From the ArcaMax Publishing, Family Film Reviews Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/familyfilms/s-483003-846288
"Inkheart" (PG, 1 hr., 46 min.)
Kids 10 and older who have read the book "Inkheart" by German author
Cornelia Funke (part of a trilogy) will have an easier time keeping up
with this handsome new film than kids or adults who haven't. But that
shouldn't discourage them from seeing it. The plot takes a loooong
while to become clear, but it does become clear, and kids seem
unfazed by the early lack of clarity. The greatest bonus embedded in
"Inkheart" is that it makes the act of reading books seem like an
incredibly exciting pastime that could lead to thrilling, if harrowing
adventures.
In a prologue, we learn that some people who read stories aloud are
"silvertongues." They can cause characters from books to materialize.
Then we meet "Mo" Folchart (Brendan Fraser), his wife Resa (Sienna
Guillory) and their baby daughter Meggie. As Mo reads "Little Red
Riding Hood" to the baby, it becomes evident that he is a
silvertongue, though he doesn't know it. Twelve years later, we find
Mo and Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett) traveling in Europe. Meggie's
mother Resa long ago disappeared, but Mo refuses to explain how. A
repairer of antique books, Mo enters a bookshop and discovers a rare
copy of a book titled "Inkheart." Suddenly a character from the book,
the fire-juggler Dustfinger (Paul Bettany), appears in the street with
his pet weasel. Threatened with worse "Inkheart" villains on the
loose, Mo and Meggie take refuge with their eccentric book-collecting
Aunt Elinor (riotous Helen Mirren) at her villa. Mo finally tells
Meggie that years earlier, as he read "Inkheart" aloud, his wife was
pulled into the book while other characters popped out of it.
The chief villain is Capricorn (Andy Serkis), who wants Mo to read the
book's people-eating Shadow monster into reality. We eventually meet
the craven author of "Inkheart," Mr. Fenoglio (Jim Broadbent). Mo,
Meggie, Dustfinger, Aunt Elinor, Fenoglio and brave young Farid (Rafi
Gavron), who pops out of a "1001 Arabian Nights" tale, team up to free
Resa from Capricorn and rewrite the "Inkheart" ending.
Capricorn and his thuggish minions, tattooed all over with prose
snippets, are pretty scary. Their gloomy dungeon, monsterish pets and
threats to stab, shoot, or execute people make "Inkheart" more for
kids 10 and older. There's also the Shadow -- a smoky monster that can
eat people. There is occasional crude humor and mild sexual innuendo.
The film has a great master-your-own-fate message: The author Fenoglio
chides Dustfinger: "You don't have to be selfish just because that's
how I wrote you!"
Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various
ages
-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER
"The Tale of Despereaux" G -- A big-eared mouse with dreams of
valor saves the day in this charming and richly imagined bit of
old-fashioned animated storytelling. It ought to charm kids 6 and up,
but there are bits that could scare littler ones, such as rats
cheering for a cat to eat Despereaux (voice of Matthew Broderick); he
also falls into a dungeon and runs a gantlet of mousetraps. In the
medieval Kingdom of Dor, where soup is an obsession, a hungry rat
(Dustin Hoffman) falls into the queen's soup bowl and she dies of
fright. To escape capture, the rat dives into a drain and lands in
grim Rat World. Behind a wall in the palace kitchen, Despereaux is
born in Mouse World. Drawn to ideals of bravery, he's banished to the
dungeon for speaking to humans. Mouse and rat meet and vow to live
heroically.
-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER
"Hotel for Dogs" PG -- A sister and brother living in bad
foster care fill the hole in their lives by sheltering stray dogs in
this contrived, but cuddly fantasy. Sixteen-year-old Andi (Emma
Roberts) and 11-year-old Bruce (Jake T. Austin) have adopted a stray
Jack Russell terrier, hiding it from their awful rock musician foster
parents (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon) and their kind social worker
(Don Cheadle). They raise cash for dog food by scamming local
merchants. One day, their dog leads them into an abandoned hotel where
two more strays live. With the help of three new friends (Johnny
Simmons, Kyla Pratt and Troy Gentile), Andi and Bruce soon shelter a
wild array of dogs at the old hotel, and Bruce builds clever machines
to feed, entertain and exercise them. But can they get away with it?
