"The Blind Side" (PG-13, 2 hrs., 6 min.)

One might want to dismiss "The Blind Side" as just a phony feel-good story in which an African-American youngster from the projects is rescued by idealistic white people and given a bright future. In this case, however, the story happens to be true and it's mighty involving and entertaining, even if director/screenwriter John Lee Hancock lays it on a little thick. Then again, the real people he's portraying are larger than life. This story ought to hold teens rapt.

Based on a nonfiction book by Michael Lewis, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game," the movie chronicles how a wealthy Memphis decorator, Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock), took under her wing a homeless teenager she encountered near her kids' school. Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) eventually joined the Tuohy family, went to college on a football scholarship and today plays for the Baltimore Ravens.

In the film, Leigh Anne sees Michael walking coatless one frigid night after a basketball game. Her little boy, S.J. (Jae Head), tells her that Michael attends his Christian academy. (We learn earlier in the film that he was enrolled as a friend of the custodian's son and as a possible football prospect, but that he can't do the school work and won't interact with anyone.) Leigh Anne insists that Michael come home with them and sleep over. Her husband Sean (country music star and actor Tim McGraw) is tentative, but willing. Her teenage daughter Collins (Lily Collins) is dubious, but little S.J. is thrilled. A palship is born.

What begins as an impulsive offer of shelter becomes something greater -- a couple deciding to become legal guardians of a teenager from a vastly different background. They get Michael a tutor (Kathy Bates) and groom him for football and college. Leigh Anne -- Bullock makes her glitzy but likable, with a steamroller personality -- knows more about football than the high-school coach and helps Michael understand the game. The road isn't smooth. Leigh Anne realizes that in her enthusiasm to remake someone's life, she's forgotten to ask Michael what he wants. The film gets mawkish and unconvincing when she goes to the rough projects where Michael once lived and confronts tough characters. Her visit with his crack-addict mother (excellent Adriane Lenox), however, is very moving.

The film includes mildly crude language, overt and implied racial slurs, brief nonlethal violence, drinking, drug references and implied drug use, a car crash, and a briefly implied marital sexual situation.

Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR MANY KIDS 10 AND OLDER:

"Planet 51" PG (NEW) -- This computer-animated feature about an American astronaut landing on a distant planet doesn't seem to know who its audience should be. Most of the jokes are geared to adults and are a little tasteless, yet the story itself seems aimed at kids. The animation doesn't look all that slick, and there are dull spots during which kids may fidget. The round, rubbery, greenish folks of Planet 51, though they don't look human, seem to live in America in the 1950s and even speak English. When astronaut Chuck Baker (voice of Dwayne Johnson) pilots his lander onto Planet 51 and walks around in his spacesuit, both he and they freak out. There are crude gags about using corks as protection against alien "probes." Astronaut Chuck is helped by Planet 51 teenager Lem (Justin Long), who wants to impress his crush Neera (Jessica Biel). The kids soon realize that Chuck, while vain and thickheaded, means no harm. But Planet 51's General Grawl (Gary Oldman) is determined to capture and dissect him. The film's rather complicated premise, its reliance on crude humor (toilet jokes and penis jokes, too) and its slow spots make it iffy for kids under 10. The child characters and their pets are cute, as is Chuck's doglike robotic helper. Too bad the script and story don't function as cleverly.

"Disney's A Christmas Carol" PG -- Although it sticks pretty closely to the plot and dialogue of Dickens' classic fable, this film is mostly a showcase for actor Jim Carrey (intense and unfunny) and for advances in a particular type of computer animation. It is too frightening and humorless for kids under 10, some of whom may need lobby breaks during spookier scenes. Director/screenwriter Robert Zemeckis uses the same "performance capture" technology (shooting live actors, then overlaying their performances with animation) he used in "The Polar Express" (PG, 2004). This time he's added 3-D and dizzying 360-degree perspectives in some action sequences. Scrooge (voiced by Carrey, who also plays younger versions of Scrooge and the three Spirits who visit him) is so stooped, gnarled and angry, kids may actually be scared by close-ups of his arthritic hands. All the "visitations" are quite chilling, starting with Marley's ghost (Gary Oldman). Happier moments are overshadowed by the film's overall dourness. There are many scary, spooky, nightmarish scenes, vertiginous flying with the spirits, and a shot of a 19th-century Londoner taking snuff.

"Michael Jackson's This Is It" PG -- Michael Jackson fans and anyone 10 and older interested in how great performers work will be more than satisfied with this posthumous tribute -- put together by director Kenny Ortega after Jackson's sudden death on June 25 at age 50. Ortega had been preparing with Jackson for what was to be a series of 50 "This Is It" comeback concerts in London and had many hours of rehearsal video. Jackson is preserving his voice a bit, but even so, he sings and dances many of his hits with his trademark panache. The odder aspects of his personality are not much on display. He comes across as a perfectionist and a pro. The dancers, including Jackson, do a lot of his trademark 1980s crotch-grabbing and there's some joking about that. A few other dance moves are mildly suggestive, too. Younger children may be startled by fireworks and flame effects.

-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

"The Blind Side" (NEW) -- One might want to dismiss this uplifting tale as just a phony feel-good story in which an inner-city African-American youngster is given a bright future by idealistic white people, but in this case the story happens to be true. "The Blind Side" is thoroughly involving, even if director John Lee Hancock lays it on a little thick. Then again, the people he's portraying are larger than life, too, and their story ought to hold most teens rapt. Based on Michael Lewis' nonfiction book, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game," the movie chronicles how a wealthy Memphis decorator, Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock, playing her as a glitzy, likable steamroller), took under her wing a homeless teenager she encountered one frigid night near her kids' private school -- a charity case who was flunking out. Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) joined the Tuohy family, went to college on a football scholarship and today plays for the Baltimore Ravens. Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy (country singer Tim McGraw) decide to become Michael's legal guardians. They get him a tutor (Kathy Bates) and groom him for football and college. The road isn't smooth, though. Leigh Anne realizes that she's forgotten to ask Michael what he wants. The film loses credibility when she goes to the projects and confronts some tough guys, but her visit with his crack-addict mother (excellent Adriane Lenox) is touching. There is mildly crude language, overt and implied racial slurs, brief nonlethal violence, drinking, drug references, a car crash and a briefly implied marital sexual situation.

"2012" -- All those folks with signs warning "the end is near" were right, it turns out, in this overlong, fake-looking, but surprisingly fun thriller. "2012" has a refreshingly diverse cast and world-conscious point of view. The last half-hour degenerates into silliness, but before that, it's cool to watch the White House scientific adviser (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the President of the United States (Danny Glover) and his hard-bitten chief of staff (Oliver Platt) agonize over what to do (and whether to tell "the people") when they realize that the Earth's crust is shifting and that quakes and tsunamis will shortly wipe out civilization. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) takes his children (Liam James and Morgan Lily) on a camping trip to Yellowstone. He sees the Army guarding a mysterious site, and meets an eccentric radio talker (Woody Harrelson) who's tells him ancient predictions are coming true. Jackson also learns the government has built huge "arks" to rescue a few hundred-thousand and tries to get his ex-wife (Amanda Peet), his kids and even his ex's boyfriend (Thomas McCarthy) onto one of them. The film shows people falling to their deaths as buildings collapse, being swept away by waves, or suffering bloody but nongrahic injuries. There is rare profanity and drinking.

"The Box" -- A moral dilemma engulfs a nice married couple in this pretentious thriller from writer/director Richard Kelly ("Donnie Darko," R, 2001), adapted from a story ("Button, Button") by Richard Matheson. Full of references to existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre, the movie raises big ideas, then drowns in them. Cameron Diaz plays a high school teacher in 1976. Her husband (James Marsden) is a NASA engineer who hopes to be an astronaut. They have money troubles. A package appears on their doorstep containing a box with a button on top. A distinguished man (Frank Langella) with a horrific facial injury (you can see sinew and teeth through his cheek) appears, and says if they push the button, someone they don't know will die, and they will receive a million dollars. Ensuing events range from sci-fi body-snatcher stuff to secret government programs to divine retribution and none of it quite works. The film also shows a foot missing toes and people having nosebleeds. There are nongraphic gun deaths and a child in jeopardy. OK for teens.

"The Fourth Kind" -- Bunk and hooey are words that come to mind while viewing this barely scary, scream-laden sci-fi thriller about a psychologist in Nome, Alaska, who believes her insomniac patients are victims of nighttime alien abduction. Director/screenwriter Olatunde Osunsanmi intercuts grainy videos of "actual" treatment sessions on which the movie is supposedly based, but the people in the videos are clearly actors, too, so it smells like a hoax. Milla Jovovich is weak as the psychologist. The film shows people seeming to relive horrific events while under hypnosis. There are themes about suicide and children losing a parent. In a tragedy more implied than shown, a distraught man kills his family, then himself. Children are snatched by alien forces. There are flashbacks to a violent murder, and occasional mild profanity. Too intense for middle-schoolers.

-- R's:

"Pirate Radio" (NEW) -- American high-schoolers 17 and older will be surprised to learn that England, the land of the Beatles, no less, allowed almost no rock or pop music on state-owned BBC radio (and that's all there was back then) in the mid-1960s. So off the coast of England, "pirate" stations broadcast from boats, until the British government shut them down. "Pirate Radio" is a hooty bit of nostalgia about that era and a loving nod to its great music -- from the Beatles to Janis Joplin to the Kinks. It is not for under-17s because of its hints of sexual promiscuity, implied sexual situations, near-nudity, drug use and drug references, drinking and strong profanity (including one character with an obscene surname). The crackerjack cast under writer/director Richard Curtis ("Love, Actually," R, 2003) includes Philip Seymour Hoffman as the station's one American deejay, Rhys Ifans as his chief rival on the air, Bill Nighy as the owner of the rattletrap ship, January Jones (of TV's "Mad Men") as a groupie, Tom Sturridge as a shy teenager sent by his socialite mum (Emma Thompson) to work on the boat, and Kenneth Branagh as the comically malevolent Cabinet minister bent on shutting them down. There is a scary disaster at sea.

"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" -- Never less than riveting, but not for under-17s, this raw, graphic and upsetting story of an abused teenage girl is tough to watch. Yet director Lee Daniels and his fantastic cast tell a gritty and finally uplifting tale that has much to say to adults. Claireece "Precious" Jones (gifted Gabourey Sidibe) is hugely heavy and failing in school. She has one baby with Down syndrome, which her grandmother raises, and she is pregnant again -- both pregnancies the result of rape by her biological father, whom we only glimpse in graphic flashbacks as he violates her. Her negligent, resentful mother (the amazing Mo'Nique) abuses her verbally, emotionally and physically. Expelled because of her second pregnancy, Precious takes a counselor's advice and enrolls in an alternative school. She's sullen and angry, escaping into overeating or fantasies, but a teacher (Paula Patton) and a social worker (Mariah Carey) eventually reach her. "Precious" tells of a human being's rebirth. There is strong profanity, drug use and drinking.

"The Men Who Stare at Goats" -- A fine showcase for classic deadpan comic acting, this fractured saga about the American military will probably leave high-schoolers cold, though it's a mild R. It's more for adults who remember Vietnam and the 1960s. Based on a nonfiction book by Jon Ronson, the movie spoofs actual military research into "alternative" warfare -- attempts at mind-reading, walking through walls and killing animals by staring at them. Ewan McGregor plays our narrator, a naive journalist who meets an oddball vet (George Clooney) in Kuwait. The vet tells him about the (fictionalized) Vietnam-era New Earth Army and they find a secret base in Iraq where New Earth alumni (Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges) are still experimenting. There is a battle flashback showing many dead bodies, implied torture of Iraqi prisoners, implied harm to animals, a suicide theme, gunplay, soldiers tripping on LSD, other drug use, drinking, profanity, and backview nudity.