Also Playing

Friday, May 16, 2008

Also Playing

Capsule reviews of recent releases playing in area theaters. For older movies, see the Movie Directory. A star (*) denotes a movie recommended by our critics.

BABY MAMA

Tina Fey is an overachieving corporate vice president who hires working-class party girl Angie (Amy Poehler) to be a surrogate mother. Angie is a hard-edged, slightly ditzy dame who has decided to rent out her womb at the advice of her loser of a common-law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard). Fey and Poehler could easily have become caricatures. Instead, each actress gives her character her dignity, grounding her as a recognizable human being. For those who crave mannerisms and shtick and like their jokes set up and knocked out with plenty of arrows and quote marks, the film may fall flat. But audiences alive to the modest charms of its take on female friendship will be rewarded with at least a few quiet chuckles. (PG-13, 96 minutes) Contains crude and sexual humor, profanity and a drug reference. Area theaters.

-- Ann Hornaday

* THE BANK JOB

In the early 1970s, Terry (Jason Statham), owner of an unsuccessful car dealership in London, gets a tip from an old friend (Saffron Burrows) about a bank vault whose alarm system is temporarily disabled. But as he recruits a team to steal the valuables, he is unaware of the Machiavellian hands at play. He is soon embroiled in a tragicomedy of errors that includes black militants, MI5 operatives, sexually licentious aristocrats and one sleazy crime lord (David Suchet) hellbent on saving his skin. What makes director Roger Donaldson's movie greater than zany heist fare is that this particular robbery really happened and that this episode illuminated an almost moral clash between the haves and the have-nots of Great Britain. It gives an extra dimension to our entertainment. These robbers aren't just people to root for, they're practically heroic -- or at the very least, they're noble victims. (R, 110 minutes) Contains nudity, sex, profanity and violence. Regal Ballston Common and University Mall Theatres.

-- Desson Thomson

* BE KIND REWIND

The films of Michel Gondry aren't for everyone, but viewers who vibe to his playful, cerebral, wildly imaginative sensibility might get a kick out of this story about a New Jersey slacker (Jack Black) who runs afoul of a power plant and becomes magnetized, unwittingly erases every tape in his neighborhood video store, then records over the tapes with condensed, low-tech reenacted versions of the movies. Such a far-fetched yarn borders on the patronizing. But the movie remakes are hilarious, and Gondry's belief in community-based, handmade, DIY culture is infectious and his cry against big-box homogenization (fewer choices, more copies) a noble one. (PG-13, 101 minutes) Contains sexual references. Arington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse.

-- A.H.

COLLEGE ROAD TRIP

This movie ran out of ideas just after they came up with the title. Martin Lawrence's James is the police chief of the town that he and his family call home and as such is painfully attuned to the evils of the world. He wants his daughter (Raven-Symoné) unscathed by any of it. She wants to par- tay-- although she still has great grades, a great attitude and virtually her pick of colleges. Dad wants her to go to Northwestern; she wants to go to Georgetown. Eventually, however, he relents and agrees to drive her to Washington. Perhaps there will be people who do laugh at Lawrence and Raven-Symoné screaming in tandem, or mugging their way along every tortured mile of their road trip, or unwittingly joining a sky-diving club and having to parachute into Washington so Melanie can make her interview. Roger has a talent for the twisted that was never going to be allowed to run free in a movie starring these two. (G, 86 minutes) Contains nothing objectionable. University Mall Theatres.

-- John Anderson

* THE COUNTERFEITERS

Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) finds himself in a concentration camp where his credo of self-preservation takes on starker tones. Sorowitsch and other Jewish prisoners with expertise in banking and printing become central to the Nazi plan to devastate the English and American financial markets with a flood of forged currency. The degree to which they assist forms the moral core of director Stefan Ruzowitzky's film. The story's most compelling personality, and the best reason to see the film, is Sorowitsch. He is uneasy in the role of protagonist, and when his dignity is shattered, it is fascinating to watch him use his outlaw instincts to maneuver and manipulate. The film convincingly examines the complex nature of humanity under inhuman conditions. Some people, like Sorowitsch, manage to rise above an existence as counterfeit as the money they are forced to produce. (R, 94 minutes) Contains violence, brief nudity and profanity. In German with English subtitles. Landmark's Bethesda Row.

-- Adam Bernstein

* DR. SEUSS' HORTON HEARS A WHO!

