September 27, 2007

"The Game Plan" (PG, 1 hr., 50 min.)

"The Game Plan" amounts to little more than a vanity production for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. It is an amiable enough movie and ought to give warm and fuzzy amusement to kids 8 and older, even as it will appear utterly contrived to adult eyes. Handsome and likable in action flicks, Johnson has a long way to go before he can carry a light comedy easily on those huge shoulders. Luckily for him, little Madison Pettis, a gap-toothed charmer, plays his 8-year-old daughter Peyton -- a surprise package who turns up at the deluxe Boston bachelor pad of star quarterback Joe Kingman (Johnson), aka "The King" (Elvis is his idol). Note that the movie runs a little long for younger kids and includes brief scenes that gently imply heavy team partying, but in no detail. There are also hints that he has a girlfriend who sometimes stays overnight, but also with no detail. Other themes involve a child's fear of parental abandonment, grief and loss over a parent, and a child's life-threatening reaction to a food allergy.

Monumentally egotistical and nearly friendless, Joe has a tough time adjusting his media-centric lifestyle to accommodate Peyton. (He also never thinks to take his bulldog out for a walk -- a logic boo-boo that's distracting.) The little girl arrives unaccompanied and tells Joe her mother -- his long-ago ex-wife -- is off on a charity mission to Africa and dropped Peyton in Boston to stay for a month with her long lost father and to study ballet at a top-flight school. This is not at all credible -- but hey. Joe's agent (comically greedy Kyra Sedgwick) finds the girl an inconvenience, but a teammate (Morris Chestnut) knows Peyton will be Joe's redemption. Then there's the head of the ballet school (Roselyn Sanchez) who's never heard of the hotshot jock and forces him to appear as a tree in Peyton's dance recital. The film does a service in showing ballet is as athletic as football.

--0-- --0-- --0--

"The Kingdom" (R, 1 hr., 51 min.)

A dizzying adrenaline-pumper with a brain, "The Kingdom" pushes all our buttons about terrorism and fear of the other, but with a torn-from-the-headlines flavor that manages to feel more rational than hysterical. It's a real white-knuckle movie. Film fans 16 and older with strong stomachs for hyper-realistic screen mayhem and an interest in world affairs should find it riveting. The dialogue is well seasoned with banter among FBI agents played by Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman who are investigating a terrorist attack against Americans living in a foreigners' compound in Saudi Arabia. Screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan and director Peter Berg, while portraying the radical Islamist terrorists as ruthless, also create a quietly heroic Saudi colonel (excellent Ashraf Barhom) who despises terror, but has unspoken feelings about the repressive Saudi regime he serves and occasionally pushes against it, helping the agents get past restrictions on their work.

The film opens with a slick prologue compressing decades of Saudi Arabia's recent history and internal contradictions. The initial terror attacks are portrayed with a shattering realism and a nervous camera lens. (The whole film is a little seasick-making.) Children are shown at risk and victims depicted with bloody injuries, missing limbs and shattered skulls. Action sequences also include point-blank gun battles, stabbings and an abduction. At one point the terrorists seem about to decapitate a hostage. The script contains occasional profanity, rare mild sexual innuendo and crude language.

P.S. FOR TEENS 16 AND UP: The two actors who play Saudi military men helping the FBI in "The Kingdom," Ashraf Barhom and Ali Suliman, both appeared in the Oscar-nominated film "Paradise Now" (PG-13 , 2005), about the last 36 hours in the life of two Palestinian suicide bombers who were childhood friends.

--0-- --0-- --0--

BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME

-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"The Game Plan" PG (NEW) (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's acting, OK in action flicks, falls short in amiable but artificial family comedy that will entertain kids 8 and older, even as adults see its bald contrivances; Johnson plays Joe, a star quarterback who lives a wholly egocentric life, until an 8-year-old daughter (adorable Madison Pettis) his long-ago ex-wife never told him he had appears at his door, hoping to spend a month visiting him and studying ballet; he has a tough time learning to care for someone else; he also learns a bit of ballet from her teacher (Roselyn Sanchez) in a comic sequence. Scenes that gently imply team partying, but in no detail; hints that Joe has a girlfriend who stays overnight, also with no detail; themes touch on a child's fear of abandonment, grief over a lost parent; a life-threatening food allergy.)

-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

"Sydney White" (Perky Amanda Bynes in an occasionally droll, but too often formulaic comedy intended as an update of "Snow White"; Sydney (Bynes) is a smart, pretty tomboy who starts college hoping to pledge her late mom's sorority, but finds it run by a witchy snob (Sara Paxton); Sydney decamps to an old frat house with seven brainiac guys, gives the wicked sorority witch her comeuppance and finds romance (with Matt Long). Much mild sexual innuendo; semi-crude sexual slang ("booty" and other synonyms); implications of promiscuity among students; matter-of-fact portrayal of a club for gay, lesbian and transgender students; references to drinking, students seeming hung-over; young women in tight, low-cut clothes; implied male nudity; toilet humor; mild profanity; mean jokes about overweight girls. An iffy choice for some middle-schoolers.)

"Dragon Wars" (also known as "D-War") (Cheesy, utterly incomprehensible action fantasy from South Korea about dragon creatures of ancient legend who fight out their good vs. evil battle in modern times through a young woman (Amanda Brooks) and a young man (Jason Behr); the FBI and U.S. Army join in; incoherent narrative, with lines such as "Rise, Atrox army ... the time has come again!" Many fiery, serpentine confrontations with sword, spear and lethal dragon tails; great destruction of property with apparent human victims, but no gore; dinosaur-esque creatures appear in the present; gunplay; rare profanity. Not for anyone phobic about reptilian critters.)

