OPENING THIS WEEK
BODY OF WAR (NR) Read Lance Goldenberg's review
THE HAPPENING (R) No one's talking much about the new M. Night Shyamalan movie, so all we can tell you is that the story concerns a family on the run from some sort of catastrophic, humanity-threatening event and that the stars are Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel. Oh, and there's just the slightest possibility that some sort of twist ending might be involved. Also stars John Leguizamo. Opens June 13 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
THE INCREDIBLE HULK (PG-13) Edward Norton not only stars as Dr. Bruce Banner and his anything-but-jolly green giant alter-ego, he also reportedly assumed an extremely hands-on approach that extended to personally rewriting the script. Norton's integrity and intensity can be formidable, and we're also eager to watch Liv Tyler and Tim Roth (as a mutated bad guy called The Abomination), but will the final result be enough to erase the memory of Ang Lee's 2003 mega-blunder? Also stars William Hurt and Tim Blake Nelson. Opens June 13 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
RECENT RELEASES
88 MINUTES (R) Al Pacino sports a goatee and a snappy action-hero name ("Jack Gramm") as an FBI forensic psychologist who finds himself matching wits with a brilliant (aren't they all?) serial killer. Be warned: The movie has already had its share of advance screenings, and the buzz is almost overwhelmingly bad. Also stars Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman and William Forsythe. (Not Reviewed)
10,000 B.C. (PG-13) 10,000 B.C. is the latest movie from Roland Emmerich, the man responsible for bombast-fests such as Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow, which should give you a fairly good idea of what to expect. Steven Strait and Camilla Belle play early humans running around in animal furs chasing and being chased by saber tooth tigers, woolly mammoths and other big, scary CGI creatures. There are some appealingly bizarre flourishes toward the end involving possible extraterrestrial influences o n a quasi-Mayan/Egyptian civilization, but the movie is mainly just dull, silly (although not enough to be truly amusing) and a bit pretentious. Inexplicably, our grimy, dreadlocked heroes speak a stilted, prosaic English from a time when contractions apparently had not yet been invented. Also stars Cliff Curtis, Joel Fry, Tim Barlow and Nathanael Baring. 2 stars
21 (PG-13) A blander Ocean's 11 meets Good Will Hunting, 21 stars Jim Sturgess as a brilliant but dirt-poor MIT student who's reluctantly recruited by a shady professor (Kevin Spacey) to partake in a card-counting scheme to take Vegas for millions. 21 is an odd and not particularly satisfying kettle of fish, loosely based on a true story but only giving off the vaguest whiffs of anything resembling authenticity. Visually, the movie is a bit drab and dark, a look probably designed to make us think something serious is going on, but that's curiously at odds with a basically jaunty sensibility that seems to aim for (but never quite achieves) the groovy swagger of the Ocean's movies. The film doesn't ever manage to communicate the kids' system very coherently, nor with much energy, and 21 consequently winds up feeling a little like a heist movie without a heist. Spacey, who also produced, is fun to watch as yet another one of those deliciously insidious characters he plays so well, but he's not enough to save the movie. Sturgess' character rises, falls and then does a bit more rising by way of a half-hearted coda, but by that time 21 is simply running on fumes. Also stars Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, Aaron Yoo, Jacob Pitts, Josh Gad and Sam Golzari. 2.5 stars
BABY MAMA (PG-13) Tina Fey and Amy Poehler offer up a watered-down version of their old SNL chemistry in this inoffensive comedy about a successful businesswoman (Fey) who hires a clueless skank (Poehler) to be the surrogate mother for her child. Nobody plays white trash as well as Poehler (it has something to do with that crazed, Nicholson-ian glint in her eye), but the script plays things too safe to let the comedian be nearly as unhinged as she needs to be. And between Poehler's antics and some juicy cameos by the likes of Steve Martin and Sigourney Weaver, the extremely funny Fey winds up reduced to a straight woman, or worse — a virtual supporting player in her own movie. There are a handful of nice moments (a Young Republican couple bonding with their Wiccan surrogate; "Endless Love" playing over an artificial insemination scene), but what pleasures there are here are nearly forgotten in a ridiculously inept final act full of forced revelations and rushed resolutions. The strong of heart can stick around for the closing credits, which feature some of the most worthless outtakes you'll ever see. Also stars Dax Shepard, Greg Kinnear, Romany Malco, Siobhan Fallon, Maura Tierney and Holland Taylor. 2.5 stars
