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"Iron Man" (PG-13, 2 hrs.)
"Iron Man" is totally cool -- smartly written, crisply acted, elegantly designed, with gasp-inducing action sequences and even dashes of intellectual and moral heft. All that, based on a Marvel Comics character! True, the final face-off between robotic warriors seems too long, even with impressive effects. And yes, the ethnic stereotypes of jihadist warriors living in Afghan caves seem designed to stir up audiences. Yet the movie mostly steps back from jingoism, partly thanks to the approach of director Jon Favreau. Teens -- except those easily upset by battlefield scenes -- ought to revel in this slick flick about an arms merchant who has a moral epiphany.
Robert Downey Jr. is just plain terrific as weapons magnate Tony Stark, a wry, smart-alecky genius. The film follows his evolution from cynical weapons inventor (and hard-drinking playboy) to protector of innocents abroad. In Afghanistan to demonstrate new missiles to American troops, he's injured and taken captive by insurgents. A scientist (Shaun Toub) also held hostage, saves Tony's life by inserting an electromagnet into his chest to prevent shrapnel from entering his heart. While their captors order Tony and his new friend to build a missile from metal scraps, the two men instead create a robotic suit of armor. Tony dons it, mows down the fighters and escapes.
Back at his Malibu home, he announces he'll no longer sell weapons that can get into the hands of terrorists. His partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) objects. His military liaison (Terrence Howard) thinks he's crazy, and his devoted assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) marvels at his view. In his rockin' workshop, his magnetic "heart" aglow, Tony refines Iron Man into a shiny red fighting machine capable of supersonic flight with him in it.
The violence is thunderous and sometimes intense, but with little blood. There are point-blank shootings and brief, nightmarish images of surgery and implied torture. Pepper reaches into Tony's "heart" to replace a wire, which is gross. The film depicts parents and children in an Afghan village threatened at gunpoint. There is also rare profanity, a nongraphic sexual situation, mildish sexual innuendo and drinking.
For cinema buffs, the image of the Iron Man has its roots in an iconic 1920 German silent film, "The Golem," well worth checking out.
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BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME
-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND ODLER:
"Nim's Island" PG -- Jodie Foster proves a deft comic actress in this kid-friendly South Seas adventure. The film is ungainly, mixing a splintered live-action narrative with a few animated interludes, but most kids 8 and older will follow it easily. Abigail Breslin plays Nim, who lives in an island paradise with her widowed microbiologist dad Jack (Gerard Butler). She has a lizard, sea lion and pelican as pets and loves Alex Rover adventure books, not knowing they're penned by Alexandra Rover (Foster), an agoraphobic woman scared to step outside her house. Alex the writer e-mails Jack for book research. Nim answers while Jack is at sea, thinking she's e-mail chatting with Alex the book hero. A storm hits and Jack doesn't return. Frightened, Nim begs Alex to come. The timid writer is cajoled into going by her heroic alter ego (Butler again). Under-8s may be scared to see a man nearly lost at sea, a volcanic eruption and Nim hurt in a fall. There is toilet humor, and the sight of a pig roasting on a spit. Tired Arab stereotypes are used as villains in a brief fantasy.
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY PLUS A COOL PG DOCUMENTARY:
"Iron Man" is totally cool -- smartly written, crisply acted, elegantly designed, with gasp-inducing action and dashes of intellectual and moral heft. All that, based on a Marvel Comics character! True, the final face-off between robotic warriors is too long, and yes, the stereotype of jihadists in Afghan caves seems an easy premise. Yet the movie mostly steps back from jingoism. Robert Downey Jr. is just plain terrific as cynical weapons magnate Tony Stark. In Afghanistan to demonstrate missiles, he is shot and taken captive by insurgents. A scientist (Shaun Toub) also held hostage saves Tony's life by inserting an electromagnet in his chest to prevent shrapnel from entering his heart. The two men create a robotic suit of armor, which Tony dons to mow down the insurgents and escape. Back in Malibu, he announces he'll no longer sell weapons that can get into terrorist hands and pledges to protect the innocent. His partner (Jeff Bridges) and military liaison (Terrence Howard) thinks he's nuts. His assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), marvels at his new self. He refines Iron Man into a fighting machine capable of supersonic flight. The violence is thunderous, but nearly bloodless, though with point-blank shootings and images of surgery and implied torture. Pepper reaches into Tony's magnetic "heart" to replace a wire, which is gross. The film depicts Afghan families threatened at gunpoint and includes rare profanity, a nongraphic sexual situation, mild sexual innuendo and drinking. OK for teens who can handle war scenes.
