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"Enchanted" (PG, 1 hr., 47 min.)
A lass from the land of animated fairy tales is about to marry her prince, but his jealous stepmother puts a curse on her. She falls down a magical well and pops through a manhole cover into the very real world of Times Square. Giselle (Amy Adams) has become a flesh-and-blood girl. Her prince (James Marsden) comes after her and becomes real, too, as does his evil stepmom/sorceress (Susan Sarandon). But before they get to her, Giselle encounters a practical-minded divorce lawyer named Robert (Patrick Dempsey), wifeless himself, and his little daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey), who craves mom-like company. After they rescue Giselle from wandering around Manhattan in her puffy wedding gown, Morgan finds she likes this strange lady, who smiles and bursts into song a lot, more than Dad's brittle fiancee (Idina Menzel).
The constant collision between make-believe and reality provides much amusement that won't go over the heads of kids 8 and older, and they'll probably get the send-ups of old Disney animated features, too. The songs by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz make for droll, satiric production numbers. Still, "Enchanted" doesn't quite follow through on the promise it shows as it shifts from 'toon to live-action. The energy and inventiveness droop in the second half. An early highlight comes when Giselle decides to summon her little animal friends to clean up Robert's apartment. Only it's New York, so instead of bluebirds and bunnies, rats and cockroaches respond to her trills. They swarm, so phobics beware.
There is brief talk of Robert's fiancee not spending the night in order to set a good example for his daughter. Characters drink martinis, and Giselle's chipmunk pal from fairy-tale land provides a droll bit of toilet humor. In Robert's presence, the innocent girl gradually senses that kissing isn't all there is to romance, but that hint is very mild indeed.
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"August Rush" (PG, 1 hr., 54 min.)
It is quite possible that kids 10 and older will be swept up in this modern-day fairy tale about an orphaned music prodigy who reconnects with his long lost parents through a kind of harmonic convergence that links the three of them through music. In fact, it is a preposterous conceit, but young star Freddie Highmore's crooked smile, and the fact that the music sounds good, may inspire audiences to buy into this sugar-coated twaddle. Experienced moviegoers will notice that director Kirsten Sheridan allows few scenes to last more than a couple of minutes and the whole thing plays like a string of music videos, twirling camera and all.
An 11-year-old orphan (Highmore) living in a group home tells a child welfare worker (Terrence Howard) that he believes he'll find his real parents and doesn't want to be adopted. His obsession with the musical sounds in nature gets him labeled a "freak" by bullies. In flashbacks, we learn about a liaison 11 years earlier between a classical cellist, Lyla (Keri Russell), and an Irish rocker, Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who met at a Manhattan party, had a one-night stand (a kiss and morning-after cuddling are all we see) and were kept apart by Lyla's controlling father (William Sadler). Back to the present: The boy runs away from the group home to New York and comes under the spell of an alternately friendly and threatening hustler named Wizard (Robin Williams). Wizard is a latter-day Fagin who runs a platoon of underage street musicians. He recognizes the boy's talents, renames him August Rush (from an ad on a truck) and starts him working, as August learns guitar instantly. He escapes Wizard's lair, lands in a Harlem church where he's sheltered and learns to write music, then goes to Juilliard. Seriously. A climactic concert in Central Park finally weaves all the strands together.
Wizard threatens August, even getting rough and brandishing a blade. That and other lost-in-the-city scenes could unsettle under-10s. Adult characters drink, make rare drug references and use mild profanity.
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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME
-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:
"Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" G (This little fantastical tale should entrance kids 6 and older, despite occasional glitches in production values and narrative. Kindly, odd Mr. Magorium (Dustin Hoffman in a piquant turn), who is 243 years old, announces he is about to leave this world and intends to turn his magical toy store over to manager Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman). A timid would-be composer , Molly fears she can't run the quirky store alone. Eric (Zach Mills), the little boy who hangs out there (and narrates the film), tries to help. Henry (Jason Bateman), Mr. Magorium's staid new accountant, has no clue. PG-ish elements include hints of Mr. Magorium's mortality. (PLOT GIVEAWAY ALERT: When he dies, he sits down and the camera cuts to his shoes, then his headstone.) Little ones could be unnerved by a wall in the store that bulges and darkens with anger. Later the toys rebel, flying and making chaos. An innocent friendship between Henry and Eric has the two playing in Eric's room, when Eric's mother walks in and sees a grown-up stranger with her son. Adults may find that scene awkward.)
