originally published July 2, 2008

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS

(PG) My nostalgic love for the Chipmunks lowered my expectations for the their live-action/ CGI debut, which was a good thing.

THE ANT BULLY

(PG) Based on a book by John Nickle. The "ant bully" is young Lucas Nickle, who finds himself magically shrunk to ant size after flooding a colony with his water gun. Like most animated flicks, Ant Bully is packed with as many celebrity voices as an anthill is with drones. Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Bruce Campbell and Ricardo Montalban vocalize every kind of ant from the queen to a wizard. Written and directed by “Jimmy Neutron” creator John A. Davis.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI

(R) 1998. Filmmaking siblings Ethan and Joel Coen (Fargo) veer into bizarre comic territory with this quirky and well-made "mistaken identity" flick. Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is the ultimate L.A. slacker, until one day his house is broken into and his rug is peed on by two angry gangsters who have mistaken him for Jeffrey Lebowski (the "big" one), a millionaire, whose wife owes some bad people some big money. The Dude becomes entangled in a hilariously complicated plot when he goes to visit the real Lebowski in order to get some retribution for his soiled rug. With John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi and Philip Seymour Hoffman. 

COLLEGE ROAD TRIP

(G) Martin Lawrence is Chief James Porter, the overprotective policeman father who decides to accompany - and mortify - his daughter, high school senior Rachel (Raven-Symoné), on a cross-country trip to pick a college.

THE FALL

(R) Strangely, I reacted much the same way to Tarsem's definitely artsy The Fall as I did to last week's certainly mainstream Get Smart. I was bored and unengaged by the characters or their situations. Tarsem (The Cell) has unquestionably created one of the year's most visually stunning films, but as an adult fairy tale, The Fall is easily outclassed by Guillermo del Toro's more emotionally affecting Pan's Labyrinth. Roy Walker (Lee Pace, whose pleasant presence on "Pushing Daisies" is inadequate here), a stuntman working in the infancy of cinema, suffers a debilitating injury - to his heart as well as his body. While recuperating (and contemplating suicide), Roy befriends a young immigrant girl, Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) whose imagination he fuels with an epic tale of the Black Bandit and his vengeful mission to slay the evil Governor Odious. Tarsem has created a fantasy world evocative of El Topo, Alejandro Jodorowsky's much stranger, more remarkable cult classic, yet Eastern mysticism and stunning desert cinematography don't a complete film make. The Fall's simple fable lacks the allegorical or applicable depth to increase the worth of its atypical imagery.

FAT ALBERT

(PG) Fat Albert (played by "SNL" and former "All That" regular Kenan Thompson), Mushmouth, Rudy, Bill, Dumb Donald, Weird Harold and Bucky are unleashed from their limbo-like television prison to solve problems in the real world and meet creator Bill Cosby in the process. Fat Albert seeks the same time-traveling mojo that worked so successfully for the Bradys, yet taking Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids out of the junkyard might also remove their ghettoized poignancy.

THE FAT SPY

(NR) 1966. This B-movie is a musical comedy directed by Joeseph Cates and starring Jane Mansfield. On an island off the coast of Florida (which may or may not contain the fountain of youth), the crazy cast, including a band called The Wild Ones, engages in a nutty scavenger hunt.

FIREHOUSE DOG

(PG) Hollywood’s top canine, Rexxx, gets lost and winds up in the care of a firehouse run by Connor Fahey (Bruce Greenwood) and his son, Shane (Josh Hutcherson, Bridge to Terabithia). Hopefully, successful television vet Todd Holland (“Malcolm in the Middle,” “Wonderfalls,” “My So-Called Life”) can do something with this cringe-inducing material.

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM

(PG-13) Jackie Chan and Jet Li’s first on-screen pairing is the only exciting aspect of the listless Forbidden Kingdom. Modern American teen, Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano), gets transported to ancient China when he discovers a magical staff in a pawn shop. The fighting sequences are well-choreographed Crouching Tiger knockoffs at which Li could excel blindfolded, and the 54-year-old Chan retains his comic charm. However, every scene than doesn’t involve fighting is poorly paced and blandly shot. The silly story has potential; this family friendly chopsocky flick would have been a perfect English-language debut for Kung Fu Hustle’s Stephen Chow.

