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"Imagine That" (PG, 1 hr., 47 min.)

Family entertainment, fantasy, and office comedy don't mix that well in this marginally amusing trifle, which will engage kids 8 and older only in fits and starts. Eddie Murphy plays Evan, a high-powered Denver investment whiz and divorced dad who can't relate to his 7-year-old daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi). Then she comes to visit him and he discovers that her imaginary friends, whom she communes with under her beloved "Goo-Gaa" security blanket, have better investment advice for Evan's clients than he does. Despite its title, the movie tries to have it both ways -- hinting now that Olivia's "friends" are imaginary and at other times that they may be real, ready to move on when she's old enough. Storywise, that failure to commit feels half-baked. It becomes clear that the whole imaginary-friend idea is just a kind of narrative operating system to force Evan to bond with Olivia and learn what's important in life. But good storytelling should reach beyond a merely cute central premise.

"Imagine That" has a cobbled-together, movie-by-committee feel, and there are long bits pertaining to Evan's office life that made kids super-fidgety at a screening the Family Filmgoer attended. His rival at work is a slick broker named Johnny Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church, giving his all in a role that's borderline offensive), probably posing as a Native American. Desperation leads Evan to follow the advice of Olivia's "friends." She even comes to the office with him one day.

The movie has rare mild profanity, brief toilet humor, a divorce theme (Olivia lives mostly with her mother, played by Nicole Ari Parker) and an awkward scene in which Evan sneaks into a little girls' slumber party to borrow Olivia's "magic" blanket and gets caught.

Beyond the Ratings Game: Movie Reviews for various ages

-- OK FOR KIDS 6 AND OLDER:

"Up" PG -- A near-total delight, despite its too-complicated second half, this wildly imaginative Pixar animated film tells the tale of a little boy, Russell (voice of Jordan Nagai), and an elderly widower, Carl (Edward Asner), who fly to South America in a balloon-propelled house and on the way forge a deep friendship. Kids under 6 may fidget or get confused during the film's quieter moments recalling loss of a loved one, sadness and memories. And there are genuinely scary scenes for under-6s, in which threatening dogs chase Carl and Russell through jungle and canyon. The villain, a crazed old explorer (Christopher Plummer), goes after them with a dirigible, dart-shooting planes, and a shotgun. Scenes showing how Carl met his late wife Ellie when they were kids and a wordless montage about their loving marriage are mini-masterpieces. After Ellie dies, Carl, a retired balloon salesman, clashes with those gentrifying his neighborhood and is ordered to go to a retirement home. Instead, he rigs his old house with balloons and floats up, up and away -- only to discover that Russell, a kid who's been trying to earn a "help the elderly badge," is clinging to the porch. Once in South America, they realize the old explorer Carl and Ellie had admired as kids has gone mad and his dogs, wearing hilarious talking collars, come after them. They meet one friendly pooch and a big, bumptious exotic bird. "Up" is preceded by "Partly Cloudy" (G), a charming short about little clouds who make babies, puppies and kittens for storks to deliver. Except one cloud makes alligators, sharks and such.

"Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" PG -- Bursting with special effects and plot, this lively yet charmless sequel to "Night at the Museum" (PG, 2006) will keep kids 6 and older engaged, if not in stitches. Despite its often deliberately scrambled facts, the film could spark kids' interest in everything from aviation history to art. The littlest ones may briefly cower at a roaring T. rex skeleton, a giant squid, Egyptian warriors with shrieking eagles' heads, the statue from the Lincoln Memorial coming to life or planes zooming around the National Air and Space Museum. Guns, swords and clubs are wielded by come-to-life gangsters, Huns and Neanderthals, but no one gets hurt. Larry (Ben Stiller), the night security guard from the New York museum in the first film, hears that the old exhibits, which came to life only while he was on duty, are being sent to the Smithsonian to be mothballed. He bids farewell to Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), but later gets a tip that the ancient pharaoh Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) is wreaking havoc. Larry and a spunky Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) save the day on the National Mall.

