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Family Film Reviews

Jane Horwitz

"Eagle Eye" (PG-13, 1 hr., 58 min.)

What begins as a breathless thriller with an intriguing central mystery degenerates into digitally enhanced car crashes and a phony-baloney finale in "Eagle Eye." Yet despite its flaws, the movie has strong performances by co-stars Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan and, in a goofy way, lays out for teens the conflict over how to fight terrorism without giving up our own rights in the process. It also argues the importance of on-the-ground human intelligence in this satellite age. Yes, "Eagle Eye" deals with all those ideas, though it's a miracle they are not lost amid the souped-up action and shiny black government SUVs.

Padded out to nearly two hours with all the spectacular destruction of property (human casualties are mostly implied, not graphic), the movie is a midrange PG-13 and OK for most middle-schoolers. The mayhem also features gunplay, fights, explosions, and a key subplot about small children in danger. It contains some profanity and drinking.

The coolest element of "Eagle Eye" is the existential dread it creates early on. In a prologue, the American military strikes at an Afghan terror cell after using technology to help gauge whether they'd be blowing up a funeral or an actual meeting. Back in the USA, Chicago copy store employee Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) learns of his twin brother's death in a car accident. Jerry is a college dropout who owes back rent, while his brother was elite military and the "gifted" one. After the funeral, Jerry is stunned to find his usually empty bank account flush and his apartment full of weapons. A mystery cell phone caller orders him to follow directions or die. The FBI busts in and grabs him. His interrogator, Agent Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton), believes Jerry's a terrorist. Soon (never mind how) Jerry's on the run. At the same time, single mom Rachel (Monaghan) sees her little boy Sam (Cameron Boyce) off on a trip to Washington with his school band. She gets a call that Sam is in danger, unless she follows orders, too. She and Jerry cross paths and team up, following a disembodied voice on their phones, which is able to control them and everything around them.

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Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"Igor" (PG) (NEW) -- Too gloomy and self-consciously clever, this computer-animated feature doesn't seem to know who its audience is. Full of oddball creatures inspired by classic monster flicks, it is mildly amusing, but isn't hilarious or heartfelt enough to overcome the creepiness factor and may be too much for kids under 8. The script is full of gags geared to adults -- a bad guy named Dr. Schadenfreude, for example. The title character is a humpbacked lab assistant in Malaria, a land of monsters and evil scientists. Igor (voice of John Cusack) longs to create his own monster. Neither he nor his colleagues -- Scamper (Steve Buscemi), a skeletal bunny, and Brain (Sean Hayes), a cognitive organ in a jar with arms and legs -- show enough heart to win kids' love. When Igor's boss blows himself up, Igor takes over, and with Brain and Scamper builds his monster, Eva (Molly Shannon). To their horror, she turns out to be nice, and thanks to a wrong video played at the "brain wash," she thinks she's an actress. Igor's competition at the Evil Science Fair is Dr. Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard), who, with his shape-shifting sidekick (Jennifer Coolidge), will stop at nothing. The script contains crude phrases, toilet humor, spoofs of monster movies that might scare little kids on a big screen, a chase, and a tasteless running gag about blind kids.

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-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

"Eagle Eye" (NEW) -- What begins as a breathless thriller with an intriguing mystery degenerates into too many digitally enhanced car crashes and a phony-baloney finale. Yet despite its flaws, "Eagle Eye" has strong performances and, in its goofy way, can illustrate for teens the debate over how to fight terrorism without giving up our rights. In a prologue, the American military strikes at an Afghan terror cell. Back in the U.S., Chicago copy store employee, Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf), learns of his twin brother's death. His brother was elite military and the "gifted" one. After the funeral, Jerry is stunned to find his bank account suddenly flush and his apartment full of weapons. A mystery cell phone caller orders him to follow directions or else. The FBI grabs him, and their lead agent (Billy Bob Thornton) is sure Jerry's a terrorist. Soon (never mind how) Jerry's on the run. Single mom Rachel (Monaghan) sees her little boy (Cameron Boyce) off on a trip with his school band. She gets a call that he will die unless she follows orders. She and Jerry cross paths and team up to obey the voice, all else being out of their control. Casualties are mostly implied, not graphic. The mayhem includes gunplay, fights, explosions, and many children in danger. There is some profanity and drinking. OK for most middle-schoolers.

"Lakeview Terrace" -- A psychopathic neighbor ruins everyone's day in this unpleasant thriller. Some humor and a lighter touch would have made it tolerable. Samuel L. Jackson brings his meanest glower to southern California cop Abel Turner, a widower who rules his two kids (Regine Nehy and Jaishon Fisher) with rock-ribbed strictness. He takes an instant dislike to Chris (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa (Kerry Washington), who move in next door, partly because they are an interracial couple. His hostility grows after his kids glimpse them making love (nonexplicitly) in their pool. Veiled threats, then outright harassment lead to a violent finale as a brush fire threatens the subdivision (metaphor alert!). The film includes bloody shootings, a hostage situation, suicide threats, strong profanity, sexual slang and innuendo, subtle verbal references to child molestation, a bachelor party with scantily clad women and suggestive dancing, drinking and smoking. Too violent and sexualized for middle-schoolers.

"Ghost Town" -- A kind of modern secular riff on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," "Ghost Town" is funny from start to finish. Bertram Pincus, D.D.S. (the great British comic Ricky Gervais) is a total sourpuss. He's rude to everyone, including his patients, and leads a friendless life in Manhattan. Then, after a routine colonoscopy, he starts seeing ghosts. He thinks he's hallucinating, till the hospital admits that he "died" for several minutes under anesthesia -- hence his link to the Other Side. The pushiest spirit is the dapper Frank (Greg Kinnear), a faithless husband in life, who wants to make it up to his widow, Egyptologist Gwen (Tea Leoni), by having Bertram save her from marrying a prig (Billy Campbell). The film includes some strong profanity, jokes about a mummy's penis, a drink called a "screaming orgasm," other milder sexual innuendo, implied nonsexual nudity, a gag about nitrous oxide, and toilet humor. OK for most teens.

"Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys" -- Writer/director Tyler Perry's latest melodrama sprawls all over the place, but it's a character-rich tale acted by a fine cast, so it entertains despite sermons, cliches and predictable turns. Millionaire Charlotte Cartwright (Kathy Bates) and hardworking cafe owner Alice Pratt (Alfre Woodard) are best friends. Alice's daughter Andrea (Sanaa Lathan), obsessed with money and status, cheats on her construction worker husband (Rockmond Dunbar) with her developer boss, William (Cole Hauser), who is also Charlotte's no-good son. Charlotte and Alice take a "Thelma & Louise" (R, 1991) style car trip that combines partying, faith, and a sad secret. The film has midrange sexual innuendo, infidelity and suicide themes, drinking, and a moment of marital violence. A mild PG-13, it's fine for most teens.

"The Women" -- While it doesn't achieve that fast, acerbic 1930s chatter, this update of Clare Boothe Luce's iconic 1936 play (and the 1939 film) is still a soaper with edge. The women now all have careers and a bit of diversity. Mary (Meg Ryan) designs clothes, has a rich husband, a 12-year-old daughter (India Ennenga) and a fabulous home. When she learns hubby has a mistress (Eva Mendes), moral support comes from pals Sylvie (Annette Bening), a fashion editor; Edie (Debra Messing), an earth mother; Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith), a lesbian writer; and Mary's chic mom (Candice Bergen). Some teen girls will like this personality-driven feast of dishing and fine clothes. It includes profanity, a crude bit of sexual innuendo and other milder innuendo, marijuana, drinking, an adult having a frank talk about sex with a tween girl, and references to the girl smoking cigarettes (we don't see her do it). There is a long but nongraphic childbirth scene.

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-- R's:

"Miracle at St. Anna" (NEW) -- A modern murder, a marble relic, Italy during World War II, and the Jim Crow South are all key to "Miracle at St. Anna," and that's too much. Spike Lee's adaptation of James McBride's novel engages us emotionally at times, but the story is overloaded and unclear. In a prologue, an aging New York postal clerk shoots a grizzled customer dead. A cop (John Turturro) and a reporter (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) try to find out why. Then we're back in the war. Four African-American soldiers from the 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division get separated from their unit and hide out in a Tuscan village, mingling with locals and anti-fascist partisans. Staff Sergeant Stamps (Derek Luke) is the leader. Sergeant Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), the ladies' man, objects to fighting white America's war. (A flashback shows the soldiers at a southern Army base, where German POWs were treated better than they were.) Corporal Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) speaks Italian. Cognitively disabled Private Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller) befriends an Italian boy (Matteo Sciabordi). There is very graphic battlefield gore and a harrowing depiction of townsfolk gunned down by German soldiers, with the implication that a baby is bayoneted. There is profanity, seminudity, a sexual situation and innuendo, smoking and drinking. Not for under-17s.

"My Best Friend's Girl" (NEW) -- Vile, exploitative, misanthropic, sexist -- all words that fit this nasty piece of work, which is as graphic in its sexual language as an R-rated movie can get, though less so in its depiction of sexual situations. But the worst thing about "My Best Friend's Girl" is the way it dehumanizes sex. Dane Cook plays Tank, a male chauvinist pig who hires himself out to pals who pay him to date their estranged girlfriends and treat them so badly that they go running back to their exes. Tank's roommate Dustin (Jason Biggs) is in love with Alexis (Kate Hudson), but she wants to stay just-friends. So Dustin asks Tank to do his worst on her. This time, of course, Tank has met his match. The movie hints that Tank is damaged goods because his dad (Alec Baldwin) is also a heartless pig, but it's unconvincing. In addition to graphic language, the film includes seminude dancers, suggestive dancing, sexual situations, strong profanity, homophobic slurs, pot, cigarettes and drinking. Not for under-17s.

"Righteous Kill" -- Al Pacino and Robert De Niro co-star as tough New York homicide detectives in this transparently manipulative, but highly watchable crime drama. Someone, perhaps a cop, is committing revenge murders of bad guys who have escaped justice. Partners Turk (De Niro) and Rooster (Pacino) set about trying to find the perp, but right off we learn they have their own secrets. The film sets up too many red herrings and has little or no surprise in its finale, but it's still fun as a lesser example of the hardboiled cop genre. It contains point-blank shootings, grisly photos of crime victims, steaming profanity, sexual slang, racial slurs and stereotypes, explicit sexual situations, some with a sadomasochistic theme, drugs and drinking. Clearly not for anyone under 17.

"Burn After Reading" -- Five people with granola for brains get themselves into trouble over nothing in this tragicomedy by the happily off-center Joel and Ethan Coen. Some will find the film mean-spirited. Others (The Family Filmgoer included) will chortle over the cleverly tangled yarn. John Malkovich plays Ozzie, a pompous CIA analyst who loses his job. A health club employee (Frances McDormand) and her vacuous co-worker (Brad Pitt) come into possession of a disc with Ozzie's angry memoirs on it and try to blackmail him. Ozzie's chilly wife (Tilda Swinton) plans to divorce him and is having an affair with a Treasury Department guy (George Clooney). Soon all five are on a collision course. There are two scenes of strong violence, a briefly explicit sexual situation, much implied marital infidelity, a crude visual sex joke, strong profanity, and drinking. For 17 and older.

(c) 2008, Washington Post Writers Group.

This news arrived on: 09/25/2008

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