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"Daddy Day Camp" (PG, 1 hr., 29 min.)
No cliche goes unused and no gag untelegraphed in this formulaic farce, a low-rent sequel to "Daddy Day Care" (PG, 2003). Kids throw up, relieve themselves, get skunked and paintballed and give the same back to adults, meaning "Daddy Day Camp" will entertain many 6 and older with its slapstick. Cuba Gooding Jr. now plays Charlie Hinton (Eddie Murphy in the first film) with far more ham than Murphy sliced for the role. Following the success of their home day care center, he and business partner Phil (Paul Rae), take over the day camp Charlie attended as a kid, before realizing what a physical and financial wreck it is. Worse yet, his childhood rival, the bullying Lance (Lochlyn Munro), owns the luxury camp next door and challenges Charlie and his campers to an "Olympiad." Reluctantly, Charlie calls in his retired Marine colonel dad, Buck (Richard Gant), to help. Saving the camp reconciles the two men. The movie includes mild sexual innuendo and rare mild profanity. A child briefly disappears, but is unharmed. There is a joke about a parent who gives her kids Xanax.
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"Underdog" (PG, 1 hr., 21 min.)
Silly as this dog's tale is, the human (and beagle) actors invest so much heart into their roles that "Underdog" actually works as a kiddie flick. Children 8 and older will find real amusement in this live-action update (enhanced with digital effects) of the popular 1960s - '70s animated TV series about a heroic super-powered pooch. Credit goes to Peter Dinklage's comic villainy as a diminutive mad scientist who transforms a stray beagle -- a K-9 unit dropout -- into a mighty hound that bites open cans, breaks glass with its bark, speaks English to humans, and flies. Dan (Jim Belushi) sees the dog after it escapes the scientist, names it Shoeshine and, unaware of its powers, takes it home to his son, Jack (Alex Neuberger). Still grieving over his mom's death, the young teen ignores the dog until he sees its powers. Together he and Shoeshine invent Underdog and set about fighting crime. Voiced by Jason Lee, Underdog narrates his story. Mildly scary bits could unsettle under-8s -- a giant syringe used by the scientist (we don't see an injection), chases, fights, explosions, abductions and interrupted robberies. Jack's schoolmate Molly (Taylor Momsen) gets mugged, but is unhurt. Expect much doggie toilet humor and one bit of crass canine sexual innuendo.
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"Rush Hour 3" (PG-13, 1 hr., 30 min.)
All the ingredients are there: martial-arts fights with fists, blades and sticks, gunplay, high-speed chases, leering but nonthreatening sexual innuendo (and a bit of old-style sexism), comic culture clash and a narrative that defies logic. "Rush Hour 3" has squealed into its summer parking space. Great cinema it's not, but somehow the recipe still gets laughs. The movie is too lewd for kids under high-school age, but it will amuse older teens. The latest installment (following "Rush Hour," 1998, "Rush Hour 2," 2001, also PG-13s) pairs Hong Kong Chief Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) and Los Angeles police detective James Carter (Chris Tucker) against the worldwide triad crime syndicates. The trail leads to Paris, where the lawmen have a climactic struggle on the Eiffel Tower with Lee's childhood orphanage "brother" (Hiroyuki Sanada), now a triad killer. The movie features implied toplessness among Folies Bergere dancers, a briefly lewd but nonexplicit sexual situation, rare profanity and racial slurs referred only to by their first letters.
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"Stardust" (PG-13, 2 hrs., 8 min.)
Characters sound effortlessly contemporary without affectation in this breezy fairy tale, a richly adorned adaptation of Neil Gaiman's graphic novel. Tristran (Charlie Cox), a young man from a Victorian English hamlet crosses into the magical universe of Stormhold, the forbidden land which lies just beyond the village wall. There he finds his calling and his heart's desire. In Stormhold there are witches who turn people into donkeys and cut out the entrails (barely off-camera) of animals. The violence, though non-gory, also includes stabbings and bone-snapping. The movie contains mild sexual innuendo, subtly implied overnight trysts, implied nudity and rare profanity. More for teens, "Stardust" touches on sexual orientation (a cross-dressing pirate) themes and unwed pregnancy.
Tristran risks all to cross into Stormhold and retrieve a fallen star for his indifferent love, the shallow Victoria (Sienna Miller). Once there, he sees the star is actually a glowing young woman, Yvaine (Claire Danes), fallen from the sky following the death of Stormhold's king (Peter O'Toole). Tristran must protect Yvaine from murderous princes and a witch (Michelle Pfeiffer), all of whom seek to cut out her starry heart and eat it to gain eternal life. "Stardust" occasionally trips on its own plot and gimmickry -- Robert De Niro as a pirate is a stretch -- yet its airy tone saves it.
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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME
-- OK FOR 6 AND OLDER:
"Daddy Day Camp" PG (Kids throw up, relieve themselves, get skunked and paintballed in corny sequel (no cliche unused, no joke untelegraphed) to "Daddy Day Care" (PG, 2003); "Day Care" hero Charlie (played by Cuba Gooding Jr. now, instead of Eddie Murphy) takes on a failing day camp and the bullying owner (Lochlyn Munro) of the camp next door, bringing in his estranged dad (Richard Gant), a retired Marine colonel, to help. Mild sexual innuendo; rare mild profanity; child briefly disappears, but is fine; jokes about parents who give their kids Xanax.)
