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"Knowing" (PG-13, 2 hrs., 1 min.)

The many writers who worked on the flawed script of "Knowing," a fable about the end of humanity, had a fascinating concept. That is, to blur the lines between science fiction and theology. The execution is often clunky and unintentionally laughable, but a solid cast makes the movie occasionally effective, and high-schoolers may be gripped by its ideas.

The tall, ghostly men in black coats who speak to children by whispering inside their heads could be space aliens or angels. In a prologue, we see a somber, haunted little girl (Lara Robinson) who, instead of drawing an image of the future to put in her elementary school's time capsule, fills a page with numbers the aliens/angels whisper in her head. Fifty years later, MIT professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage), a grieving, hard-drinking widower, attends the capsule's reopening at his son Caleb's (Chandler Canterbury) school. Caleb gets the paper with the numbers on it. After a few drinks late at night, John deduces that the numbers connote the dates of past disasters and perhaps future ones. Caleb starts to hear "whispers," too, and he and his dad both see the strange men in black coats. Frantic, John seeks out the grown daughter (Rose Byrne) of the haunted little girl from 50 years ago. She has a daughter herself (also Lara Robinson) and has been trying to block out memories of her late mother's lifelong mental illness. John, who is a nonbeliever estranged from his minister dad (Alan Hopgood), agonizes over "determinism" versus randomness in the universe as tragedy looms. It's heady stuff, which this movie-by-committee only occasionally makes lucid.

A relatively mild PG-13, the film includes intense depictions and echoes of disasters -- the Asian tsunami, hurricane Katrina, 9/11, an explosive plane crash, an out-of-control subway that plows over people, an engulfing rain of fire. We see people on fire and others dead or injured, but nothing gross or graphic. There is a suicide theme and rare mild profanity.

"Duplicity" (PG-13, 2 hrs., 3 min.)

After his terrific film "Michael Clayton" (R, 2007), about ethics in the legal and corporate worlds, writer/director Tony Gilroy has, only temporarily, one trusts, lost his mojo. "Duplicity" is a smug, confusing bore in which former spies use their well-honed skills for industrial espionage, which pays better. The fact that Gilroy's plot flashes backward and forward and loops in on itself in clever ways raises the temperature for a while, but after an hour one doesn't care any more.

Julia Roberts as Claire, a former CIA operative, and Clive Owen as Ray, a former British agent, act mysterious and coolly sexy when we first see them encounter each other. Ray claims they've more than met. Claire insists not. The relationship -- and the lies -- evolve and grow more baroque, but neither Gilroy, his script or his stars can keep the arch tone aloft. One wishes a director such as Alfred Hitchcock could come back from the dead and fix the thing. Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti are fun as the rival CEOs employing Claire and Ray. Would that the material was as strong as the cast.

"Duplicity" contains steamy but nongraphic sexual situations and implied overnight trysts, verbal sexual innuendo, implied nudity, rare profanity and drinking. Teens 15 and older may be intrigued by the game of deception being played -- for a while.

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Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"Race to Witch Mountain" PG -- There are gun battles, head-slamming fights and chase scenes, all of which could unsettle sensitive kids 8 and younger watching this unexceptional but fun popcorn movie. The chiseled, good-natured presence of Dwayne Johnson gives this update of "Escape to Witch Mountain" (G, 1975) and "Return from Witch Mountain" (G, 1978) a center of gravity. Most of the mayhem is just loud and fast, but bloodless, though there is a harrowing moment when the protagonists are stuck in a railroad tunnel with an alien spaceship and a train, bearing down. Earlier, a different spaceship crashes in the Nevada desert and grimfaced government types swoop in. Las Vegas cabbie Jack Bruno (Johnson) picks up brother and sister teens Sara (AnnaSophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig), only to learn, after seeing Sara's telekinetic powers and Seth's disappearing act, that they're aliens. Grudgingly, he helps them flee the Feds and an assassin from their home planet. (SPOILER ALERT: Unhelmeted, the assassin has a huge exposed brain.) Jack seeks help from a scientist (Carla Gugino) speaking at a convention of UFO geeks.