A computer-animated feature that strikes an amiable balance between honoring the text and the dictates of contemporary animation, the film is as good as one could hope for in this era of post-literate impatience. It does honor the book's flavor and spirit with a bright, funny treatment. Voice performers Jim Carrey (as Horton) and Steve Carell (the Mayor) play their roles just right, without making the movie about them. In the McCarthy era in which the book was written, people saw pointed commentary in its depiction of the fascistic qualities in the people of Who-ville (who refuse to believe there is a world beyond the mini speck of dust on which they live). In a subtle but effective way, the movie sounds a central message: We shouldn't be tone deaf to other people's realities. All in all, it's a sweet, guileless experience for young viewers and even their adult chaperons. (G, 88 minutes) Contains nothing objectionable except one mild profanity. Area theaters.

-- D.T.

88 MINUTES

Al Pacino plays a playboy-forensic-psychologist-professor who, on the eve of the execution of the man whom he most famously testified against, receives a phone message that he has 88 minutes to live. He must find the putative killer and prevent his own death even as bodies are being uncovered in crime scenes that so replicate those of the man Pacino testified against it suggests that he may have helped convict the wrong man. The implausibility of the movie is only one problem; there are so many others. The truth hasn't been stretched, it has been drawn and quartered. (R, 105 minutes) Contains disturbing violent content, brief nudity and strong language. Area theaters.

-- Stephen Hunter

EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED

Using loaded language and loaded imagery, Ben Stein and Co. equate evolution with atheism, lay responsibility for the Holocaust at the feet of Charles Darwin and interview and creatively edit biologists and others to make them look foolish for insisting that science, not religion, can explain creation. Stein and friends use scientists' need to speak in terms of probabilities rather than absolutes to undercut a scientific theorem that withstands test after test. The film relies on the viewer's inability or unwillingness to wrestle with a complex corner of science, double-talking its way toward a "must be a miracle" solution to anything that science may not claim to have an answer for. (PG, 90 minutes) Contains thematic material, disturbing images and brief smoking. Annapolis Harbour Center and Regal Fairfax Town Center.

-- Orlando Sentinel

* FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON

Hou Hsiao-hsien's film is a work of art on the order of a poem by Yeats or a painting by Rothko. Juliette Binoche's performance as Suzanne, in what is ostensibly an homage to Albert Lamorisse's 1956 kid classic, is astounding. Suzanne's young son is Simon (Simon Iteanu), whom we see first, trying to coax his red balloon out of a tree by the Metro in Paris. He has recently come under the care of Song (Song Fang), a film-student-turned-child-minder who is everything Suzanne is not. The balloon in Hou's story plays a far smaller role than in its predecessor, but it means the same thing: happiness. The palette of Hou's film, uniformly earthy, is meant to make the color red pop, and once you key into it, you can ignore neither it nor its message: When you finally recognize happiness, you can find it everywhere. (Unrated, 113 minutes) Contains nothing objectionable. In French with English subtitles. At the Avalon.

-- J.A.

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM

Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano) is an American teenager in the present day. His friendship with an elderly pawnshop proprietor in Chinatown leads to a journey to ancient China. He finds himself hurtling into the past, dispatched to return a precious wooden staff. And he teams with a scruffy, drunken kung fu master (Jackie Chan). Chan manages to endear himself in the worst of movies, which is what he does here. The kung fu includes master fighter Jet Li as a warlord, but it's wan and disappointing, all choreography and no real damage. People fly with all the grace and credibility of a Photoshop animation quickie. (PG-13, 113 minutes) Contains mild profanity, bodily functions and stylized violence. Area theaters.

-- D.T.

* FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

We can either laugh or weep at man's infinite capacity to do stupid things. Which is why guffawing at the naked guy flexing his breasts in this film is not only time enjoyably spent, but philosophically cathartic. The male of the species -- amusingly hapless Peter (Jason Segel) -- retreats to Hawaii, trying to get over a traumatic breakup, only to find himself in the same hotel as his recent ex, TV actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). The movie follows producer Judd Apatow's doctrine perfectly, which is to use semi-improvisational scenes to find the hilarious interface between man's vulnerability and dorkability. (R, 110 minutes) Contains nudity, profanity, slapstick violence and sexual situations. Area theaters.

-- D.T.

HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE

FROM GUANTANAMO BAY

Success-motivated Harold (John Cho) and stoned slacker Kumar (Kal Penn), get arrested and racially profiled on a flight to Amsterdam after Kumar lights up an electronic bong that looks rather like a bomb. An idiotic Homeland Security agent (Rob Corddry) has them sent to Guantanamo Bay. They escape and make their way back to clear their names. The political satire in this semi-obscene frat-house romp has a really clever edge, so it's too bad the film limits its audience with such fatiguing lewdness. (R, 102 minutes) Contains crude and sexual content, nudity, language and drug use. Area theaters.

-- Jane Horwitz

IRON MAN

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is taken prisoner by a warlord who orders him to build a state-of-the-art weapon. Instead, Stark builds a suit of iron, the better to bust out of the cave and give his enemies a beat-down. The real Iron Man doesn't emerge until Stark is back in California. He announces that his company is getting out of the weapons business. Thenceforth, the film sets about the business of proving that plowshares can be as sexy as swords. It succeeds only fitfully. Amid so many generic fireballs, kill shots and earsplitting thumps, bumps and crunches, the film finally collapses under its own weight. (PG-13, 120 minutes) Contains intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggested sexuality. Area theaters.

-- A.H.

* JELLYFISH

The story, set in contemporary Tel Aviv, centers on three women: Batya (Sarah Adler), a waitress with a catering company; Keren (Noa Knoller), a new bride whose honeymoon doesn't go as planned; and Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre), a non-Hebrew-speaking home caregiver with a son in the Philippines and a very cranky client. The film possesses moments of striking visual poetry, such as when a mysterious child emerges from the sea and wordlessly attaches herself to the lonely Batya. The film provides a diverting portrait of modern-day Israel, as the filmmakers eschew history, politics and religion to focus instead on more intimate and universal issues of fate, loss and the longing to connect. (Unrated, 78 minutes) Contains nothing objectionable. In Hebrew, Tagalog, German and English with subtitles. At Landmark's E Street Cinema.

-- A.H.

LEATHERHEADS

George Clooney plays Dodge Connelly, a World War I vet and pioneer in the doomed sport of professional football. No one in 1925 thinks the enterprise will last, until Dodge has a brainstorm: Lure war-hero-turned-Princeton-gridiron-star Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) away from law school to help spearhead pro football's drive into the American imagination. Rah! Ace reporter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) has been assigned to get the goods on Carter, whose exploits in the trenches may not have been as glorious as the nation has been led to believe. There's a flatness about the whole enterprise. This misfiring begins with the casting of Zellweger but is seen, too, in the way Clooney frames his picture. There's a claustrophobia in "Leatherheads." But Clooney's performance is terrific. He possess the combination of supreme confidence and humility that has been the hallmark of the biggest male Hollywood stars. (PG-13, 114 minutes) Contains vulgar language. Regal Ballston Common and University Mall Theatres.

-- J.A.

MADE OF HONOR

Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan have it all, in terms of looks, likability and even how they blend together. But they're hapless prisoners in a nasty little caper that follows convention as conventionally as possible. Tom (Dempsey) is a lady-killer, and Hannah (Monaghan) is the one woman he never quite seduces. Who becomes his best friend. And the one, he realizes, he has been in love with all along. Cue the impossibly wonderful Colin (Kevin McKidd), whom Hannah decides to marry. So she asks Tom to be her male maid of honor. You'll never -- ever! -- guess how this turns out. (PG-13, 101 minutes) Contains profanity and sexual situations. Area theaters.

-- D.T.

* MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY

Set in 1930s London, the story of a dowdy governess who finds adventure and love when she works as a starlet's personal assistant for 24 hours is just the tonic for filmgoers eager for a film that celebrates the bearable lightness of being. Frances McDormand plays Guinevere Pettigrew, who, as the movie opens, is being summarily sacked. Director Bharat Nalluri jumps right into the action, sending Miss Pettigrew from firing to employment agency to the posh apartment of aspiring actress Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams) within scant minutes. For the rest of the film, Adams flirts, froths, simpers and sings her way into our hearts as a round-heeled woman with a heart of only-just-slightly-tarnished gold. The film's flaws are nothing compared with the pleasures it offers, chiefly in its unapologetic pursuit of old-fashioned sweetness and romance. (PG-13, 101 minutes) Contains partial nudity and innuendo. At University Mall Theatres.

