Capsule reviews of recently released movies

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FRACTURE (R) Although this is basically just a pumped-up version of one of those old Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV episodes about trying to get away with the perfect crime, Fracture works best when it's pretending to be The Silence of the Lambs, minus the fava beans and tasty liver. Ryan Gosling takes the Jodie Foster role (complete with down-home accent and humble beginnings), a law-abiding golden boy playing, and mostly losing at, a game of wits with a brilliant psychopath — portrayed by none other than Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins hams it up in fine, Lecter-ish style, right down to the creepy little facial ticks and reptilian stare (accented by ghoulish low-key lighting straight out of Silence). In fact, the Lecterisms are so in-your-face that at times the movie seems to be emulating The Freshman's postmodern hat trick with Brando's tongue-in-cheek reprise of his iconic Godfather role. There's ultimately nothing remotely postmodern or self-reflective about Fracture, however, and it soon becomes clear that the movie is simply cashing in on a registered trademark. That said, you could do worse. It's so entertaining watching Hopkins oozing his creepy charisma that we hardly notice all the plot holes and lack of gravitas around him. Also stars Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davidtz, Billy Burke and David Straithairn. Opens April 20 at local theaters. 3 stars

HOT FUZZ (R) An even more seamless genre-bender than the director's previous Shaun of the Dead, Edgar Wright's thoroughly entertaining Hot Fuzz mashes up comedy, action, buddy movies and the odd Agatha Christie whodunit, while gleefully taking the piss out of everything it touches. The movie's smart enough to show some respect too, and its bottom line simultaneously spoofs and cherishes big, splashy action movies in much the same way that Shaun stroked and skewered horror. Wright's co-scripter Simon Pegg stars as Nicolas Angel, a London supercop who makes his less dedicated colleagues look so bad that he finds himself "promoted" to a beat in a picturesque, backwater burg (at which point the movie's perfectly chosen soundtrack becomes dominated by The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society). The big joke here is that the sleepy village turns out to be anything but, and Angel winds up matching wits with a hooded reaper who's slicing and dicing the locals (and making it all look like a series of extremely unconvincing accidents). Hot Fuzz is some very funny stuff, with comedy that does droll as well as slapstick, and a well-stocked bank of almost too-clever pop culture references. It all tends to go on a bit too long for its own good (there are at least two climaxes too many here), but even the excesses are worth a look. By the end, Hot Fuzz is all glorious anarchy, as it should be. Also stars Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, Paddy Considine, Billie Whitelaw and Edward Woodward. Opens April 20 at local theaters. 4 stars

RECENT RELEASES

300 (R) We've come a long way from Final Fantasy, to the point where it's easy to forget that the digitally tweaked imagery washing over us in 300 is not, strictly speaking, real. The source here is a graphic novel by Frank Miller, and the sense that's imparted is that director Zack Snyder (rebounding nicely from his Dawn of the Dead remake) has imbued the panels not only with motion but also with life. An even more sophisticated blend of human actors and computer-generated environments than what was achieved in Miller's Sin City, 300's virtual universe recreates the battle of Thermopylae, when a small band of Spartan warriors held off a much larger army of Persians in 480 B.C. There's style to burn here and gore aplenty, as three hundred Spartan musclemen (resembling Tom of Finland fantasies in their red capes and black leather jock straps) take on hordes of fantastic and fearsome foes in a spectacle both elegant and unabashedly grisly. The movie is mainly notable for being an amazing technological achievement, but there's an actual story here as well (with some engaging characters and surprisingly smart writing), revealing 300 as something more than simply style for its own sake. Stars Gerald Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West and Rodrigo Santoro. 3.5 stars

