"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (PG-13, 1 hr., 43 min.)

If teens want a chilling sci-fi experience, they should skip this poorly conceived remake and get ahold of the 1951 original, which scared many a baby boomer out of his or her bloomin' wits. Good writing is replaced in the new film with computer-generated effects. Even seeing this one in its giant-screen IMAX version won't improve the incomplete script.

In the original film, a spaceship landed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and the humanoid Klaatu (Michael Rennie) emerged, along with his protector, the robot Gort. Eventually, Klaatu warned humanity that unless they stopped making war and testing horrendous new weapons, they would be obliterated in order to keep the universe at peace. In 1951, with the specter of nuclear war, the movie's stern warning seemed like a message from the Almighty.

In the remake, the "spaceship" is an enormous glowing sphere, not a rinky-dink flying saucer thing. It lands not in Washington, but in New York's Central Park. And Klaatu sheds a kind of gelatinous outer shell before taking on human form (actor Keanu Reeves). Yet with all the bells and whistles, this new movie lacks the emotional and intellectual weight of the original film. There's never a sense that anything's at stake. Klaatu never really explains whether pollution or war bothers him the most about humankind.

Princeton biologist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) is commandeered by the Feds, along with other scientists, to help the government assess the nature of the invasion. The secretary of defense (Kathy Bates) is certain Klaatu means harm and is ready to mobilize for war. Meanwhile, Helen and her stepson (Jaden Smith) spend time with Klaatu, trying to convince him people are worth saving. The best thing in the film is the robotic Gort, who's very much like the one in the first film, but way cooler in the way he can zap with light and sound rays.

The film shows nongraphic images of destruction, but there are also a few scenes in which people are hurt or killed, with some blood. There's a graphic surgical incision. A child grieves over a dead parent. The idea of wiping out humanity, even in a bad film, could scare preteens.

Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:

"Bolt" PG -- If it weren't for a very funny hamster, "Bolt" wouldn't be much of a star in the universe of animated film. It's full of jokes that kids won't get and packs little emotional punch. Bolt (voice of John Travolta) is the canine star of a TV series who believes he's got real superpowers. When he's mistakenly shipped to New York in a crate, Bolt escapes and meets a smart-aleck street kitty named Mittens (Susie Essman). As they trek back to Hollywood, Bolt realizes he's not a superhero. Not until they meet a hamster named Rhino (Mark Walton), who's a nerdy fan of Bolt's show, does the film take off. When Rhino is on-screen, "Bolt" is funny and kids stop fidgeting. Younger kids may worry when Bolt and his little-girl co-star Penny (voice of Miley Cyrus) are caught in a fire.

"Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" PG -- This deliciously dizzy animated sequel has mildly earthy humor aimed at older audiences, but also plenty of raucous slapstick and wit to delight kids 6 and older. Alex the lion (voice of Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer), and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) -- along with a passel of penguins -- escaped from the Central Park Zoo and wound up in Madagascar in the first film. Now they try to fly home in a rattletrap plane, joined by King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen), the dance-crazy Madagascar lemur. They crash into an African nature preserve, where Alex finds his father, Zuba (the late Bernie Mac). (In a brief, scary prologue we see how Alex as a cub was stolen by poachers, who shot Zuba in the ear.) There is mild sexual innuendo and someone nearly falls into a volcano.

-- OK FOR KIDS 10 AND OLDER:

"Delgo" PG (NEW) -- There's a lot of clever visual imagination at work in this animated feature from outside Hollywood's mainstream. "Delgo" is a story of mythic pretensions and can be quite stunning. But the film may be too violent for under-10s and too storybook for over-13s. The battles are boring and the jokes as flat as old 7UP, but the film's color palette and creatures -- from flying dinosaur things to teeny buzzing critters to a monster that looks like a giant dust mite -- offer a lot to see. It's just not enough to save the convoluted story. Set in a distant time, "Delgo" is about two races of beings, the winged Nohrin and the earthbound Lockni, who have kinetic powers. The Nohrin and Lockni used to live in peace, but the Nohrin King's (voice of Louis Gossett Jr.) evil sister (the late Anne Bancroft) started a war. She was exiled, but is plotting to start a new war and to take her brother's throne. Unaware of all this are a clever Lockni teen named Delgo (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and a smart Nohrin princess, Kyla (Jennifer Love Hewitt). They meet and nearly start a romance, but grudges they've been taught to hold keep souring the mood. Yet when violence breaks out and Princess Kyla is abducted, Delgo and his pal Filo (Chris Kattan) ally with the honorable Nohrin general Bogardus (Val Kilmer) to save her and stop the war. There are a couple of implied sword impalements, a poisoning, someone falling to their death, and a flashback in which little Delgo witnesses the murder of his parents during the first war -- none of it graphic.

