NEW ON DVD: 'Charlie Bartlett,' 'Definitely, Maybe'
NEW RELEASES
CHARLIE BARTLETT
A wonderful iteration of the teen coming-of-age movie, this mordant picture flirts with turning sentimental but, thankfully, abstains. Privileged seventeen-year-old Charlie (Anton Yelchin) dreams of being wildly popular and his dream comes true after he's expelled from a prep school and enrolls at his local public high. There he starts dispensing prescription drugs and offering psychological counseling from the boy's lavatory. This brings peer adulation plus the attention of the beleaguered principal (Robert Downey Jr.), whose semi-Goth daughter is also enrolled. Jon Poll's terrific directorial debut, from Gustin Nash's snarky-and-sweet script, presents an adolescent pied piper worthy of being followed and cheered. (R) GREAT
DEFINITELY, MAYBE
This Valentine's Day confection leaves a bitter taste not even Ryan Reynolds, in his coming out as a semi-serious actor, can offset. While you appreciate it's not sickly sweet, it's too depressingly ordinary to savor. A man on the verge of divorce tells his young daughter (Abigail Breslin) the story of how he met her mother, withholding her identity until the very end. The long, convoluted tale takes place in New York during the 1990s when he's working on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz and Elizabeth Banks play the three candidates for the position of wife. (PG-13) FAIR
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
IN BRUGES
The mediaeval Belgian city is an ideal backdrop for a droll hit man comedy with depth and emotion, plus a dwarf, obese Yankee tourists, and a message of non-violence. Irish playwright Martin McDonagh brings a theatrical sense of story structure to his directorial debut about two London assassins (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) lying low following a job gone wrong. Ralph Fiennes relishes his role as their boss, a cockney thug with principles. Bad guys who behave nobly are de rigueur nowadays, but rarely are they depicted with enough breezy fun and ghoulish gravitas to make an Old Master painter or Elizabethan dramatist proud. (R) GREAT
PERSEPOLIS
This unique animated work, France's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, tells of an Iranian girl who witnesses the Islamic revolution of the late 1970s and bridles against its policies, particularly regarding women. Marjane Satrapi's graphic novels have been turned into an accessible movie that serves as revealing autobiography and a humorous approach to modern Islam. Cosmopolitan in a very real sense, it expresses rebellious anger plus skepticism toward all political and religious philosophies. The heroine struggles to keep cynicism at bay, and what ultimately registers is that freedom entails the right to be creative and depressed. Subtitled. (PG-13) GOOD
THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES
This moderately faithful live-action adaptation of Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi's children's books rests comfortably between the backyard fabrications of "A Bridge to Terabithia" and the sprawling, Biblical reach of "The Chronicles of Narnia." Freddie Highmore plays twin brothers who move to the spooky mansion of their deceased uncle (David Strathairn) and soon discover they're not alone. Five "Spiderwick" books are condensed into a feature film that can be awfully scary (the PG rating seems generous given the many dangerous threats) yet is also relatively predictable. As realized by director Mark Waters, this chronicle is inventive without being innovative, fantastical but not fantastic. (PG) GOOD
10,000 BC
Roland Emmerich imagines the prehistoric world as a moderately perilous melting pot in which different physical characteristics, languages, and customs — plus dwelling in different climatic zones — cannot divide mankind. Forget about cave men with clubs and gargantuan creatures chasing Raquel Welch; don't expect an abundance of gripping action or a scintilla of campy fun either. This feels more like a serious-minded, computer-enhanced Bible epic with our hunter hero (Steven Strait) leading a rebellion against a slave-owning civilization in order to rescue his true love (Camilla Belle). The script is as fuzzy as the woolly mammoths and the theme of tolerance and togetherness seems a tad anachronistic. (PG-13) FAIR
TOP RENTALS
FOOL'S GOLD
The title gets it half-right. What looked like a lucrative mid-winter diversion on paper becomes a leaden disaster on the open sea — a nautical, not-naughty-enough vehicle that manages to be lethargic and calamitous at the same time. Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey are fortune-seekers whose splintered relationship might be saved if they can locate a fabled Spanish treasure in turquoise waters off the Bahamas. Donald Sutherland plays a millionaire whose yacht and celebutante daughter — if not his bad English accent — prove useful during the hunt. It's obvious that strenuous efforts were made to salvage this wreck once shooting ended. To no avail. (PG-13) BORING