THE BUCKET LIST (PG-13) Director Rob Reiner layers on the schmaltz, and Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman supply the star power in a meathead's delight that might just have well been called Grumpy Old Terminally Ill Men. Freeman's obligatory opening voice-over sets the tone, cramming in the words "love," "fate" and "folks" in under a minute, as dying roommates Carter (Freeman) and Edward (Nicholson) decide to spend their final months, and a sizeable chunk of the latter's fortune, doing all the things they never got around to doing. Endless footage ensues of the old coots skydiving, getting tattoos, driving fast cars, and popping up in a virtual travelogue encompassing the Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China. Freeman's wise but slightly prickly character periodically pontificates on the nature of the world, eventually teaching the meaning of life to the considerably richer but far more cynical Nicholson, and it all feels like the spitting image of a made-for-TV movie. Also stars Sean Hayes and Beverly Todd. 2 stars
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN (PG) Over 1300 years have passed since the events of 2005's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, but the more things change the more they stay the same. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian finds the titular kingdom once again under the thumb of evil despots and again in need of saving by our noble, still younger-than-springtime heroes (who are this time whisked away from grimy London to magical mystery land not via wardrobe but by the conduit of a Potter-esque train station). The sequel's look and feel is a bit darker than the original, with a vaguely Medieval ambience and an endless clanking of swords and solemn line readings that become tedious well before the movie's 144 minutes have elapsed. Character development is even more cursory than in the first film, with the main draw being a tapestry of unintentionally dopey-looking centaurs, minotaurs and talking animals (including a rodent rip-off of Shrek's swashbuckling kitty) that, mystical pretensions aside, belong in a Sid and Marty Krofft production. Sergio Castellitto makes an interesting villain and Peter Dinklage manages to maintain his dignity under a false nose and gnomish make-up, but there's not much else to brighten up the plodding here. When Tilda Swinton's evil witch briefly materializes towards the end — and then just as quickly vanishes — the movie's lack of life becomes all too apparent. Also stars Ben Barnes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes and Warwick Davis. 2.5 stars
DRILLBIT TAYLOR (PG-13) Everybody's favorite suicidal actor (Owen Wilson) returns as a bargain-basement bodyguard protecting grade-school kids from bullies. Also stars Leslie Mann, Josh Peck, David Dorfman and Troy Gentile. (Not Reviewed)
THE FALL (R) The last time mono-monikered wunderkind Tarsem was heard from was at the dawn of the millennium with The Cell, a serial-killer flick that would be easy to forget were it not for an appearance by J-Lo as a brilliant psychologist and a sprinkling of visuals that can only be described as breathtaking. The Fall, Tarsem's first feature film in seven years, is basically The Cell with those stunning visual sequences allowed to run pretty much uninterrupted for nearly two hours. Unfortunately, the downside here is that Tarsem's new opus is so stuffed with flamboyant images that there doesn't seem to be much room left for a story, and anything resembling a coherent plot is essentially jettisoned. The narrative, such as it is, involves a recuperating stuntman (Lee Pace), broken in body and spirit, lying in a hospital bed telling stories to an adorable little girl (Catinca Untaru) who turns out to have a few problems of her own. It soon becomes clear that the stuntman's constantly morphing tale of larger-than-life Munchausen-esque heroes and villains is being filtered through the little girl's imagination, loosely positioning The Fall with films like Paperhouse and Pan's Labyrinth, in which fantasy and reality blur through a child's perspective. It's all quite beautiful to look at but enigmatic almost to a fault, with the tone wobbling between whimsical and glumly pretentious. Also stars Justine Waddell and Daniel Caltagirone. 3 stars
