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"21" (PG-13, 1 hr., 56 min.)
Kevin Spacey's cold, glib, emotionally distant screen persona suits this story fine, but, alas, nearly the entire film feels cold, glib and emotionally distancing, as well as far too predictable. And the young hero, as played by Jim Sturgess, makes an uncharismatic protagonist. His Faustian journey barely picks our emotions until near the end, after he realizes what a selfish lout he has become and how he has hurt his friends.
Ben (Sturgess) is a gifted pre-med student at M.I.T. in need of a med school scholarship. A charming math professor named Micky (Spacey) lures him into a "project" in which the prof and several of his chosen students fly to Las Vegas on weekends and win tons of cash at blackjack. They use teamwork and the mental technique of card-counting. Naive Ben turns Micky down at first, but is drawn in by seductive Jill (Kate Bosworth). She and Micky tell Ben it's not really cheating. But closing in on them is a casino investigator, Cole (Laurence Fishburne), eager to beat the truth out of cheats. Poor Ben. He gets greedy and careless. "21" is based on a true story (told in Ben Mezrich's book "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions"), but director Robery Luketic seems so intent on camera angles, the card-counting scam, and sheer Las Vegas slickness that he loses track of the humanity. Even a tale of cold-eyed gambling needs a bit of heart.
Aside from the aforementioned violence -- relatively understated -- "21" includes a nongraphic sexual situation, other sexual innuendo, suggestive dancing in a club, profanity and drinking. It is OK for most teens, though better for those whose moral compasses hold steady.
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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME
-- OK FOR KINDERGARTNERS ON UP:
"Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who!" G -- A sheer delight, this computer-animated take on the beloved storybook expands the tale without wrecking it. It keeps the Seussian whimsy, but adds three-dimensional furriness to the high-haired Whos and weight to Horton the Elephant (voice of Jim Carrey). There's a neat contrast between the pastel Jungle of Nool and the Rube Goldbergian Whoville, the microscopic city-on-a-speck Horton risks all to save. He and the ditzy Mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell), with his 96 daughters and one son, communicate by a quirk of sound convergence, but each must overcome his neighbors' disbelief. Narrow-minded Kangaroo (Carol Burnett) tries to stop Horton's quest. Kids 6 and younger may cringe at: Vlad (Will Arnett), a bird of prey, chasing Horton and causing Whoville to shake; Horton on a rope bridge that breaks; a Noolian mob capturing him; a scary-funny bit with the Mayor, a dentist, and a hypodermic needle.
-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:
"College Road Trip" G -- If this family comedy were played any more broadly, the cast would be in clown suits. Part slapstick farce, part sentimental saga, it is good-hearted but painfully silly and geared more to kids around 7 or 8, who dream of being grown-up. Lawrence plays a suburban Chicago police chief and obsessively overprotective dad who drives his daughter (Raven-Symone) to an interview at Georgetown University. The more he tries to control events, the more they spin away from him. Youngsters may be startled by a potbellied pig going nuts on coffee beans (a don't-try-this-with-your-pet lesson); father and daughter screaming while sky-diving; Dad getting tasered by a sorority mother.
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:
"21" (NEW) -- This slick, easily predictable Faustian tale centers on Ben (Jim Sturgess), a gifted M.I.T. student in need of a med school scholarship and lured by Micky (Kevin Spacey), a math professor, into a scam. Every weekend Micky and several students fly to Las Vegas and win tons at blackjack as a team, using the mental technique of card-counting. The naive Ben is drawn in by pretty Jill (Kate Bosworth). She and Micky tell him it's not really cheating. Then there's the private investigator (Laurence Fishburne) waiting to beat the truth out of cheats. Based on a true story (in Ben Mezrich's book "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions"), the film is oddly lacking in emotion or interest. Only when Ben sees the selfish lout he's become does it grip you, but not his journey there. Besides the middling violence, "21" includes a nongraphic sexual situation, other sexual innuendo, suggestive dancing in a club, profanity and drinking.
"Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns" (NEW) -- This is another of writer/director Tyler Perry's formulaic but enjoyable recipes, blending broad comedy with emotion and inspiration. Angela Bassett brings intensity to Brenda, a single mom with three kids by different dads, doing her best to keep them in school and out of trouble in the Chicago projects. She loses her job, and her oldest son (Lance Gross), a gifted basketball player, seems drawn to the quick cash of drug-dealing. So when Georgia relatives send bus tickets for the funeral of the father she never knew, Brenda takes the kids and goes. Her kin include buffoonish Leroy Brown (David Mann), mean drunk Vera (Jenifer Lewis), and kindly L.B. (Frankie Faison). Handsome Harry (Rick Fox), a basketball scout interested in her son (and in her), also turns up. The film includes marijuana use, drug deals, a shooting, jokes about "hos" and sexually transmitted diseases, a hinted threat of sexual assault, drinking, mild profanity, and a theme about deadbeat dads. More for high-schoolers.
"Shutter" (NEW) -- There's scarcely a plot twist in this remake of a Thai horror film that one couldn't predict before it happens. Yet because the acting is strong, this ghostly revenge thriller is intriguing and could hold a high-schooler's attention. Newlyweds Ben (Joshua Jackson) and Jane (Rachael Taylor) move to Japan, where Ben works as a photographer. Jane becomes obsessed with odd, blurry images in their wedding photos and in shots Ben takes at work. She learns they are "spirit photos" and discovers why she and Ben are being haunted. The film includes middling profanity, an abbreviated, nongraphic sexual situation, images of a skeletal corpse and a decaying body, a suicide jump, a cremation, and a subplot about arrogant male executives abusing a woman. All this is done in understated style. Themes of suicide and a subtly implied (but not shown) rape make "Shutter" iffy for middle-schoolers.
"Run Fat Boy Run" (NEW) -- Older teens especially may enjoy this amiable, if not wholly original London-set comedy (directed by David Schwimmer), about a Peter Pan syndrome guy who finally grows up. We meet Dennis (Simon Pegg of "Shaun of the Dead," R, 2004) as he's about to leave his pregnant bride Libby (Thandie Newton) at the altar because he's terrified. Five years later, he barely covers his rent working as a security guard and has a loving but irresponsible bond with his young son (Matthew Fenton). Then he learns Libby has a rich American boyfriend, Whit (Hank Azaria). A smoker with a beer belly, Dennis decides to run the London Marathon alongside the smug Whit and prove to Libby that he, Dennis, is worthy. Much of the humor in "Run Fat Boy Run" is locker-room crude. There is midrange profanity, backview nudity, implied frontal nudity, sexual slang and innuendo. Characters smoke and drink.
"Drillbit Taylor" -- Owen Wilson plays another charming scalawag in this amusing, slightly bawdy trifle. Three nerdy high-school freshmen -- chubby Ryan (Troy Gentile), skinny Wade (Nate Hartley) and dorky Emmit (David Dorfman) -- advertise online for a bodyguard to save them from a bully (Alex Frost). They hire Drillbit Taylor (Wilson), a fast-talking veteran who, unbeknownst to them, lives on the beach, showers (backview nudity) next to the highway, and has criminally inclined pals. He poses as a substitute teacher, so of course their English instructor (Leslie Mann) falls for him. It's hard not to like the film, crude and formulaic though it is, for its fresh performances and repartee. It has midrange profanity, make-out scenes, homophobic humor, implied toplessness, jokes about sexually transmitted diseases and hints of beer drinking. OK for most teens.
"Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna)" (LIMITED RELEASE) -- So sympathetic are the people in this poignant, harrowing immigrant story that the coincidence-riddled plot doesn't hurt it. Nine-year-old Carlitos (terrific Adrian Alonso) lives in Mexico with his grandmother. His mom Rosario (Kate del Castillo) lives and works illegally in Los Angeles. They talk by pay phone and miss each other terribly. When his grandma dies, little Carlitos heads for L.A. Scary scenes show him hiding under the floorboards of a Mexican-American couple's (America Ferrera of TV's "Ugly Betty" and Jesse Garcia) car after he pays them to get him over the border. Then he travels with undocumented workers, often fleeing immigration police. Some adults threaten him, but most help, especially cranky Enrique (Mexican comic Eugenio Derbez). The film shows prostitutes, has rare muted violence, rare profanity and beer-drinking. A fine introduction to subtitled tales for most teens.
"Never Back Down" -- This gloomy saga about a teen hero who fights the good fight purports to be about peace 'n' love. In fact, it's about pounding and getting pounded -- blood flying from smacked faces and bodies crumpling. Jake (Sean Faris), a loner haunted by the recent drunk-driving death of his dad, is goaded and beaten up by his new high school's "mixed martial arts" champ Ryan (Cam Gigandet). Jake hones his skills with a somber trainer (Djimon Hounsou) so he can face Ryan in a "beat down" contest. They also fight over a girl (Amber Heard). "Never Back Down" has midrange profanity, sexual innuendo, a homophobic slur, implied toplessness, a make-out scene and teens appearing to drink beer. A bad dad offers cocktails to teens and smacks his son.
"10,000 BC" -- Whatever thrills this prehistoric adventure flick may offer, it drowns them in intellectual hooey. Thanks to "10,000 BC," teens could come away thinking it's a couple of days' walk between Central Asia and equatorial Africa, and that the pyramids of Egypt were built 8,000 years before scholars say they were, with woolly mammoths doing the heavy lifting. An Ice Age hunter (Steven Strait) and two comrades (Cliff Curtis and Mo Zinal) track the "four-legged demons" (marauding slave traders on horseback) who abducted his beloved (Camilla Belle). Wounds are not graphic. There is an implied threat of rape. A giant ostrich-dinosaur hybrid rips into humans, mostly off-camera. OK for most teens.
-- R's:
"Stop-Loss" (NEW) -- This is one of the first Hollywood films to portray, in a gritty, naturalistic way, the lives of veterans returning from the Iraq War. The last third founders a bit, but most of "Stop-Loss" is a skillful drama, nearly as riveting and tough to watch as "The Deer Hunter" (R, 1978) was in the Vietnam era. The title is a phrase used when soldiers are ordered to return for an additional tour of duty, beyond what they signed up for. Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe), a squad leader, comes back to rural Texas after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Told the Army wants him back in Iraq, he goes AWOL. His pals Steve (Channing Tatum) and Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) all have battle flashbacks and cope or don't cope. Director/co-writer Kimberly Peirce's brave film rarely resorts to speechifying. In a highly effective scene, Brandon visits a private (excellent Victor Rasuk) who lost two limbs and his eyesight in an explosion. An Iraq War prologue depicts an ambush and an alley firefight. It is scary and deafening and shows graphic injuries to U.S. soldiers, and dead Iraqi men, women and children. A flashback shows an Iraqi child shot along with his insurgent father. Homefront scenes include fights, gunplay, drinking, smoking and a suicide theme. There is strong profanity, some sexual language and innuendo. "Stop-Loss" is not really for under-17s.
"Doomsday" -- The cool idea in this futuristic British action/horror flick is that a new Hadrian's Wall keeps barbaric hordes out of England, circa 2035. The barbarians dress like Punk rockers, but fight in medieval armor and (here's the movie-killer) practice cannibalism. So "Doomsday" is, after all, just a celebration of bloody mayhem. We learn that an Ebola-like virus decimated Britain in our era. The uninfected were confined to London. In 2035 a new outbreak leads government bigwigs to send a tough security officer (Rhona Mitra) to check out the violent, immune survivors in Scotland. Along with graphic violence, the R reflects strong profanity, partial nudity, sexual innuendo and smoking. Not for under-17s.
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