-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (NEW) -- If teens want a chilling sci-fi experience, they should skip this poorly conceived remake and get ahold of the 1951 version. Good writing is replaced here with computer-generated effects. In the original film, a spaceship landed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and the humanoid Klaatu emerged to warn humanity that unless they stopped making war they would be obliterated to keep peace in the universe. In 1951, with the Cold War and nuclear weapons testing, the movie seemed like a message from On High. In the remake, the "spaceship" is an enormous glowing sphere and it lands in New York's Central Park. Not humanoid at first, Klaatu sheds a gelatinous outer layer before taking on the form of actor Keanu Reeves. Yet with all the bells and whistles, this new version exudes no sense that anything real is at stake. Jennifer Connelly plays a biologist, Helen Benson, enlisted by the Feds to assess the alien invasion. The secretary of defense (Kathy Bates) is ready for war, but Helen and her stepson (Jaden Smith) spend time with Klaatu, Helen trying to convince him to spare humanity. The best thing in the film is Klaatu's robot -- part guard, part destroyer -- who's like the one, Gort, in the first film, but way cooler in the way it zaps stuff. The film shows nongraphic images of destruction, but there are also scenes in which people are hurt or killed, with some blood. There's a graphic surgical incision. A child grieves over a dead parent. The idea of wiping out humanity could scare preteens.

"Nothing Like the Holidays" (NEW) -- In the tired genre of films about families driving one another nuts at Christmas, this is a better-than-average example. Dreary title aside, "Nothing Like The Holidays" features a wonderful cast of mostly Latino actors and a script full of cultural -- particularly Puerto Rican -- touch points. The acting rises above the cliches. Set in Chicago, the movie visits the Rodriguez clan, led by patriarch Edy (Alfred Molina) and matriarch Anna (Elizabeth Pena). Their soldier son Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez) is just back from Iraq and longs to see his ex-girlfriend (Melonie Diaz). Their lawyer son Mauricio (John Leguizamo) and his financier wife Sarah (Debra Messing) have no kids yet and Anna wants to know why. Anna also stuns them all by announcing she plans to divorce Edy. Mauricio tries to make his parents reconcile. Sarah, the outsider, tries to bond with her prickly mother-in-law. The film contains midrange profanity, sexual innuendo, a threat of gang violence, a fistfight, drinking and implied marijuana use. OK for teens.

"Doubt" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- High-schoolers who like stories rich in characters and moral complexity ought to be pulled right into this atmospheric film. John Patrick Shanley has adapted and directed his prize-winning play for the screen. There's nary a curse word or sex scene, but the theme is mature. Meryl Streep plays Sister Aloysius, a cantankerous, opinionated principal of a Catholic grammar school in the Bronx, circa 1964. She suspects a new priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), of molesting (though the word is never used) an altar boy (Joseph Foster), the only African-American child in the school, under the guise of befriending him. With a naive young nun (Amy Adams) in her corner, Sister Aloysius confronts the priest, who denies it utterly. A riveting battle of wills ensues. There is mention of the boy's father beating him. Priests smoke and drink, and a boy briefly smokes.

"Transporter 3" -- Jason Statham is still fun to watch as the grimly macho Frank Martin, a stoic ex-Special Forces type who delivers packages around Europe for a fee, no questions asked -- unless his "employers" turn out to be villains. Then he gets 'em. This time Frank is shanghaied into transporting a mysterious young woman (annoyingly played by Natalya Rudakova) to Eastern Europe. That ties in with a Ukrainian environmental minister (Jeroen Krabbe) being blackmailed by a polluter. The cool chases, stunts and martial arts fights are mostly nonlethal. We do see people killed by a biohazard, their faces burned. There are relatively bloodless point-blank shootings, explosions, an implied sexual situation with partial undress, some sexual language and innuendo, rare profanity, drinking and drug use. More for high-schoolers.

