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JANE HORWITZ - FAMILY FILMGOER

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April 12, 2007

``Perfect Stranger'' (R, 1 hr., 50 min.)

An overproduced, ill-conceived thriller, ``Perfect Stranger'' is all slick camera angles and lightning edits, signifying nothing. First it's a film noir, then it's a melodrama, then it's a who-knows-what. Full of pseudo-serious secondary themes that go nowhere in the end, the movie hints repeatedly in flashbacks that its heroine, abrasive investigative reporter Rowena (Halle Berry, chewing the scenery big time), was molested as a child and that she has other reasons for her bitter exposes of corrupt and powerful men and her active but loveless love life. All these threads unravel when a ludicrous plot twist dead-ends the story and evokes involuntary, amazed laughter from the audience.

``Perfect Stranger'' is a lurid film, seemingly for ticket-selling more than storytelling, and not for moviegoers under 17. College-age film buffs may find its sheer pretentiousness amusing. It shows the naked dead body of a murdered woman, and contains other scenes of violence, including a stabbing and a wife killing her husband. There are photos of semi-nude women, references to online sex, masturbation and voyeurism, a semiexplicit sexual situation and others that are more understated. There is strong profanity, some crude sexual language and lots of subtler verbal and visual sexual innuendo. Characters also drink.

Rowena is furious when her editor (Richard Portnow) kills a story she and her colleague Miles (Giovanni Ribisi) were working on to expose a senator who took advantage of his young male interns. When a childhood friend (Nicki Aycox) is murdered after telling Rowena about her affair with a hotshot advertising executive (Bruce Willis) and her threat to tell his wife, Rowena gets Miles to help her go undercover in the guy's agency to prove he had the girl murdered. Miles is a super-hacker, so Rowena is able to flirt with the CEO both online using another identity and at the office. Needless to say, nothing is as it seems in ``Perfect Stranger,'' except that the movie seems quite silly all the way through.

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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME

-- 6 AND OLDER:

``Meet the Robinsons'' G (Gorgeous computer-animated feature (shown in crisp, colorful, non-scary 3-D at some theaters) celebrates imagination, individuality, creating a family when you don't have one, in tale of bespectacled, spiky-haired 12-year-old inventor, Lewis; an orphan eager to find his real mom, Lewis invents a ``memory scanner''; Wilbur Robinson, a boy from the future, takes Lewis to a cheery art deco-style future, which at darker moments looks more like the dehumanized world of Fritz Lang's 1927 silent classic, ``Metropolis.'' Lewis meets the riotously eccentric Robinson clan and feels loved. Baby abandoned on orphanage step; serious theme handled humorously shows how childhood loneliness, sadness, failure can stalk us through life; ``Bowler Hat Guy'' villain wears a hat that sprouts metal legs, chases folks; Lewis and Wilbur crash a time machine; rude taunts ``puke-face'' and ``booger-breath''; dinosaur topiary comes to life, chases folks.)

-- 8 AND OLDER:

``Firehouse Dog'' PG (Heavy-handed comedy nearly defeats a strong cast with its corny script, oversold jokes and awkward special effects that kill the wonderment; a movie star Irish terrier, Rex, falls from a plane during a film stunt, lands safely in a tomato truck (minus his wavy hairpiece) and endears himself to a firehouse crew in the nearby city with his agility and courage, becoming their mascot and winning over the fire captain's (Bruce Greenwood) sullen, 12-year-old son (Josh Hutcherson); but an arsonist is on the loose and meanwhile Rex's trainer (Dash Mihok) misses him. Too many doggie digestive jokes: Rex has noisy flatulence, poops into a pot of stew; intense firefighting scenes with explosive smoke, flames, falling beams; boy, dog, and a firefighter are trapped at various times, all rescued; subplots about grief, loss, anger over mother's abandonment of them, and a firefighter uncle who died in a blaze.)

