"I Love You, Beth Cooper" (PG13, 1 hr., 41 min.)

An awkward mix of fresh ideas and teen movie cliches, this comedy about losing one's virginity after high-school graduation (screenplay by Larry Doyle, based on his novel) feels like it's about to end several times. Then it just lumbers along some more. "I Love You, Beth Cooper" lacks essential charm, too, which is a near-fatal flaw.

Yet the movie has a promising opening, when valedictorian Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) gives his graduation speech. A nerdy, shy, unhandsome fellow, Denis takes his best friend Rich's (Jack Carpenter) dubious advice and bares his soul from the podium. He tells cheerleader Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere of TV's "Heroes") that he has loved her from afar for years. Then he looks pointedly at specific students in the audience and suggests they come clean about eating disorders, childhood sexual abuse, low self-esteem and other issues. This does not make him popular with teens or teachers.

After the ceremony, Beth Cooper's muscle-bound military boyfriend Kevin (Shawn Roberts) tries to clobber Denis. Beth and her gal pals (Lauren London and Lauren Storm) take pity on Denis and Rich and hang out with them all graduation night, flirting, drinking, driving recklessly (that's Beth's thing), and harassing poor movie-mad Rich about his ambiguous sexual orientation. All the while, Kevin and his goons are in pursuit. Veteran popcorn hit director Chris Columbus ("Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," PG, 2002; "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," PG, 2001; "Mrs. Doubtfire," PG-13, 1993; "Home Alone," PG, 1990) relies too heavily on slapstick mayhem here, and it detracts from the film's poignant examination of young love, sexual confusion and uncertainty about life in general.

There is much bawdy sexual innuendo that pushes the PG-13 rating well into R territory (yet again). This includes implied semi-nudity, profanity, crude toilet humor, a couple of implied sexual situations (including a threesome), teen drinking, sexual favors offered to a store clerk in return for selling them beer, semiexplicit jokes about erections and condoms, Denis' parents (Alan Ruck and Cynthia Stevenson) in partial undress, trysting in their car, a drug reference and teens in underwear. Really not for middle-schoolers.

Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" PG -- Prehistoric critters still use 21st-century slang and ageless slapstick in this third "Ice Age" feature. Like the others ("Ice Age," 2002, "Ice Age: The Meltdown," 2006, both PGs), "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" is funny, but not Pixar-transcendant. It's in 3-D, so kids may jump when an angry T. rex chases the heroes, or when a flesh-eating plant briefly swallows two of them. The old friends are still here -- Manny the mammoth (voice of Ray Romano), his pregnant mate Ellie (Queen Latifah), Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo), Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary), and Ellie's possum foster brothers Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck). Sid finds three large eggs that hatch into toothy dinosaur babies, and he, a vegetarian, can't handle them. (They eat other baby animals, but are forced to spit them back up, alive.) The dino-babies' real mom arrives, snatching them and Sid. His pals follow and discover a tropical glade full of dinosaurs. An even larger T. rex comes after them. The motley crew meets Buck (Simon Pegg), a swashbuckling weasel with an eye patch who has taken on the male T. rex before and offers to help. Scampering behind them is Scrat, the non-speaking squirrel-rat, still chasing the perfect acorn. This time he tangles -- and tangos -- with a seductive female, Scratte, over the precious nut. There's a creepy skeleton graveyard, occasional semi-crude humor and mild sexual jokes (about a butterfly "coming out," and turning "a T. rex into a T. rachel").

