). Trying to hide his new identity gets Derek into trouble. The special effects look cheesy and the earthbound part of the plot is corny, but the tooth fairy stuff is fun.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Derek's loss of faith in his dreams sets the story in motion, which is why the film's mildly dramatic elements may be a little beyond kids under 8. There is ice hockey mayhem and very mild sexual innuendo. Many of this uneven movie's best moments are during the ironic repartee between Derek and his fairy caseworker -- humor aimed at adults.

-- A PG GEARED MORE TO TEENS:

"PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF" -- This neat mix of contemporary teen culture and Greek myth (based on the first in Rick Riordan's five-novel series) ought to entertain teens and pleasantly surprise adults, as it feels like the old special-effects fantasies of the 1950s and '60s. It might also inspire kids to read those myths. Zeus (Sean Bean) and Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) meet atop the Empire State Building. Zeus fumes that the son of Poseidon has stolen his lightning bolt. Cut to Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman), a New York high-schooler who sees himself as a loser. During a museum visit, Percy learns he is in fact a demigod -- the child of his mom's (Catherine Keener) long-ago liaison with Poseidon -- and that their low-income life has been a charade. Percy's pal Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) turns out to be a furry-legged satyr assigned to protect him. Percy is sent to a demigod training camp, but when his mom is abducted by Hades, god of the Underworld, he goes on a quest to rescue her -- and prove to Zeus that he didn't take the bolt. Grover and a new friend, Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), child of Athena, go along.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Kids 10-to-12 would like "Percy Jackson & the Olympians," but they must be able to handle mayhem that is intense, even if largely bloodless. Percy and his cohorts fight a huge, horned Minotaur, the serpent-haired Medusa (Uma Thurman, in a fun turn, but not for snake-phobics) and other fire-breathing, multi-headed monsters. There is the beheading of an immortal and the bandying about of the severed head, a monster's impalement, bone-cracking fights and gashes. Percy's stepdad (Joe Pantoliano) is an abusive drunk. There is mild sexual innuendo.

-- PG-13s:

"VALENTINE'S DAY" -- High-schoolers who like romantic comedy will likely find something to love in "Valentine's Day," but may be surprised to learn some critics (including this one) view the film as a crass, cobbled-together rip-off of the far classier (despite the R rating) British "Love Actually" (R, 2003). Like that film, "Valentine's Day" is an anthology in which many characters face romantic hurdles and turn out to be linked to one another. Among them: a florist (Ashton Kutcher) who gets engaged to his career-oriented girlfriend (Jessica Alba); a teacher (Jennifer Garner) who pines for a doctor (Patrick Dempsey) who lies to her; a secretary (Anne Hathaway) who can't tell a nice guy (Topher Grace) that she moonlights as a phone sex "entertainer"; an 18-year-old (Emma Roberts) and her boyfriend (Carter Jenkins), who plan to lose their virginity; their pals ("Twilight" co-star Taylor Lautner and singer Taylor Swift), who decide to wait. (In the end, all the teens wait.) Discerning high-schoolers may see it's the performers who rescue -- barely -- this movie from its bad writing.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Compared to the relative innocence of, say, "When in Rome," also rated PG-13, "Valentine's Day" should be an R. Yet it is not really R-ish, either. Once again, The Family Filmgoer proposes a "PG-15" rating for films better geared to high-schoolers. The film has many implied overnight trysts, with semi-steamy, scantily clad people on beds, though it never shows explicit sexual situations. There are the comical but steamy and innuendo-laden "phone sex" calls, and a naked teen barely covered by a strategically placed guitar. There are themes about marital infidelity and sexual orientation, and some characters drink.

"DEAR JOHN" -- Teens who like a good cry at the movies can shed salty tears over "Dear John," a sentimental and laughably predictable love story, based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks. A key subplot about an adult character with autism is actually more interesting and imaginatively done than the central romance. Channing Tatum plays John, a stoic Special Forces soldier who falls in love -- in endless corny music montages -- with the lovely Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) while he's home in South Carolina on leave. After the 9/11 terror attacks, John re-ups with the military. They write many love letters, but Savannah finds the distance and her worry over John's safety difficult. Teens who may have studied acting will be impressed by scenes between John and his distant dad (Richard Jenkins).

