December 27, 2007

""National Treasure: Book of Secrets" (PG, 2 hrs.)

This overlong scavenger hunt moves at a good clip and should prove a diverting enough enterprise for kids 10 and older, thanks to actors who make the silly story sound ever-so-slightly credible. "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" (a sequel to "National Treasure," PG, 2004) bristles with history factoids, clues and coincidences that have the protagonists sneaking around Buckingham Palace, George Washington's Mt. Vernon home, the Library of Congress, Mt. Rushmore and the Oval Office -- even getting face time with the president (Bruce Greenwood). While these movies have roots in the "Indiana Jones" flicks of the 1980s (PGs and PG-13s), they're less imaginative and more formulaic. The film re-enacts the assassination of Lincoln -- not graphically, but with a close-up of Booth's gun pointed at the president's head. There is a second bloodless shooting death, in addition to other gunplay, car-chase mayhem, life and limb risked on scaffolds and in floods, sexual innuendo and toilet humor.

Treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his scholar dad (Jon Voight) see evidence from a stranger (Ed Harris) that an ancestor of theirs collaborated in the murder of Lincoln. Starting with a cipher from their ancestor's journal, they, along with Ben's ex-girlfriend Abigail-the-archivist (Diane Kruger), his pal Riley-the-computer-geek (Justin Bartha), and his professor mom (Helen Mirren), go in search of the truth and vindication.

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"The Great Debaters" (PG-13, 2 hrs., 3 min.)

"The Great Debaters" tells the inspiring and vividly dramatized story of a debate team from a tiny, historically black college in Texas in the 1930s. It is fictionalized, but based on real events and people. Denzel Washington, who plays professor, debate coach and poet Mel Tolson, also directed. He sees to it the characters are fully human, yet very brave, so audiences can't help but root for them when they finally take on Harvard.

The film's depiction of the Jim Crow South is occasionally intense: Traveling by car to a debate, the team members and their coach happen upon a lynching and see the dead victim, charred and hanging from a tree, as a crowd of whites, including children, watches. This makes the film a problematic choice for less mature middle-schoolers, but a terrific dramatization of history for other teens ready to handle it. The film also shows vigilantes threatening an integrated meeting of farmers with sticks and torches, and we later see one farmer's battered face. Other elements include drunkenness, mildly erotic dancing, a gently implied sexual situation, a knife fight, racial slurs, rare profanity and a pig killed by a car.

At little Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, circa 1935, Mel Tolson is determined to put together an ace debate team to compete against other African-American schools. His star debaters are the beautiful, serious Samantha (Jurnee Smollett), the brilliant but troubled Henry (Nate Parker), and James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker), the overachieving 14-year-old son of a famous preacher (Forest Whitaker -- no relation). Rev. Farmer and the iconoclastic Tolson butt heads to great theatrical effect. Though occasionally disjointed, this evocative film touches on it all -- from Depression-era politics to the characters' loves, lives and self-doubts.

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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME

-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:

"Alvin and the Chipmunks" PG -- A genial, occasionally very funny update of the nearly 50-year-old franchise, "Alvin and the Chipmunks" mixes live-action and computer animation to tell a farcical tale that aims most of its wit at little kids and not grown-ups, for a change. Oft-rejected songwriter Dave (Jason Lee) grabs a basket of muffins for consolation as he exits a record company. Unbeknownst to him, three talking chipmunks -- mischievous Alvin (voice of Justin Long), studious Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) and babyish Theodore (Jesse McCartney) leap from a lobby Christmas tree into the basket. When he finds the talking critters in his house, he freaks. Then he hears them sing and writes them a hit. The PG covers chipmunk poop and "smelly behind" gags, mild human sexual innuendo and the chipmunks briefly wired on coffee. OK for under-6s.

-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"Enchanted" PG -- Fantasy and reality bump heads in this clever romantic comedy, which droops a bit in its second half, but still has wit and whimsy enough to charm kids 8 and up. Adults will smile at its inspired musical send-ups of old Disney animated features. A lass in an animated fairy tale is off to marry her prince when his sorceress stepmom shoves her down a hole. Giselle (Amy Adams) bursts through a manhole in Times Square as a flesh-and-blood person in a live-action world, where a divorced lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) and his little daughter (Rachel Covey) help her. The prince (James Marsden) and sorceress (Susan Sarandon) soon follow. The film contains mild sexual innuendo, equally mild chipmunk poop humor and shows rats and roaches swarming in a funny-creepy scene.