-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

I Love You, Beth Cooper" (NEW) -- An awkward mix of fresh ideas and teen movie cliches, this losing-one's-virginity-after-high-school comedy (screenplay by Larry Doyle, based on his novel) feels like it's about to end several times, then it lumbers along some more. It also lacks charm in a comedy-killing way. Yet it has a promising opening when valedictorian Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) gives his graduation speech. A nerdy, shy fellow, Denis bares his soul from the podium and tells cheerleader Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere of TV's "Heroes") he's loved her for years. He eyes other kids in the audience and urges them to confess to eating disorders, childhood sexual abuse and low self-esteem. This does not make him popular. Beth's muscle-bound boyfriend Kevin (Shawn Roberts) tries to beat Denis up repeatedly. Beth and her gal pals (Lauren London and Lauren Storm) take pity and hang out with Denis and his buddy Rich (Jack Carpenter) on graduation night, drinking, flirting, driving recklessly (that's Beth's thing) and harassing poor Rich about his vague sexual orientation. All this with Kevin and his goons in pursuit. Veteran director Chris Columbus relies too heavily on slapstick mayhem and it detracts from the film's poignant examination of young love, sexual confusion and uncertainty about life. There is much bawdy sexual innuendo that pushes the PG-13 rating well into R territory, implied near-nudity, profanity, crude toilet humor, a couple of implied nongraphic sexual situations (including a threesome), teen drinking, bribery (with sexual favors) of a convenience store clerk to sell them beer, fairly explicit jokes about erections and condoms, parents in partial undress trysting in their car, a drug reference and teens in underwear. Not for middle-schoolers.

"Whatever Works" (LIMITED RELEASE) -- Star Larry David's ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") lack of acting skill hobbles Woody Allen's latest -- moderately amusing -- film. David does sarcasm OK, but more is required. David plays one-time physicist and Nobel Prize also-ran Boris Yellnikoff, a depressive New Yorker who insults everyone -- even kids -- and has tried suicide. Then he meets Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood), an uneducated but sweet, 20-ish Southerner, stranded in Manhattan. She develops an affection for the curmudgeonly Boris that turns matrimonial. Soon her horrified mother (Patricia Clarkson) arrives, then her father (Ed Begley Jr.), and Woody Allen's New York changes them all for the better. While fine for most high-schoolers, "Whatever Works" won't engage many of them, as its wit and wisdom are aimed at adult sensibilities. The movie includes midrange profanity, implied sexual trysts, including a menage-a-trois, discussion of sex, a tasteless line about an abortion clinic, a scene that implies drug use, and drinking.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" -- In this endless, agonizing sequel, director Michael Bay puts all the emphasis on battles between the giant, quick-changing robotic warriors -- good Autobots and evil Decepticons. He lets a first-rate cast play second fiddle to special effects. The plot is incomprehensible except to Transformers superfans and perhaps high-schoolers who like all sci-fi/action hybrids. In addition to relatively bloodless but intense 'bot battles, the movie contains human warfare and enough crude sexual innuendo to make it iffy for middle-schoolers. The hero, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), nearly has his skull cut open so Decepticons can probe his brain. There is some profanity, a gag about an adult getting high on marijuana brownies, and toilet humor. Sam, who discovered the ancient alien race of Transformers in the first film (which had a better human-robot mix), is starting college and hopes his romance with free-spirited Mikaela (Megan Fox) will survive. But the Decepticons attack Earth and the action moves from suburbia to Egypt.

"My Sister's Keeper" -- What nearly saves this turgid weeper (based on the novel by Jodi Picoult) is its excellent cast. Their unfussy, deeply felt performances cut through all the syrupy montages. High-schoolers and mature middle-schoolers may be moved by the story, since key characters are young. There is a pretty graphic portrayal of leukemia and its treatment -- nosebleeds, vomiting, procedures with large needles. When Sara (Cameron Diaz) learns that her toddler Kate has a virulent type of leukemia, she and husband Brian (Jason Patric) have their next baby, Anna, genetically engineered so her blood and organs match Kate's. At 15, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) needs Anna's (Abigail Breslin) kidney and Anna, 11, gets a lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to sue for her "medical freedom." There's an upsetting flashback of Anna at 4 or 5, screaming as doctors prepare to take her blood or bone marrow to help Kate. The movie includes comic sexual innuendo and a subtly implied sexual situation between two terminally ill teens (cuddling on a bed, bare backs), profanity, beer-drinking, prostitutes on a street, and an adult having a seizure.

