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"The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie" (G, 1 hr., 24 min.)
Kids 6 and older and their parents will find the same reassuring mix of silliness and parable in this computer-animated fantasy that they find in the popular faith-based VeggieTales videos. Talking cucumbers, tomatoes, asparagus, leeks, peas, grapes and gourds go hopping about, armless and legless, having funny, moralistic adventures. This feature exhibits neither great animation nor supremely witty writing, but it entertains gently. Unlike the first VeggieTales feature ("Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie," G, 2002), which had a Christian tone, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" feels more nonsectarian. Believers may recognize symbols and phrases, but the film's clearest message is about friendship and courage. There are mildly scary scenes of pirate ships firing cannons, "Rock Monsters" lumbering about, a sea serpent that turns out to be mechanical, an ocean storm, nasty cheese curls with teeth, and toilet humor.
The story opens with "real" 17th-century pirates led by the evil gourd Robert the Terrible (voice of Cam Clarke), the king's wayward brother. On the high seas, he kidnaps Prince Alexander (Yuri Lowenthal). Princess Eloise (Laura Gerow) sends out a magical Help-Seeker device (looking rather like a golden compass) to find heroes to rescue her brother. Meanwhile, in the here-and-now, we meet three busboys dressed as pirates because they work at a dinner theater where the show is a pirate musical. Veggie star Mr. Lunt the gourd plays Sedgewick (screenwriter Phil Vischer). Larry the Cucumber plays Elliott (director Mike Nawrocki), and Pa Grape plays George (Vischer again). The Help-Seeker transports the three timid veggies to the 17th century to rescue Alexander.
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"The Bucket List" (PG-13, 1 hr., 37 min.)
As a piece of moviemaking, "The Bucket List" is sentimental and slapdash, but the fact that Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are sharing the screen somehow makes its myriad flaws fade into the background. The stars bring to the mediocre material their wit and luster. Teens may not identify initially with the premise of a movie about two geezers living it up after learning they're both dying. Then again, if some teens find their grandparents fascinating to talk to, why wouldn't they also find this movie at least marginally interesting? The PG-13 reflects considerable midrange profanity (most of it scatological), rude gestures, frisky but nonexplicit sexual innuendo and mild sexual slang, drinking, smoking, toilet humor, and various subtly depicted symptoms of serious illness, including coughing up blood, post-chemotherapy nausea and a seizure. The topics of divorce and infidelity also come up.
Billionaire curmudgeon/playboy Edward Cole (Nicholson) and auto mechanic/family man Carter Chambers (Freeman) find themselves sharing a hospital room when each falls seriously ill and is given just a few months to live. They couldn't be more unalike, but their shared view of the abyss bonds them. Carter recalls a philosophy teacher who had the class prepare a "bucket list" -- things they would want to do before kicking the bucket. On Edward's dime they impulsively set off to accomplish Carter's list, from skydiving to tattoos to drag racing to seeing the French Riviera, the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal. But fate catches up with them.
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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME
-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:
"The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A Veggie Tales Movie" G (NEW) -- Talking salad fixin's go hopping about, armless and legless but having a cheery adventure in this second theatrical feature (following "Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie," G, 2002) to be spun off from the popular faith-based computer-animated videos. Christian believers will recognize symbols and phrases, but the clearest message is about friendship and courage, and the tone, unlike the first film, is more nonsectarian. The animation is not spectacular, nor the writing especially witty, but little ones may be gently entertained. Three timid busboys at a dinner theater, dressed as pirates because the show is a pirate musical, are spirited back to the 17th-century high seas to help a princess rescue her brother from a "real" pirate. (The reluctant heroes are played by VeggieTales stars: Mr. Lunt the gourd as Sedgewick, Larry the Cucumber as Elliott, and Pa Grape as George.) There are mildly scary scenes with cannon fire, lumbering "Rock Monsters," a sea serpent, an ocean storm, nasty cheese curls with teeth, and toilet humor. OK for kindergarteners.
"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) discovers that three talking chipmunks -- mischievous Alvin (voice of Justin Long), studious Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) and babyish Theodore (Jesse McCartney) -- have infiltrated his home. He freaks at first. 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 10 AND OLDER:
"The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" PG -- A welcome throwback to an older kind of storytelling and ideal for kids 10 and older, this movie gracefully blends adventure, understated special effects, atmosphere and character. Based in part on the book by Dick King-Smith (who also wrote the story of "Babe," the sheepherding piglet), it makes clever use of the Loch Ness Monster legend in the tale of a lonely boy living near the loch during World War II. He finds an egg that hatches into a bumptious mix of dragon and dolphin -- a mythical Celtic sea horse -- and grows huge. Unable to deal with the idea that his dad may not come home from the war, Angus (wonderful Alex Etel) bonds with the creature. It gives him a spectacular ride on -- and under -- Loch Ness. The film deals with the ideas of death in war and loss of a parent. Military men bully Angus a bit, and adults drink and smoke. A bulldog chases the baby water horse, nearly catching it. The full-grown creature is in peril when soldiers fire artillery into Loch Ness. The film includes scary thunderstorms, a dead deer, subtle sexual innuendo between adults and mild profanity.