FLAWLESS (PG-13) It's hard to avoid calling Flawless a heist movie, but anyone who puts too much stock in that description is bound to come away disappointed. The movie has a couple of things going for it, but the big jewel theft at the center of the story is a wash-out. Demi Moore stars here as Laura Quinn, an ambitious female executive repeatedly passed over for promotion at the London Diamond Corporation, while a series of less-qualified males sail right past her. With her head bruised from banging against that glass ceiling, Laura finds herself listening closely when an aging night janitor (heist-movie icon Michael Caine) approaches her with a plan to rob the corporation blind. The planning and execution of the heist turn out to be fairly perfunctory and rather uneventful, with director Michael Radford (Il Postino) spending more time dwelling on the post-crime investigation and ramifications — neither of which proves terribly interesting. The film is pleasant enough to look at, however, with solid production values and meticulous attention paid to its 1960 time period — but most of the performances (beginning with Moore's) are modulated to the point of lifelessness, and the movie is way too methodical for its own good. It's all bookended by some laughable latex make-up on Demi at the outset, and some annoyingly simplistic moralizing at the end that leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. Also stars Lambert Wilson and Joss Ackland. 2.5 stars
THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM (PG-13) From the vintage movie posters fetishized in its opening title sequence to its dream pairing of martial arts icons Jackie Chan and Jet Li, The Forbidden Kingdom is nothing if not a kung fu fanboy's wet dream. The hero here, Jason (Michael Angarano), is very much representative of the film's target demographic (at least domestically) — a doughy white boy who worships at the altar of Bruce Lee — and the movie immediately jettisons logic and demands our total suspension of disbelief as it transports this modern misfit back to ancient China, where he's charged with returning an all-powerful staff to its rightful owner. Aiding him in this quest are a pair of kung-fu whizzes — an enigmatic monk (Li) and a wine-guzzling immortal (Chan) — and standing in the way are the minions of a particularly nasty and supernaturally endowed war lord (Collin Chou). Jet Li and Jackie Chan both do what they do best here. Chan, looking vaguely ludicrous under a wig of long dreadlocks, mugs and mixes goofy humor with impressive physical agility, while Li is all Zen-like calm and precision, even when fighting, a cool-as-ice presence who's only marginally less effective when he opens his mouth to speak. Also stars Bingbing Li and Yifei Liu. 3.5 stars
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (R) The latest rom-com from the Judd Apatow Hit Factory, Forgetting Sarah Marshall stars Jason Segel (who also wrote the script) as a good-natured slacker on the rebound from an ex-girlfriend who keeps turning up to torment him. Also stars Kristen Bell, Mila Knis, Russell Brand, Bill Hader and Jonah Hill. (Not Reviewed)
HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY (R) Everybody's favorite White Castle-loving stoners are back, and Guantanmo's got 'em. Stars John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Paula Garces and Rob Corddry. (Not Reviewed)
HORTON HEARS A WHO! (G) Dr. Seuss is in the house again, with a feature-length adaptation of his tale about a very large elephant who gets in trouble when he pledges himself to protect a very tiny group of fellow creatures. Don't look between the lines for political allegories, and you might have a swell time. Featuring the voices of Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Will Arnett, Carol Burnett, Isla Fisher, Amy Poehler, Jaime Pressly and Seth Rogen. (Not Reviewed)
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (PG-13) A surprisingly satisfying return to form, the new Indiana Jones movie is an old-fashioned adventure so expertly crafted and consistently entertaining we barely have a moment to consider the empty calories. Set in 1957, exactly 19 years after the last installment took place, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gives us a naturally aged Indy, wrinkled and graying but still iconic under that familiar fedora, much as an aging Humphrey Bogart (circa The African Queen) might have played him. The movie barrels along, delivering one super-charged set piece after another, sequences all the more remarkable for largely avoiding CGI and relying on proudly old-school building blocks like skillful, intricately orchestrated stunts and a well-placed camera. It's a perpetual motion machine as impressive as something like Speed Racer, but infinitely closer to the natural charms of Buster Keaton or Jackie Chan than to the vacuum-packed, post-Matrix shenanigans of the Wachowski Brothers. What computerized trickery is here is generally so seamlessly integrated into the action that we barely notice it, the one notable exception being the movie's finale, a lazily conceptualized mish-mash of digital explosions, big-eyed aliens and other elements rehashed from earlier Spielberg productions. It's an unbecoming send-off for a movie that for the most part manages to remain faithful to a formula while revitalizing itself through sheer energy and imagination. Also stars Cate Blanchette, Shia LaBeouf, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone and John Hurt. 3.5 stars
