Slap Her She's French (PG-13) Life spins out of control in a small Texas town when a beautiful French foreign exchange student (Piper Perabo) shows up and sets her sights on becoming top dog at the local high school. Also stars Jane McGregor and Michael McKean. Opens Sept. 20 at local theaters.
(Not Reviewed)
Space Station (PG) New IMAX featurette documenting a pair of voyages to the international space station floating high above planet Earth. The multinational crews include a mix of American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts. At IMAX Dome Theater.
(Not Reviewed)
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (PG) Like its predecessor, Spy Kids 2 is an unapologetically silly little romp that's so full of energy and sincerity it's almost impossible to dislike. It's not a great movie, but it's a pretty darned good kids' movie because it does what it does very well and, most important of all, it almost never condescends to its audience. Stars Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Steve Buscemi, Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara.
Stealing Harvard (PG-13) Jason Lee plays a middle-class guy who turns to crime in order to send his niece to Harvard. Tom Green is the friend who is a decidedly bad influence.
(Not Reviewed)
Stuart Little 2 (G) Teeny tiny tykes will eat up this barely 75-minute sequel to Stuart Little, but most grown-ups will either be bored out of their skulls or find their teeth tingling from all the sugar-coated sap. Despite the expensive-looking production values and state-of-the-art CGI effects, Stuart Little has the bland, throwaway feel of a direct-to-video sequel.
Swimfan (PG-13) Jesse Bradford and Erika Christensen star in this thriller about a high school swimming star who has a one-night stand leading to tangled and dangerous consequences.
(Not Reviewed)
Undisputed (R) Wesley Snipes stars as a professional heavyweight boxer who's falsely accused of a crime and winds up in jail, where he goes up against the prison boxing champ. Also stars Ving Rhames.
(Not Reviewed)
XXX (R) A movie so relentlessly forward propelled that we hardly even have a chance to catch our breath and realize how utterly idiotic it all is. Vin Diesel is the star here, and he's very much in the mold of other terrible actors who get paid to anchor big, comic book movies (think Keanu in The Matrix or Arnold in almost anything). Diesel (who names these guys, anyway?) plays Xander Cage, X for short, a bald, tattooed slab of flesh given to looking straight into the camera and screaming lines like, I live for this shit! Enter Samuel L. Jackson in a wig and with latex scar tissue over half his face, as an NSA agent looking for fresh blood to combat a group of international bad guys. X is recruited, infiltrates the bad guys' group, and spends the rest of movie striding around in a ratty sheepskin coat, pulling off outrageous stunts and shouting glib catch phrases while clobbering baddies and saving the world. Also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Asia Argento and Michael Roof.
—Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted