-- 10 AND OLDER:

"ALICE IN WONDERLAND" PG (NEW) -- It would help kids 10 and older if they had some prior knowledge of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass," because Tim Burton's fresh and often miraculous take, which mixes live-action with all sorts of digital effects, moves beyond the two books while incorporating most of the original characters. Chief among these are Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), the now-you-see-me-now-you-don't Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), and the hookah-smoking Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman). This movie's Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is a young Victorian woman of 19 with an independent streak, and the story is about her liberation from doing what's expected. When a twit of an aristocrat (Leo Bill) proposes to her publicly at a garden party, Alice dashes off to follow the waistcoated White Rabbit (voice of Michael Sheen). She falls -- and falls, and falls -- down the rabbit hole and lands in what she now realizes is Underland. (In her dreamlike childhood times there, we learn, she thought of it as Wonderland.) Ruled by the bulbous-headed, tyrannical Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), Underland is a ruin. Alice learns she's destined to slay the Red Queen's fearsome Jabberwocky monster, fomenting an uprising against the Red Queen, but Alice feels inadequate. It is the brave, gap-toothed, occasionally distracted Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), his hair orange from mercury -- a poison used in hat-making (this is talked about in interviews, but not explained in the film) -- who nudges her toward victory, along with the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). The movie is sometimes incomprehensible due to accents or effects. Shown in 3-D, the film has extra visual depth, but doesn't get in your face.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The Family Filmgoer suggests "Alice in Wonderland" for those 10 and older because the violence, while strictly fantasy-style, gets quite fearsome. The fall down the rabbit hole is rather scary, too, although Alice's "Drink Me" and "Eat Me" transformations from normal to tiny, to giant and back are quite understated. The "frumious Bandersnatch" monster (from the poem "Jabberwocky") is toothy and vicious and gashes Alice's arm. It's eye gets plucked out with a pin. The Red Queen's "off with his head!" exclamations lead to one near-execution, but the only head that rolls is that of the Jabberwocky in the final battle. There is very mild sexual innuendo early in the film, when Alice sees her brother-in-law kissing a woman who is not her beloved sister.

-- A PG GEARED MORE TO TEENS:

"PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF" PG -- This neat mix of contemporary teen culture and Greek myths (based on the first in Rick Riordan's five-novel series) ought to entertain teens and pleasantly surprise adults, as it feels like the old special-effects fantasies of the 1950s and '60s. It might also inspire kids to read the myths. Zeus (Sean Bean) and Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) meet atop the Empire State Building, Zeus fuming that the son of Poseidon has stolen his lightning bolt. Cut to Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman), a New York high-schooler who sees himself as a loser. During a wild museum visit, Percy learns he is in fact a demigod -- the child of his mom's (Catherine Keener) long-ago liaison with Poseidon -- and that their low-income life has been a charade. Percy's pal Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) turns out to be a furry-legged satyr assigned to protect him. When Percy's mom is abducted by Hades, god of the Underworld, he sets out to rescue her and prove to Zeus that he didn't steal the bolt.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Kids 10-to-12 would like "Percy Jackson & the Olympians," but they must be able to handle mayhem that is intense, even if largely bloodless. Percy and his cohorts fight a huge, horned Minotaur, the serpent-haired Medusa (Uma Thurman, in a fun turn, but not for snake-phobics) and other fire-breathing, multi-headed monsters. There is the beheading of an immortal and the bandying about of the severed head, a monster's impalement, bone-cracking fights and gashes. Percy's stepdad (Joe Pantoliano) is an abusive drunk. There is mild sexual innuendo.

-- PG-13s:

"VALENTINE'S DAY" -- High-schoolers into romantic comedy could well find something to love in "Valentine's Day," even if critics (including this one) view the film as a crass, cobbled-together rip-off of the far classier (despite the R rating) British "Love Actually" (R, 2003). Like that film, "Valentine's Day"sets up romantic hurdles for multiple characters: a florist (Ashton Kutcher) who gets engaged to his career-oriented girlfriend (Jessica Alba); a teacher (Jennifer Garner) who pines for a doctor (Patrick Dempsey) who lies to her; a secretary (Anne Hathaway) who can't tell a nice guy (Topher Grace) that she moonlights as a phone sex "entertainer"; an 18-year-old (Emma Roberts) and her boyfriend (Carter Jenkins), who plan to lose their virginity; their pals ("Twilight" co-star Taylor Lautner and singer Taylor Swift), who decide to wait. (In the end, all the teens wait.) Discerning high-schoolers may see it's the performers who save this poorly written movie.

THE BOTTOM LINE: This film presents a perfect argument for the "PG-15" rating the Family Filmgoer keeps proposing to categorize movies geared to high-schoolers, not middle-schoolers. "Valentine's Day" has many implied overnight trysts, with scantily clad people in semi-steamy clinches, though it never shows explicit sexual situations. There are the comical but innuendo-laden "phone sex" calls, and a naked teen covered by a strategically placed guitar. There are themes about marital infidelity and sexual orientation, and some characters drink.

"DEAR JOHN" -- Teens who like a good cry at the movies can shed salty tears over "Dear John," a painfully predictable and sentimental love story, based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks. A key subplot about an adult character with autism is actually more interesting and imaginatively done than the central romance. Channing Tatum plays John, a stoic Special Forces soldier who falls in love -- in endless corny music montages -- with the lovely Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) while he's home on leave. After the 9/11 terror attacks, John re-ups with the military. They write many love letters, but Savannah finds the distance and her worry over John's safety difficult. Teens who have studied acting will be impressed by scenes between John and his distant dad (Richard Jenkins).

