AUGUST RUSH (PG-13) A quasi-mystical fable about the healing power of music, and a gushing love letter to the nuclear family, August Rush is a movie where twists of fate fall from the sky and where couples are destined to be together because of the alliterative qualities of their names. So musicians Louis and Lyla (Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell) fall in love at first sight, then are immediately and tragically separated — but not before conceiving a prodigiously talented child, the eponymous August (Freddie Highmore), who is likewise summarily whisked away. August Rush positively overflows with sincerity and cosmic concurrences, and we're obviously not meant to take any of it literally (the characters are clearly ciphers: Russell and Meyers are simply supposed to look good together, and Highmore's brave little face is mainly required to cry buckets on cue) — but the movie's magical reality unfolds in such a fantastically slick, superficial way that it almost feels like we're watching an extended trailer rather than the movie itself. August Rush is not without its glib charms, but the cumulative effect is like scanning a series of bumper stickers for New Age churches. The path of the movie's loved ones toward one another is as efficient and inexorable as the trajectories in Sleepless in Seattle and brimming with warmed-over sentiments pilfered from everything from Mr. Holland's Opus to Forrest Gump. Also stars Terrence Howard and Robin Williams. 2 stars
BEE MOVIE (PG) Jerry Seinfeld returns from the stand-up comedy wilderness with this CGI-animated offering about a spunky little bee who wants more (as apparently do all animated creatures these days). The voice cast alone might be reason enough to investigate: Besides Seinfeld, Renee Zelwegger, Matthew Broderick and John Goodman, there's an eclectic ensemble including Rip Torn, Sting, Oprah Winfrey and Larry King. (Not Reviewed)
BEOWULF (PG-13) Another animated dip into flesh and fantasy for the graphic novel-reading crowd, Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf pumps up the "motion capture" techniques pioneered in Polar Express, coming up with a testosterone free-for-all that out-300's 300. Co-scripters Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) and fanboy guru Neil Gaiman manage to remain faithful to their source's thousand-year-old essence while bringing a distinctly modern sensibility to this epic about a warrior-king's confrontation with a monster and his mother. Zemeckis and his writers pump up the story with some juicy pop psychology, irreverent humor and a pervasive bawdiness that pushes the limits of the movie's PG-13 rating. The contemporary feel extends to the title character, who morphs into a curiously modern hero by nature of crucial, hidden flaws that link him to the very monster he vows to destroy. Best of all is the monster himself, the marvelously imperfect Grendel, who stumbles about with his skin turned inside-out, alternately howling and blubbering like a cross between the ravaged soul from Hellraiser and an overgrown special-needs child (an effect sealed by the exquisitely pathetic voice supplied by Crispin Glover). Visually, Beowulf kicks ass, but the only way to fully appreciate the movie is to see it in Imax 3-D, where the film's digital animation takes on a scale and a depth that's nothing short of thrilling. Features Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson and Crispin Glover. 3.5 stars
CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (R) Based on true events from the Reagan years, Mike Nichol's new film stars Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson, a hard-partying Texas congressman who sets monumental forces in motion, almost without realizing it, when he begins lobbying to supply Afghanistan's Mujahideen in their struggle against Russian invaders. Urging Wilson on is his occasional lover, a rich, ultra-right-wing dragon lady played by Julia Roberts. The individual players are fairly engaging, but Charlie Wilson's War never manages to muster up much dramatic momentum. The movie's tone is all over the place, veering from screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's trademark sitcom style to quasi-screwball satire to something approaching sentimental mush, and then straight into agitprop, with tears welling up in Hanks' eyes in the midst of multitudes of mistreated Afghan orphans. Charlie Wilson's War starts out strong and then slowly fizzles out just as it should be getting interesting. The covert war waged by Hanks' congressman results in the Soviet empire crumbling just as the film is ending, all but ignoring the more interesting twists that followed (specifically, how Afghan "freedom fighters" transformed into the legions of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, using American weapons and training against their so-called benefactors). The movie opens with a dreamily stylized image of a Muslim praying beneath a starry sky, then picking up his rocket launcher and aiming at squarely at the camera — which is to say, at us — but that's about as close as Nichols gets to that particular can of worms. Stars Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Amy Adams. 2.5 stars
