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JANE HORWITZ - FAMILY FILMGOER |
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``Charlotte's Web'' (G, 1 hr., 38 min.) ``Eragon'' (PG, 1 hr., 39 min.) Kids 10-to-14 may dive right into the ``Dungeons & Dragons" setting of ``Eragon,'' maintaining interest while keeping the jerky narrative and unpoetical names straight -- even if they haven't read the book by Christopher Paolini. To anyone older, however, ``Eragon" will probably play like ``Harry Potter''-lite. Even the music sounds warmed over. The teenage hero, Eragon (Edward Speleers), a farm lad from the mythical land of Alagaesia, finds a dragon's egg while hunting. It hatches and grows quickly into the dragon Saphira (voice of Rachel Weisz), who talks with Eragon telepathically. He learns he is fated to usher in a new age as a Dragon Rider who will defeat brutal King Galbatorix (John Malkovich), his sorcerer, Durza (Robert Carlyle), and their minions. The king and Durza plot to kill Eragon first, of course. A lovely warrior, Arya (Sienna Guillory), and a wizened former Dragon Rider, Brom ( Jeremy Irons, who nearly makes it all worth watching), aid Eragon. The battles with demon warriors, their faces swarming with bugs, imply impalements and arrow-piercings, but injuries are rarely shown, apart from an occasional bloodless gash. A nongraphic scene (but with screams) implies that soldiers torture a man. There are cool/scary flights on Saphira, with Eragon holding on for dear life. When newly hatched, Saphira eats a rat, mostly off-camera. ``The Pursuit of Happyness" (PG-13, 1 hr., 57 min.) Will Smith and his enchanting real-life son Jaden play a father and son fighting poverty and homelessness in San Francisco, circa 1980 in ``The Pursuit of Happyness.'' (The misspelled title echoes graffiti in the film.) This is a wonderfully made movie in every respect. Based on (with much fictionalization) the experiences of real-life entrepreneur Chris Gardner, it shows what life can be like in America when someone reaches the end of their financial rope. PLOT GIVEAWAY: Chris eventually gets a break; his hard work finally gets him noticed and he climbs out of a hole from which many never emerge. The film's unvarnished realism and gripping story will impress teens -- especially high-schoolers. The PG-13 rating reflects rare profanity (including the F-word as a graffito and spoken by a child), smoking, the depiction of a tense, disintegrating marriage, a scene in which Chris gives blood for cash, and others in which he and his son spend nights in a dank city shelter for homeless men and in a subway men's room. There is some shoving and shouting, but no real violence. Smart and a go-getter, but always struggling to feed his family and get out of debt, Chris sells medical equipment on commission and business is bad. His wife (Thandie Newton) loses faith in him and leaves. He talks his way into a training program for stockbrokers, but it is unpaid and he and his son are evicted. A man of amazing spirit, he fights despair and wins. P.S. FOR TEENS: If you're open to foreign films and you like ``Pursuit of Happyness," you might be interested in a 1948 Italian movie called ``The Bicycle Thief.'' (Try to see it in the original Italian, with English subtitles.) Like ``Pursuit of Happyness," it is also about the relationship between a father and his little son as the dad struggles to keep them out of poverty. Set in Rome soon after World War II, it is one of the best, simplest and most humane movies ever made. It could set you on the path to becoming a true film buff. BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME -- 6 AND OLDER: ``Charlotte's Web" G (NEW) (Entertaining, if not sublime, semi-Hollywoodized adaptation of E.B. White's beloved 1952 book -- live-action but with computer-generated effects -- about a piglet, Wilbur (voice of Dominic Scott Kay), rescued from slaughter (because he's a runt; we see the farmer carrying an ax) by a little farm girl, Fern (Dakota Fanning) who must leave him into a neighbor's barn, where he is first befriended by the spider, Charlotte (Julia Roberts), and eventually by Oprah Winfrey and Cedric the Entertainer as geese Gussy and Golly, Kathy Bates and Reba McEntire as cows Bitsy and Betsy, Robert Redford as the spider-phobic horse, Ike, and Steve Buscemi as the rat, Templeton, among others; Charlotte, too, saves Wilbur from the ax by weaving a message, ``some pig," into her web, which humans find miraculous; tale still brings a tear at the end when Charlotte passes on. Mildly crude barnyard expressions; cow-flatulence humor; subtle references to the slaughter of pigs, including the little girl's father carrying an ax, and the smokehouse.) -- 7 