-- A.H.

* MISTER LONELY

How can you dislike a movie built around the oddly charming spectacle of sky diving nuns (sans parachutes) and more than a dozen celebrity impersonators? Welcome to Harmony Korine's film, a visually and conceptually mesmerizing and mystical movie. The movie follows two plots. The first is the sojourn of a lonely, unappreciated Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) in rural Scotland, where he joins a commune of other faux celebs. The second story, a sort of elegiac allegory about faith, features Werner Herzog as a missionary priest who transports nuns to distant outposts in Central or South America and learns that his nuns can do much more than hail Mary. What engages us is Korine's revolutionary way of telling stories. It's as though he's downloading his dreams directly onto the screen. (Unrated, 108 minutes) Contains sexual situations and profanity. At Landmark's E Street Cinema.

-- D.T.

* NIM'S ISLAND

The plucky heroine at the center of this film is an 11-year-old girl named Nim (Abigail Breslin), who, since her mother died at sea, has lived with her scientist father, Jack (Gerard Butler). When Jack goes plankton hunting and leaves Nim behind, mayhem breaks loose. As luck would have it, her favorite author, the world explorer Alex Rover, e-mails her dad for research information, resulting in the world-famous writer making a trip to Fiji to come to Nim's aid. Jodie Foster comes in, and she gamely hits her mark. Kids will no doubt vicariously enjoy Nim's adventures and Edenic existence. And how refreshing to see a girl embark on derring-do that, in Nim's own words, makes her the hero of her own story. (PG, 95 minutes) Contains mild adventure action and brief mild profanity. Area theaters.

-- A.H.

* PENELOPE

A witch placed a curse on Penelope's family that said their first-born daughter would be born with a pig face; the afflicted heiress (Christina Ricci) could shake off the curse, but only if she were accepted and loved by "one of her own." Anyone willing to tolerate the premise of the story will be paid off by several winning performances and a moral that makes most of the absurdity worthwhile. Penelope's mom (Catherine O'Hara) arranges for a parade of male suitors to call, each of whom wants the dowry but jumps out the window (literally) when he sees Penelope's face. Eager to get the story, a reporter hires dissipated blue-blood Max Campion (James McAvoy) to take Penelope's picture. Things, as they will in such stories, don't quite go according to plan. A story like this provides so many opportunities for snarky comments -- about hamminess, or acting "chops," or reaping what you sow, or being the wurst movie of the year -- but they just won't stick. (PG, 90 minutes) Contains mature themes, innuendo and strong language. Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse.

-- J.A.

* PRICELESS

The irrepressibly effervescent Audrey Tautou plays a modern courtesan. Moving from sugar daddy to sugar daddy, her existence amounts to a barter economy, and the girl likes her clothes and her fancy hotel rooms. She mistakes hotel waiter Jean (Gad Elmaleh) for another wealthy prospect, and we're off and away on a continuing Gallic farce of misunderstandings. He's so flattered, he pretends she's right -- while also trying to fulfill his obligations as a waiter. The routines may have been done a thousand times, but somehow they seem funny all over again. (PG-13, 104 minutes) Contains sexual content, including nudity. In French with subtitles. Landmark's Bethesda Row.

-- D.T.

PROM NIGHT

Though we can celebrate the substitution of suspense for gore in this remake of the 1980 film, this movie feels just plain dumb. The police are hilariously inept, and the way in which the teen victims wander off alone so the psychopath can get them is flat-footed, even for a slasher flick. High school senior Donna (Brittany Snow) still has nightmares about the home invasion and murder of her family, which she barely escaped. As she and her pals head off with their dates to the prom, the cop (Idris Elba) who caught the killer (Johnathon Schaech) learns that he has escaped. But does he warn Donna right away? Nooooo. Besides relatively stylized stabbings and throat-slittings, the movie contains sexual innuendo, teen drinking and rare profanity. "Prom Night" is not for nightmare-prone teens. (PG-13, 88 minutes) Contains violence and terror, sexual material, underage drinking and vulgar language. Area theaters.

-- J.H.