WELCOME HOME ROSCOE JENKINS
Writer-director Malcolm D. Lee's comedy offers tasty measures of truth-telling and trash-talking, down-home sentiment and rude chicanery. A talented cast boosts the flavor. TV host and self-help guru R.J. (Martin Lawrence) returns to his childhood home in Georgia, bony fiancée in tow, to celebrate his parents' wedding anniversary. Cedric the Entertainer and Mike Epps play cousins, Michael Clarke Duncan and Mo'nique siblings, and James Earl Jones portrays his disapproving father. Each condiment gets poured on pretty thick — tartness to trigger laughs and sweetness to quell the heartburn. Certain exchanges might make viewers uncomfortable but are essential to the outing's success. (PG-13) GOOD
JUMPER
State-of-the-art special effects and dramatic aerial shots of Rome's Coliseum and the pyramids at Giza separate this shallow sci-fi flick from a television pilot, but aren't worth leaving home for unless your internet connection is down or you adore Hayden Christensen. He plays a young man capable of transporting himself through holes in the universe's spatial fabric. Is that enough to compensate for being abandoned by mommy (Diane Lane) at age five? Is his high-school sweetheart (Rachel Bilson) really worth all the commotion necessary to elude his mean pursuer (Samuel L. Jackson)? Text your answers to the number at the bottom of the screen. (PG-13) FAIR
THE BUCKET LIST
Channeling legendary NFL linebacker Dick Butkus, Jack Nicholson plays an ornery healthcare mogul opposite Morgan Freeman, who portrays an erudite auto mechanic. Both characters have late-stage cancer when they meet in the hospital and become each other's life coach, embarking on a trip around the world before the final curtain falls. Salty and schmaltzy, the ruminative dramedy rations genuine insight and humor in favor of predictably tearful sentiments designed to strike a chord with aging moviegoers. Not especially well-made, it could make the AARP's top 10 list, but director Rob Reiner and his two stars have definitely seen better days. (PG-13) FAIR
BE KIND REWIND
In a clever premise, Jack Black stars as an inept video-store clerk whose encounter with an electromagnetic field results in the erasure of all the movies at the shop where he works, prompting him to enlist his buddy (Mos Def) to reshoot all the films and foist off their amateur efforts on unsuspecting customers. (R) GOOD
THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL
Off with their pretty heads. The Hilton sisters have nothing on Anne and Mary Boleyn as imagined by novelist Philippa Gregory and portrayed by Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. You could do worse than cast these two beguiling Americans as siblings proffered to King Henry VIII (stolid Ausssie Eric Bana) by their male elders. Still, despite their efforts and the merits of Gregory's feminist slant on history, the movie is quasi-literate costume porn. The conniving, self-serving hussy and the selfless woman she abuses may be timeless figures, yet this unspools more like "Tudor-Era Trollops Gone Wild" than "Gone With The Wind." (PG-13) BORING
WITLESS PROTECTION
In his third big-screen outing, Larry the Cable Guy plays a backwater lawman who dreams of becoming an FBI agent. He gets a chance to prove his mettle when a buxom witness (Ivana Milicvic) rolls into town in the custody of shady Feds charged with keeping her safe until she can testify in a major fraud trial. Naturally it would be a mistake for his adversaries to underestimate Larry's know-how and courage under fire — but it's impossible to underestimate this comedy. Deputy Sheriffs throughout the South may take heart; the rest of us would settle for a laugh or two. (PG-13) BORING
SEMI-PRO
Will Ferrell is a minor court jester in his latest sports comedy, a profanity-laced hoops flick that hardly qualifies as a one-joke comedy unless an uncoordinated white guy in an Afro and disco-era duds equals a viable comic premise. Ferrell plays the owner/player/coach of a struggling ABA franchise in 1976. Desperate for a winning record, he trades the team's washing machine for a veteran player (Woody Harrelson). There aren't even any interesting cameos, maybe because there aren't many ABA greats still around and contemporary stars actually read the script before committing. It's time Ferrell got some coaching on the Xs and Os of comedy. (R) BORING