FAMILY FILMGOER By Jane Horwitz Special to The Washington Post Friday, June 15, 2001

Also Playing Kids 6 and Older "Shrek" (PG). Layer upon layer of hilarity in visually rich computer-animated fractured fairy tale about bad-tempered ogre (voice of Mike Myers) who goes on mission with talking donkey (Eddie Murphy) to free spellbound princess (Cameron Diaz) and deliver her to evil lord. Moments of comic violence; fire-breathing dragon; toilet humor; visual gags with derrieres. PG-13's "Evolution." Scientists (David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, Julianne Moore) take on fast-evolving alien critters in amusing but low-energy sci-fi spoof that trips on its own tongue-in-cheek. Swearing; sexual innuendo; colorectal humor; character moons folks; gun violence; smoking; wormy aliens evolve into bugs, reptiles, huge blobs. Iffy for nightmare-prone preteens. "Moulin Rouge." Nicole Kidman as Parisian nightclub chanteuse circa 1899, Ewan McGregor as writer who loves her in fabulous-looking, often inspired but gimmicky postmodern musical with production numbers in frenetic MTV style. Strong sexual innuendo; prostitution theme; hallucinogenic effects of absinthe. "The Animal." Rob Schneider in cheesy, sometimes droll doofus comedy about timid police clerk who becomes hero when mysterious scientist mends him with animal parts after car crash, causing him to chase Frisbees, lust after goat, run like gazelle. Much toilet humor, crude sexual innuendo, occasional mild profanity. Iffy for preteens. "Pearl Harbor." BBen Affleck, Josh Hartnett as American pilots, Kate Beckinsale as Navy nurse who loves them, Cuba Gooding Jr. as ship's cook/hero, in tacky World War II epic with intense battle effects but nonstop cliches. Largely non-graphic injuries; rare profanity; limited use of wartime epithet for Japanese; understated sexual situation; sailors' bare behinds; drinking. "A Knight's Tale." Heartthrob Heath Ledger as 14th-century English peasant who enters jousting matches in thuddingly silly, repetitive but well-decked-out romantic adventure that backs jousts with rock music. Knights get thwacked, horses fall; image of hanged man; back view of naked man; mild sexual innuendo. R's "Swordfish." John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry in violent, chaotic, cynical high-tech thriller about mysterious super-patriot villain who recruits hacker to help transfer billions in government funds for special project. Explicit, often demeaning sexual situations; profanity; shootings, explosions, child held hostage; semi-nudity; drugs, liquor, cigarettes. 16 and older.

"Atlantis: The Lost Empire" (PG, 96 minutes)
A first-class animated adventure, "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" will carry off kids 6 and older like a magic carpet. With its comic-book-inspired angular faces and splotches of color, "Atlantis" is sharp, funny and exciting, sneaking in neat, brainy references to Plato and ancient Indo-European languages. Only briefly near the end does it lapse into a series of incoherent battle scenes. As the PG rating implies, it's scarier and more violent than other Disney animated films, with underwater attack robots that look like monster lobsters, and fights and gunplay (though no injuries are shown). Golem-like cyborgs awaken, a volcano erupts, and one character smokes.

Michael J. Fox voices the bespectacled, likable Milo Thatch, a cartographer and linguistics expert who labors in the boiler room of a museum in Washington, circa 1914. Milo's certain he's found the key to locating the lost city of Atlantis. An eccentric millionaire funds a submarine expedition to test Milo's theory and he joins a comical and gratifyingly diverse team led by a gruff ship's captain (James Garner), fed by a cook (the late Jim Varney) who deals only in beans, and mended by a witty, Hercules-like African American doctor (Phil Morris). Once they enter the buried kingdom, the explorers are surprised to find a living civilization, magic crystals and a lovely princess (Cree Summer). But extinction looms. Milo and the princess must save the day.

"Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" (PG-13, 101 minutes)
Unlike past movies based on computer or video games, "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" is glib, amusing, well acted, handsomely shot and enjoyable in a popcorny way. Teens (and many preteens) will like the cool confidence and tomboy grace that Angelina Jolie brings to the British archaeologist-adventurer. The movie includes bloodless but loud gunplay, fist and dagger fights, rare mild profanity, the subtlest of sexual innuendo and chaste hints of semi-nudity.

Lara lives in a huge English country home, planning expeditions and brushing up on her fighting, shooting and bungee jumping. She broods over the death of her father (Jon Voight, Jolie's real-life dad) and awakens to find a mysterious clock that is a "key" to some infernal machine that will jeopardize Earth if activated when the planets align. Naturally, there's a secret society that steals the "key." Lara chases them from Venice to Cambodia to Siberia. It makes no sense, but it's cool.

"Bride of the Wind" (R, 95 minutes)
Characters in this costume drama often sound as though they're in a bad historical novel, so stilted and florid is the dialogue. Yet mature high-schoolers can pick up great gobs of early-20th-century European culture – the dawn of modernism, in fact – if they let "Bride of the Wind" ruffle their brain cells. The movie contains a couple of explicit sexual situations with semi-nudity and shows bodies on a World War I battlefield. Characters at a 1902 Viennese bash smoke what appears to be opium.

Based on the life of the beautiful, gifted and apparently seductive Alma Mahler (Sarah Wynter), the movie traces her marriages and affairs with four important artists. She married composer Gustav Mahler (Jonathan Pryce), architect Walter Gropius (Simon Verhoeven) and poet-playwright Franz Werfel (Gregor Seberg), who wrote "Song of Bernadette," and she had an affair with, among many, painter Oskar Kokoschka (Vincent Perez).