"Across the Universe" (LIMITED RELEASE) (Ravishing, if occasionally incoherent musical from theater genius Julie Taymor, beautifully weaves Beatles songs, well sung by the cast, into a 1960s love story among artistic and anti-war activist teens in New York; Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) joins an underground newspaper; her slacker brother Max (Joe Anderson) drops out of Princeton and gets drafted; Jude (Jim Sturgess), a Liverpudlian visiting Princeton, falls for Lucy; cameos by Joe Cocker, Bono, Eddie Izzard. Drug use; psychedelic references; drinking; smoking; profanity; implied promiscuity; war scenes. Some high-schoolers will love the romanticized take on the '60s -- not for younger teens.)

"December Boys" (LIMITED RELEASE) (Mildly engaging, but clunkily made coming-of-age tale features "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe (a bland actor when not framed by cinematic glitz) as the eldest of four orphanage boys in 1960s Australia; the nuns send them on a holiday to the seaside home of a retired navy man (Jack Thompson) and his ailing wife (Kris McQuade); the younger boys (Lee Cormie, Christian Byers and James Fraser) try to charm a neighboring couple, hoping for adoption, while the elder (Radcliffe) has a first romance. Steamy but nonexplicit sexual initiation scene; other sexual innuendo; nudity; themes about death; kids and adults drink, smoke; rare profanity; crude humor. Not quite for middle-schoolers.)

"Mr. Woodcock" (Crude but intermittently amusing comedy about John (Seann William Scott), author of a popular self-help book; in his hometown to receive an award, he finds his long-widowed mom (Susan Sarandon) in love with his one-time gym teacher, Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton), an unsmiling macho-man John remembers as a destroyer of his self-esteem; sharp dialogue and actors who don't oversell the jokes lift the script above the norm. Lewd, profane humor sometimes nears R range: crude euphemisms for sex; John, hiding under Woodcock's bed, hears his mom and the gym teacher make love as the mattress bounces; toilet humor; smoking; drinking; cruel gags about kids who stutter, have asthma. Too lewd and profane for most middle-schoolers.)

-- R's:

"The Kingdom" (NEW) (Riveting white-knuckle action flick pushes all our buttons about terrorism, but with a torn-from-the-headlines flavor that's more rational than hysterical; Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman as FBI agents -- no-nonsense, but still able to banter -- who go to Saudi Arabia to investigate a major terror attack against U.S. citizens living in a compound there; Ashraf Barhom as a sympathetic Saudi colonel who helps them. Terror attacks done with shattering realism and a seasick-making lens; children at risk; victims with bloody injuries, missing limbs, shattered skulls; point-blank gun battles; terrorists prepare to decapitate a hostage; occasional profanity; rare mild sexual innuendo. 16 and older with strong stomachs for film mayhem, interest in world affairs.)

"Resident Evil: Extinction" (NEW) (Visually stark and impressive, but narratively incoherent action flick -- the third film based on popular video games about a genetically altered superwoman, Alice (Milla Jovovich), traveling in a post-apocalyptic world -- turned into a desert by a corporation that leaked a lethal virus; most humans have become flesh-eating zombies; Alice stalks the mad scientist (Iain Glen) responsible for it all and helps a convoy of survivors (Ali Larter, Oded Fehr, Mike Epps as convoy leaders). Blood-spattering, skull-piercing zombie attacks; point-blank gunfire; attacks by zombie dogs, crows; a pit full of dead clones of Alice, used for experiments; profanity; rare crude sexual slang, innuendo; nongraphic nudity; marijuana; cigarettes. High-schoolers 16 and up.)

"Good Luck Chuck" (Raunchy romantic comedy offers some laughs and lewd cackles, but feels crass, its occasional charms painfully forced, despite likable stars; Charlie (Dane Cook), a promiscuous dentist, has a weird reputation: rumor has it any woman who sleeps with him will magically meet her true love next; his swinish pal (Dan Fogler) thinks Charlie's playboy rep is great, but when Charlie falls for an accident-prone penguin keeper (Jessica Alba) she's put off by his seedy love life; film hinges on idea that Charlie's was "hexed" as a 10-year-old by a girl at a make-out party. Explicit sexual content; toplessness; graphic sexual slang -- some of it spoken by 10-year-olds playing spin the bottle; profanity; homophobic slur; drinking; drug humor. More for college age.)

"In the Valley of Elah" (LIMITED RELEASE) (Tommy Lee Jones in an award-worthy turn as Hank, a veteran and former MP who goes looking for his son after the boy disappears after returning from Iraq; Charlize Theron in a somber portrayal as a cop who helps Hank fight military secrecy; director/co-writer Paul Haggis examines the effects of war on those who fight it; film is thoughtful, beautifully acted, but a bit ponderous. Burned body parts; grisly verbal description of battlefield and other violence; grim, if nongraphic video of urban warfare, implied torture; a hanging suicide; strong profanity; sexual language; racial slurs; seminudity; suggestive dancing; drinking; smoking; drug references. Thoughtful teens 16 and up.)

"The Brave One" (Jodie Foster in a searing performance as a New York radio personality -- a poet of the neighborhoods -- who, with her fiance (Naveen Andrews), is severely beaten by muggers; her fiance dies; she recovers, but is altered by grief, rage, post-traumatic stress, and becomes a vigilante killer; for all its literacy, the film seems to glorify lawlessness; Foster's acting redeems it, as does Terrence Howard's nuanced turn as a police detective. Stylized but very graphic violence -- point-blank shootings, stabbings, skull-crushing beatings; semiexplicit sex scenes; violent scene with a drug addict holding a young prostitute hostage; profanity; crude sexual language, smoking; drinking. Not for under-17s.)