IRON MAN (PG-13) Even if every aspiring blockbuster released over the next few months turns out to be a massive dud, the summer of '08 will be fondly remembered for Iron Man, a credit to popcorn movies everywhere. Marvel Comics' metal-suited superhero is shepherded to the big screen by director Jon Favreau (Elf, Made) and co-writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men), a talented team that supplies a surprisingly smart story that moves briskly while beautifully balancing humor and darker moments. There's also a super cast including Gwyneth Paltrow as pitch-perfect girl Friday Pepper Potts and Jeff Bridges as a towering weapons magnate with Daddy Warbuck's cue-ball head — but this is ultimately Robert Downey Jr.'s show, who invests the role of Iron Man's alter ego, playboy wunderkind Tony Stark, with enough charm, pathos and irreverent edge to keep us glued to the screen. Although not as visually poetic as the superhero movies of Bryan Singer (X-Men, Superman Returns) or as existentially engrossing as the darker-than-dark Batman Begins, Iron Man is the real deal — a first-rate comic-book flick as suitable for grown-ups as it is for kids. Also stars Terrence Howard, Shaun Toub and Hilary Swank. 3.5 stars
KUNG FU PANDA (PG) Kung Fu Panda doesn't offer much more than a reasonably pleasant but surprisingly savvy stew of talking animals engaged in grand quests, and Joseph Campbell's theory of the Hero's Journey isn't the only mythos to be reckoned with here. George Lucas' shadow likewise looms large, with Jack Black's fuzzy, flabby hero, Po, inexplicably chosen for his world-shaking mission and trained by a wise, Yoda-like master (a pint-sized mouse voiced by Dustin Hoffman), while a promising Jedi leopard (Ian McShane) slinks over to the dark side to become the movie's monumental Darth Vader figure. Fleshing out the story's bare bones is a goodly amount of slapstick, some fairly clever one-liners, several lavishly choreographed, martial-arts-based action sequences and an eye-catching animation style that owes as much to ancient Asian scroll paintings as it does to the classic Shaw Brothers films of the '60s and '70s. There's a little something for almost everyone here, but kung fu fanboys will take particular delight in touches like the legendary schools of martial arts made literal via Po's anthropomorphic sidekicks — a snake, crane, mantis, monkey and tiger (the last two given voice by Jackie Chan and Angelina Jolie). Also features the voices of Seth Rogan and Lucy Liu. 3.5 stars
MARRIED LIFE (PG-13) A curious blend of comedy, noir-mystery, overheated melodrama and one or two other genres that don't normally cozy up to each other, Married Life does a remarkable job of making its disparate elements feel welcome in the same movie. Chris Cooper stars as Harry, a quiet and decent man who plans to kill his loving wife Kay (Patricia Clarkson) because he can't bear the thought of her suffering when he leaves her for a younger woman (Rachel McAdams). Meanwhile, Harry's best friend (Pierce Brosnan) has own designs on his pal's pretty new girlfriend, and that's only the beginning of the twists and monkey wrenches that begin accumulating in this oddly understated little period piece. The movie's delirious romanticism recalls a more stripped-down take on Douglas Sirk, but the main influence here may well be none other than Alfred Hitchcock. Married Life displays oodles of the sort of slyly elegant humor in which Hitch reveled, never resorting to flashiness as it takes its perverse pleasures in the intricacies of its story's crimes. Inertia and a wave of red herrings threaten to take over by the end, but Married Life is still well worth your time. 3.5 stars
SEX AND THE CITY: THE MOVIE (R) Romantic relationships are fleeting but a designer handbag is forever in Sex and the City: The Movie, nearly two hours of product placement disguised as a feature film. Although basically just a criminally bloated chick flick, the big-screen Sex often feels more like a slightly revamped sitcom from decades past, with its four gal pals coming off as if Mary and Rhoda had cloned themselves, consumed a steady diet of Danielle Steele, scrounged up the cash for better wardrobes, and spent more of their time talking about, and occasionally having, sex. Writer-director Michael Patrick King dutifully trots out a stream of minor infidelities, misunderstandings, bedroom problems, commitment issues and the like, but the threadbare plot is essentially driven by the three S's — shoes, shopping and sex (or, more specifically, the idea of sex, since there's surprisingly scant shtupping in this rather tame project, save for a horny little dog who shows up to hump a pillow or a pile of laundry whenever the movie requires a laugh). Those who thrill to spotting fabulous designer items by Prada, Gucci and Chanel will be in heaven here. Those of us less enamored of montages of dresses, jewelry and stiletto heels will discover a brand of fashion porn every bit as dubious as the so-called torture porn dished out by some movies these days. Fans of the series probably won't be much dismayed by the lack of depth — think of it as Transformers transformed as a chick flick — but the rest of us will find so little of interest that it's hard not to start fixating on how the little wart on Sarah Jessica Parker's chin seems to change size from scene to scene. Stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth and Jennifer Hudson. 2 stars