THE BOTTOM LINE: There are a couple of quick but intense battle scenes with nongraphic injuries but much blood. The film shows brief images of a World Trade Center tower collapsing. Characters drink, there is occasional mild profanity, and at least one steamy love scene with outer clothing removed and another scene with implied toplessness. A couple of characters become ill and die. There is also a child character with autism.

"WHEN IN ROME" -- Teen girls may gravitate toward this fantastical romantic comedy, poorly (and cheaply) executed though it is, because of its likable stars and pretty scenery, but the story is wafer thin. Kristen Bell plays a Guggenheim Museum curator in New York -- an unlucky-in-love careerist who fears she'll never find a soul mate. She goes to her sister's wedding in Rome and meets her new brother-in-law's one-time roommate, Nick (Josh Duhamel). They spark instantly, but Beth is afraid to fall. She gets drunk, wades into a fountain and retrieves a few coins. The men who originally tossed the coins fall magically in love with her and follow her back to New York -- a sausage manufacturer (Danny De Vito), a male model (Dax Shepard), a magician (Jon Heder), and an artist (Will Arnett). Beth fears Nick is under the same spell -- that his love is not real.

THE BOTTOM LINE: "When in Rome" is a mild PG-13 by that rating's ever-loosening standards (which is why the rating is ever more useless). Characters drink and kiss and flirt, but there are no sexual situations and only mild sexual innuendo. There is rare mild profanity and brief gross-out humor. Nick has gentlemanly instincts, which is refreshing.

-- R's:

"COP OUT" (NEW) -- High-schoolers 17 and older will find many cheap laughs in this buddy flick/action comedy, but that doesn't mean "Cop Out" is anything other than atrocious -- sloppily filmed and trafficking in every kind of ethnic/racial stereotype and cop movie cliche. Discriminating high-school seniors will see that, as directed by Hollywood iconoclast Kevin Smith ("Zack and Miri Make a Porno," R, 2008; "Dogma," R, 1999; "Clerks," R, 1994), the film is intended to spoof the whole cop movie genre. But Smith can't decide whether it's wholly tongue-in-cheek, or partly serious, and if so, in what proportions -- it's just slapdash. Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan play police detective partners Jimmy and Paul, respectively. Jimmy's divorced, cynical and wondering how he'll pay for his daughter's (Michelle Trachtenberg) wedding. Paul's sentimental, movie-mad, and convinced his loving wife (Rashida Jones) cheats on him. Suspended for the crazy way they go after a drug dealer, the partners turn semi-vigilante. Seann William Scott is funny as a motormouth burglar.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The script is highly profane -- and even that's a cliche in this derivative flick. There is point-blank gun violence, tasering, beatings, crude sexual slang, a strongly implied sexual situation, gross toilet humor, drug references, and a prolonged scene in which a little boy of 10 cusses out the cop heroes in R-rated fashion.

"THE CRAZIES" (NEW) -- This remake of George A. Romero's 1973 horror film has all the elements needed to engross horror buffs 17 and older. Thoughtful high-school seniors will note, too, that this winningly acted and beautifully shot movie cleverly exploits today's paranoia about government intrusion in our lives. Citizens in a nice farming community in Iowa seem to go violently insane from some contaminant in their water supply. Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his doctor wife Judy (Rhada Mitchell), along with his trusty deputy Russell (Joe Anderson) see people turn nearly catatonic, then violent. Friends of theirs die or kill their own families. David has to shoot one man, whose wife and son hate him for it. Soon, helmeted, gas-masked government troops descend upon the town, and David, Judy and Russell must try to escape and get to the relative safety of Cedar Rapids.