-- OK FOR KIDS 10 AND OLDER:

"National Treasure: Book of Secrets" (PG; NEW) -- This sequel (to "National Treasure" PG, 2004) is basically an overlong scavenger hunt, but it moves at a good clip and should prove diverting for kids 10 and older, thanks to actors who lend credibility to the silliness. Armed with history factoids and ciphers, the heroes sneak around Buckingham Palace, the Library of Congress, Mt. Rushmore and the Oval Office. A stranger (Ed Harris) shows treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his dad (Jon Voight) evidence their ancestor was part of the Lincoln assassination plot. With Ben's archivist ex-love (Diane Kruger), his pal the computer geek (Justin Bartha), and his mom the professor (Helen Mirren), they set out to clear the family name. The film nongraphically re-enacts the assassination of Lincoln, and shows a close-up of Booth's gun pointed at Lincoln's head. There is another gun death, gun and car-chase mayhem, shaky scaffolds, floods, sexual innuendo and toilet humor.

"The Perfect Holiday" (PG) -- In this cheesily contrived family comedy, Gabrielle Union plays a divorced mother of three. Her adorable daughter (Khail Bryant) tells a department store Santa that her harried, dateless mommy longs for a nice man to pay her a simple compliment. This Santa, who happens to be a struggling songwriter (Morris Chestnut), delivers the compliment personally. They fall in love, despite meddling by her older son (Malik Hammond) and her only-in-the-movies ex -- a crass hip-hop star (Charlie Murphy). The silliness is guided by an angelic narrator (Queen Latifah), while her nemesis (Terrence Howard), tries to spoil it. There is mild sexual innuendo and semi-crude language.

-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

"The Great Debaters" (NEW) -- A determined debate team from tiny, historically black Wiley College in Depression-era Texas eventually takes on Harvard in this vivid story -- fictionalized, but based on some real events and people. Though a bit disjointed, the film touches evocatively on everything, from politics to the debaters' lives, loves and self-doubts. Denzel Washington (who directed) plays Mel Tolson, a professor, debate coach, poet, and activist. Forest Whitaker plays a famous preacher who butts heads with Tolson, though his own son (Denzel Whitaker, no relation to either star) is on the team. While driving to a debate, Tolson and his star debaters (also Jurnee Smollett and Nate Parker) come upon a lynching. They see the dead, charred victim hanging from a tree, as a crowd of whites, including children, watches. This makes the film inappropriate for less mature middle-schoolers, but a fine dramatization of history for teens ready to handle it. It also shows vigilantes threatening a meeting, and we see a man's battered face. The film depicts drinking, mildly erotic dancing, a subtly implied sexual situation, a knife fight, racial slurs, rare profanity and a pig killed by a car.

"P.S. I Love You" -- A young widow (Hilary Swank) grieves inconsolably for her husband (Gerard Butler in flashbacks) and is healed by a series of letters he secretly wrote on his deathbed to guide her back into the world in this cloying, dumbed-down movie. Teens who love romantic stories may laugh, cry and enjoy it anyway (but they should also check out "Truly Madly Deeply" (PG, 1990) to see how classy a tale of love and grief can be). Lisa Kudrow is fun as the heroine's eccentric single pal. The film has mildish sexual innuendo, a male striptease (down to boxer shorts), hints of marital sexual situations, an implied unwed overnight tryst, occasional profanity and crude sexual humor, backview nudity, and drinking.

"I Am Legend" -- Will Smith is terrific as Robert Neville, a military medical researcher who seems to be the lone immune survivor of a plague that has emptied Manhattan and the world of humans in this nifty -- if illogical -- sci-fi thriller based on Richard Matheson's novel. Neville and his dog troll around an artfully decimated Big Apple, gathering supplies, hunting deer, and holing up after dark, when rabid zombies transformed by the virus come out. There are flashbacks of the evacuation of Manhattan, the faces of the infected slamming against car windows, and the implied deaths of Neville's wife and child in the chaos. Gory scenes show him fighting off zombies and there are bloody animal deaths. A bit much for middle-schoolers, the movie will speak existentially to high-schoolers.

"Juno" (LIMITED RELEASE) -- A smart 16-year-old named Juno (fab Ellen Page), with major attitude and a heart of gold, gets pregnant and chooses an ideal-seeming upscale couple (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) to adopt her child. This comedy from way off-center is a blast of fresh air visually, verbally, musically and in its performances. There is one brief, mostly implied sexual situation, followed by a lot of teen discussion of sex and semigraphic sexual slang, toilet humor (pregnancy tests) and some profanity. The movie really isn't for middle-schoolers or even immature high-schoolers. Some parents may want to screen it first.