-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:
"Enchanted" (NEW) (This cleverly conceived comedy/fantasy fizzles a bit in its second half, but still has charm, wit, and a couple of cute musical numbers. A lovely lass in animated fairy-tale land is about to marry her prince when his sorceress stepmother shoves the girl down a hole. Giselle (Amy Adams) bursts through a manhole cover in Times Square as a flesh-and-blood person in a live-action world. Wandering around in her wedding dress, she is rescued by a divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey), wifeless himself, and his little daughter (Rachel Covey). Giselle's prince (James Marsden) and his stepmom (Susan Sarandon) soon make entrances as live people, too, but not before Giselle gets a taste of New York. There is brief talk of Robert's fiancee (Idina Menzel) not spending the night to set an example for the child, and adult characters drink. An animated chipmunk provides a bit of toilet humor and rats and roaches swarm on Giselle's command in a funny scene. She gradually senses that kissing isn't all there is to romance but that hint of innuendo is very mild.)
"Fred Claus" PG (Vince Vaughn effortlessly embodies hipness and warmth as Santa's ne'er-do-well older sibling Fred from Chicago in this amusing but odd hybrid of cleverness and cliches. Fred gets arrested for impersonating a Salvation Army Santa. His brother Nick, aka the real Santa (Paul Giamatti), sends bail and his sleigh, insisting Fred come to the North Pole to help in the Christmas rush. When a mean efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) threatens to close Santa's workshop, Fred must come through for his bro. There is occasional semi-crude language and mildly suggestive humor, likely to go over heads younger than 10. Tall Fred and short elf Willie (John Michael Higgins) stand at urinals in a visual gag. There are slapstick fights with no injuries and Santa has ninja elf bodyguards. A boy (Bobb'e J. Thompson) Fred befriends in Chicago lands in an orphanage.)
"Bee Movie" PG (A restless worker bee, Barry (voice of Jerry Seinfeld), ventures out of his utopian hive into the human world, befriends a florist (Renee Zellweger) in this colorfully imagined but narratively weak computer-animated 'toon. Its odd blend of Seinfeldian irony and innocent whimsy may not fully transfix 8- to 13-year-olds, though there's nothing in it they can't handle. The film could be alternately scary or dull to under-8s. There is mild sexual innuendo in the stinger jokes. Barry gets slammed around on a tennis ball, sucked into car engines, caught on a windshield and a human tries to kill him by igniting an aerosol spray. Bees testing helmets get smacked down by shoes and swatters, a scary scene unfolds on an out-of-control airplane, and humans smoke. "Bee Movie" themes: keep your temper, remember life is short, follow your bliss.)
-- OK FOR KIDS 10 AND OLDER:
"August Rush" PG (NEW) (Kids 10 and older may be swept up in this modern-day fairy tale about an orphaned music prodigy who reconnects with his lost parents through music -- a kind of harmonic convergence. Young Freddie Highmore's crooked smile and the music itself may win them over. But it is a preposterous, pretentious film and plays like one long music video. The boy (Highmore) lives in a group home and refuses to be adopted. Though musically unschooled, he is obsessed with sound and rhythm. He runs away to New York where a Fagin-like hustler, Wizard (Robin Williams), turns him into a street musician, naming him August Rush. He learns guitar, escapes Wizard, learns to compose and lands at Juilliard. Seriously. We also follow the fates of a cellist (Keri Russell) and an Irish rocker (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who came together 11 years earlier at a party. The hustler shoves August and threatens him with a blade. That and other lost-in-the-city scenes could unsettle under-10s. Adult characters drink, make rare drug references and use mild profanity.)
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:
"This Christmas" (NEW) (This sprawling comedy-drama brims with good actors and good cheer as well as soap opera-style cliches. Teens who like character-driven stories will be drawn to it. Members of a large African-American family gather in the L.A. home of their mother (Loretta Devine) and her longtime boyfriend (Delroy Lindo) for Christmas and the sparks fly. Writer/director Preston A. Whitmore II includes among the siblings a jazz musician (Idris Elba), a meek housewife (Regina King) married to a conniving mogul (Laz Alonso), a career woman (Sharon Leal) who falls for a fireman (Mekhi Phifer), a Marine (Columbus Short) with a secret, and a teen (Chris Brown) who longs for a career his mom won't like. The sexual innuendo includes a vibrator joke, implied overnight trysts (one involving infidelity) among married and unmarried couples, but no nudity or explicitness. There are a couple of fights -- one with a weapon brandished -- some profanity, smoking and drinking. OK for most teens.)