AND OLDER: ``Happy Feet" PG (Computer-animated fable spends its first two acts as a glorious, funny, touching penguin pop musical celebrating diversity; act three morphs into a grim screed about human encroachment on the birds' Antarctic habitat; despite a happy ending, it feels like two films; Mumble (voice of Elijah Wood), a fledgling Emperor penguin, doesn't have the singing voice, or ``heartsong," crucial to finding a mate; instead, he's driven to tap dance and his colony rejects him; he finds comical friends among an Adelie colony (led by Robin Williams as Ramon) of Latino penguins; sad about losing the love of silver-throated Gloria (Brittany Murphy) at his home colony, he treks off to learn why the fish supply is shrinking and encounters humans. Scary bits include looming ships, huge fishing nets and debris; extra-scary scenes show leopard seals, killer whales, birds of prey bursting out of water or swooping down at Mumble; a penguin nearly asphyxiates as a plastic six-pack holder tightens on his neck. Intense for many kids under 7, some under 8.) -- 10 AND OLDER: ``Eragon" PG (NEW) (Rather silly, warmed over mythic ``Dungeons & Dragons" tale (from Christopher Paolini's book) -- live-action with added special effects -- about teenager Eragon (Edward Speleers), who finds a dragon's egg, sees it hatch and grow into the flying beast, Saphira (voice of Rachel Weisz), and realizes he is destined to be a Dragon Rider, taking her into battle against an evil king (John Malkovich) and sorcerer (Robert Carlyle); a wise ex-Dragon Rider (Jeremy Irons) and a lovely elf warrior (Sienna Guillory) help him. Battles with demons, their faces swarming with bugs; implied impalements and arrow-piercings, nongraphic except for an occasional bloodless gash; nongraphic scene (with screams) implies soldiers torture a man; cool/scary, swooping flights on Saphira; newly-hatched Saphira eats a rat, mostly off-camera.) ``Unaccompanied Minors" PG (Thudding, ethically shaky farce about tweens traveling alone, stranded in an airport during a Christmas Eve blizzard and raising cain -- running up bills they can't cover, taking stuff from unclaimed bags and escaping the furious airport official (Lewis Black) trying to keep track of them; one boy (Dyllan Christopher) aims to get to a hotel where his little sister (Dominique Saldana) has been sent with the ``good" kids. Car explosion and realistic chases might unnerve under-10s who would like the silliness otherwise; adults come off as mean and/or idiotic; one grown-up is shown drunk; semi-crude humor; kids discuss pain, loneliness of having divorced parents.) ``The Nativity Story" PG (Reverent, understated dramatization (based on gospels of Matthew and Luke) of the story of Mary, Joseph and the birth of Jesus; good actors, authentic-looking settings, and a fervent yet non-proselytizing tone will move believers, but won't put off non-Christians. In Massacre of the Innocents, a soldier draws his sword and a parent weeps over a dead child -- nothing graphic shown; pained talk among Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes), her family and intended husband Joseph (Oscar Isaac) about her pregnancy -- at first they doubt her claims of virginity and divine intervention; crowd threatens to stone her; dead prisoners shown bound to trees, crucified; a snake startles Mary's donkey; labor pains. Kids need good concentration for this slow, quiet film.) ``Deck the Halls" PG (Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick waste time and electricity as neighbors who feud over one guy's (DeVito) glitzy Christmas lights in a crass, throwaway comedy. Mild, but occasionally naughty sexual innuendo: not-quite-naked cheesecake poster, a boy spying on pretty teenage twins, a joke hinting that a man's privates are slipping out of his briefs, homophobic humor, references to sheriff being a cross-dresser (bra and thong peek above his uniform), teen girls do a mildly sexy dance at a holiday fest and their dads, not recognizing them, cheer as though they were strippers; gross gags; rare mild profanity; irreverent use of holy water; speed skating pileup.) -- PG-13s: ``The Pursuit of Happyness" (NEW) (Will Smith stars as a down-on-his-luck family man scrambling to get out of debt and land a decent job in 1980s San Francisco in beautiful, refreshingly unHollywood film; Smith's real-life son Jaden plays his film son, with Thandie Newton as the despondent wife and mom who leaves them; a gripping, unvarnished look at being one paycheck away from life on the street; loosely based on the life of entrepreneur Chris Gardner. Rare profanity, including the F-word as a graffito and spoken by a child; smoking; depiction of a tense, disintegrating marriage; scenes in which