THE ASTRONAUT FARMER (PG) Billy Bob Thornton stars as Charlie Farmer, a more or less ordinary man who — as is required in stories like these — dares to dream an extraordinary dream. Charlie's got an adoring wife (Virginia Madsen), two perfect children and a family farm to run, but it turns out that he once had dreams of being an astronaut, and what he really wants to do is to fly a rocket ship into outer space. That's why Charlie's going broke building that massive rocket in his back yard, and that's why the FBI is monitoring him and everybody in town thinks he's crazy. But of course, those of us in the audience are supposed to understand that he's anything but crazy, except in the best and most inspirational follow-your-dreams sort of way. For every interesting little bit of quirkiness there are two big, uplifting speeches complete with swelling Muzak ("Without our dreams, we're nothing"being the main mantra here), and the movie's pieces fall into place with a perfunctory thud completely at odds with the uplift the story strives for. Also stars Bruce Willis, Bruce Dern and Richard Edson. 2.5 stars

BLACK SNAKE MOAN (R) Everybody's got their demons in Black Snake Moan, beginning with Southern-fried nympho Rae (Christina Ricci, starved down to about 85 pounds, and playing her character like a cross between an anime sexpot and the tragic heroine of some white trash grand opera). Then there's the former rough-and-tumble blues singer reborn as a scripture-spouting tomato farmer — named, appropriately enough, Lazarus, and played by Samuel L. Jackson. When these two paths cross and Jackson makes it his mission to save Ricci's soul, the wanton white woman ends up at the end of a chain wielded by her aging African-American captor/benefactor. Despite the leering, pulp-ish veneer, writer-director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) doesn't really take the movie into the kinky areas it seems to be promising, but neither does Black Snake Moan really fit the mold of a serious and sober character study. The film seems to exist in two separate worlds simultaneously — with lurid elements often played curiously straight, and serious dramatic plot points frequently given an outsized, overheated edge — but it's not fully either. The result is often fun to watch, but not completely satisfying. The best thing about the movie is its eye for authentic atmosphere, getting the back-roads juke joints, the ramshackle neighborhoods, the language and textures of Southern life just right. Also stars Justin Timberlake, S. Epatha Merkerson, John Cothran, Kim Richards and David Banner. 3.5 stars

BLADES OF GLORY (PG-13) Will Ferrell and Jon Heder play rival figure skaters forced to make nice. After Dodgeball and Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory leaves us wondering what sports could possible remain for folks like Ferrell and Ben Stiller to spoof. Ping-pong, anyone? Also stars Amy Poehler, Will Arnett and Jenna Fischer. (Not Reviewed)

DEAD SILENCE (R) Crazy ventriloquists, creepy dummies and more mutilated body parts from the gentle souls who brought us Saw. Fair warning. Stars Donnie Wahlberg, Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Laura Regan and Bob Gunton. (Not Reviewed)

DISTURBIA (PG-13) A housebound teen (Shia LaBeouf) finds himself spying on a neighbor who appears to be up to no good. Rear Window, anyone? Also stars Carrie-Anne Moss, David Morse, Sarah Roemer and Aaron Yoo. (Not Reviewed)

DREAMGIRLS (PG-13) A uniquely African-American variation on that old Chicago razzle-dazzle, Dreamgirls lunges from one fabulous musical number to the next, a nearly nonstop hit parade with scattered bits of story thrown in during the downtime. Revolving around the rise of a girl-group called The Dreamettes (The Supremes by any other name), Dreamgirls attempts to tell the story of Motown, but it's all so slick and super-sized that it rarely resonates as it should. Ditto for the characters served up here, all of whom double as big, fat cultural icons in a flamboyantly superficial survey of what is arguably black music's most important decade. (For all the outsized drama, Dreamgirls often unintentionally comes pretty darned close to being soul music's Spinal Tap, minus the jokes.) What saves Dreamgirls is that its core performers — particularly Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy and newcomer Jennifer Hudson — are talented and charismatic enough that, even when the material is bogus and the movie is just going through the motions, it's a pleasure to watch the singers and dancers vigorously strutting their stuff. Dreamgirls is mostly empty calories but, like most junk food, it's pretty hard to resist. Also stars Jamie Foxx, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. 3 stars

