Family Filmgoer
Watching With Kids in Mind

By Jane Horwitz
Friday, August 1, 2008

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (PG-13, 113 minutes)

Teens who like action-fantasy flicks might get a charge out of this second sequel (after "The Mummy," 1999, and "The Mummy Returns," 2001, both PG-13), which was shot partly in China and offers nifty martial arts. That would be despite the movie's tedious, incoherent jumble of explosions, chases, gunplay, swordfights, fistfights and dreadful dialogue.

Brendan Fraser returns as tomb raider Rick O'Connell. It is 1946, and O'Connell and his British wife, Evelyn (Maria Bello, replacing Rachel Weisz from the earlier films), are rich and retired from secret missions. They're also bored. So when a British official asks them to deliver a precious jewel to a Shanghai museum amid the turmoil of postwar China, they're thrilled. The O'Connells don't realize their son, Alex (Luke Ford), has dropped out of college and been on a dig, where he discovered China's terra cotta warriors. Everything leads to a climactic battle between the protagonists and a digital army of reanimated ancient terra cotta warriors and their evil Emperor Han (Jet Li). Don't even try to make sense of it. There are implied impalings and an implied off-screen beheading but little if any blood in the action scenes. The film contains mild sexual innuendo and little profanity. Characters drink. And there is a yak that gets airsick.

Also Playing
All Ages

"Space Chimps" (G). Kids 10 or younger might find "Space Chimps" funny, but parents will just have to suffer through the simian slapstick, rhymes-with-chimp puns and smug attempts at humor for grown-ups. The animation looks candy-box ugly and the story is jury-rigged. Ham III (voice of "Saturday Night Live's" Andy Samberg) is a stunt chimp who gets shot out of a cannon at the circus. His grandfather was the first chimp shot into space, but this Ham prefers showbiz. When NASA loses track of a probe on the far side of the universe, they send a ship after it with chimps on board to test whether humans could make the trip. Ham is shanghaied and sent along as a PR stunt with NASA chimps Titan (Patrick Warburton) and Luna (Cheryl Hines). Little does NASA know how smart this trio is. There are monster-ish plants and animals, very mild sexual innuendo and toilet humor.

6 and Older

"WALL·E" (G). This computer-animated robot romance from the geniuses at Pixar breaks enchanting new ground artistically and is funny and thrilling. Yet the mild existential dread in its core concept -- a trash-covered Earth abandoned by all but robots -- and a narrative slowdown in the middle could mean occasional fidgets or upset for kids younger than 6. WALL·E is a trash-compacting robot in Manhattan 700 years hence. He's squat and grungy, with big binocular eyes. One day he finds a living plant. When a spaceship lands and offloads the sleek, white robot, EVE, WALL·E is smitten and shows her his plant. EVE grabs it, and the ship scoops her up. WALL·E hitches a ride, and they dock at a starship full of humans in need of a hero.

8 and Older

"Journey to the Center of the Earth" (PG). This movie is wildly simplistic and a little cheesy but not a bad ride in 3-D, so seek out theaters offering it in that format. 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 Jules Verne's title-inspiring novel, then head to Iceland in search of a tunnel to the Earth's core. With their skeptical guide (Anita Briem), they tumble into a world within a world. Kids younger than 8 might worry when the characters swoosh through a mine shaft or are pursued by a dinosaur, giant piranhas and plants.

PG-13

"Swing Vote" This is a breezy little comedy with a refreshing satiric edge. Teens who like politics and character-driven tales should check out "Swing Vote." Kevin Costner hits a bull's eye as Bud Johnson. He drinks too much and barely gets by, living with his super-smart 12-year-old daughter, Molly (the excellent Madeline Carroll). On Election Day, she makes Bud promise he'll vote so she can go along and write about it for school. He gets drunk and forgets, so Molly sneaks in, signs Bud's name and tries to vote for him when the judges aren't looking. There's a power failure, and it records as an error. The race is so close that it comes down to Bud's uncounted ballot. The movie is profane for a PG-13, with a few mild ethnic slurs. With the language and drinking, parents of middle-schoolers might object, but then again, the story is about becoming a better citizen.

"The X-Files: I Want to Believe." A dark and heady mystery-thriller, this second film (after "X-Files," 1998, PG-13) spun off the trend-setting TV series, is elegantly creepy. It ought to appeal to high-schoolers who like brainy, slightly off-center tales. This installment hinges on possible illegal harvesting of organs. Agents Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder (David Duchovny) have left the FBI. Scully is back in medicine. Mulder is a bearded recluse. The FBI offers to forgive Mulder, who left under a cloud, if he'll help find a missing agent. There are grim shots of severed limbs and of people held captive in squalor. There is also standard violence, occasional profanity, heavy smoking and grim jokes relating to pedophilia.

"The Dark Knight." The late Heath Ledger walks away with this film as Batman's nemesis, the Joker, a villain he plays as a kind of terrorist. Indeed, the film oozes post-9/11 paranoia and moral ambiguity. Ledger's villain is maniacal, funny and pathetic in his lack of human feeling. Troubled by his role as a vigilante, Batman, a.k.a. Gotham City billionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), decides to test the idealism of the new district attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Not a movie for middle-schoolers, let alone grade-schoolers, "The Dark Knight" barely dodges an R rating by limiting the gore, but it depicts point-blank shootouts and assassinations.

"Mamma Mia!" A buoyant burst of energy, romance and eye candy, "Mamma Mia!" should lift teen and adult audiences into a zone of dizzy, kitschy good humor. Adapted from the stage show built around the hits of Abba, the story unfolds on a Greek island, circa 1999. 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, Donna (Meryl Streep), had flings with around the time she was conceived. Sophie longs to find out who her father is. The rating reflects drinking, discussion of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and youthful promiscuity, mild sexual innuendo, rare semi-crude language and one briefly bare behind.

R

"Step Brothers." In this lewd-for-the-heck-of-it farce, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play two 40-ish slackers living with (and off of) single parents and acting about 16. They obsess over masturbation, stash porn magazines, watch TV and avoid work. There are some laughs, of course, but the totality is far more annoying than funny. The nonstop profanity makes it problematic for anyone younger than 17.