THE BOTTOM LINE: There are a couple of quick, intense battle scenes with nongraphic injuries but much blood. The film shows brief images of a World Trade Center tower collapsing. Characters drink, there is occasional mild profanity, and at least one steamy love scene with outer clothing removed and another scene with implied toplessness. A couple of characters become ill and die. There is also a child character with autism.

-- R's:

"COP OUT" -- High-schoolers 17 and older will find cheap laughs in this buddy/action comedy, but that doesn't mean "Cop Out" is anything other than atrocious -- sloppily filmed and trafficking in every kind of ethnic/racial stereotype and cop movie cliche. Observant high-school seniors will get that, as directed by Hollywood iconoclast Kevin Smith ("Zack and Miri Make a Porno," R, 2008; "Dogma," R, 1999; "Clerks," R, 1994), the film is intended as a spoof. But Smith can't seem to decide whether it's wholly tongue-in-cheek or partly serious; so it's just slapdash. Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan play eccentric police detective partners Jimmy and Paul, respectively. Suspended for the crazy way they go after a drug dealer, the partners turn semi-vigilante. Seann William Scott is funny as a motormouth burglar.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The script is highly profane -- and even that's a cliche in this derivative flick. There is point-blank gun violence, tasering, beatings, crude sexual slang, a strongly implied sexual situation, gross toilet humor, drug references, and a prolonged scene in which a little boy of 10 cusses out the cops in R-rated fashion.

"THE CRAZIES" -- High-schoolers 17 and older who follow current events will note that this winningly acted and beautifully shot movie cleverly exploits today's paranoia about government intrusion in our lives. A remake of George A. Romero's 1973 horror film, "The Crazies" has all the elements needed to engross horror buffs 17 and up. Citizens in a nice farming community in Iowa go violently insane after a contaminant gets into their water supply. Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his doctor wife Judy (Rhada Mitchell), along with his trusty deputy Russell (Joe Anderson), see people turn catatonic, then violent, even killing their own families. Soon, helmeted, gas-masked government troops swarm into the town, and David, Judy and Russell must try to escape quarantine or worse.

THE BOTTOM LINE: "The Crazies" is very bloody. People are shot at close range, attacked with knives and bone saws, impaled on pitchforks, burned alive. SPOILER ALERT: The military rounds people up, separates those "infected" from those not, and mows some of them down with machine guns. We eventually see truckloads of decomposing corpses. It is a shivery echo of the Holocaust. Before that, sickened people walk around, zombie-like. The film contains much midrange profanity.

"SHUTTER ISLAND" -- A lugubrious mess of a movie, "Shutter Island" (based on the novel by Dennis Lehane) may still grab filmgoers 17 and older with its hypnotic sense of dread. Yet they could be frustrated by its disjointedness, its disappointing ending, and its overheated mix of themes ranging from mental illness to Nazi atrocities to Cold War commie-baiting. The atmospherics, which are laid on mighty thick by director Martin Scorsese, could prompt giggles, too. It is the early 1950s. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a troubled U.S. Marshal and World War II vet. He and his new partner (Mark Ruffalo) are sent to Shutter Island, a federal facility for the criminally insane. It seems a patient has disappeared. After meeting the chief psychiatrist (Ben Kingsley), his associate (Max von Sydow), other patients and guards, Teddy comes to suspect a conspiracy on the island.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Not for under-17s, the movie has repeated graphic flashbacks of corpses and starving survivors at the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp -- an exploitative use of such images in what's really just a potboiler melodrama. There are images (unrelated to the war) of drowned children, murdered by a parent. There are graphic gun wounds and intense fights. The film's oppressive atmosphere could creep out some older teens more than a typical horror film. The "treatment" patients get seems akin to torture. There are hallucinatory scenes and swarming rats, strong profanity, crude sexual language, smoking and drinking.

"THE WOLFMAN" -- High-schoolers of 15 or 16 and up, if they've watched some of the artful, character-driven horror films of yore, will appreciate "The Wolfman" -- as long as they can handle the gory bits, which are graphic despite the Victorian setting. Darkly moody, gorgeously designed and scored, the film is a remake of the 1941 film with Lon Chaney Jr. Benicio Del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot, a Shakespearean actor who returns to England after his brother goes missing. His father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) seems unmoved, even after the ravaged body is found. Lawrence is determined to learn what creature tore his sibling apart. His brother's beautiful fiancee (Emily Blunt) also attracts him. Lawrence is bitten by the beast but survives. A Scotland Yard inspector (Hugo Weaving) arrives just as Lawrence faces his first post-bite full moon -- and his family's awful secret.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Characters attacked by the Wolfman are slashed and gashed, de-limbed, beheaded, and the blood flies. There are decomposing corpses. When Del Toro morphs into a werewolf the changes look agonizing. Treatment in a Victorian asylum is torture -- electric shock, dunking in ice water. Lawrence hallucinates. There is a suicide theme related to loss of a parent, crude references to prostitutes, and other milder sexual innuendo. Characters drink and smoke, and occasionally swear.