Watching With Kids in Mind

Space Chimps (G, 81 minutes)

Kids 10 and younger might find this movie funny, but parents will just suffer through it. There are bad rhymes-with-chimp puns and plenty of simian slapstick. Gags about the superego and the id are tossed in so grown-ups will think they're watching a smart film. They're not. The animation looks candy-box ugly, the story is a jury-rigged mess and the female chimp's hairdo is awful. Ham III (voice of Andy Samberg from "Saturday Night Live") is a smart-aleck stunt chimp at the circus. His grandfather was the first chimp in space, but this Ham prefers being shot out of a cannon. When its unmanned probe is lost on the far side of the universe, NASA decides to send a ship after it, with chimps on board to test whether humans could survive such a mission. Ham is shanghaied and sent along as a PR stunt with NASA chimps Titan (Patrick Warburton) and Luna (Cheryl Hines). They crash into the planet Malgor, where the evil Zartog (Jeff Daniels) reigns, and save Malgor's blobby pastel creatures (who speak perfect English) from tyranny. There are monster-ish plants and animals with toothy jaws that go after the chimps, plus a number of crash landings. There is very mild sexual innuendo and toilet humor.

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6 and Older

"WALL·E" (G). This computer-animated robot romance from the geniuses at Pixar breaks enchanting new ground, artistically, comically and technically. WALL·E is a trash-compacting robot in Manhattan some 700 years hence. He's squat and grungy, with plaintive binocular "eyes." He collects knickknacks, has a cockroach buddy and watches an ancient tape of "Hello Dolly!" (G, 1969). One day he finds a living plant. When a spaceship lands and offloads a sleek, white robot, EVE, WALL·E is smitten and shows her his plant. She grabs it and the spaceship scoops her back up. WALL·E hitches a ride. They dock at a starship full of humans. Although the movie is funny and exciting, the mild existential dread in its central idea -- a trash-covered Earth abandoned by all but robots -- and the way the narrative slows in the middle could mean occasional fidgets or upset for some kids younger than 6. Slightly scary bits include roaring dust storms and fiery spaceship landings. "WALL·E" is preceded by "Presto" (G), a hilarious animated short about a magician and his rabbit.

8 and Older

"Journey to the Center of the Earth" (PG). When a prehistoric bug pops out at you in the digital 3-D version of "Journey to the Center of the Earth," you know it'll be fun, so try to see it in theaters offering that format. The movie is wildly simplistic and a little cheesy, but not a bad ride in 3-D. It might even spur some kids to read the Jules Verne novel that inspired it. Brendan Fraser plays geology professor Trevor Anderson, who, like his late brother, Max, studies the Earth's crust. Trevor and his 13-year-old nephew (Josh Hutcherson) read Max's notes in the margins of Verne's novel, then head to Iceland in search of a tunnel to the Earth's core and tumble into Verne's world. The language is tame: There's one silly joke about a rock called "schist." Kids younger than 8 might be scared when the characters swoosh roller-coaster style through a mine shaft, free-fall down a tunnel into the Earth's center or are pursued by a dinosaur, giant piranhas and man-eating plants.

Rated PG-13

"Brideshead Revisited." Literary-minded high-schoolers might be swept up by this gloomy, affected adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel. The saga spans the 1920s to the 1940s, following posh English characters caught in a tug-of-war of passion, ambition, societal taboos and the demands of faith. The tale should intrigue thoughtful teens, but the mannered acting and overdecorated style of the film might put them off. Matthew Goode plays middle-class Oxford student Charles Ryder, who is befriended by the heavy-drinking, homosexually flirtatious aristocrat Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw). At the palatial family home, Charles meets Sebastian's pious mother, Lady Marchmain (splendid Emma Thompson), whose devout Catholicism makes her doubly vigilant about her children's choices. She asks Charles to protect Sebastian and limit his drinking, but soon Charles is in love with Sebastian's sister Julia (Hayley Atwell). The film contains much drinking and smoking, a non-graphic sexual situation, semi-nudity and marital infidelity.

"The Dark Knight." The late Heath Ledger walks away with this movie as Batman's nemesis, the Joker. He's maniacal, funny, and pathetic in his lack of human feeling. Batman, a.k.a. Gotham City billionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), is troubled by his role as a vigilante and decides to help (and test) the new district attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). "The Dark Knight" barely dodges an R rating by limiting the gore, but it depicts hostage situations with children in danger, shootouts and assassinations. It's not a movie for teens under high school age, let alone grade schoolers. There is rare crude language.

"Mamma Mia!" A buoyant burst of energy, romance and eye candy, this movie should lift teen and adult audiences (especially of the female persuasion) into a zone of dizzy good humor. It is pure kitsch, but a hoot. Adapted from the hugely successful stage show built around the 1970s and early 1980s hits of Abba, "Mamma Mia!" is a very mild PG-13. Set on a Greek island circa 1999, it tells how Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), a young woman about to be married, invites to her wedding the three men (Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard and Colin Firth) she knows her mother had affairs with about the time she was conceived. Donna (Meryl Streep), who owns a struggling hotel on the island, has no idea her daughter yearns to meet her father, nor do the men know why they've been invited. The rest is a blur of song, dance, revelations and great scenery. The rating reflects drinking, talk of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and youthful promiscuity, mild sexual innuendo, rare semi-crude language and one briefly bare behind.

"Hancock." Will Smith plays a drunk, slovenly, rude, amnesiac superhero in "Hancock," a movie with a great premise but dismal follow-through. Even so, high schoolers will like Smith's cool turn. John Hancock (Smith) catches bad guys and saves folks all over Los Angeles, but his flying is sloppy, his flat-footed landings tear up the streets and he wrecks stuff. Then he rescues Ray (Jason Bateman), a public relations man who decides to rehabilitate Hancock. But Hancock senses an intense past connection with Ray's wife (Charlize Theron). This angle grows ever more implausible and derails the film. The movie is an iffy choice for middle schoolers, as it is highly profane. It also contains gross-out humor, sexist and homophobic jokes, mild sexual innuendo, a bank robbery and gun battles.

Rated R

"Step Brothers." In this trash-mouthed, lewd-for-the-heck-of-it comedy, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play Brennan and Dale, two 40-ish slackers living with (and off of) single parents. About 16 emotionally, they play in tree houses, stash porn magazines, obsess over masturbation, watch TV and avoid work. They don't know each other, but when Brennan's mom (Mary Steenburgen) and Dale's dad (Richard Jenkins) meet and marry, the two doofuses become stepbrothers. The combined comedic talent of Ferrell, Reilly and director/co-writer Adam McKay (they did "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," PG-13, 2006) brings some laughs, but the story is more annoying than funny. The profanity and crude sexual slang are so intense that the movie is problematic for anyone younger than 17. The film features a vast array of sexual terms, a couple of explicit sexual situations, partial male frontal nudity, locker-room grossness, gag-inducing toilet humor, homophobic slurs and on and on.