FIRST SNOW (R) Loaded with atmospheric touches, solid performances and a fairly intriguing premise, First Snow is a movie that winds up promising much more than it delivers. Guy Pearce stars as Jimmy Starks, a smooth-talking, self-assured salesman whose life unravels in no uncertain terms after a persuasive psychic informs him that death is imminent. Pearce is quite good as the morally dubious con man, but his character's descent is basically a pretty predictable one, and watching it unfold — which is really all that happens here — becomes a bit tedious. First time director Mark Fergus (one of the screenwriters on Children of Men) fills the film with curious little bits of business that keep things watchable and occasionally even interesting, but there's ultimately somewhat less going on here than meets the eye. Also stars Piper Perabo, William Fichter, J.K. Simmons, Shea Whigham and Rick Gonzales. 3 stars

GRINDHOUSE (R) The gimmick here — an inside joke grown so enormous it happily devours itself — is that the two movies bundled together in Grindhouse simulate the whole experience of taking in a double feature at some bottom-tier (aka "grindhouse") movie theater back in the 1970s. You can almost feel the sticky floors beneath your feet as grindhouse aficionados and co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino touch all the bases, right down to the previews for (fake) coming attractions and the scratched, faded and badly spliced film stock. As for the main features here, this is basic so-bad-it's-good stuff, gleefully violent, brainless fare. Rodriguez's Planet Terror is yet another Night of the Living Dead mash-up, in which flesh-munching zombies are complimented by cartoonish helpings of gore and the already iconic image of Rose McGowan with a machine gun attached to where her leg used to be. Tarantino's Death Proof gives us a psychotic stuntman (Kurt Russell) repeatedly smashing his car into a bunch of comely females for no discernable reason. With its exploding body parts and nonstop go-go frenzy, Rodriguez's contribution is just one step removed from the nonsensical commotion of his Shark Boy and Lava Girl. Oddly, Tarantino, that most movie-mad of director-fetishists, keeps things more grounded in reality, but his film also winds up being the duller portion of this double bill. Although it concludes with a wonderfully gratuitous car chase, 80 percent of Death Proof is simply girls sitting around shooting the breeze — and Tarantino still has a tough time writing decent dialogue for women. Also stars Freddie Rodriguez, Sydey Tamia Poitier, Vanessa Ferlito, Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Stacy Ferguson and Naveen Andrews. 3.5 stars

THE LAST MIMZY (PG) The story here is actually pretty simple, but it's communicated in such a tedious, convoluted manner that it's hard to get a handle on what's happening until the movie's nearly over and even harder to care. Adorable little Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) and big brother Noah (Chris O'Neill) discover a box filled with mysterious "toys" that seem to be giving them special powers — although, as it turns out, the children's powers are just one more red herring in a movie filled with them. Very little of what occurs here seems specifically connected to anything else, entire areas of the plot are introduced and then haphazardly discarded, and even the main idea driving the story — some gobbledygook about the toys being beamed here by a future civilization in need of saving — is only explained in what amounts to a perfunctory postscript. Pitched in some bizarre netherworld between kid-friendly fare and adult drama, the movie gussies itself up with what is essentially very slight material with baroque visual effects and contrived narrative flourishes that are probably supposed to pass as sophisticated but that only add to the general air of incoherence. Also stars Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson, and Michael Clarke Duncan. 2 stars

THE LOOKOUT (R) Screenwriter Scott Frank (Get Shorty, Out of Sight) makes his directorial debut with this much anticipated thriller about a brain-damaged janitor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who winds up involved in a bank robbery. Also stars Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode and Isla Fisher. (Not Reviewed)

MEET THE ROBINSONS (G) A Jimmy Neutron-like boy genius time-travels to the future where wacky adventures await with the titular, space-age family. Treat the kiddies (and yourself) to an even bigger kick by checking out the 3-D version of this latest Disney digital animation, playing at a handful of Bay area theaters (including Regal Citrus Park). Features the voices of Angela Bassett, Tom Selleck, Harland Williams, Adam West and Laurie Metcalf. (Not Reviewed)