"Bratz" PG (Girls 6 to 12 (and some younger) will delight in this live-action feature based on the Bratz "fashion dolls"; adults may cringe at the syrupy, everyone's-always-special sermons, but it does offer positive messages, with its focus (like the dolls) on mixed-race, multiethnic friends, and its anti-clique stance -- even if the racial and ethnic diversity seems mostly cosmetic; cheerleader Sasha (Logan Browning), science whiz and fashionista Jade (Janel Parrish), shy singer Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos) and soccer star Cloe (Skyler Shaye) enter high school as pals, but are pulled into different cliques; they reconcile and take on the mean girl/clique enforcer (Chelsea Staub). The girls' dress and dance moves, to older generations, will seem overly sensual.)
-- OK FOR 8 AND OLDER:
"Underdog" PG (NEW) (Live-action update (with digital effects) of 1960s and '70s TV 'toon show will entertain kids and even adults, because human (and beagle) actors invest roles with heart; a mad scientist (Peter Dinklage) transforms a stray hound (a K-9 unit dropout) into a superpowered pooch; the dog escapes and is adopted by Dan (Jim Belushi) for his son Jack (Alex Neuberger); the dog shows Jack his superpowers and they invent Underdog, the crime fighter, and take on the evil scientist. Mildly scary bits could unsettle under-8s; a giant syringe (we don't see an injection); chases, fights, explosions, abductions, interrupted robberies; Jack's schoolmate (Taylor Momsen) and her spaniel get mugged, but are fine; doggie toilet humor; canine sexual innuendo.)
-- MORE ACCESSIBLE TO KIDS 10 AND OLDER:
"Arctic Tale" G (LIMITED RELEASE) (Beautifully shot, but cloying, dumbed down "nature film" follows the parallel lives of a polar bear mother and cubs and a walrus mother and pups, giving them names and personalities and a partially manufactured story about how melting of Arctic ice is changing their lives; sugary voice-over intoned by Queen Latifah; attacks by predators or death from exposure or malnutrition are shown and could upset some kids, but they are softened and nongraphic.)
"No Reservations" PG (Initially airy romantic family comedy grows soggy, unlikely to hold kids' interest and marred by mildly miscast adult leads; Catherine Zeta-Jones as Kate, a no-nonsense gourmet chef whose sister dies in a car crash, making her sole guardian of a 9-year-old niece (Abigail Breslin); Aaron Eckhart as a fun-loving assistant chef hired for her kitchen; Kate wavers between grief, fear of failing her niece and job paranoia over a man she's also drawn to. Film's portrayal of child's trauma over her mother's death is its strongest ingredient, but makes it too intense for some preteens; adults drinking and at times drunk; understated kissing scene leads to implied overnight tryst.)
"Hairspray" PG (Exuberant adaptation of the Broadway musical based on John Waters' original 1988 film (PG), about fearless, plump Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), a teen in early 1960s Baltimore who agitates to integrate the local TV teen dance show; Tracy befriends African-American classmate Seaweed (Elijah Kelley) and his mom, Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah), emcee of the show's monthly "Negro Day"; John Travolta as Tracy's big but dainty mom, Edna (a role played by men since the first film) in fat-suit and Baltimore-ese, is a treat. Sexual innuendo, either euphemistic or visually subtle so many preteens won't get it; suggestive dancing; implied teen pregnancy; pregnant women smoke, drink. A fun, irreverent slice of cultural history for most kids 10 and up, and all teens.)
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY AND ONE ARTY PG IDEAL FOR TEENS:
"Rush Hour 3" (NEW) (Hong Kong police inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) and L.A. detective Carter (Chris Tucker) reunite (after "Rush Hour," 1998, and "Rush Hour 2," 2001, PG-13s) to fight Asian triad crime syndicates in Paris in a narrative that defies logic, but with a formula that still amuses and a neat fight on the Eiffel Tower; martial-arts face-offs with fists, blades, sticks; gunplay; high-speed chases; leering but nonthreatening sexual innuendo (and a bit of sexism); comic culture clash; implied toplessness among club dancers; briefly lewd but nonexplicit sexual situation; rare profanity; racial slurs referred to by their first letters.)
"Stardust" (NEW) (Breezy, richly adorned fairy tale, old-looking but modern-sounding without being stilted, based on Neil Gaiman's graphic novel; Tristran (Charlie Cox), a young man from a Victorian English hamlet, crosses into magical Stormhold, the forbidden kingdom beyond the village wall; he goes to retrieve a fallen star for the shallow village girl (Sienna Miller) he loves, but finds the star is a young woman (Claire Danes) who needs protection from a witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) and evil princes who want to cut out her heart and eat it for eternal life. Witches who cut out the entrails (barely off-camera) of animals, turn people into donkeys; violence, though non-gory, is intense, with stabbings and bone-snapping; mild sexual innuendo; subtly implied overnight trysts; implied nudity; rare profanity; themes gently deal with sexual orientation (a cross-dressing pirate) and unwed pregnancy.)