SON OF RAMBOW (PG-13) Raised in an austere religious sect forbidding modern diversions like movies, Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) is a pop-culture-deprived kid whose conduit into the modern world is Lee Carter (Will Poulter), an underaged hellion who changes the boy's life by introducing him to the Stallone testosterone-fest First Blood. The effect is nothing less than a ritual deflowering opening up the floodgates of movie love, and Lee puts Will's newly realized passion to good use, enlisting him to work on an amateur production he's entering in a BBC competition — but it turns out that everybody really does want to direct, and Lee's film gets co-opted, first by Will (who turns it into a Rambo remake filtered through his own Freudian demons) and then by an impossibly pretentious French exchange student named Didier (Jules Sitruk), who commandeers it for his own personal vanity project. Son of Rambow's final act sets out to overcome this obstacle, along with a series of other tall orders that reach critical mass before arriving in a neat and tidy place located somewhere between heartwarming and cloying. The movie isn't terribly ambitious, but its coming-of-age tale rings true while offering up a charming testament to the power of movies, along with a bit of crowd-pleasing slapstick and some funny/scary reminders of that moment in the early-'80s when New Wave killed everything that was good about Punk. Also stars Jessica Hynes, Jules Sitruk, Neil Dudgeon and Ed Westwick. 3.5 stars
SPEED RACER (PG) With little to it other than pure, frenetic energy and an ultra-groovy design sense, Speed Racer is pitched somewhere between a manga comic book and a neon Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas acid trip amplified to the point of no return. Moviegoers raised on a steady diet of videogames will likely revel in the head-spinningness of it all; other (possibly older) viewers may find themselves yearning to be submerged in the nearest sensory deprivation tank. Constantly in motion and way beyond candy-colored, The Wachowski Brothers' new movie seems positively irradiated, like one of those trendy nitrogen oxygen cocktails pumping through the digestive track of some phosphorescent deep-sea creature. Speed Racer spews out a stream of splashy visuals, careens forward at a breathless clip and provides a certain modicum of fun, but it's impossible to enter into this proudly two-dimensional story in any meaningful way. Even the action scenes — primarily a series of races in which fancy cars endlessly flip around tracks twisted as if inside a worm hole (probably situated inside The Matrix, or maybe Tron) — are so flat they fail to drum up much excitement. And with no real sense of danger and no gravity (literally), the Wachowskis' pop opus begins to look a little like Shark Boy and Lava Girl with delusions of grandeur. Stars Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon and Matthew Fox. 3 stars
THE STRANGERS (R) In the opening scene of writer/director Bryan Bertino's debut effort, two young boys stumble upon a crimson knife and a blood-splattered wall, the gruesome aftermath of the film's ensuing "based on true events" cautionary tale, which focuses on a young couple, Kristen and James (played by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) who are terrorized by three masked strangers while they are visiting their country home. The next 90-minutes takes the audience on a tension-filled, albeit often predictable, ride that finds the couple involved in a violent struggle with the strangers. Though the protagonists are relatable and sympathetic, the suspenseful peaks are disappointingly trite. And despite having all the plot devices and miraculous escapes associated with horror films, The Strangers lacks that final "I get it" moment. The villains' motives (and their identities) are never revealed, and when Kristen repeatedly asks why she and James are being attacked, the reply is simply "because you were home." The film seems to be commenting on the void of human compassion and connection in the modern world, but instead, it just comes across as a cheap and easy fix. 2 stars —Franki Weddington