``Are We Done Yet?'' PG (Less crass, more amusing sequel to Ice Cube's 2005 comedy ``Are We There Yet?'' (PG, but deserved a PG-13); still acting within a narrow range (from annoyance to anger and back), Cube plays sports writer/entrepreneur Nick, now married to Suzanne (Nia Long), the divorcee he pursued in the first film; with her and his new stepkids (Aleisha Allen and Philip Daniel Bolden, both less arch and annoying than in the first film) he moves into a house that needs major repairs; John C. McGinley is Nick's amusing, over-the-top foil as the ever-present real estate guy/contractor. Mild sexual innuendo; chaste romance between 13-year-old girl and a slightly older boy; comic scenes with deer and raccoons acting crazy; bats swarm; owl swoops to grab a chipmunk; pigeon falls dead after being shot (off-camera) with a nail gun; huge fish pulls a child under water (a quick rescue); toilet humor; ``plumber's butt.'')

``TMNT'' PG (First ``Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle'' feature since 1993 (also PGs in 1990, '91, '93), this time a fully computer-animated 'toon -- hard-edged and homely, dimly lit, narratively murky, too violent for some under 10; the Ninja Turtles (mutated long ago by a pollutant ``ooze'' and named for Italian Renaissance artists Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello) have become estranged; their sensei, Master Splinter, says they must reconcile before facing a new threat -- reanimated stone warriors from ancient Central America; their archeologist pal April (voice of Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her boyfriend Casey Jones (Chris Evans) help. Semi-harsh language (``snot kicked out of him''); tired ethnic stereotypes; off-color joke kids won't get refers subtly to phone-sex industry; huge, looming red-eyed monsters, ancient warriors; battles not bloody, but big and loud.)

-- 10 AND OLDER:

``The Last Mimzy'' PG (Kids into science, idea of time travel will like film's neat premise, despite its messy, disjointed execution: a 10-year-old (Chris O'Neil) and his little sister (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) find a box on the beach, full of spinning, humming rocks, holographic crystals, and a stuffed bunny that ``talks'' to the little girl about saving the world; their folks (Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson) and even Homeland Security are concerned. Too intense for some under 10: adult characters voice 9/11 paranoia; little girl gets hysterical when her mother throws out the magical ``toys''; later the girl is nearly sucked into a space/time vortex; kids levitate themselves, objects; they say things ``suck'' and hamburgers are ``chopped-up cow''; two-headed snake; roaches; federal agents drag family off for questioning; teacher lives with his girlfriend; talk of reincarnation.)

-- A PG-13:

``Blades of Glory'' (Riotous, rude farce about figure skating rivals Chazz (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy (Jon Heder), banned forever from competition for public scuffling; three years later, a stalker/fan (Nick Swardson) and a veteran coach (Craig T. Nelson) note a loophole that would allow the two compete as the first male/male duo. Constant R-ish verbal, visual sex jokes go beyond innuendo: crotch gags; references to Chazz's ``sex addiction'' (he attends a lascivious support group, claims he had an affair with a 35-year-old woman when he was 9); much gay (at times homophobic) humor; a towel worn dangerously low; drinking; talk of drug use; adoption spoof; incest joke; death threat; ice stunt video ending in bloody accidental decapitation; profanity; toilet humor. Not for middle-schoolers.)

-- R's:

``Perfect Stranger'' (NEW) (Lurid, overproduced, ill-conceived thriller veers crazily from film noir to melodrama and back in story of abrasive investigative reporter (Halle Berry, chewing scenery), who, with the help of her computer-hacker colleague (Giovanni Ribisi) goes undercover in a big ad agency to prove its hotshot CEO (Bruce Willis) had a childhood friend of hers (Nicki Aycox) murdered after the young woman threatened to tell his wife of their affair. Film hints repeatedly in flashbacks that Rowena was molested as a child; naked body of a murdered woman at morgue; on-camera violence shows a wife killing her husband, a stabbing, and a beating; photos of semi-nude women; strong references to online sex, masturbation, voyeurism; semiexplicit sexual situations, others more understated; strong profanity; crude sexual language; subtler verbal and visual sexual innuendo; drinking.)