"Young(at symbol)Heart" PG (NEW) -- Senior citizens in the Northampton, Mass., choral group Young(at symbol)Heart perform rock 'n' roll and R&B classics in this documentary, which could be a revelatory experience for teens. British documentarian Stephen Walker (whose voice-over narration occasionally lays on sentiment a little too thickly) follows the group, which has toured the world, through rehearsals leading up to a concert. During that time, two chorus members pass away, but the show goes on. The chorus does songs by the likes of James Brown ("I Got You/I Feel Good)"), The Clash ("Should I Stay or Should I Go"), Coldplay ("Fix You"), Sonic Youth ("Schizophrenia"), and Talking Heads ("Road to Nowhere"). These physically frail but mentally tough people in their 70s, 80s and 90s are dedicated to the music and to their demanding choral director Bob Cilman. It is deeply moving how the songs take on new meanings in the mouths of people nearing the end of life's journey.
"Baby Mama" -- Slightly bawdy, slightly off-center and far from perfect, this comedy will delight many high-schoolers. Tina Fey plays Kate, an executive who is 37, single, and determined to have a baby. Told she can't, she purchases frozen sperm and hires a surrogate mother, Angie (Amy Poehler). Angie is an undereducated junk-food-aholic with an idiot husband (Dax Shepard). They clash when Kate tries to clean up Angie's diet. With "Saturday Night Live" in both their DNAs, Fey and Poehler spar with great comic inspiration. Sigourney Weaver, Steve Martin and Romany Malco are a riot in supporting roles. Greg Kinnear charms as Kate's love interest, but their romance and the whole third act feel too pat. "Baby Mama" shines when it spoofs class snobbery and gooey ideas of parenthood. There is midrange profanity, occasionally R-ish sexual slang, toilet humor and drinking. A tad raunchy for middle-schoolers.
"The Visitor" (LIMITED RELEASE) -- A heartfelt little drama with quiet humor and subtle performances, "The Visitor" will win over high-schoolers who appreciate real acting. It may also challenge their ideas, with its harsh take on how our government deals with undocumented immigrants. But "The Visitor" is mainly a saga of unexpected friendship. Richard Jenkins plays Walter, a droopy, widowed economics professor who goes to stay at the New York apartment he rarely uses and finds a couple living there. Someone rented them the place illegally. They are a Syrian drummer (Haaz Sleiman) and his girlfriend (Danai Gurira), a Senegalese jewelry maker. Walter surprises himself by letting them stay. He even gets interested in drumming. When deportation looms, he tries to help. He and the drummer's worried mother (Hiam Abbass) have a mini-romance. "The Visitor" includes rare profanity, mild drinking, and a mild ethnic slur.
"The Forbidden Kingdom" -- Filled with gravity-defying martial arts, silly jokes, bright colors and bad wigs, "The Forbidden Kingdom" showcases kung-fu action heroes Jackie Chan and Jet Li in a hoot designed to bridge Eastern and Western tastes. The plot is often incomprehensible, but the movie is still a fun fantasy that teens and preteens will enjoy. The mayhem is stylized, and the blood drawn by sword, dagger and bullet is minimal. Jason (Michael A. Angarano), a South Boston teen and martial arts movie buff, is transfixed by a carved fighting staff in an old man's (Chan) shop. Local thugs rob and shoot the man and chase Jason, who falls off a building clutching the staff. He lands magically in ancient China, where he meets a drunken fighter, Lu Yan (Chan again) and a Silent Monk (Jet Li), who perform a terrific, plot-stopping stunt fight. The film includes mild sexual innuendo, ethnic slurs, toilet humor and much drinking.