"The Proposal" -- This trifling romantic comedy is about as original as corn flakes, but it has a first-rate comic cast and crackling repartee. Teens with a romantic, slightly older sensibility may find it fun. It includes a lot of sexual humor, however, that could give parents of middle-schoolers pause, including a big guffaw scene in which Sandra Bullock and co-star Ryan Reynolds accidentally crash into each other, sort-of-but-not-really naked. The moment is so digitally cleansed, the actors could be in body stockings, but the idea is to titillate. There is midrange sexual slang and innuendo, a threat to castrate someone, a male exotic dancer in a G-string, moderate profanity and a nasty remark about immigrants. Bullock plays a hard-driving editor at a New York publishing house. A Canadian whose visa has run out, she bullies her horrified assistant (Reynolds) into becoming engaged to her so she can stay in the U.S. They go to his Alaska hometown to meet the folks, and it's amusing.

-- R's:

"Bruno" (NEW) -- For once the Motion Picture Association of America's explanation for the R rating says it all -- "pervasive strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity and language." Comedian/performance artist/risk-taker Sacha Baron Cohen sheds his crude, Central-Asian "Borat" persona and becomes Bruno, a gay Viennese fashionista of dubious intellect and frightening taste who offends so many people in his hometown that he and his love-struck assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten) move to Los Angeles in search of any sort of fame Bruno can get. When the movies don't beckon, he tries celebrity reality-punking (Paula Abdul, Harrison Ford, former presidential candidate Ron Paul storms out when Bruno tries to seduce him). He tries to broker a Middle-East peace, nearly getting himself killed by both ultra-Orthodox Israelis and militant Palestinians. He goes hunting with rednecks and tries to crawl into their tents naked. He crashes a heterosexual "swingers" party and gets whipped by a dominatrix. He does a pilot for a TV show in which his sex organ is the star. "Borat ... " (R, 2006) was wildly crude and almost ceaselessly hilarious. "Bruno" is wildly crude and only fitfully hilarious. Cohen has a genius for deflating pretension and bigotry, but this film is often just squirm-inducing and desperate to shock. It is not for anyone under 17, nor for the irony-challenged or the offendable.

"Public Enemies" -- A handsome, deep-delving film with moments of shattering violence, "Public Enemies" chronicles how bank robber/folk hero John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) finally met his end at the hands (or triggers) of dogged FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) and his team. In director Michael Mann's elegant crime flick, there's only a hairsbreadth of difference between untethered lawmen and criminals. They're all heavily armed tough customers who put innocent people in danger. The ambitious head of the new FBI, J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), as much as tells Purvis to use fascistic methods in rounding up Dillinger and his cohorts. The actors are all vivid, including Marion Cotillard as coatcheck girl Billie Frechette, Dillinger's love. Depp plays Dillinger close to the chest, with bursts of charm and mayhem. In addition to loud, darkly bloody shootouts, the film has a nongraphic sexual situation, verbal sexual innuendo, implied nudity, rare profanity, drinking and smoking. OK for high-schoolers.

"The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" -- The dialogue and action crackle to heart-pounding effect in t his re-imagining of the 1974 film (also an R) and book by John Godey. Director Tony Scott's frenetic style suits the material to a tee -- a hijacking and hostage-taking (some hostages are killed) on a New York City subway. Scott sharply conjures the terror below ground and the roiling chaos above. High-schoolers who like intelligent thrillers ought to find this one gripping. Denzel Washington is terrific as the subway dispatcher forced to deal via radio with the cunning lead hijacker (John Travolta, doing evil with panache). There are bloody shootings of bad guys and innocents. Children are among the hostages. There are rats in the subway tunnel. The script contains strong profanity, brief crude sexual innuendo and a couple of ethnic slurs.