Amid the poop and piddle jokes are themes about losing one's parents
and a flawed foster care system. It is hinted that pound dogs are
euthanized. A kid kicks an adult in the crotch, and there is a teen
kiss.
"Bride Wars" PG -- Tween girls may delight in the
shop-till-you-drop ethos of "Bride Wars," but many a parent will
cringe at the ugly stereotype of females who lust after all things
expensive. How tone-deaf is that for 2009? If the movie were a hoot,
it might be less offensive, but its wit is labored. Best friends Liv
(Kate Hudson), a tough lawyer, and Emma (Anne Hathaway), a
sweet-natured schoolteacher, start feuding after a wedding planner
(Candice Bergen) schedules their nuptials opposite each other. It is
gently implied that both women live with their fiances, and there is a
bachelorette party with guy strippers in skimpy outfits doing
suggestive dancing. There is much drinking and rare mild profanity.
"Marley & Me" PG -- SPOILER ALERT: This pleasant, if
uninspired, adaptation has the same last act as John Grogan's book. We
see a beloved pet grow old and ill, get kissed goodbye and euthanized.
Parents of under-8s (and some older kids) might consider leaving after
an aged Marley recovers miraculously from his first illness. The
cuddly but comically untrainable yellow lab Marley wreaks havoc before
and after newlywed newspaper reporters John and Jennifer Grogan (Owen
Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) start a family. The film shows Jennifer
sad after a failed first pregnancy (a doctor says the fetus has no
heartbeat). There is drinking, mild profanity, gently implied marital
sexual situations and skinny-dipping, and a stabbing victim who's not
badly hurt.
-- FINE FOR KIDS 10 AND OLDER
"Inkheart" (NEW) PG -- Kids 10 and older who have read the book
"Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke will have an easy time keeping up with
this handsome but convoluted film. For others, the plot will
eventually come clear. "Inkheart" is worth the trouble because it
makes the act of reading books seem like an incredibly exciting thing.
In a prologue, we learn that certain people who read stories aloud are
"silvertongues" who can cause characters from books to materialize. As
"Mo" Folchart (Brendan Fraser) reads "Little Red Riding Hood" to his
baby daughter Meggie, we see that he's a silvertongue, but he doesn't
know it yet. Twelve years later, Mo and Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett)
are traveling in Europe. Meggie's mother Resa disappeared long ago,
but Mo won't say why. In a bookshop Mo discovers a rare copy of
"Inkheart." Suddenly a character from the book, the fire-juggler
Dustfinger (Paul Bettany), appears. Worried that worse "Inkheart"
villains are loose, Mo and Meggie take refuge with their eccentric
book-collecting Aunt Elinor (riotous Helen Mirren). Mo tells Meggie
that years earlier, as he read "Inkheart" aloud, her mother Resa
(Sienna Guillory) was pulled into the book. Capricorn (Andy Serkis) is
the main baddie. He and his thuggish minions are scary for under-10s.
They threaten to stab, shoot and execute Mo, Meggie, Dustfinger and
others trying to rewrite the "Inkheart" ending and save Resa. There's
also a Shadow monster that can eat people. The film includes rare
crude humor and mild sexual innuendo.
"Paul Blart: Mall Cop" PG -- Comic Kevin James brings a lovely
mix of heart and innocence to the title role in this surprisingly
amusing family comedy about a buffoonish shopping-mall security guard
who becomes a hero. Paul Blart scoots around on a Segway, trying to
look serious and to impress the girl (Jayma Mays) at the hair weave
kiosk, but he mostly looks silly. Divorced, he lives with his mom
(Shirley Knight) and teen daughter Maya (charming Raini Rodriguez).
When a gang of robbers takes hostages in the mall, Paul tries to foil
them solo. The bad guys repeatedly talk of killing hostages. There is
gunfire and an explosion. Paul's daughter is put in danger. It's
implied that Paul's Segway hits a dog. We see the back of a shopper's
bra as she beats Paul up. He gets drunk and we see a tattoo on his
behind. There is mild sexual innuendo and swearing. The bad guys'
threats are intense for under-10s.
-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY
"Last Chance Harvey" -- With their vulnerable, winning
performances as two lonely people who learn that life may not have
passed them by after all, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson raise this
sentimental trifle above cliche. Harvey Shine (Hoffman) is a 60-ish
jingle-writer with a faltering career and a hint of a drinking
problem. He comes to London to see his daughter get married and
mingles awkwardly with his ex-wife's (Kathy Baker) new family. Kate
(Thompson) lives in London, works at an airport, lives with her mother
(Eileen Atkins) and has no life. It takes half-an-hour for them to
meet, but it's worth the wait. There is crude language, mild sexual
innuendo and drinking. The movie's clearly geared to an older crowd,
but some teens may be moved by it.