THEN SHE FOUND ME (PG-13) Helen Hunt's directorial debut is one of those movies people like to call a "dramedy," and even the actress/director's face seems in on the game; gravity has tugged so furiously on the corners of the former Mad About You star's mouth that she now looks heartbroken even when smiling, as if the twin masks of comedy and tragedy were somehow simultaneously inhabiting the same face. Hunt's mug is just right for April Epner, a 39-year-old schoolteacher with a ticking biological clock, a failed marriage, a local talk show host (Bette Midler) claiming to be her birth mother, and the divorced father (Colin Firth) of one of her students hitting on her scant hours after the break-up of her marriage. All of this plays out in some nebulous zone midway between melodrama and sitcom, as the movie ricochets back and forth between April's developing relationships, and a series of improbable plot twists causes everything to fall apart before coming together again. The movie flirts mightily with formula and shtick but the performances (particularly Hunt's and Midler's) give the characters weight; the balance between bitter and sweet is generally effective; and even when the rapid-fire dialogue sounds so pleased with itself it resembles a dinner theater adaptation of The Gilmore Girls. Hunt can usually be counted on to temper it with something worthwhile. At one point we even get a cameo by Salman Rushdie as a frazzled obstetrician and then all is forgiven. Also stars Matthew Broderick and Ben Shenkman. 3 stars
THE VISITOR (PG-13) In some ways, writer-director Thomas McCarthy's The Visitor seems like an attempt to re-tell the story of his debut feature, The Station Agent, albeit with a more conventional narrative focus and a plainly drawn political message that plays a little too neatly into contemporary passions. As in The Station Agent, The Visitor features a painfully self-aware loner — sullen, repressed, college professor Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) — whose self-imposed isolation is finally eroded by the good counsel of an earthy ethnic more in tune with the vibrations of mother earth. Walter's redeemer is Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), an Arab percussionist found squatting in his apartment, and the two men are soon hanging out like best buds, sharing falafels and sitting in on the drum circles in Washington Square Park. McCarthy is too good a filmmaker to allow this to feel like a typical Hollywood odd-couple bonding scenario, but the movie does become a little too reductive, often eschewing the thornier dynamics and more nuanced approach of The Station Agent for an oversimplified infatuation with the Exotic Other. The politics are a bit black and white, and the movie isn't exactly shy about manipulating our emotions, but The Visitor is often very good when discreetly demonstrating its finer points, particularly how seemingly dissimilar peoples are sometimes more alike than not. The film's real success, however, can be attributed to Jenkins (the balding, pockmarked character actor best known as the ghost-dad from HBO's Six Feet Under), whose beautifully underplayed performance exudes an authenticity that transcends the various clichés with which the film flirts. Also stars Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Gurira, Hiam Abbass, Richard Kind and Marian Seldes. 3 stars
YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (PG-13) Adam Sandler stars as a super-tough Israeli secret agent gone undercover as a NYC hair stylist. Don't expect subtlety here — the director is the guy responsible for Benchwarmers and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. And if that weren't scary enough, the movie also features Rob Schneider. (Not Reviewed)
YOUNG@HEART (PG) A singing group composed of senior citizens (average age: 80) belting out oddball renditions of rock 'n roll classics, the Massachusetts-based chorus Young@Heart are the subjects of a new documentary called, appropriately enough, Young@Heart. There's nothing fancy here — filmmaker Stephen Walker basically just alternates between documenting the chorus during an eight-week rehearsal period and showing us interview snippets with individual members — but the old coots are generally colorful enough to hold our interest, and it all culminates in a big, sold-out performance that provides the requisite emotional pay-off. Among the standouts are James Brown's "I Feel Good," The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" and a smoothly effective take on Bowie's "Golden Years." There's certainly some fun to be had here but not without a degree of the gawking-at-the-geezers factor attached, whether it's watching the seniors trying to relate to the atonal dissonance of a Sonic Youth "song" or observing a couple of octogenarians trying to figure out which side of a CD faces up when you put it in the player. Walker's intrusive, slightly condescending interview style doesn't help much, either, but all is forgiven when he finally shuts up and allows the old folks to speak for themselves. Stars Jim Arementi, Bob Cilman, Joe Benoit, Helen Boston, Louise Canady and Eileen Hall. 3 stars