"Australia" -- Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman give big, starry performances to match director Baz Luhrmann's grandly entertaining film. Woven somberly into the story is the historic mistreatment of Australian aboriginal people and mixed-race children. Set at the start of World War II, it is narrated by a half-indigenous/half-white boy named Nullah (excellent Brandon Walters), who recounts how prissy Lady Sarah (Kidman) came to Australia from England to find her absent husband on the cattle ranch he had rashly bought. She learns he's been murdered, so she fires the ranch's corrupt manager (David Wenham) and hires a free-spirited cowboy named Drover (Jackman). Sarah and Drover fall in love, of course. The film shows a man trampled to death, a bombing raid, rifle and spear killings, children in danger, and a boy's mother drowning, all nongraphic. There is drinking, smoking, an implied affair, hints that aboriginal women are sexually abused by white men, racial slurs and rare profanity. OK for teens.

"Four Christmases" -- It's hard to imagine teen audiences liking this sour holiday comedy about an insufferable couple forced to visit families they can't stand, yet it's big at the box office. Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) take luxury trips at Christmas to avoid their families. Children of divorce, they fear marriage and kids. When their flight is canceled and their parents see them on a news story about travel delays, they're trapped. Both sets of parents have remarried, which means four compulsory Christmas visits -- the worst with Brad's cynical dad (Robert Duvall) and macho siblings (Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw), then with Kate's mom (Mary Steenburgen), who makes them play Mary and Joseph in a Christmas play. Toss in the baby spit-up jokes and "Four Christmases" feels like eight. There is sexual innuendo, profanity, smoking, drinking, homophobic humor and a marijuana joke. More for high-schoolers.

"Twilight" -- Teens who love Stephanie Meyer's vampire books will find much to swoon over in this moody adaptation of the first novel. The Goth-inspired bloodsuckers strike too many fashion-model poses and the story verges at times on silliness, but more often "Twilight" is a poignant, occasionally thrilling meditation on the struggle between desire and restraint, love and sacrifice. Bella (Kristen Stewart) moves to a small town to live with her dad (Billy Burke). She is attracted to her pale, sullen high-school classmate, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), and learns he is a vampire. His "family" never drinks human blood -- they kill wildlife -- for moral reasons. Edward fears his feelings for Bella will weaken his willpower. There is understated sexual innuendo and one ordinary kiss. A final battle against rogue vampires involves blood, but is more about gravity-defying martial arts. Other vampire attacks are very understated.

-- R's:

"Frost/Nixon" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- High-schoolers who don't love history and politics may yawn through "Frost/Nixon," though it's pretty fascinating stuff to Americans of a certain age. Based on Peter Morgan's hit play, the film examines a famous series of TV interviews done in 1977 by David Frost with the disgraced former president, Richard Nixon. Director Ron Howard has filmed Morgan's script like an upscale docudrama, with secondary characters (played by Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell) talking to the camera at times, as if analyzing the events after the fact. Frost (Michael Sheen), the slick TV host and playboy, was deemed too much of a lightweight to get the wily Nixon (Frank Langella, jowly and deep-voiced, but not mimicking) to admit guilt in the Watergate scandal, but he did it. The film has strong profanity, brief graphic footage of Cambodian victims of American bombing, smoking, drinking and sexual innuendo.

"Punisher: War Zone" -- Ultraviolent, but a pretty good over-the-top crime thriller for high-schoolers 17 and up who like the gory genre, this new take on the Marvel Comics vigilante Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, is not for the queasy. Ray Stevenson plays Castle, a former FBI agent who's been taking out bad guys extralegally ever since his wife and kids were killed by the mob. This time he battles a gangster named Billy (Dominic West), whose face gets sliced up in a grinder, then monstrously patched. Billy now calls himself Jigsaw. Then there's Jigsaw's crazy, cannibalistic brother (Doug Hutchison). There is impalement, spurting blood and an implied beheading, strong profanity, an ethnic slur, sexual slang, drug use and a child shown with a gun held to her head. 17 and older.