SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE (PG-13) Diane Keaton delivers a memorable performance, both touching and very funny, as a middle-aged woman who finds herself all shook up in love for the first time in ages. Jack Nicholson is also in fine form as the aging playboy playing romantic head games with our heroine, and Frances McDormand and Amanda Peet work wonders with small roles as Keaton's sister and daughter, respectively. Other than some very engaging performances, however, there's not all that much going on in Something's Gotta Give, a romantic comedy that breezes along on a handful of cute jokes and the sort of star power that transcends a so-so script. It's all appealing enough until a disastrously predictable last act appears, demonstrating nothing less than the fact that the movie has simply run out of ideas. Also stars Keanu Reeves. 
STUCK ON YOU (PG-13) As if further proof were required, this new project from the Farrelly Brothers shows the team's patented brand of "offensive" comedy has become an occasionally amusing but, for the most part, rigorously inoffensive formula that the filmmakers can apparently whip up in their sleep. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear generate some good chemistry as a pair of conjoined twins ("We're not Siamese," snips Damon's character. "We're American"), but the filmmakers seem to be pulling their punches and playing it safer than ever. Also stars Eva Mendes, Wen Yann Shih, Seymour Cassel and Cher. 1/2
TEACHERS PET (PG) Nathan Lane's the whole show in this spinoff from the Saturday morning animated series. He's the voice of Spot, the dog who wants to be human and gets his wish via wacko scientist Ivan Krank (Kelsey Grammer). Five "punch-up writers" keep the gags coming, Gary Baseman's drawings prove crude but colorful and (mostly brief) songs fill the film, but Lane's contribution makes it a high-grade comedy for all ages. —Steve Warren
TORQUE (PG-13) This new school action movie zooms past The Fast and the Furious in kinetic visuals but lags behind it in plot and characterization. Ford (Martin Henderson) is a biker with two buddies and a babe (Monet Mazur), who's caught between two drug-dealing biker gangs and the FBI. The actors, the machines, even the scenery strike more poses than Madonna in the process of telling the story, which appears to have been put together by a computer. —Steve Warren
THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (NR) French animator Sylvain Chomet's debut feature is unlike anything we've seen before, although its feel is timeless and its wildly imaginative story is barely a story at all. What we get here is a nonstop parade of odd, inexplicably amusing sights and sounds: a cat-and-mouse game involving a clubfooted grandma, a dangerously obese canine, and a pencil-necked Tour de France cyclist with absurdly overdeveloped calves. Triplets creates its own singular universe, a surreal, vaguely sinister but wholly delightful place not unlike the worlds created by Jeunet/Caro (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children) or Jacques Tati (Chomet's official "creative inspiration"). The movie's Tati-like dialogue mostly consists of grunts, mumbles and yelps, the plot is always secondary to a nonsensical anti-logic as mysterious as it is loony, and the hand-drawn animation does things that computers can only dream of. It all blends together beautifully, albeit in a strange, elliptical way that will probably sail right over the heads of toddlers weaned on the clean, emotionally satisfying cause-and-effect of Finding Nemo. Opens Feb. 13 at Tampa Theatre.
WIN A DATE WITH TAD HAMILTON (PG-13) Puppy love comedy that occasionally seems to aim a touch higher than what we expect, but can't quite manage to get there. Small town supermarket clerk Rosalee (Kate Bosworth) is swept off her feet by Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel), a hunky Hollywood movie star with whom she wins that titular date. It's never quite clear how sincere Duhamel's character is, or what he's after in his wooing of the pretty little hick, and, while it's initially intriguing, the movie suffers from that vagueness. Meanwhile, Rosalee's best pal (That 70s Show's Topher Grace) turns out to be harboring a 22-year-old crush on the girl that's set to explode at any moment. The young actors are genuinely appealing and the script actually has some clever things to say from time to time, but Win a Date with Tad Hamilton is ultimately about as shallow as you'd imagine. Also stars Nathan Lane and Ginnifer Goodwin. 1/2
Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted.