MUSIC AND LYRICS (PG) Hugh Grant stars as Alex, a self-described "happy has-been" who enjoyed brief fame in a '80s pop band and now finds himself reduced to playing high school reunions. Drew Barrymore, assuming a role that a few years ago would have gone to Meg Ryan, plays a lovably neurotic ditz named Sophie. Alex and Sophie meet cute within the film's first 10 minutes, then wind up spending time together to collaborate on his big comeback song. And it's pretty much a given that by the time their brief artistic partnership comes to its conclusion, romantic sparks will have flown. And does it ever — in the hothouse bubble of Music and Lyrics, Alex and Sophie are veritable fruit flies of love, with a relationship that flourishes with all the prepackaged, just-add-water gusto of a packet of sea monkeys. A feel-good comedy coasting on featherweight charm, Music and Lyrics is not quite Two Weeks Notice pointless (another rom-com starring Grant and from the same director, Marc Lawrence), but it's certainly nowhere near Four Weddings and a Funeral smart, or even Notting Hill clever. Still, Grant and Barrymore are both appealing performers (even though their chemistry together doesn't exactly set the world on fire), and just the presence of their company is enough to make Music and Lyrics a bearable experience. Also stars Brad Garrett, Kristen Johnston, Campbell Scott and Haley Bennett. 2 stars

THE NAMESAKE (PG-13) A family saga spanning two generations, The Namesake is a film about packing up one's life and moving from one place to another. The principal bodies in motion here are Ashoke Ganguli (Irfan Khan) and his wife Ashima (Tabu), a Bengali couple who make a move to the United States and wind up living there as hyphenate-Americans, one foot in the old world and one foot in the new. Adapting Jhumpa Lahiri's 2003 bestseller in fine, cinematic style, director Mira Nair chronicles the Gangulis' changing lifestyles and attitudes over the years, detailing their trajectories with affection and rare intelligence, and giving the film a fluid, episodic feel that's mainly concerned with the everyday textures of life. Nair begins to lose control of the all-important rhythms of her film at the midpoint, as the focus shifts to son Gogul Ganguli (Kal Penn), and the story begins to push in more conventional directions that occasionally skirt the edges of melodrama. But even at its soapiest, there are more than enough grace notes to redeem The Namesake and keep it well on track. Also stars Jacinda Barrett and Zuleikha Robinson. 4 stars

THE NUMBER 23 (R) Jim Carrey is back in serious thespian mode and with Kevin Bacon's hair. But that's not the worst news about The Number 23, a turgid and largely pointless psychological thriller from hit-and-miss director Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever, Phone Booth). In what might be charitably taken as a subversive nod to Ace Ventura, Carrey stars an ordinary dog-catcher who fantasizes that he's some sort of tough-guy sleuth (a pet detective, get it?), when he begins to identify a little too closely with the very strange book he's reading. As Carrey's character becomes increasingly obsessed with the book and with its quasi-mystical fixation with the titular numeral, his paranoia grows to Shining-like proportions, a falling-off-the-deep-end that begins almost immediately and leads nowhere particularly interesting. The movie begins spending more and more time in Carrey's head, a soft-focus fantasy world in which the character's faux-noir alter-ego gets to sport stubble and elaborate tattoos, and have rough sex with a series of women in bad wigs. The fantasy interludes are unintentionally dopey, the descent into madness deadly dull, and the omnipresent voice-over narration that supposedly holds the narrative together is annoyingly overwrought and sometimes flat-out pretentious. Also stars Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston and Lynn Collins. 2 stars

PERFECT STRANGER (R) Despite the perfectly generic title and perfectly bankable A-List stars (Halle Berry flirting with Bruce Willis!), Perfect Stranger turns out to be far from perfect and not at all strange. James Foley, who has directed some pretty good films in his time, cooks up a slick but basically pointless thriller that never quite kicks into gear. The movie is pretty much all foreplay, promising puzzles within puzzles without ever really providing one worth pondering. Berry stars as Rowena Price, a foxy newspaper reporter who goes undercover at a top advertising agency run by a philandering executive (Willis) who may have murdered Berry's friend. The stars are fun to watch — Willis plays a slightly more ominous version of his standard scalawag, and Berry's cartoon crusader may be her best since Catwoman (take that with as many kernels of popcorn as you wish) — but the script is lazy to a fault, with cheesy flashbacks surfacing every so often in lieu of actual character development. Also stars Giovanni Ribisi, Gary Dourdan and Patti D'Arbanville. 2 stars

