The Family Filmgoer
Watching With Kids in Mind
Zoom (PG, 100 minutes)
This comic sci-fi adventure for tweens (roughly ages 8 to 12) sneaked into theaters last week, ducking an early critical smackdown. And, yes, it is a poor, cobbled-together effort -- derivative (see the recent PG-rated "Spy Kids" movies, for starters), incoherent in its narrative and labored in its efforts to be cute. Yet children in the movie's target audience, and kids even younger, seemed to have fun at a recent showing. Perhaps they were fans of the book, "Zoom's Academy," by Jason Lethcoe, on which the movie is based. Acceptable, if third-rate entertainment for kids 6 and older, "Zoom" has, in addition to the usual gross-out humor, mild sexual innuendo and crude language, a couple of odd asides about race and sexual orientation uttered by star Tim Allen -- geared to adult senses of humor, but not funny. The comic action sequences won't scare kids until perhaps the slightly scary finale.
Save & Share |
Saving options
Allen is Jack Shepard, aka Captain Zoom, a former government-trained child superhero. A general (Rip Torn) and his scientist lackey (Chevy Chase) bring a reluctant Jack back to Area 51 in the New Mexico desert (yes, where the UFO of 1950s legend is supposedly hidden) to train new kid superheroes to use their special powers for good. They are: Tucker (Spencer Breslin), who can make parts of his body (only polite parts) huge; Summer (Kate Mara), who can "feel" people's thoughts; Dylan (Michael Cassidy), who can disappear; and little Cindy (Ryan Newman), who can lift thousands of pounds. Concussion (Kevin Zegers), a superhero gone bad, is back, and the kids are our secret weapon.
Accepted (PG-13, 90 minutes)
"Accepted" may not achieve the level of hilarity reached by its anarchic forebears. Yet like "Animal House" (R, 1978) or "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (PG-13, 1986), it is breezily funny, iconoclastic and terrifically acted. It also satirizes with surgical accuracy the pressure so many high school kids feel to get into the "right school." It does, however, push the PG-13 boundary to the breaking point and is not appropriate for middle schoolers and even some high schoolers younger than 16. The movie contains many crude sexual references (and scantily clad young women), repeated use of the s-word along with other profanity and gross-out humor. There are verbal drug references, the depiction of a drug sale and teenagers drinking. Some "students" use a psychiatric hospital's electroshock machine for fun.
A bright but academically lazy high school senior named Bartleby (Justin Long, a laid-back, likable unhero), rejected from all eight colleges he applied to, fakes an acceptance letter to get his parents off his back. His little lie blossoms into a full-fledged fake college, begun online, then set up in an abandoned psychiatric hospital. The South Harmon Institute of Technology (note its acronym) caters to kids who long to be accepted somewhere -- anywhere -- so they can please the folks, party on and study whatever. The school has one reprobate ex-teacher (Lewis Black) as faculty and course titles such as "math-turbation." But the film isn't all crassness. It celebrates creativity, individuality and fun.
ALSO PLAYING
8 and Older
"Barnyard" (PG). Charmless, often crass computer-animated fable about farm animals who stand on two legs, talk, sing and party when farmer isn't around; hero is Otis (voice of Kevin James), an irresponsible cow (yes, a boy cow) who learns to look out for his comrades after his dad (Sam Elliott) dies in a coyote attack; film marred by weird conceit that some "cows" are male, some female, though all have udders (like the rubbery ends of toilet plungers). Snarling coyote (David Koechner) steals chickens, kills, threatens -- could scare under-8s, some older; face-offs with him and his gang are violent, with animals hurled against trees, but not bloody; Otis's father dies quietly of unseen wounds; mildly crude barnyard humor; gratuitous sexual innuendo; human policeman's remark about strip-searching teenagers is more bizarre, but most younger kids won't get it; runny-nosed, cow-tipping human teenager has behind partly exposed; talk of female cow in labor; cows joy riding in a car, chugging bottles of milk.