"The Golden Compass" -- Brave 12-year-old Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) battles dark authoritarian forces who abduct children and rob them of their souls in "The Golden Compass," based on the first book in Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" fantasy trilogy. The movie is gorgeous, mysterious, exciting and swift, though a bit hard to follow. Teens and many 10- to 12-years-old will probably love it. Devotees of the books may balk at some changes, but rejoice in how beautifully the film imagines the animal spirits or "daemons" that embody people's souls. Lyra uses a golden compass, which points toward the truth, on her epic journey to save a friend. Bears, humans and witches battle with swords, arrows and guns, but the fallen just disintegrate into sparks. A child is separated from his daemon in a painful procedure. Lyra's ally, the bear Iorek Byrnison (voice of Ian McKellen), is angry and threatening at first.

"This Christmas" -- A character-rich comedy-drama full of good actors, good cheer, and soap-opera cliches, this movie could draw lots of teens. Members of a large African-American family gather in the L.A. home of their mother (Loretta Devine) and her boyfriend (Delroy Lindo) for Christmas. The sparks soon fly among the many siblings (key sibs played by Idris Elba, Regina King, Sharon Leal, Columbus Short and singer Chris Brown; Mekhi Phifer plays a love interest). The sexual innuendo includes a vibrator joke, implied overnights among wed and unwed couples, an infidelity subplot, but no nudity or explicitness. There are muted fights -- one with a gun brandished -- mild profanity, smoking and drinking. OK for most teens.

-- R's:

"Charlie Wilson's War" (NEW) -- This crackerjack fact-based story of politics and world affairs (from George Crile's book), scripted to a tee by Aaron Sorkin and sharply directed by Mike Nichols, never takes a wrong turn. It is not for high-schoolers under 16, as it features drug use, drinking, smoking, nudity and strong profanity. There are nongraphic hints of sexual situations and much sexist humor. The film shows war violence, grim refugee camps and maimed children. Charlie Wilson (a twinkly-eyed Tom Hanks) is a 1980s Texas congressman known as a ladies' man with easy ethics, but he works doggedly to get weapons to Afghan freedom fighters trying to push out Soviet invaders. Philip Seymour Hoffman is great as a CIA man, and Julia Roberts is fun as a big-haired Texas "friend." It's a huge irony that many of the Afghan fighters later became Taliban and al-Qaeda. OK for political junkies 16 and up.

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" -- When the vengeance-crazed Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp in a powerful turn, looking like a silent-movie madman and singing well) slits throats, the red blood gushes, splattering over him and the gorgeous, nearly black-and-white rendering of 19th-century London. Todd's prey is the evil judge (Alan Rickman) who sent him to prison and destroyed his family, and he kills for practice while he waits to get him in his barber's chair. Director Tim Burton's witty, eye-popping adaptation of the great, mostly sung stage musical (by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler) is harrowing fun. Helena Bonham Carter is a riot as Todd's partner in crime Mrs. Lovett, who bakes his victims into meat pies, though she slurs the brilliant lyrics at times. The R reflects sexual innuendo, subtle implications of sexual slavery and child abuse, a boy guzzling gin, and images of corpses, bones, body parts, rats and roaches. Film and music buffs 16 and older.

"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" -- Uplifting Hollywood biopics and profane backstage documentaries about music legends get skewered down to the tiniest detail in this often hilarious, if unessential satire. It earns its R and then some with male and female nudity, comic portrayal of drug abuse, insulting ethnic and racial stereotypes, graphic sexual situations, implied hotel room orgies, erotic dancing, crude sexual language and perpetual sexual innuendo, other strong profanity, comic violence that shows people accidentally cut in half, and a joke about suicide. John C. Reilly is perfect as Dewey, who rises from a tragic 1950s Alabama childhood to rock stardom, finding drug addiction, adultery, family torment and redemption along the way. Inappropriate for most under-17s.

"The Savages" (LIMITED RELEASE) -- Thoughtful high-schoolers 16 and up who appreciate in-depth acting might be drawn into this extraordinarily humane and well-observed dramatic comedy. Adult siblings Jon and Wendy Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney) find themselves suddenly responsible for their ailing father (Philip Bosco), an estranged parent they've never liked, who now has dementia. Neither sibling is prepared for the feelings about to pierce their bubbles of intellectual and emotional self-absorption. Wendy abuses prescription drugs, sleeps with a married man, steals office supplies and habitually lies. The film includes brief, semiexplicit sexual situations, profanity, crude language, briefly graphic scenes about excreta, smoking and drinking.