"The Unborn" -- An arresting visual style and strong cast
cannot mask the nonsensical story at the center of "The Unborn."
Writer-director David S. Goyer tries to bring gravitas to this tale of
a college girl (Odette Yustman) haunted by the spirit of an unborn
child, by tying it to Jewish mysticism and -- even worse -- Nazi
experiments on twins. Similarly, the talents of Gary Oldman as a rabbi
and Jane Alexander as an old woman with a secret, are wasted. There
are nightmare images of human embryos, people and dogs turned into
demons, swarming bugs and worms, a needle aimed at a child's eye,
lethal stabbings and fights, and a suicide theme. It is gently implied
that the heroine and her boyfriend (Cam Gigandet) sleep together.
There is midrange profanity and rare crude sexual slang. Too intense
for some middle-schoolers.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" -- This magically spun
saga never loses its wonder. In a New Orleans hospital, the daughter
(Julia Ormond) of a dying old woman reads aloud from an old diary --
that of Benjamin Button (played mostly by Brad Pitt). The film flashes
back to his birth in 1918 as an infant who looks freakishly like an
old man. Raised by a housekeeper (Taraji P. Henson) at the old folks
home where his father abandons him, Benjamin looks ever younger as he
grows. He goes to sea, discovers sex (in a brothel), and learns how
fleeting happiness is, as his life only coincides briefly with his
true love, Daisy (Cate Blanchett). There are strongly implied
nonexplicit sexual situations, partial nudity, a bad car accident, war
deaths, rare profanity, drinking and smoking. All in all, a great
movie for teens.
-- R's
"Defiance" (NEW) -- Filmmaker Edward Zwick dramatizes a
little-known World War II-era true story about a band of Jews who took
to the forest and evaded Nazi capture, while also killing German
troops and local collaborators. The script and direction are
workmanlike, but the acting is vibrant and the story astonishing. In
1941, the Bielski brothers from German-invaded Belarus, then a part of
the Soviet Union, evade Gestapo raids and flee into the forest. Others
soon join them. Uneducated and with criminal backgrounds, Tuvia
(Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Asael (Jamie Bell) Bielski
use their skills to help the growing contingent survive. Thoughtful
Tuvia and angry Zus argue over using violence for survival or for
revenge. A one point the forest refugees beat a captured German
soldier to death. The film contains bloody, point-blank shootings, but
other violence is less graphic. We see a mass grave of Jewish
villagers, but the view is blurred. There is sexual innuendo, a gently
implied sexual situation, a reference to rape, rare profanity and
drinking. For high-schoolers into history and its moral quandaries.
"Waltz with Bashir" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- This
extraordinary animated Israeli docudrama looks like a graphic novel.
Its subject is nothing less than repressed memories of wartime
atrocities, so the audience should be 16 or older. Writer/director Ari
Folman recounts how hearing of an old army friend's recurring
nightmares reminds him that his own memories of serving in the Israeli
Defense Forces during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon is full of holes.
He visits former army pals and gradually recalls he was near the Sabra
and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut when Lebanon's
Christian Phalangist militia, furious over the assassination of their
leader, massacred some 3,000 people in the camps while the nearby
Israeli military failed to intervene. The film contains violent and
upsetting images, sexual innuendo, female nudity, profanity, drinking
and smoking. As with "Defiance," for high-schoolers into history and
its moral quandaries.
"Gran Torino" -- Clint Eastwood, who directed and stars, lets
himself ham it up in "Gran Torino" as Walt Kowalski, a growling
retired autoworker and Korean War vet. Newly widowed, he vents grief,
anger and racist grudges, especially at his new Asian neighbors. Yet
he becomes their vigilante protector after a gang starts harassing
them. A formulaic plot, shaky acting in some roles and old racial
stereotypes diminish the film, yet it still has punch. There are brief
bursts of violence, threats, and the sight of a bloodied young woman
who has been raped. There is a graphic description of killing in war,
profanity, racial slurs, sexual innuendo, drinking and smoking. For
high-schoolers who enjoy character studies.