PG-13s
"The Illusionist." Vividly atmospheric, classically rendered tale of magic, love and class conflict (based on Steven Millhauser's short story, "Eisenheim the Illusionist") about a magician (Edward Norton) in Vienna, circa 1900, who fights a battle of wills against a ruthless prince (Rufus Sewell) over a beautiful duchess (Jessica Biel) -- his childhood sweetheart. Nongraphic but strongly implied gun suicide; off-camera stabbing; talk about a man who beats women; mild sexual language; nonexplicit sexual situation; smoking, drinking. Unique, quality fare for teenagers.
"Pulse." Muddled but satisfyingly grim sci-fi thriller (based on 2001 Japanese film "Kairo") shot in grainy, washed-out, urban-wasteland style, about grad students (Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder, Christina Milian, Rick Gonzalez) who see friends fall victim to a free-floating computer virus that sucks the life out of people, pushes them to suicide or reduces them to ash; soon it's a nationwide scourge. Strongly implied hanging suicide; creepy demons enter human dimension, pounce suddenly; death-themed hallucinations; profanity; sexual innuendo; implied sexual relationship; car crash; smoking. Better geared to high schoolers.
"World Trade Center." Oliver Stone's raw, apolitical, emotional salute to courage of ordinary Americans in wake of Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks; fact-based film focuses on Port Authority cops John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), among the few who got out alive after being trapped for hours beneath the collapsed towers; the film cuts between the men, talking to stay alive, their wives (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal) and families, and their rescuers. Nongraphic portrayal of other bloodied, stunned survivors; fleeting image of a person falling toward death after jumping from upper floor; sounds from inside of more bodies hitting; frightening cave-ins, fireballs around trapped men; little graphic evidence of their wounds; strongly implied that a member of their team, gravely hurt, commits suicide with his gun; profanity; flashbacks of Jimeno and wife (Gyllenhaal) in mildly sexual bedroom scene. Too intense for some middle schoolers, older teenagers; enlightening for others.
"Step Up." Energetically danced, but utterly corny tale of privileged Baltimore dance student (Jenna Dewan) and her romance with a delinquent foster kid (excellent Channing Tatum) caught vandalizing her arts magnet high school; he's sentenced to mopping the school's floors; she realizes he's a gifted hip-hop/break dancer; soon their styles meld; cool dance numbers can't mask awful plot, but school's hothouse atmosphere vividly portrayed. Briefly intense, non-gory violence includes fatal shooting of a teenager; understated makeout scenes; hints of sexual attraction, but no trysts; teenagers steal cars; subtly implied beer drinking. Most teenagers will like the energy.
"Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." Will Ferrell as dimwitted stock car driver in broad, often very funny sendup of NASCAR culture some may find condescending; film traces Ricky Bobby's blue-collar childhood, reprobate dad (Gary Cole), early wins, loss to a snooty French driver (Sacha Baron Cohen), subsequent speed phobia, betrayal by his trophy wife (Leslie Bibb) and best pal (John C. Reilly). Crude sexual innuendo, slang; lewd, comedic references to erections, animal sex; implied toplessness; talk of posing for porn magazines; homoerotic innuendo; homophobic slurs; other profanity -- strongest words partly muffled; characters drink, smoke, talk of selling, abusing drugs; crazy driving, crashes, including a preschooler joy riding in a station wagon; comedic violence shows arm broken, mountain lion pouncing, Ricky sticking a knife in his own thigh. Too lewd for middle schoolers.
Rs
"Trust the Man." Wry, rueful, funny, very adult romantic comedy about love, infidelity, boredom, stress among arty, thirty-something Manhattanites; David Duchovny as a house husband/dad, Julianne Moore as his actress wife, Billy Crudup as her wastrel brother, Maggie Gyllenhaal as brother's long-suffering girlfriend. Very explicitly implied sexual situations (sometimes explicitly depicted, but without nudity); crude sexual language; strong profanity; toilet humor; drinking, smoking. For college kids interested in thirty-something angst.
