'Baby Geniuses': Not So Smart By Jane Horwitz Special to The Washington Post Friday, March 12, 1999

Also Playing Better for 8 and Up "My Favorite Martian" (PG). Reporter discovers Martian in dreary, effects-laden remake of '60s sitcom. Crude language; breast joke. Scary bits: Martian's one-eyed monstery self, comic scene about detached limbs. More for 10 and Up "October Sky" (PG). Neat, inspiring true story of NASA engineer Homer H. Hickam Jr. and his 1950s teen rocketry experiments in bleak mining town. Rare profanity; scary moments in mine; intense father-son dispute. PG-13s "Blast From the Past." Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone in droll tale of guy raised in fallout shelter who surfaces in modern L.A., shocking people with his good manners. Profanity; sexual innuendo; druggie-hippie jokes. R's "20 Dates." Filmmaker Myles Berkowitz decides to date 20 women, recording his experiences in sometimes funny, mostly self-conscious, self-absorbed documentary. Strong profanity; sexual innuendo. High-schoolers. "Cruel Intentions." Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe as rich kids playing love games in smart update of 18th-century French novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Profanity; verbal, visual sexual innuendo; gay themes; cocaine, marijuana, cigarettes, liquor; brief violence. Mature high-schoolers. "Analyze This." Robert De Niro as panic-prone gangster seeks help from shrink Billy Crystal in mostly hilarious comedy. Much profanity; fairly explicit sexual situation; verbal sexual innuendo; gay jokes; loud but bloodless gunplay; gangsterism made charming. High-schoolers. "My Name is Joe." Raw, moving drama about recovering alcoholic starting life anew in rough part of Glasgow. Subtitles translate Scottish burrs. Profanity; violence; suicide; drugs, drinking, smoking; mild sexual situation, partial female nudity; deals with prostitution, out-of-wedlock babies. High-schoolers. "Shakespeare in Love." Gwyneth Paltrow in literate, bawdy fantasy as Elizabethan lass who inspires young Shakespeare to pen "Romeo and Juliet." Steamy love scenes, some with semi-nudity; bloodless fights. High-schoolers. "Rushmore." Geeky prep school kid competes with Bill Murray's unhappily married millionaire for pretty teacher's love in kindly, oddball comedy. Profanity, verbal sexual innuendo; teens drinking, smoking; nude photos. High-schoolers. – Jane Horwitz

"Baby Geniuses" (PG)
There's nothing cute in this charmless, gimmicky kiddie comedy in which the tykes talk like characters in "Ally McBeal." Kids under 6 or 8 might be scared by bad guys in pursuit of the smart-talking toddlers. One baby is separated from his parents and cries miserably. The PG rating reflects mild sexual innuendo, poopy-diaper jokes and other crass dialogue put in the babies' mouths.

Two chilly child development experts (Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd) are studying orphaned babies, trying to crack their gibberish, which they suspect contains the Key to All Knowledge. The good guys (Kim Cattrall and Peter MacNicol) run a day-care center and discover the experiment. The babies' precocious lip and body movements are ill-concealed computerized effects.

"The Deep End of the Ocean" (PG-13)
As soon as Michelle Pfeiffer's character realizes that her 3-year-old son has been snatched in a crowded hotel lobby, "The Deep End of the Ocean" plunges into stormy drama. Pfeiffer gives a riveting performance, backed by a refreshing, humane cast, portraying how such a loss can implode a family. The PG-13 represents profanity, sexual innuendo, smoking, drinking and tranquilizers. This story (based on Jacquelyn Mitchard's novel) could prove upsetting for children who've lost their parents, or whose families are in conflict. Others will find the emotional turmoil in the film cathartic. In its second half, the movie becomes a TV-style melodrama: The missing son turns up miraculously nine years later and doesn't remember his family. Life remains complicated.

"The Corruptor" (R)
An incomprehensible plot and barely intelligible dialogue don't slow this slick but unoriginal ultra-violent action film. Even high-schoolers (and, let's face it, younger teens) who like the genre will come away unable to explain what it was about; "The Corruptor" aims to provide a quick rush and be forgotten. The rating reflects deafening, point-blank, bloody violence, a suicide, profanity, strong sexual innuendo, female and male nudity, sexual situations, drugs, cigarettes and liquor.

Two policemen are assigned to stop a turf war among crime bosses in New York's Chinatown. One cop, played by Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat, is suave and possibly corrupt, though it's hard to tell through his heavily accented English. His partner, played by Mark Wahlberg, seems naive and mumbles a lot. There are shootouts, car chases, murdered prostitutes and abused illegal immigrants.

"Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (R)
In this cheeky, bullet-riddled comedy, a pack of dashing Cockney blokes from London's tough East End engage in a bizarre caper to nullify a gambling debt to a local crime boss. High-schoolers receptive to new accents and movies with off-the-wall sensibilities may get a bang out of "Lock, Stock," keeping in mind that the film does make very light of mayhem. The rating reflects strong profanity and sexual innuendo, scenes with topless dancers, characters using marijuana, cigarettes and liquor, and lots of stylized violence. The gunplay is deafening but rarely graphic.