THE REAPING (R) With current debates over whether the Bible should be taught in public schools and media depictions of a conservative party entrenched in extreme Christianity, it seems like a bold move to produce a film as blatantly religious as The Reaping. Unfortunately, any originality, substance or even novelty is lost in a parade of tired plot devices and predictable story progression. Hilary Swank plays Katherine Winter, an Indiana Jones sort of professor who treks the globe disproving various religious phenomena with her large muscular partner, Ben (Idris Elba). The duo run into trouble when they investigate a series of bizarre occurrences in the swamps of Louisiana that resemble the 10 Biblical plagues. The plot is forced onto the viewer without any tact or pacing and any attempt at depth or substance is crushed under the weight of a convoluted and disjointed mishmash of erratically delivered flashbacks, dream sequences and prophetic visions. In the end, the movie shows its real intentions with a gaudy orgasm of fire, brimstone and CGI. Also stars David Morrissey. 2 stars —Tristan Wheelock

SHOOTER (PG-13) Even in those rare moments when nothing seems to be happening, there's a sense of forward momentum here that reminds us of why they call these things action movies. (Our sense of the story advancing is so palpable, in fact, that's a bit of shock when we finally realize there's not really much story to advance.) Mark Wahlberg stars as an ex-marine sharpshooter who becomes the fall guy for a high-level political assassination he's been recruited to foil. With every armed body in America on his tail, Wahlberg spends most of the movie running for his life, pausing only for brief attempts at proving his innocence, with the whole thing playing out a little like The Fugitive meets Sniper on a grassy knoll (the movie teases us not just with presidential assassinations, but with all manner of shadowy conspiracies). There's nothing particularly spectacular about Shooter, frankly, nor are there any spectacular screw-ups (at least until the climatic face-off, when all the omnipotent bad guys turn themselves into convenient targets). It's sometimes a bit difficult to catch all of the characters' dialogue — what with all the gruff, Dirty Harry whispering going on, they could be pretty much saying anything — but by now you've probably figured out that doesn't much matter. Also stars Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Danny Glover and Ned Beatty. 3 stars

TMNT (PG) Between the upcoming big screen version of Transformers and this state-of-the-art CGI revival of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, 2007 is turning out to be a plum year for '80s nostalgia. In TMNT, our heroes on the half-shell face off against an evil industrialist (Patrick Stewart) and an army of deadly monsters — with periodic breaks, no doubt, for copious pizza consumption. Also features the voices of Sara Michelle Gellar, Chris Evans, Billy West, Ziyi Zhang and Kevin Smith . (Not Reviewed)

WILD HOGS (PG-13) In Wild Hogs, four suburban guys, each suffering the slings and arrows of midlife crisis, hoist their aging carcasses on motorcycles-cum-phallic-symbols and set out on a cross-country road trip to rediscover their old mojo(s). It's not a particularly good movie or a particularly funny one (did I forget to mention it's a comedy?), but Wild Hogs coasts comfortably on the likeability of its cast — John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy — each riffing on familiar aspects of their respective screen personae. The humor here is mostly physical and of a lower-brow variety (characters frequently injure themselves and others, make funny faces in the shadow of emotional or material loss and deal with massive feces spillages, literally). to the movie's credit, there's a blithely cheerful quality to even its most potentially cruel bits that, like a vintage Road Runner cartoon, keeps Wild Hogs from feeling mean-spirited. Even the obligatory soundtrack of classic road songs is a tad less annoying than you might imagine. At least I don't think I heard "Born to be Wild" in there. Also stars Ray Liotta and Marisa Tomei. 2 stars

This article appears in Apr 18-24, 2007.