"Coraline" PG -- Director Henry Selick's gorgeous stop-motion animated marvel is fine fare for kids 8 and older who love scary-funny fairy tales, but easily spooked children as old as 12 may find the second half upsetting. After all, little Coraline (voice of Dakota Fanning) enters a menacing looking-glass world where a metallic spider chases children and things transform in odd ways. Then she nearly loses her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman). Her busy folks have no time for her, so one night, Coraline follows mice through a little door in the apartment and falls into a brighter version of home, where Other Mother and Other Father have buttons for eyes. It's a surreal world she must escape. There are some crass words and lady acrobats in scanty costumes. Try to see it in 3-D.

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-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY AND A PG FOR OLDER AUDIENCES:

"Knowing" (NEW) -- The many writers who worked on "Knowing," a sometimes effective, but often unintentionally silly fable about the end of humanity, have tried to do an intriguing thing, which is to blur the line between science fiction and theology. High-schoolers may be gripped by the ideas. The tall, ghostly men in black coats who speak to children by whispering inside their heads could be space aliens or angels. In a prologue, we see a haunted little girl who, instead of drawing an image of the future for her school's time capsule, fills a page with numbers being whispered to her. Fifty years later, MIT professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage), a grieving, hard-drinking widower, attends the capsule's reopening. His little boy Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) gets the paper with the numbers. John discovers they are dates of past disasters and perhaps future ones. Caleb starts to hear "whispers," too. John, estranged from his minister father, talks about "determinism" versus randomness in the universe. It's heady stuff, but "Knowing" is too clunkily written to work well. There are intense depictions of disasters that echo others -- the Asian tsunami, hurricane Katrina, 9/11, a plane crash, an out-of-control subway train mowing people down, a rain of fire. We see people injured and dead, but nothing is graphic. There is a suicide theme and rare mild profanity.

"Duplicity" (NEW) -- After his terrific film "Michael Clayton" (R, 2007), writer/director Tony Gilroy has temporarily lost his mojo. "Duplicity" is a smug, confusing bore of a film in which former spies use their skills to do higher-paying industrial espionage. The story cleverly loops back and forth in time, but after an hour, you no longer care how it plays out. Julia Roberts as Claire, formerly of the CIA, and Clive Owen as Ray, a one-time British agent, act coolly sexy and mysterious when we first see them. Ray claims they know each other. Claire insists not. The relationship and the lies evolve, but neither Gilroy nor his stars can keep the arch tone going. Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti are fun as rival CEO's employing Claire and Ray. There are steamy but nongraphic sexual situations and implied overnight trysts, verbal sexual innuendo, implied nudity, rare profanity and drinking. Teens 15 and older may be intrigued for a while.

"The Great Buck Howard" PG (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- What might have been a prickly offbeat comedy takes a disappointingly bland route in writer/director Sean McGinly's "The Great Buck Howard." It's unlikely children or teens will identify with this musty saga about Troy (Colin Hanks), a law-school dropout and wannabe writer who becomes road manager for a has-been "mentalist," The Great Buck Howard (John Malkovich). The usually great Malkovich is miscast and creepy without being interesting as Buck, a character based on The Amazing Kreskin, and Hanks' Troy lacks all personality. (Hanks' real-life dad Tom appears as Troy's father.) Emily Blunt adds spark as a publicist who romances Troy. The film includes mild sexual innuendo, a kiss on a bed, a subtly implied overnight tryst, mild homophobic humor, semi-crude language, drinking and smoking.

"Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Jail" -- Tyler Perry's raucous recipe for hilarity mixed with tears misfires this time as melodrama too often squelches humor. The movie includes a prostitution theme, an implied rape and other violence against women, none of it very graphic. There is talk of a long-ago fraternity party gang rape. A boss demands sex from a job applicant and gets kneed in the crotch (off-screen). There is sexual innuendo about women in prison, mild profanity, a racial slur, liquor and cigarettes. An assistant district attorney (Derek Luke) tries to help a drug-addicted prostitute (Keshia Knight Pulliam). His fiancee (Ion Overman) disapproves. When gun-toting battle-ax Madea (Perry in drag) ends up in prison, she meets the young prostitute to funny effect, but the film takes ages to get there. 15 and older.

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-- R's:

"I Love You, Man" (NEW) -- Paul Rudd plays Peter, a charming nerd, in this well-observed but very crass buddy comedy about a sensitive guy so devoted to his fiancee Zooey (Rashida Jones) and so lacking in regular-guy qualities that he has no male friends at all -- not even someone he can ask to be his best man. He makes lame jokes, he's bad at poker and sports, and doesn't know how to kid around macho-style, so guys don't much like him. Then he meets Sydney (Jason Segel), a shambling, profane jokester who still acts like a loose-cannon frat boy, and they hit it off. Of course, Sydney gets on the wrong side of Zooey. The movie threatens to take a pat, cliched route, but it usually veers in a more interesting direction, which is nice. It is, however, really crude. There is strong profanity and very graphic sexual slang, toilet humor, implied marijuana use, drinking. 17 and older.

"Sunshine Cleaning" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- In this fresh, eccentric and immensely enjoyable grown-up indie comedy, two 20-something sisters start a cleaning service, scrubbing away "organic" matter from murder, suicide and natural death scenes. Rose (Amy Adams) is a single mom who cleans houses and whose little boy (Jason Spevack) is acting up in school. Her dad (Alan Arkin) has business schemes that always fail, and her younger sister Norah (Emily Blunt) is wild and undependable. So when Rose's married cop boyfriend (Steve Zahn) suggests she try crime scene cleanup, she gets Norah to do it with her. Watching them learn the ropes is comical, but it's the emotional journeys that make "Sunshine Cleaning" so rewarding. It gets syrupy once or twice, but mostly not. Aside from the graphic nature of the cleanups (the bodies are gone), the film touches on suicide and loss of a parent, and contains profanity, sexual situations -- one is explicit -- and pot-smoking. Film buffs 17 and older.

"The Last House on the Left" -- Good acting makes you care about the victims in this ultraviolent update of Wes Craven's fabled 1972 gore fest (he's a producer on this one), but it's still a raunchy modern crime drama that revels in bloodlust. A teenage girl, Mari (Sara Paxton), comes with her parents (Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter) to their lake house. She and a friend (Martha MacIsaac) go into town and buy pot from a teen (Spencer Treat Clark). His sociopath father (Garret Dillahunt) and two accomplices (Aaron Paul and Riki Lindhome) abduct and brutalize the girls. When the criminals appear later at the lake house asking for shelter, Mari's parents get wise to them and shift into survival/vengeance mode. The film contains extremely graphic murders and a vicious rape, as well as partial nudity, drug use, drinking and profanity. Not for under-17s.

"Watchmen" -- Dark, violent, visually stunning and intellectually edgy, this adaptation of the late 1980s cult-fave comic and graphic novel is geared to those 17 and older. Perhaps they can suss out the murky plot. It is 1985. Richard Nixon is still president as the Cold War inches toward nuclear holocaust. In addition to bloody street and battlefield mayhem, the film shows the murder of a pregnant woman in Vietnam, the remains of a murdered toddler, an attempted rape, other explicit sexual situations, nudity, profanity, drinking and smoking. Masked superheroes are now illegal, but Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) remains a vigilante. The only ex-Watchman with real superpowers is the atomic Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup). When their former cohort, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), is murdered, Rorschach contacts all ex-Watchmen. 17 and older.

(c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group.

This news arrived on: 03/20/2009

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