Chris gives blood for cash and in which he and his son spend nights in a city shelter for homeless men and in a subway restroom; some shoving and shouting but no violence. Teens.) ``The Holiday" (Utterly phony but quite watchable (pretty people, pretty locales) romantic comedy may delight sentimental high-schoolers; a shy London magazine writer (Kate Winslet) and a self-absorbed Los Angeles producer of film trailers (Cameron Diaz, mugging rather than acting), eager to escape wretched love lives, arrange via a Web site to swap houses over Christmas; the English girl meets a nice composer (Jack Black) in L.A.; the L.A. girl meets the English girl's dishy brother (Jude Law). One couple starts an affair minutes after meeting; no sexual situations apart from semi-passionate kisses and bedroom cuddles; sex discussed, but in muted, nonexplicit language; brief allusion to suicide; rare profanity; sexual innuendo; drinking. Not for middle-schoolers.) ``Deja Vu" (Denzel Washington rules the screen as an ATF agent investigating the bombing of a crowded New Orleans ferry in nifty if preposterous thriller that mixes suspense, humanism, faith and physics; via a new, time-bending surveillance technology, he views the last days of one apparent victim (Paula Patton), hoping to trace the bomber through her. Ferry explosion is harrowing, people hurled overboard, some on fire -- no graphic deaths, injuries; point-blank shootings; car chases, crashes; emergency-room defibrillation; drowning; sexual innuendo, some of it semi-crude (joke hinting at gay sex in prison); implied nudity; rare profanity; drug reference. Violence, domestic terror themes too intense for some middle-schoolers.) ``Casino Royale" (Daniel Craig as an arresting, rough-edged James Bond, newly licensed to kill and capable of mistakes, in long but snappy spy thriller; film departs from traditions (gadgetry, sly repartee) and uses telling bits of realpolitik (child guerrilla fighters in Africa), but is also quite violent; villain is a banker (Mads Mikkelsen) to terrorists whom Bond plans to bankrupt in a high-stakes poker game; a gorgeous money minder (Eva Green) from boss, M (Judi Dench), tags along. Bone-snapping fights, gunplay, drowning, poisoning, animal fight; prolonged torture scene strongly implies a captive, naked Bond (seated, seen from side) is struck on his privates; steamy, nongraphic love scenes; scantily clad women; drinking. Iffy for middle-schoolers.) -- R's: ``Blood Diamond" (Terrific thriller -- ultraviolent and tough to watch, but riveting -- tackles issue of ``conflict diamonds" mined and smuggled in Africa's war zones, sold to pay for brutal guerrilla fighters or corrupt regimes and mercenaries; Leonardo DiCaprio as a hardened white Zimbabwean smuggler; Djimon Hounsou as a fisherman forced by guerrillas to mine diamonds; the smuggler (DiCaprio) offers to help him get his son (Caruso Kuypers) back from guerrillas who abducted the boy to be a child fighter in exchange for a rare pink stone the fisherman hid before escaping the mine; Jennifer Connolly as a journalist eager to expose the trade, demanding the smuggler take a stand. Bloody point-blank shootings, hacking of men, women, children; implication that limbs are chopped off; strong profanity; smoking, drinking. Too bloody for under-17s.) ``Apocalypto" (Mel Gibson's wholly involving, visually ravishing, ultraviolent thriller set during last days of Mayan empire in Central America, nearly 500 years ago, using all indigenous actors; told mostly from viewpoint of a hunter (Rudy Youngblood) who struggles with mythic intensity to escape captivity of brutal troops from a Mayan city who overrun his village, so he can rescue his hidden wife and son. Graphically, gaspingly violent (a Gibson trademark); children being hurt; a hard childbirth; implied attempted rapes; partial nudity; sexual innuendo; rare profanity. In Mayan dialect with subtitles. 17 and older.) ``The History Boys" (LIMITED RELEASE) (Wonderfully performed, unstagy adaptation of Alan Bennett's smart, funny, bittersweet play with original London cast; brainy boys from blue collar homes in 1980s England prep for exams to get into Oxford and Cambridge, tutored by a flawed but brilliant older teacher (Richard Griffiths) who believes in knowledge for its own sake and a new history instructor (Stephen Campbell Moore) who teaches them to ace tests with slick answers. Steaming profanity; explicit sexual language; nonjudgmental theme about a teacher's inappropriate touching of older boys (one scene subtly implies it) and another teacher's attraction to a boy; discussion among boys of sex -- they seem more worldly than their teachers. More for college kids.) |
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