"Beowulf" (Robert Zemeckis' computer-animated take on the ancient Anglo-Saxon saga (using "performance capture," which digitally morphs live actors into animation) looks like a handsome graphic novel and has an effectively mythic, though at times comically grandiose tone. The monster Grendel (Crispin Glover as a huge, decaying, skeletal figure) attacks King Hrothgar's (Anthony Hopkins) court and Norse hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone) offers to kill the creature. The violence is graphic, with men impaled or torn in half. (PLOT GIVEAWAY ALERT: In a climactic battle, Beowulf rips out the heart of a dragon.) Aside from drunkenness, most of the R-ish elements are sexual, with references to lust, fornication and ravishing of virgins. Weapons become obvious phallic symbols, made more obvious by 3-D effects. Grendel's siren mother (Angelina Jolie as a supermodel with tentacles) caresses Beowulf's sword. The hero's nakedness as he fights Grendel is hidden behind strategically placed swords and scenery. We see bare behinds and Jolie's siren is naked-ish, but with details hidden. Too intense and sexualized for some middle-schoolers.)
"Dan in Real Life" (The delights of classic romantic comedy abound in this movie, even if it slathers on the preciousness at times. Likably loopy Steve Carell plays Dan, an advice columnist and widower. At a family gathering he falls shatteringly in love with his brother's (Dane Cook) new girlfriend (Juliette Binoche) and spends a harrowing weekend trying to not hurt him, lose her, or alienate his mortified daughters. The film also deals with issues of grief, and pubescent teen sexual longing as viewed by a protective parent. There is sexual innuendo about adults -- suggestive dancing, references to masturbation, side-view shower toplessness -- and drinking. A bit too sexually charged for middle-schoolers.)
-- R's:
"The Mist" (NEW) (Alien creatures cloaked in a fog bank invade a Maine village and start chewing people up in this nifty little horror flick. The understatedness of the gore (though there is some) and the theatricality of panicked townsfolk trapped in a supermarket and arguing over what to do echo classic episodes of the original "Twilight Zone" TV show -- nothing fancy, just smart dialogue, hints of the supernatural and socially savvy psychodrama. Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption," 1994, "The Green Mile," 1999, both R-rated Stephen King adaptations) directs this King tale with smarts. Thomas Jane plays the levelheaded hero and unelected leader of the sane people after a religious zealot (Marcia Gay Harden) foments trouble. There are glimpses of headless bodies, severed torsos and limbs. The creatures first appear as huge tentacles snapping out of the fog, then giant flying insects and reptiles. Suicide is a theme. OK for most high-schoolers.)
"Hitman" (NEW) (While better than you'd expect a film based on a video game to be, "Hitman" still defies narrative logic and gets its thrills from mindless, machine-gun pumping mayhem and sophomoric sexist humor. Characters speak in short phrases (occasionally in Russian with subtitles) -- ideal for the world market. Our perversely moralistic anti-hero, Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant), an enigmatic, genetically engineered assassin, is suddenly protective of Nika (Olga Kurylenko), a sex slave belonging to the (fictional) president of Russia. On assignment in St. Petersberg, Agent 47 is targeted by Interpol cops (led by Dougray Scott) and others. Along with blood-spattering violence, there is seminudity, strong sexual innuendo, a brief nongraphic sexual situation and profanity. Not for teens under 16.)
"Southland Tales" (LIMITED RELEASE) (This mishmash from writer/director Richard Kelly, who made the extraordinary "Donnie Darko" (R, 2001), wants to be a satiric/futuristic/sci-fi/political/thriller but is merely a jumble of ideas. Set in Los Angeles soon after terrorists set off nuclear blasts in Texas, it envisions a fascistic government crackdown and a popular insurgency. Dwayne (aka "The Rock") Johnson plays an action star with amnesia who may have visited another dimension. Seann William Scott plays twin brothers, at least one an Iraq War veteran. A high-profile cast (Justin Timberlake, Amy Poehler, Sarah Michelle Gellar) can't clarify this mess. The film contains strong profanity and sexual language, gun violence, suicide themes, drug and pornography references and sexual innuendo. It's OK for high-schoolers, if they can stand it.)
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