"National Treasure: Book of Secrets" PG -- This sequel (to "National Treasure" PG, 2004) is an overlong scavenger hunt that waters down history, but it moves briskly, and good actors in neat locations lend credibility to the silliness. Kids 10 and older should be entertained. Armed with factoids and ciphers, the heroes nose around Buckingham Palace, the Library of Congress, Mount Rushmore and the Oval Office. Treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his dad (Jon Voight) receive evidence that an ancestor was involved in the assassination of Lincoln. Ben and his cohorts aim to disprove it. The film re-enacts the assassination understatedly and includes another gun death, car and gun mayhem, foot chases, floods, sexual innuendo and toilet humor.
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:
"The Bucket List" (NEW) -- Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman lend their wit and star power to this sentimental, slapdash bit of moviemaking, somehow nudging its flaws into the background. Teens may not be the obvious audience for a story of two geezers who go off on a globe-trotting see-it-before-we-die trip, but then again, if some teens find their grandparents fascinating, why wouldn't they also be tickled by Nicholson and Freeman cracking wise? Billionaire curmudgeon/playboy Edward (Nicholson) and auto mechanic/family man Carter (Freeman) share a hospital room and realize they've each been given a death sentence. Carter shows Edward a list he made in college of things he wanted to do before he kicked the bucket, and the two impulsively go off to do them -- skydiving, drag racing, the Taj Mahal, etc. -- until fate catches up with them. The movie contains midrange profanity (most of it scatological), rude gestures, frisky but nonexplicit sexual innuendo, drinking, smoking, toilet humor, subtly depicted illness and themes about of divorce and infidelity.
"One Missed Call" (NEW) -- A grad student, Beth (Shannyn Sossamon), is horrified when her friends start dying in freak accidents exactly after they receive bizarre, impossible cell-phone calls in which they hear their own voices at the moment of their deaths. Beth and a cop (Edward Burns) try to unravel the mystery. This remake of a 2003 Japanese film gives off a convincing sense of dread and inescapable fate, with a welcome lack of graphic gore -- though there is a bit. But the film also lacks all internal logic and becomes a trainwreck of foreboding and death. Some high-school horror buffs may find it tame, but others will like that it is more cerebral. The film shows a severely burned corpse that reanimates, characters hit by vehicles, impaled on steel, stabbed in the eye. Upsetting flashbacks show a child dying of an asthma attack and children physically abused by a parent or sibling. The movie includes a hallucinatory image of Jesus coming to life on a church crucifix, an implied hanging suicide, snakes, mild profanity, smoking, drinking, and nongraphic sexual content.
"The Great Debaters" -- A dedicated debate team from a tiny, historically black college in 1930s Texas eventually takes on Harvard in this inspiring tale -- fictionalized, but based on real events and people. Though a bit disjointed, the film is so full of passion, atmosphere and vivid characters that it works. Denzel Washington (who directed) plays Mel Tolson, debate coach, poet and activist. Forest Whitaker plays Dr. James Farmer Sr., a famous preacher whose son (Denzel Whitaker, no relation to either star) is on the team. Tolson and his debaters (including Jurnee Smollett and Nate Parker) see the charred body of a lynching victim hanging from a tree, as a crowd of white people watch. Some middle-schoolers aren't ready for this, but it is a fine dramatization of history. The film shows vigilantes threatening people (we see one man's battered face), 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 nudge her back into life in this cloying weepie. Teens who love romantic stories may laugh, cry and enjoy it anyway, but they should check out "Truly Madly Deeply" (PG, 1990) to see how smart, sad and funny a tale of love and grief can be. 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 a 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. He and his dog troll around an artfully decimated Big Apple by day. Rabid zombies transformed by the virus come out at night. There are flashbacks of the evacuation of Manhattan, with the faces of the infected slamming against car windows, and the implied deaths of the hero'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" -- 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, then learns adults can disappoint. This comedy from way off-center is a blast of fresh air visually, verbally, musically and in its acting. 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 isn't really for middle-schoolers or even immature high-schoolers. Some parents may want to screen it first.
-- R's:
"Alien vs. Predator: Requiem" -- This horror sequel (to "Alien vs. Predator," PG-13, 2004, and related video games) will be nearly incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Folks in a small Colorado town fall victim to the blood-and-guts lust of rival extraterrestrials. The creatures are based on those from the original "Alien" (R, 1979) and "Predator" (R, 1987) films and their sequels. Some of the slimy, reptilian Alien babies still pop out of human chests and the Predator is still a robotic killing machine who can go invisible. Decent actors try to make sense of the dialogue when they're not getting impaled, flayed, gutted, or having their heads blown off. Pregnant women in a hospital are also victims. The film also contains profanity and sexual innuendo. OK for horror buffs 16 and up.
"There Will Be Blood" (LIMITED RELEASE) -- Daniel Day-Lewis cuts an impressive figure in this great, gritty epic as a Western oil baron at the dawn of the 20th century, consumed by his own greed. (It's based on Upton Sinclair's novel "Oil!") While Day-Lewis can be over-the-top at times, the film is always riveting and looks like an old daguerreotype photograph. Director Paul Thomas Anderson traces a rivalry between the oilman and a fire-and-brimstone preacher (Paul Dano). The film shows two murders, one a graphic bludgeoning, as well as fatal oil field accidents and a child injured. It contains sexual innuendo that implies a brothel, a verbal reference to child-beating, profanity, drinking and smoking. For teens 16 and older into heavy-duty acting and serious films.
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