GET SMART

(PG-13) "Get Smart," the television hit that ran from 1965 to 1970, was Mel Brooks' and Buck Henry's answer to James Bond. In 2008, a year that will see a new 007 come November, Steve Carell comfortably steps into the shoephone of the late, irreplaceable Don Adams in an inoffensive, slightly boring big-screen adaptation, the series' second (1980's The Nude Bomb). The new Get Smart enjoys some of the best TV-to-big screen casting in some time. Carell is sublime as always. Get Smart isn't stupid, but it misses by that much.

HANCOCK

(PG-13) Will Smith is Hancock, an apathetic, alcoholic superhero that the public does not like very much as he seems to cause more damage than his protection is worth. But a public relations professional (Jason Bateman) sees the potential in Hancock and decides to make over his biggest client’s public persona. Director Peter Berg is a solid, versatile talent, but if he can’t generate his first blockbuster out of the can’t-miss Will Smith (dude hasn’t had a flop since the last millennium), it might be time to hang up his big movie shoes. With Charlize Theron.

THE HAPPENING

(R) The Happening sheds the pounds of pretention Shyamalan’s films have been gaining and harnesses the power of corny dialogue and silly acting to nostalgically travel back to the sci-fi silliness of the 1950s while playing in the backyard of those pissed off nature movies that so intrigued the '70s. Hints of a misanthropic Walden and War of the Worlds mingle with some seriously R-rated, non-gory scares in a rare horror movie for adults.

HORTON HEARS A WHO!

(G) The 1954 children’s classic about Horton the elephant (v. Jim Carrey), whose giant ears allow him to communicate with the tiny speck that is the town of Whoville is one of the good doctor’s most beloved tales, right behind Green Eggs and Ham. The laughs in Horton are never cheap or juvenile, yet they are perfectly pitched for little ones’ ears.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK

(PG-13) Unlike any other comic book movie, Ang Lee composed his film using panels like an actual comic book. The Incredible Hulk improves upon its predecessor, but not by the leaps and bounds one would expect from the proximity of the two films. Hulk (2003) definitively remains the better film, but The Incredible Hulk (2008) is the better Hulk movie. The Green Goliath looks more realistic, smashes more, and has an opponent - Abomination, worthy of the serious ass-kicking Ol’ Green Genes is capable of dishing out. Nonetheless, Marvel Studios’ second effort looks a little green next to the nearly perfect Iron Man, a superhero film to rival the genre’s masterpiece, Spider-Man 2. The three X-Men movies and Spider-Man 1 and 3 look poorly next to Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk is easily on par with those solid Marvel movies.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

(PG-13) Crystal Skull is a cinematic rollercoaster ride that only Steven Spielberg and George Lucas could build, delivering the most constant amusement of the year.

KIT KITTREDGE: AN AMERICAN GIRL

(G) Young Kit Kittredge (Abigail Breslin) has written a story of life in the Great Depression and wants Cincinnati’s major daily newspaper to publish it. Three American Girl movies, based on the popular line of dolls, have already been made; they all went straight to TV. I guess the presence of Breslin, Stanley Tucci, Joan Cusack, Chris O’Donnell, Julia Ormond and Wallace Shawn means more B.O. Should Marcia Gay Harden, John Schneider, AnnaSophia Robb and Molly Ringwald, all of whom starred in previous American Girl movies, be jealous?

KUNG FU PANDA

(PG) Jack Black fans may not be too pleased with Kung Fu Panda, but I was. JB keeps himself pretty well in check as the out-of-shape panda, Po, who comes off like “Lost”’s Hurley, a lovable couch potato thrust into an unlikely hero’s role when his wildest dreams come true. Dreamworks, the home of Shrek, may just be milking the family film cash cow again, but the awesomeness of Kung Fu Panda ensures that you will not care.

THE LOVE GURU

(PG-13) Six years have passed since Mike Myers acted in a comedy he wrote, but as The Love Guru reminds, the man who gave the world Wayne Campbell and Dr. Evil is still a hell of a funny guy so long as you can laugh at barn-broad characters, smartly sophomoric wordplay and silly visual gaggery. Though born in America, Guru Pitka (Myers) grew up in India under the tutelage of a cross-eyed guru (Ben Kingsley). Wishing to become the next Deepak Chopra (a good friend of Myers), Pitka takes his acronyms, bumper sticker advice and self-help books, to Canada to solve the romantic woes of hockey star Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco), whose wife, Prudence (Meagan Good), has taken up with rival goalie Jacque “The Coq” Grande (Justin Timberlake). Pitka is a funnier, more talented character than the popular, one-note Powers. The guru sings, dances and plays sitar versions of “9 to 5” and “Space Cowboy.” The Love Guru may not be his best work, but it at least earns a passing mark.

