NEVER DIE ALONE (R) Rapper DMX stars as a badass big city criminal who returns to his hometown to settle scores. David Arquette plays the young journalist hanging on his every word. (Not Reviewed)
OSAMA (NR) The Osama of the title is not the one you might imagine, but the main character in a Yentl reconfigured as a sort of ethnographic science fiction. Osama takes place in the war-ravaged Afghanistan of the Taliban, where a little girl gets her hair cut short and disguises herself as a boy in order to be able to work and support her starving family. The film paints a blistering, documentary-like portrait of a terrified and terrifying society where any signs of independent thought are routed out and destroyed and women are rendered blind and mute. Our little hero, the girl who becomes a boy in order to be perceived as human, navigates through this culture, showing us a dark place devoid of humor and consumed with little other than the urge to memorize and to hate. The film's moments of warmth are rare but essential. What we see is so extreme it calls to mind the book-burning mentality of Fahrenheit 451 and, in fact, barely feels possible — the absurd ultimate in male stupidity and cruelty, Islamic fundamentalism at its most pure and worst. Stars Marina Golbahari, Arif Herati and Zubaida Sahar. 
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (R) Mel Gibson's controversial account of Jesus' last 12 hours is a visceral and deliberately punishing experience that goes to great lengths fetishizing its copious pain, suffering, gore and instruments of torture. For all of its classy production values, in fact, The Passion often feels uncomfortably close to a basic, whips "n' chains exploitation flick, albeit one produced with God on its side. It's all quite beautiful, though, in a grim and grisly sort of way. There's also the little matter of the movie's thinly veiled anti-Semitism, whereby the Romans are the ones doing the heavy lifting but the Jews are seen as the ones pulling the strings in this cosmic tragedy. The real problem here, however, is that all that endless, bloody excess eventually becomes redundant, then numbing, and finally just boring. Stars Jim Caviezel, Monica Bellucci, Maia Morgenstern, Mattia Sbragia and Hristo Shopov.
THE PRINCE & ME (PG) A pampered Danish prince (Luke Mably) falls for a no-nonsense pre-med student (Julia Stiles) in this rom-com that derives equally from The Prince and the Pauper and Cinderella. Stiles shows more charm than usual, and her discomfort in the Danish court makes up a bit for the sluggish, prince-out-of-water scenes in America. The film almost challenges the storybook princess fantasy fetishized in recent teen films, but chickens out at the last minute. —Curt Holman
THE PUNISHER (R) There are traces of human warmth and kindness here, but The Punisher is mostly a no-frills revenge flick that embraces its B-movie nihilism with icy relish. Thomas Jane stars as a vigilante sworn to make life miserable for the man responsible for killing his family (John Travolta). As revenge flicks go, The Punisher isn't nearly as extreme or even as original as some, but it's lean and mean and just smart enough to occasionally poke fun at its own brutal formula. Stray moments of humor leaven the violence and negativity, and the script manages to keep things interesting enough by treading the fine line between encouraging sympathy for Castle as a tragic hero/victim and portraying him as a killing machine beyond good and evil. The cast is surprisingly convincing too, and the movie's look is appropriately dark, gritty and even a little tawdry, pushing deep into Death Wish territory, which is exactly as it should be. Also stars Laura Harring, Will Patton and Rebecca Romijin-Stamos. 1/2
SACRED PLANET (G) Robert Redford narrates this Large Format IMAX journey to various exotic locations around the world. Opens April 23 at IMAX Dome Theater. (Not Reviewed)
SCOOBY DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED (PG) This sequel to last year's big screen Doo isn't much more than you might expect, but it does beat the original on several counts. The CGI effects are more interesting and better integrated with the live action, beginning with the computer generated title pooch, who doesn't look nearly as grotesque this time around. Even more importantly, Scooby Doo 2 gets the crucial mix of scares to laughs down pat, with an array of monsters that, while spooky, rarely come off as too intense for the movie's core audience of 6- to 8-year-olds. Beyond that, it's business as usual, with Matthew Lillard giving us more of his spot-on Shaggy routine, Freddie Prinze Jr. looking right at home sporting Freddie's ascot, Sara Michelle Gellar busting out some prime Buffy moves, and a thoroughly un-mysterious mystery for the gang to solve. Also stars Seth Green and Peter Boyle.