-- OK FOR KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"Imagine That" PG (NEW) -- Eddie Murphy plays Evan, a high-powered Denver investment whiz and divorced dad who can't relate to his 7-year-old daughter in this marginally entertaining family comedy. The story has a cobbled-together feel (another Hollywood movie-by-committee), and there are long bits about Evan's office life that made kids super-fidgety at a screening the Family Filmgoer attended. The film's central premise is cute: Evan discovers that his little girl Olivia (Yara Shahidi) and her imaginary friends, whom she conjures up while under her beloved "Goo-Gaa" blanket, have better investment advice for Evan's clients than he does. His rival at work is a slick broker named Johnny Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church in a role that's borderline offensive), probably posing as a Native American. Desperation leads Evan to follow the advice of Olivia's invisible friends. The movie never deals with the question of whether they're "real" or imaginary, which storywise is disappointing. Instead, Evan's entry into Olivia's world is used as a heavy-handed metaphor to get him to bond with his little girl and learn what's important in life. The movie has rare mild profanity, brief toilet humor, a divorce theme (Olivia lives mostly with her mother, played by Nicole Ari Parker) and an awkward scene in which Evan sneaks into a little girls' slumber party to borrow Olivia's "magic" blanket for work. Intermittently amusing for kids 8 and older.

-- PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

"Land of the Lost" -- Somehow "Land of the Lost" manages to be a bit of a bore, though it's packed with clever visual jokes and cast with comedically adept actors. Teenaged Will Ferrell fans may be tickled by it, but only intermittently. Based on the 1970s Saturday-morning TV series, it follows the misadventures of a crackpot scientist named Rick Marshall (Ferrell). A pretty British scholar, Holly (Anna Friel), believes in Rick and his invention, a machine that will supposedly let them "travel sideways in time." At a cheesy desert tourist attraction Rick's machine clicks on and he, Holly and the place's loudmouth manager Will (Danny McBride) are transported to another dimension, where the detritus of human civilization keeps popping through the space-time portal -- a Viking ship, an ice cream truck, old cars. They encounter a charging T. rex, herds of mini-dinosaurs and a furry young man named Chaka (Jorma Taccone). They meet the lizard-like "Sleestak" Enik (John Boylan) and his enemy The Zarn (Leonard Nimoy). There is much sexual innuendo, gross toilet humor, midrange profanity, an exploding dinosaur and a giant blood-sucking mosquito that gets squished. The men drink a hallucinogenic beverage, there is much gay humor and briefly implied toplessness. There's too much sexual content for grade-schoolers and very young kids may find the T. rex scary.

"My Life in Ruins" -- So predictable is this lame romantic comedy, you can almost say the lines with the actors. A lonely Greek-American tour guide (Nia Vardalos) leads a group of stereotypically crass Americans through the historic sites of her ancestral homeland. Only Richard Dreyfuss brings a bit of freshness to his role as a twinkly widower who helps with her irritable charges. We know from almost the first frame that the scruffy driver (Alexis Georgoulis) of the tour bus will turn out to be Mr. Right. Vardalos wrote and starred in the fun "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (PG, 2002), but this tired concoction, written by someone else, is an unworthy follow-up. There are implied sexual situations, much sexual innuendo, some of it crude and/or homophobic, occasional sexual slang, rare profanity, and drinking. More for high-schoolers.

"Drag Me to Hell" -- Comedy and horror make inconsistent bedfellows in this sometimes droll, often gross parable from filmmaker Sam Raimi about a timid bank officer cursed by an angry customer. The film's deliberately cheesy horror images include demons, corpses vomiting maggots and embalming fluid, eyeballs and false teeth popping out, a projectile nosebleed, implied impalements and a wormy scene in a reopened grave. It's implied that a kitten is killed (off-camera) as a sacrifice. A prologue shows a boy pulled into a fiery abyss. Christine (Alison Lohman) needs to prove to her boss (David Paymer) that she's tough. So she refuses an extension to a mortgage holder, and the crusty old crone (Lorna Raver) jumps Christine in her car and curses her. Soon, Christine is visited by a shadowy demonic tormentor. A fortuneteller (Dileep Rao) warns it will drag her into hell. There is rare profanity.

"Terminator Salvation" -- With its unremitting mayhem and gloom this movie could even give dystopian science fiction a bad name. Teens may find the intensity gripping, but if they don't know the earlier films ("The Terminator," 1984, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," 1991 and "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," 2003 -- all R's), this could be a hard slog. Even as a PG-13, "Terminator Salvation" is grimly violent, though with limited gore and profanity. A female character faces the briefly implied threat of sexual assault. There are huge gun battles and crashing machines. In 2018, after a nuclear holocaust unleashed by the evil artificial intelligence program Skynet and its killer robots, human resistance fighters follow John Connor (Christian Bale). From his mother Sarah's audiotapes, John knows he'll meet a teenager, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), whose eventual time travel will be crucial. John must also decide whether Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), once executed (lethal injection shown), then re-animated, is on the side of humanity or Skynet.