THE BOTTOM LINE: In keeping with the genre, "The Crazies" is very bloody. People are shot at point-blank range, attacked with knives and bone saws, impaled on pitchforks, burned alive. SPOILER ALERT: The military rounds people up, separates those "infected" from those not, and mows some of them down with machine guns. We eventually see truckloads of decomposing corpses. The whole effect has a shivery echo of the Holocaust. Before that, sickened people walk around, zombie-like. The film also contains lots of midrange profanity.

"SHUTTER ISLAND" -- A lugubrious mess of a movie, "Shutter Island" (based on the novel by Dennis Lehane) may still grab filmgoers 17 and older. Yet even while gripped by the film's hypnotic sense of dread, they could be frustrated by its disjointedness and overheated mix of themes, ranging from mental illness to Nazi atrocities to Cold War commie-baiting. And they may sometimes giggle at the atmospherics, which are laid on awfully thick by director Martin Scorsese. High-school and college kids could also have a time debating whether the film's depiction of concentration camp atrocities is exploitative as used here. It is the early 1950s. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a troubled U.S. Marshal and World War II vet. He and his new partner (Mark Ruffalo) are sent to Shutter Island off the coast of Boston, a federal facility for the criminally insane. It seems a patient has disappeared. After meeting the chief psychiatrist (Ben Kingsley), his associate (Max von Sydow), other patients and guards, Teddy comes to suspect a conspiracy.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Not for most high-schoolers under 17, the movie has repeated graphic flashbacks of corpses and starving, dead-eyed survivors at the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp. There are images (unrelated to the war) of drowned children, murdered by a parent. There are graphic gun wounds and intense fights. The gray, gothic atmosphere could creep out over-17s more than an average horror film. Some of the "treatment" patients receive seems akin to torture. There are hallucinatory scenes and swarming rats. Characters smoke, drink, use strong profanity and crude sexual language.

"THE WOLFMAN" -- High-schoolers of 15 or 16 and up, if they've watched some of the artful, character-driven horror films of yore, will appreciate "The Wolfman," as long as they can handle the gory bits, which are graphic despite the Victorian setting. Darkly moody, gorgeously designed and scored, the film is a remake of the 1941 film with Lon Chaney Jr. Benicio Del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot, a Shakespearean actor who returns to England from America after his brother goes missing. His father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) seems distant and unmoved, even after the ravaged body is found. Lawrence is determined to learn what creature tore apart his sibling. His brother's beautiful fiancee (Emily Blunt) also attracts him. Lawrence is bitten by the beast. A Scotland Yard inspector (Hugo Weaving) arrives as Lawrence faces his first post-bite full moon and his family's awful secret.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Characters attacked by the Wolfman are slashed and gashed, de-limbed, even beheaded, and the blood flies. There are decomposing corpses. When Del Toro morphs into a werewolf the changes in his bone structure look agonizing. Treatment in a Victorian insane asylum is torture -- electric shock, dunking in ice water. Lawrence hallucinates. There is a suicide theme related to loss of a parent, crude references to prostitutes, and other milder sexual innuendo. Characters drink and smoke, and occasionally swear.

"FROM PARIS WITH LOVE" -- High-schoolers 17 and up who like irreverent action flicks will celebrate John Travolta's wild performance, complete with shaved head and hoop earring, as an American covert agent with nearly supernatural gifts of marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat. Older teens will also note that upon closer inspection, the film makes no earthly sense. It's a get-the-terrorists bloodfest that plays more like a cops-versus-druglords tale than a spy drama. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays James, a buttoned-down assistant to the U.S. ambassador in Paris. He performs small tasks for a nameless covert agency and hopes he'll soon be promoted to full-fledged spy. Travolta plays Charlie Wax, who comes to partner with James to avert disaster as an American delegation arrives for a summit.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The simplistic way the terrorist threat is portrayed and the casual use of South Asian and Middle Eastern stereotypes should bother thoughtful teens over 17. The gun battles spatter gallons of blood and the fights are bone-crushers. The language is highly profane, and there is drug use and drinking, as well as strong sexual innuendo and steamily implied but nongraphic sexual situations.