MADE OF HONOR

(PG-13) Formula and predictability are kind of the hallmarks of romantic comedy. Made of Honor cannily plays on the feminine ideal that the love of a good woman can change the most caddish man, while indulging in juvenile visual sex gags and a demonstrable lack of subtlety. The romcom is also distressingly unfunny, which is the biggest deal breaker of all.

ON GOLDEN POND

(PG) 1981. Henry Fonda finally won an Oscar for his portrayal of Norman Thayer, a retired professor staying on Golden Pond with his wife, Ethel (Katharine Hepburn, who also won an Oscar). Fonda’s real-life daughter, Jane, picked up her sixth nomination for playing Norman’s daughter, Chelsea, who leaves her fiancé’s son with her elderly parents while traveling to Europe with her boyfriend (Dabney Coleman). A pleasant, well-acted film that confirms its stage origins, On Golden Pond benefited greatly from the goodwill generated by its aging leads. The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

THE RUINS

(R) Based on the what Stephen King has rightly called the scariest book of the new century, The Ruins is an exhaustingly tense trek into the Mexican jungle with four typical American college kids in search of an ancient Mayan ruin where an unexplainable evil patiently waits to devour them. The Ruins beneficially lacks the over-stylization of the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the casual sadism of torture porn; the film offs its characters as brutally as the novel, but with less gleeful zest than Hostel. Dotted with lots of little horrors (a broken back, amputation, self-surgery and more), The Ruins adds up to one big, bad horror flick.

RUN, FATBOY, RUN

(PG-13) Simon Pegg may be the funniest Englishman not named Ricky Gervais. Clueless, slightly overweight Dennis is another of the "so lame he’s cool" protagonists in which Pegg specializes, and his abject uselessness may well make him the lamest. Five years ago, Dennis left his pregnant fiancé, Libby (Thandie Newton), on their wedding day. Dennis still hasn’t grown up, but the entrance of new beau Whit (Hank Azaria) forces Dennis to prove he has changed. Thus, he decides to run in a charity marathon. Seems logical, right? Written by Pegg and Michael Ian Black, Run, Fatboy, Run has a subtle, steady, British hilarity about it.

SPEED RACER

(PG) This big-screen update of the '60s cult cartoon has been positioning itself as the summer’s first family film, but it’s doubtful anyone but the little brother obsessed with Matchbox cars and poo-tossing monkeys will enjoy it. The eye-gasm of candy-colored, Tron-inspired racing environments are blistering original, but I wasn’t sure what I was watching half of the time. The mix of low octane plot movement and high octane racing never clicks. No, Speed Racer, no.

TEN CANOES

(NR) 2006. Director Rolf de Heer and the people of Ramingining tell a story of wrong love, too many wives, sorcery, one big belly, and a spear in the wrong man. When a young aborigine falls in love with one of the wives of his older brother, the older aborigine narrates a cautionary tale about a much earlier time. Winner of six Australian Film Institute Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize at Cannes.

THEN SHE FOUND ME

(R) Helen Hunt does nothing terribly wrong in her directorial debut. She shows a nice sense of comedic and dramatic pacing, especially considering how gloomy the film gets. If only April Epner, the 39-year-old elementary schoolteacher Hunt brings to life from Elinor Lippman's novel, weren't such a grating, unsympathetic woman Then She Found Me might be more easily received.

WALL•E

(PG) See Movie Pick and Flick Skinny.

WANTED

(R) Wanted is the greatest summer action movie since Terminator 2. Saying I was blown away may sound cliché, but just because it's a cliché doesn't make it not true. Action fans are delivered from the drudgery of the common stunt by the comic book-inspired, Harry Potter-meets-Fight Club fantasy of anti-hero, Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy). Wesley leaves the evil and boring vagary of cubicle life for the magical world of bullet-curving assassin-dom when the Fraternity, a thousand-year-old guild led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman) and marketed by the beautiful Fox (Angelina Jolie), comes to call. Director Bekmambetov is a foreign filmmaking rock star waiting to explode in America, and his breakthrough picture possesses all the loud, brash theatrics to ensure his success.

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS...

(PG-13) How funny you find Vegas will depend greatly on how well you tolerate selfishness in others and how entertaining/cute you find the two mismatched stars. Kutcher spends much of the film being nauseatingly obnoxious. Diaz shows little of her own comic spark. Corddry supplies a few insufficient, idiotic laughs. Like the ads say, What Happens in Vegas... should stay in Vegas.

Drew Wheeler