* REDBELT

Mike (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a martial arts academy, specializing in teaching cops, soldiers and other professionals. He will not compete in the profitable world of televised Brazilian jujistu even though he's related by marriage to the sport's reigning champion. He thinks competition, especially for TV money, desecrates the sanctity of his art. Mike is in a bar one night when a tough guy tries to take down a drunken movie star (Tim Allen). Mike jumps in. He's soon drawn into the orbit of the movies, and he encounters a whole new world of prosperity just in time, as he's discovering how little money there is in integrity. What is memorable is the film's portrait of a man of honor in a sleazy world, possibly a metaphor for the struggle of the artist to stay honorable in a world of backbiting, betrayal and hunger for easy money. (R, 99 minutes) Contains violence and strong language. Area theaters.

-- S.H.

ROMAN DE GARE

The story starts as a Paris detective (Zinedine Soualem) grills a crime novelist named Judith (Fanny Ardant) about the disappearance of Pierre Laclos (Dominique Pinon), her personal assistant -- and possible ghostwriter -- last seen alive on her yacht. The detective is convinced that Judith has offed Pierre for threatening to go public with the revelation that he, not Judith, deserves the credit for her novels. The movie is more entertaining than it is logical; its narrative leaps are sometimes ahead of our ability to believe them. But as the compellingly enigmatic Pierre, Pinon keeps us rapt. We are caught up in the intrigue, the mystery and the fun of the film's murderous potential, rather than feeling edge-of-the-seat discomfort and worry on behalf of the characters. (R, 103 minutes) Contains sexual situations and profanity. In French with subtitles. Area theaters.

-- D.T.

* SEA MONSTERS 3D:

A PREHISTORIC ADVENTURE

Narrated by Liev Schreiber and set to music by Peter Gabriel, this Imax extravaganza follows a female Dolichorhynchops, "dolly" for short, that plied North America's great inland ocean 250 million years ago. The film keeps "March of the Penguins"-like anthropomorphism to a minimum, instead focusing on spectacular 3-D effects that make it seem as if the dolly and her slithery contemporaries are gliding overhead or, more terrifying, sticking their 17-foot-long necks out to get right in our faces. It's "Finding Nemo" with a "Wow!" factor of about 100. (Unrated, 40 minutes) Contains potentially frightening images of prehistoric creatures, both as predators and prey. The Maryland Science Center's St. John Properties Imax Theater.

-- A.H.

SMART PEOPLE

As a widowed, burned-out English professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Dennis Quaid tries his best to bring specificity to the well-worn archetype of the misanthropic pedant. This film often seems cobbled together from other movies: Ellen Page, who plays Wetherhold's overachieving teenage daughter, here reprises the irritatingly precocious persona that made her a breakout star in last year's "Juno." Ashton Holmes stars in a thankless role as Wetherhold's disaffected son, and Thomas Haden Church delivers the film's few near-laughs as the family black sheep who provides deadpan stoner humor and shots of his bare rear end. When Lawrence begins to date an attractive physician (Sarah Jessica Parker), viewers will want the relationship to succeed if only to stop all the snarky sniping. It's impossible to tell whether the film's ending is happy because it's happy or because it's ending. (R, 93 minutes) Contains profanity, brief teen drug and alcohol use, and sexuality. Regal Ballston Common.

-- A.H.

* SON OF RAMBOW

This film dusts the cliches from the coming-of-age movie with its charming account of the growing friendship between two English boys in the early 1980s. The teens are Will (Bill Milner), a soft-spoken but plucky lad forbidden by his family's religious sect to watch television, and Lee (Will Poulter), a punky kid whose volatile family life causes him to act up at school. Thrown together by circumstance, they soon realize that their teamwork fills an emotional void in their lives. They infuse this story with a crowd-pleasing combination of buoyant spirit and occasionally dark humor, as Will, Lee and a very eccentric French exchange student (Jules Sitruk) attempt to revisit Sylvester Stallone's one-dimensional machismo territory with the goofy earnestness of youth. We cringe and laugh at -- and are ultimately moved by -- their clumsiness and innocence. (PG-13, 96 minutes) Contains violence and profanity. Area theaters.

-- D.T.

SPEED RACER

Larry and Andy Wachowski lay it on thick in this film, a frenetic, densely layered, narratively scrambled blob of moviemaking that will leave viewers alternately baffled and sensorially stunned. This supercharged adaptation of the beloved Japanese cartoon of the 1960s bears little resemblance to that anime classic of yore. Emile Hirsch barely registers as the title character. But Hirsch's decision to underplay is probably a wise one in a story overstuffed with plots and subplots involving filial betrayal, corporate malfeasance, criminal corruption and races that never seem to end. (PG, 129 minutes) Contains sequences of action, violence, profanity and brief smoking. Area theaters.

