Family Filmgoer

Watching With Kids in Mind

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (PG, 87 minutes)

Prehistoric critters still talk modern silliness in this third computer-animated "Ice Age" comedy. The concept has grown funnier with each installment, and each film manages to celebrate diversity and having friends and family from all backgrounds. "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" is in 3-D, so kids younger than 8 may really jump when an angry T. rex charges the animal heroes. They're still the same, only more so: Manny the mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano), his now-pregnant mate, Ellie (Queen Latifah), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary), along with Ellie's possum foster brothers, Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck).

Diego is thinking he should leave their cozy coterie to be a hunter again. Manny's feelings are hurt by this. Sid, meanwhile, comes upon three eggs and brings them home to nurture. But they hatch into three toothy baby dinosaurs. Sid, a vegetarian, can barely handle them. The dino-babies' real mother, a huge T. rex, arrives, grabbing her young and Sid. The others follow her, hoping to rescue him. They discover a tropical glade full of all kinds of dinosaurs and are soon pursued by an even larger T. rex than the babies' mother. Running for their lives, they meet Buck (Simon Pegg), a swashbuckling weasel with an eye patch who has taken on the giant T. rex before and offers to help. Scampering close behind all this adventure is Scrat, the squirrel-rat, still chasing after that elusive acorn. This time, Scrat meets Scratte, a seductive female of his species who wants the acorn, too. They tangle -- and tango -- dangerously over it.

Besides the T. rexes, kids younger than 8 may also cringe when a giant flesh-eating plant swallows two of our heroes, though they're quickly saved. There's also a kind of skeleton graveyard that's a bit creepy. The film includes occasional crude humor (Sid trying to milk a male water buffalo), toilet humor and mild sexual humor.

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PG-13

"Whatever Works." Woody Allen's latest effort amuses but does not transport, partly because star Larry David's lack of acting skill mutes the film emotionally. His sarcasm works, but more is required. Though okay for most high-schoolers, "Whatever Works" won't engage many of them. David plays one-time physicist and Nobel Prize also-ran, Boris Yellnikoff, a depressive New Yorker who insults everyone, even kids. He has also tried suicide. Then he meets Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood), an uneducated but sweet, 20-ish Southerner stranded in Manhattan. She wheedles him into letting her crash at his apartment. No matter how much he derides her ignorance, she develops an affection for Boris that turns matrimonial. Then her horrified mother (Patricia Clarkson) and father (Ed Begley Jr.) arrive. New York changes them all for the better -- at least in Allen's world. The movie includes midrange profanity, implied sexual trysts, including a menage a trois, discussion of sex, a tasteless line about an abortion clinic, a scene that implies drug use, and drinking.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Director Michael Bay puts all the emphasis in this tiresome sequel on battles between the robotic warriors: good Autobots and evil Decepticons. The plot is incomprehensible except to Transformers superfans and perhaps high school sci-fi/action fans. In addition to relatively bloodless but intense 'bot battles, the movie contains human warfare and enough crude sexual innuendo to make it iffy for middle-schoolers. The young hero, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), nearly has his skull cut open so the Decepticons can probe his brain. There is profanity, toilet humor and an extended joke about an adult getting high on marijuana brownies. Sam, who discovered the ancient alien race of Transformers in the first film, is now starting college and hoping his romance with the free-spirited Mikaela (Megan Fox) will survive. But the Decepticons plan to attack Earth. Autobot leader Optimus Prime battles evil Megatron while Sam et al try to stay alive and save the planet.

"My Sister's Keeper." What nearly saves this turgid weeper (based on the novel by Jodi Picoult) is its excellent cast. Their unfussy, deeply felt performances cut through all the syrupy montages and confusing flashbacks. High-schoolers and mature middle-schoolers may be very moved by the film. It is fairly graphic in portraying teenage Kate's (Sofia Vassilieva) leukemia and treatment. The movie includes comic sexual innuendo and a subtly implied sexual situation between two terminally ill teens. There is profanity, beer-drinking and a scene with prostitutes. When Sara (Cameron Diaz) learns that her daughter, Kate, is ill as a toddler, she and husband Brian (Jason Patric) have their next child, Anna, genetically engineered so her blood and organs will match Kate's. At 15, Kate needs a kidney, and Anna (Abigail Breslin), 11, is expected to give her one. Anna hires a lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to sue for her "medical freedom."

R

"Public Enemies." A handsome, deep-delving film with moments of shattering violence, "Public Enemies" chronicles how bank robber/folk hero John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) finally met his end at the hands (or triggers) of dogged FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) and his team. Along the way, we meet other criminals and Chicago mafiosi of the early 1930s. In director Michael Mann's elegant, carefully wrought crime flick, there's only a hairsbreadth of difference between untethered lawmen and criminals. They're all heavily armed tough customers putting innocent people in danger. The ambitious head of the new FBI, J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) as much as tells Purvis to use fascist methods to round up Dillinger and his cohorts, citing Mussolini's Italy as a model. The cast is uniformly vivid, including Marion Cotillard as coat-check girl Billie Frechette, Dillinger's love. Depp plays Dillinger close to the chest, with bursts of charm and mayhem. In addition to loud, darkly bloody shootouts, the film contains a nongraphic sexual situation, verbal sexual innuendo, implied nudity, rare profanity, drinking and smoking. Okay for high-schoolers.