MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS (R) Bland, British and boring — three words that should never have to go together but too often do. The movie — which is one of the first productions from ex-Miramax honchos Harvey and Bob Weinstein's new company — is meant to be taken as "classy" (it's a WWII period piece, after all, and then there are all those English accents), but the script reeks of shallowness and clichés. Dame Judi Dench stars as a wealthy widow who buys an old theater and eventually begins putting on all-nude reviews, which she defends as being good for national morale. Bob Hoskins is the theater manager who develops feelings for Dench's character, and much is made of the aimless, incessant bickering of the film's two leads (who we're assured are actually deeply in love) and the naughtiness of female flesh being paraded across the screen. Also stars Will Young and Christopher Guest. 2 stars
MUNICH (R) Despite a marketing campaign that sells it as a more-or-less straight-ahead suspense thriller, Munich is a glum, oddly muddled affair, so consumed with wallowing in ethical ambiguities and hand-wringing over endless cycles of violence that it forgets to give us an engaging story. Director Steven Spielberg focuses on the aftermath of the slaughter of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics — when a hit squad was dispatched to assassinate the Palestinian organizers of the massacre — but Munich is less concerned with creating a visceral thrill ride out of the often horrifying mechanics of revenge than with grinding our noses in the pointlessness of it all. If you were expecting a Kill Bill adrenaline rush recast as a less guilty pleasure, forget it. Spielberg leans over so far backward in an effort to be evenhanded that there's really no one to root for or against, a problem exacerbated by too many forgettable characters saddled with flat-footed dialogue endlessly re-stating the movie's thesis that violence begetting violence can only be wrong. Stars Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler, Ayelet Zurer and Michael Lonsdale. 3 stars
NANNY MCPHEE (PG) The screenplay here, which Emma Thompson adapted from Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda books, begins in a place just macabre enough and even a wee bit perverse — much like the seven supremely naughty children featured in Nanny McPhee. This unmanageable brood pride themselves on having driven away scores of hearty nannies screaming in terror. Enter the eponymous Nanny McPhee, a snaggle-toothed, warty, anti-Mary Poppins played by Thompson herself as a cross between a drill sergeant, a Zen master and a troll. As expected, the supernaturally-powered uber-nanny butts heads and eventually bonds with the wild beastie-boys-and-girls, magic is unleashed, and tough love conquers all. The movie winds up a little too eager to warm hearts and never quite lives up to the promising Roald Dahl/Edward Gorey darkness of its set-up, but Nanny McPhee gets most of what it does right. Also stars Colin Firth, Angela Landsbury, Kelly MacDonald, Imelda Staunton and Derek Jacobi. 3 stars
THE NEW WORLD (PG-13) Terrence Malick may be the unofficial poet laureate of American cinema, but his latest film often feels fluid to the point of formlessness, a series of gorgeous landscapes for its characters to wander through. The setting is 1607 Virginia, and what the filmmaker is showing us is that historical moment when Native American and European cultures first collide, a cataclysmic event filtered through the celebrated cross-cultural romance of John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher). The love story helps ground things, but The New World's naïve mythmaking and metaphysical meandering is still a touch-and-go proposition. Walking a fine line between mesmerizing and monotonous, the film revels in long, trance-like passages complete with whispering choruses of multiple voices layered over the fray. Malick is so consumed with poetizing the sublime tragedy of it all that he forgets about basic minimum requirements for engaging an audience, such as coherency, conciseness, and the little matter of that love story he promised to tell. Pocahontas and John Smith drift in and out of the proceedings even as the film's heartbreakingly beautiful images continue to overflow for nearly two and a half hours, looking almost too perfect for this world. Also stars Christian Bale and Christopher Plummer. 2.5 stars
THE PINK PANTHER (PG) Another pointless remake that will stink up the theaters for a few weeks before finding its way to home video. Steve Martin steps into Peter Sellers' shoes in the classic role of bumbling, oddly-accented Inspector Jacques Clouseau, and the results are predictably disappointing. While it's probably not quite cricket comparing vintage Sellers to the 2006 version of Martin, a comedian who hasn't been particularly funny for the better part of a decade, the former wild-and-crazy-guy's overly literal interpretation of Clouseau makes comparisons unavoidable. The material doesn't help either, with fart jokes and lame Viagra gags sprinkled throughout the movie's main course of uninspired physical comedy. The murder-and-missing-diamond plot is inconsequential and Henry Mancinci's brilliant original music is barely audible beneath the generic hip-hop remix. Also stars Jean Reno, Kevin Kline and Beyonce Knowles. 1.5 stars