-- A.H.

THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES

This movie, based on a best-selling young people's novel, no doubt has been eagerly awaited by the book's fans, who most likely will be pleased by the visualization of the story's otherworldly creatures. But for the uninitiated? It's a bummer. The Spiderwick of the Chronicles in question is Arthur, a metaphysical explorer who 80 years ago discovered how to see into the supernatural world. Cue time shift to the present day, when his great-niece Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) moves into ye olde Spiderwick estate with her twin sons, Simon and Jared (Freddie Highmore, playing both characters), and daughter Mallory (Sarah Bolger). Soon enough, though, the three Graces are on a hunt for the ghosties and gobblies that make things go bump in the night. The action is intense, violent and possibly terrifying, making it difficult to recommend as a movie the whole family will love. (PG, 97 minutes) Scary creature action and violence, peril and mature themes. University Mall Theatres.

-- A.H.

STREET KINGS

The movie's moral relativity (that the dividing line between good cop and bad cop is a matter of inches) seems like a flimsy pretext for hard-core shock value: nasty violence, colorful cussing and multi-bullet executions. The big-name casting brings no honor, or even fun, to the hackneyed roles. Forest Whitaker treats his cliched cop commander as if he were a gravitas-laden Iago. Keanu Reeves's too-cool-to-emote approach keeps us eternally distanced. Cedric the Entertainer adds no special chuckles to his cop informer. And as a Machiavellian internal affairs officer, Hugh Laurie phones in the jaded, wiser-than-thou mannerisms of Dr. Gregory House, his character in TV's popular "House." (R, 107 minutes) Contains violence and profanity. Area theaters.

-- D.T.

10,000 B.C.

Director Roland Emmerich takes the time-honored Hollywood tradition of spectacle, overkill and narrative absurdity and manages to zap almost all the fun out of it. When D'Leh (Steven Strait) manages to fell the biggest mammoth of 'em all, he wins the hand of Evolet (Camilla Belle), a blue-eyed beauty. When a band of warlords invades their settlement, making off with Evolet and a boy named Baku (Nathanael Baring), D'Leh and master hunter Tic Tic (Cliff Curtis) set off on an epic journey. On a trek that goes from mountain plateaus to jungle to desert in what seems to be a scant few days, the group winds up in what looks like Giza -- if it were the 3rd millennium B.C. and not the 10th. And who's counting, anyway? It's computer effects, not logic, that reign supreme. ( PG-13, 109 minutes) Contains sequences of intense action and violence. Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse.

-- A.H.

THEN SHE FOUND ME

April Epner (Helen Hunt) is a 39-year-old teacher whose biological clock is clouding her judgment: April is marrying Ben. Like anything done for the wrong reasons, there's an implicit doom hanging over the nuptials. And then . . . the domestic effluence hits the rotary appliance: Mom dies. Ben leaves. And local TV celebrity Bernice Graves (Bette Midler), materializes to announce that she is April's biological mother. In the midst of this, Frank (Colin Firth), one of April's school dads, whose wife has abandoned him and their two children, starts lighting up April's life. The film suffers from, if anything, a lack of pure confidence in the story, the actors or the audience. But anyone going to see it won't need quite the number of clues as to how they're supposed to be feeling. They'll know. And a lot better, and a lot sooner, than April Epner. (R, 100 minutes) Contains sexual situations and vulgarity. Area theaters.

-- J.A.

21

Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), MIT professor by day, gambling entrepreneur by night, who recruits six of his best and brightest students to fly to Sin City on weekends and cheat themselves rich. It's hard to throw them a high-five. Yes, Ben Campbell (Sturgess) is a sweet, lower-middle-class kid who has dreamed all his life of going from MIT to Harvard med and accepts Micky's invitation into the circle only to put himself through school. Unfortunately, this characterization feels too saintly, too schematic. The story may be based on real events, but most of it feels patently false. It's a would-be parable about greed that emptily celebrates it, a drama about gifted people who are one-dimensional voids and, most laughable of all, a story about the giddiness of risk-taking that safely plays everything by the numbers. (PG-13, 123 minutes) Violence, nudity and sexual content. Area theaters.

