THE MESSENGERS (PG-13) A city couple (Dylan McDermott and Penelope Ann Miller), complete with cherubic toddler and disaffected teen daughter, move to a secluded farmhouse — where, in the tradition of these sorts of movies, bad things begin to happen, pretty much as you'd expect them to. Creepy sounds go bump in the night, mysterious stains appear that just won't wash away, moldy apparitions appear to be scuttling up walls and across ceilings, and every few scenes or so there's a very loud noise or shock cut specifically designed for no purpose other than to say "Boo!" Oh yeah, and then there's that lone locked room that appears to be the epicenter of evil, at least one character who becomes demonically possessed and a grand finale in which the house inevitably goes all Amityville on everyone's asses. We might be able to forgive the blatant cut-and-paste nature of The Messengers, which is the English-language debut from Asian horror auteurs Danny and Oxide Pang (Bangkok Haunted, The Eye, Re-Cycle), but this would all go down a lot easier if it at least had the stylistic chops of the directors' previous efforts. Also stars John Corbett and Kristen Stewart. 2 stars
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
NOTES ON A SCANDAL (R) A fierce performance by Cate Blanchette and an even more remarkable one by Judi Dench are the main reasons to see Notes on a Scandal, a solid little thriller that has something bad to say about nearly all of its characters. Blanchette stars as Sheba Hart, a greenhorn teacher who gets taken under the wing of veteran instructor Barbara Covett (Dench), an oddball spinster whose affection for the younger woman goes from creepy to deadly. Blanchett's character is no angel either, and her steamy affair with one of her 15-year-old students only complicates the film's nasty turn of events and snowballing head games. In the end, the film doesn't really amount to much more than a retooled and interestingly textured variation on your basic Fatal Attraction cat-and-mouse, but some of the twists and turns are surprisingly effective, and Dench and Blanchette are a pairing made in cat-and-mouse heaven. Also stars Bill Nighy. 3.5 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