"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Hyperkinetic thriller -- gloriously dizzying and paranoid -- is a stunning finale to the Bourne trilogy ("The Bourne Identity," 2002; "The Bourne Supremacy," 2004, also PG-13s), updating Robert Ludlum's Cold War novels to the terror-tainted present; Matt Damon as amnesiac CIA assassin Jason Bourne, gets to the source of his training, his identity, and why most (but not all) higher-ups in the agency want him dead. Violence approaches R levels in bone-crushing fights, lethal gunplay, blood; foot chases, car pursuits are breathlessly shot and edited and could induce actual motion sickness in some; mild profanity; no sexual content. High-school-age thriller buffs.)
"Becoming Jane" PG (Lovely film won't please Jane Austen purists, but it winningly imagines Jane (Anne Hathaway in a smart, glowing portrayal) as a character in an Austenesque tale -- tasting romance, seizing literary inspiration from people and events; an Irish lawyer (James McAvoy) nearly wins her heart, embodying traits of Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice" and cads and heroes in all her books; a fine cast and gorgeous design bring England, circa 1800, to life. Frisky bedroom moment between Jane's parents (James Cromwell and Julie Walters); chaste sexual innuendo and a kiss between young adults; drinking; women at an inn seem to be prostitutes. For romance-loving, literary teens.)
"Hot Rod" (Excruciating doofus flick scrapes the barrel for laughs and comes up empty in sophomoric saga of klutzy, stuntman wannabe ("Saturday Night Live" cast member Andy Samberg), determined to impress his bullying stepdad (Ian McShane) by jumping a row of school buses Evel Knievel-style; Isla Fisher as the nice girl next door; Will Arnett as her snarky boyfriend. Gross humor; crude language; sexual innuendo; beer; drug humor; graphic description of fatal accident; "Jackass"-style stunts; video of dogs mating; fistfights. Teens, if they must.)
"The Simpsons Movie" (Mighty funny feature-length episode of the iconic animated TV series loses momentum briefly mid-flight, but recovers; that bonehead Homer (voice of Dan Castellaneta) dumps pig poo into Lake Springfield, causing such pollution that the EPA puts a dome over the town; Homer, Marge (Julie Kavner) and the kids escape lynching and flee to Alaska. Often tasteless and politically incorrect, but never raunchy: Homer dares son Bart (voice of Nancy Cartwright) to skateboard naked, offering a glimpse of Bart's sketchily drawn "doodle"; characters drink and smoke -- including, at times, kids; evangelical Christianity spoofed; mildly crude language; rare profanity; start of a bedroom scene with Homer and Marge; two gay policemen kiss, disappear into a motel; bomb-detecting robot commits suicide. More esoteric gags may be lost on kids 10 to 13, but -- with parental OKs -- they'll find the film really droll, as will teens on up.)
"I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" (Cheesy comedy spews tasteless anti-gay gags, then tries to preach tolerance; Adam Sandler and Kevin James as firefighter pals who enter into a same-sex marriage to get life insurance benefits for widower Larry's (James) kids; insensitive subplot about Larry's grade-school son (Cole Morgen), who may be gay. Surprisingly explicit sexual humor, slang; suggestive dancing; firehouse shower scene with protracted don't-drop-the-soap joke; a man touches a woman's breasts to see if they're real; caddish Chuck (Sandler) cavorts with several women at once; cheap gags about heavy people; ethnic stereotypes; gross joke about burned rat; toilet humor; marijuana reference; much profanity. Not for middle-schoolers or 'tweens.)
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (Wizard-in-training Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) at 15 feels alienation and foreboding in this gripping, somber meditation on the trials faced by all truth-tellers, based on J.K. Rowling's fifth book; the Minister of Magic (Robert Hardy) makes Harry a pariah for allegedly lying about his battle with evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) -- as recounted in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (PG-13, 2005); cruel Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) joins Hogwarts to impose the Ministry's Taliban-esque rules; Harry secretly teaches his friends to fight Voldemort; climactic battle is chilling. Skeletal spirits could spook younger kids, but Voldemort's awful face is the creepiest sight; Umbridge etches words painfully on Harry's hand, as if by an unseen knife; younger kids may shrink from gamekeeper Hagrid's (Robbie Coltrane) giant half brother; gross humor about boils; adults drink. Parents of younger kids might want to pre-screen.)
-- AN R:
"El Cantante" (First-rate biopic -- richly musical, handsomely stylized -- about Puerto Rican-born salsa singing star Hector Lavoe, from his 1960s rise through his drug-plagued descent (he died of AIDS in 1993); singer Marc Anthony sounds great and portrays Lavoe as childish, dissolute, gifted; Anthony's real-life wife, Jennifer Lopez, tears up scenery as Lavoe's tough mate, Puchi; the tempestuous union provides melodrama amid the music. Graphic drug use; drinking; smoking; some violence; talk of a child killed in a gun accident; sexual situations, some explicit; talk of group sex; mental illness, suicide themes; strong profanity. 17 and older.)
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