-- D.T.

TYLER PERRY'S MEET THE BROWNS

Angela Bassett stars as Brenda, a single mother who lives a tough life in the Chicago projects with a teenage son, Michael (Lance Gross), and two younger daughters. She has just lost her job, her son's deadbeat father won't pay her child support and the power company has shut off her electricity. She gets a temporary reprieve when she travels to rural Georgia to attend the funeral of the father she never knew. This means meeting country kin, including the kind of spirited characters audiences expect in a Tyler Perry movie. Sit with any appreciative crowd and that special connection with Perry can rock the joint. (PG-13, 100 minutes) Contains drug content, strong language, sexual references and brief violence. Marlow 6 Theatres and AMC Magic Johnson.

-- D.T.

UNDER THE SAME MOON

Rosario (Kate del Castillo) has been living in Los Angeles for five years, working as a maid and sending money back to her 9-year-old son, Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), who lives with his grandmother in Mexico. A sudden turn of events inspires the resourceful Carlitos to travel to California to find Rosario, even though he possesses only a mailing address and a vague notion of where she calls him every week from a pay phone. The tone never succumbs to unremitting grimness. Instead, the filmmakers regularly leaven their story with little unexpected grace notes of humor and tender irony. The fact that this film has been crafted with such an adroit, sensitive touch should reassure viewers that, as it approaches its utterly gripping climax, their hearts are in good hands, too. (PG-13, 109 minutes) Contains mature themes. In Spanish with subtitles. Regal Ballston Common.

-- A.H.

VANTAGE POINT

The president of the United States (William Hurt) has come to Spain to make an announcement about the war on terror. Shots are fired. And then a huge explosion occurs in a city square, killing virtually no one -- no one with a name in the credits, anyway -- which allows the director to rewind the story's first 23 minutes and lay out the same scenario from a different point of view. And to do this multiple times. Conceivably, it might have worked. In reality, however, during the third or fourth reprise of the assassination attempt and bombing, a member of my audience let out an involuntary "Oh, God . . ." and the rest of the house erupted in sympathetic laughter. (PG-13, 90 minutes) Contains intense violence and action, disturbing images and brief strong language. Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse.

-- J.A.

* THE VISITOR

Richard Jenkins plays widowed economics professor Walter Vale, who reluctantly agrees to give a paper at NYU and, upon arriving at his Manhattan pied-a-terre, discovers that it has been illegally sublet to Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira), both of whom are undocumented. After first throwing the couple out, Vale impulsively takes pity on them. What ensues is a remarkable friendship and, when Tarek's mother arrives, a budding romance. The film gives viewers a perceptive, deeply personal take on the timeless immigrant narrative, in which the most epic journey is finally one of self-discovery. (PG-13, 103 minutes) Contains strong language. Area theaters.

-- A.H.

* WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

Not that this film is any kind of great movie, but it's an exceedingly bright comedy that never makes you feel stupid for enjoying its brisk pacing, smart lines, sound construction and superb comic acting. Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz have gone to Vegas for some healing. They meet one drunken evening and get married. Okay, time for quickie divorce, except she gives him a quarter, he feeds it into a slot machine and they win $3 million. Who gets it? Each tries to get the whole pot, and an irritable judge (Dennis Miller) isn't satisfied they've tried hard enough, so he sentences them to live together for six months. The real pleasure in the film comes from the two stars, both of whom put vanity and narcissism far behind and are pleased to let the movie deploy them as less than noble, less than capable, less than smart, less than selfless and less than beautiful and, therefore, more than human. ( PG-13, 99 minutes ) Contains sexual situations and crude language, including a drug reference. Area theaters.

-- S.H.

* YOUNG@HEART

This film is a festival of good behavior, a little talent, a lot of work and a kind of commitment to the ideas that shows must go on, that individuals must sacrifice for the whole and that doing good is better, though harder, than talking good. It follows a choir of generally peppy septuagenarians from Northhampton, Mass., through six weeks of practice, trial, tribulation and performance. The gimmick that has propelled the group to a small measure of fame is that they're rockers, rappers and punkers. Singing in the chorus gives meaning to life; living for the whole and not the self, the love of comrades of the same circumstance and situation, that's what keeps them alive. (PG, 110 minutes) Contains adult themes. Area theaters.

-- S.H.