``The Reaping'' (Silly film borrows much from occult/religious thrillers such as ``The Exorcist'' (R, 1973), ``Rosemary's Baby'' (R, 1968), ``The Omen'' (R, 1976); despite nice atmospherics, it conjures no chills of its own; Hilary Swank as an ex-minister who lost her faith after a tragedy, now a professor who debunks ``miracles''; she and her assistant (Idris Elba) go to a remote Louisiana town, asked by a local teacher (David Morrissey) to find scientific reasons their river has turned blood-red, cattle are dying, frogs are falling from the sky (i.e. the plagues of the Old Testament) so townsfolk won't kill a 12-year-old girl (AnnaSophia Robb) they suspect of Satanism. Gun suicide; dreamlike, semiexplicit sexual situation; subtext about menstruation, puberty; piles of dead cattle; swarming locusts, maggots; children endangered; fire and brimstone; profanity; drinking. 16 and older.)

``The Hoax'' (LIMITED RELEASE) (Richard Gere does his best work yet in high-strung, elegant, pithy little film -- a fictionalized portrait of real-life literary scammer Clifford Irving; film chronicles how, in the early 1970s, Irving wrote a bogus autobiography of Howard Hughes and fooled (at first) his agent (Hope Davis) and top editors and publishers; (based on Irving's own novel about the affair); Alfred Molina as his sweaty, guilt-wracked collaborator; Marcia Gay Harden as his much-lied-to wife. Strong profanity; drinking, smoking; marijuana; nonexplicit bedroom scene with semi-nudity; brief violence. More for college kids.)

``Reign Over Me'' (At last a movie dealing with the emotional fallout of 9/11 with a resonant mix of pathos and humor -- writer/director Mike Binder's painfully funny, imperfect effort; Alan (Don Cheadle), an upscale dentist, feels trapped in his perfect life (Jada Pinkett Smith as his perfect wife); he runs into his old college roomie, Charlie (Adam Sandler -- adequate, but still doing his nasal man-child shtick), who lost a wife and three children in the 9/11 attacks; Charlie buzzes around on a motorized scooter, blocks out reality with rock music on earphones, plays video games, reacts violently when asked about his family; trying to help him, Alan finds an outlet, too. Strong profanity; explicit sexual language; strong sexual innuendo; homophobic slur; gun brandished; drinking. 16 and older.)

``Shooter'' (Rip-snorter action thriller (based on Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter's novel, ``Point of Impact'') moves so supercool-fast, audiences won't have time to trip over logical speed bumps; Mark Wahlberg as an ex-Marine sniper who leaves the military after his superiors betray him on a secret mission; a civilian years later, he's recruited by an ex-colonel (Danny Glover) to pre-empt a presidential assassination; betrayed again, he's framed as an assassin and on the run; a rookie FBI agent (Michael Pena) and the widow of his Marine buddy (Kate Mara) help him. High-caliber shootings with much blood, occasional gore; gun suicide; fingers, then arm shot off; do-it-yourself bullet removal; villain's implied intention to commit rape; strong profanity; beer. Action fans 16 and up.)

``300'' (Stunning, digitally enhanced, at times giggle-inducing, but mostly epic-feeling (and sounding) adaptation of graphic novel about Sparta's King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., when he and 300 men faced Persian emperor Xerxes' army. Stylized visuals make violence seem otherworldly, less gory, yet harrowing -- not for all high-school-age stomachs; spears, daggers through guts, eyes; horses cut down; strongly implied rape -- camera cuts away before it becomes graphic; more explicit, but stylized, sexual montage between Leonidas and his Queen (Lena Headey); back-view nudity; toplessness; subtle homoerotic verbal references; mild curses. High-schoolers.)