"Angels & Demons" -- Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) again uncovers secrets that make the Vatican queasy in this sequel (to "The Da Vinci Code," PG-13, 2006). The pope has died and several cardinals have been abducted. The kidnapper has threatened to blow up Vatican City with antimatter. So beginneth another leaden thriller based on a Dan Brown best-seller. Many high-schoolers will enjoy seeing all the (re-created) church interiors and Renaissance art as Langdon chases clues around Rome. "Angels & Demons" has more violence and disturbing images than "The Da Vinci Code," and may be too intense for middle-schoolers. We see victims with raw brands on their chests, or burning alive (not graphically), a corpse being nibbled by a rat (phobic alert), and a bloodied eyeball. There are shootings and mild profanity. Some will object to Langdon's critical view of church doctrine.

"Star Trek" -- Teens unfamiliar with the 1960s TV show or the feature films can still have a fine time at this smart, funny "Star Trek" prequel, which works as a popcorn flick, but also as a myth-origin tale for purist Trekkers. It tells in boisterous and occasionally jumbled detail how the young and frisky James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Bones (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) become junior officers on the maiden voyage of the starship USS Enterprise and boldly go against the vengeful Romulans at warp speed. The film will work for many kids 10 to 12, but some may be unsettled by the space battles and the Romulans' ominous-looking ship with its planet-killing drill. There is a hint of torture, intense fighting, an implied impalement, mild sexual humor and innuendo, a brief nongraphic sexual situation and rare mild profanity.

-- R's:

"The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (NEW) -- The dialogue and action crackle to heart-pounding effect in this re-imagining of the 1974 film (also an R) and the original book by John Godey. Director Tony Scott's frenetic, showy style suits the subject matter to a tee -- a hijacking and taking of hostages on a New York City subway train. The nervous, in-your-face camera work and adept use of editing and sound -- along with terrific actors -- conjure a sharp sense of the terror below ground and the churning, chaotic city above. Denzel Washington is terrific as Walter Garber, a subway dispatcher suddenly called to heroism. He's the first to deal via radio with Ryder (John Travolta, bringing great panache to pure evil), the smart, homicidal lead hijacker. James Gandolfini plays the city's self-absorbed mayor and John Turturro a somber hostage negotiator. High-schoolers who like intelligent thrillers ought to find this one gripping from start to finish. There are bloody, point-blank shootings of subway personnel, passengers and hijackers. Children are among the hostages. Phobics note: There are rats in the subway tunnel. The script contains strong profanity, brief crude sexual innuendo and a couple of ethnic slurs.

"Away We Go" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- In this sweet, wise, well-acted little comedy-drama, Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are a nice 30-something couple soon to have a baby. Devoted to each other, but still unmarried (Verona's the hold-out), they have yet to put down roots. Burt's self-absorbed parents (Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels) have decided to move to Belgium, and Verona's parents are dead. So she and Burt set out to visit friends and relatives around the continent in search of anchoring relationships. Verona's former boss (Allison Janney) is inappropriate and horrid to her kids; Burt's cousin (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her mate (Josh Hamilton) are obnoxiously New Age-y about child-rearing; college friends in Montreal (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey) have a big happy family, but private sadness; and Burt's brother (Paul Schneider), who has a young daughter, has been abandoned by his wife. There is sexual language and innuendo, homophobic humor aimed at a child, talk of miscarriages, rare but strong profanity, and drinking. Great for thoughtful high-schoolers.

"The Hangover" -- A frat comedy for grown-ups that will also attract teens, "The Hangover" is very funny, but many parents would find it too crudely sexualized and profane for under-17s. It follows the adventures of sarcastic Phil (Bradley Cooper), dweeby Stu (Ed Helms), and jerky Alan (Zach Galifianakis), who bachelor-party so hard in Las Vegas that they wake up to realize they've lost the groom (Justin Bartha). In their trashed hotel suite they also find a baby, a chicken and Mike Tyson's pet tiger. Stu is missing a tooth and may have married a prostitute. The clever thing about "The Hangover" is that we never see the actual party. We just watch the guys retrace their steps. It features very strong profanity, rear-view nudity and toplessness, crude sexual language and innuendo, implied sexual situations, homophobic slurs, gross toilet humor, drug humor, and a poor joke about a grandmother's "Holocaust ring."

(c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group.

This news arrived on: 06/11/2009

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