"Prom Night" -- While we can celebrate the substitution of suspense for gore in this remake (the 1980 film starred Jamie Lee Curtis and was rated R), the new "Prom Night" feels just plain dumb. The way teen victims wander off so the psychopath can get them is hilariously obvious, even for a slasher flick. High-school senior Donna (Brittany Snow) still has nightmares about the home invasion and murder of her family, which she barely escaped. As she and her pals go with their dates to the prom, the cop (Idris Elba) who caught the killer (Johnathon Schaech) learns he has escaped. But does he warn her? Nooooo. The film features fairly stylized, nearly gore-free stabbings, sexual innuendo about spending post-prom night in a hotel, semi-crude sexual slang, the start of an understated sexual situation, teen drinking and rare profanity. Not for nightmare-prone teens.
-- R's:
"Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" (NEW) -- The political satire in this semi-obscene frat-house romp has a really clever edge, so it's too bad the film limits its audience with such fatiguing lewdness. A sequel to "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" (R, 2004; one DVD version is unrated), this installment again spoofs (and indeed celebrates) recreational drug use, and includes explicit sexual situations and language, frontal nudity, homophobic humor, strong profanity, ethnic slurs, and jokes about terrorism and incest. Success-motivated Harold (John Cho) and stoned slacker Kumar (Kal Penn), the former of Korean and the latter of Indian descent, get arrested and racially profiled on a flight to Amsterdam after Kumar lights up an electronic bong that looks rather like a bomb. An idiotic Homeland Security agent (Rob Corddry) has them sent to Guantanamo Bay. They escape and make their way back to clear their names (at least of terrorism), at one point hitching a ride with actor Neil Patrck Harris as himself, only high on mushrooms. SO not for under 17s.
"Deception" -- Everything about this glossy modernist thriller feels phony, from the Scottish and Australian leads affecting Americanese to the self-consciously twisty tale of greed, violence and lies. Its explicit sexuality and undercurrent of amorality make "Deception" iffy fare for under-17s. Ewan McGregor plays a shy accountant who meets a sly lawyer (Hugh Jackman). His new friend initiates him into a sex club for executives. It involves anonymous cell phone calls and late-night liaisons. Soon a young woman (Michelle Williams) goes missing and his new "friend" turns nasty. The movie uses stylized, but explicit sexual situations (in one instance rather rough), nudity, brief gun violence, dead bodies, sexual language and innuendo, profanity, drinking and smoking. Not for under-17s.
"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" -- Comic actor/writer Jason Segel, of the Judd Apatow school ("Knocked Up," R, 2007, and other such), has cast himself as the sad-sack leading man in this crass comedy about heartbreak. The film sets its tone right off the bat with repeated frontal male nudity. Segel plays Peter, a film and TV composer unable to grasp that his actress girlfriend Sarah (Kristen Bell) has dumped him. He accidentally on purpose follows her and her new rock-star love (Russell Brand) to Hawaii. The R reflects explicit sexual situations, strong sexual slang, explicit descriptions of sex acts, strong profanity, drug references, depression and infidelity themes, and drinking. Too sexually explicit and crude for under-17s.
"Street Kings" -- Keanu Reeves is somewhat miscast in this uneven attempt at hard-boiled urban crime drama as Tom, a depressed, hard-drinking Los Angeles undercover cop with an itchy trigger finger. He gets entangled in a corruption case that makes him look like a bad guy at some moments and a hero at others. Part of the confusion is "artistic," but there is a frustrating lack of clarity. There are bloody shootouts, a rape threat, strong profanity, sexual language, racial slurs, talk of child molesters, drugs, smoking and drinking. OK for 16 and up.
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