OPENING THIS WEEK

BABY MAMA (PG-13) Tina Fey and Amy Poehler offer up a watered-down version of their old SNL chemistry in this inoffensive comedy about a successful businesswoman (Fey) who hires a clueless skank (Poehler) to be the surrogate mother for her child. Nobody plays white trash as well as Poehler (it has something to do with that crazed, Nicholson-ian glint in her eye), but the script plays things too safe to let the comedian be nearly as unhinged as she needs to be. And between Poehler's antics and some juicy cameos by the likes of Steve Martin and Sigourney Weaver, the extremely funny Fey winds up reduced to a straight woman, or worse — a virtual supporting player in her own movie. There are a handful of nice moments (a Young Republican couple bonding with their Wiccan surrogate; "Endless Love" playing over an artificial insemination scene), but what pleasures there are here are nearly forgotten in a ridiculously inept final act full of forced revelations and rushed resolutions. The strong of heart can stick around for the closing credits, which feature some of the most worthless outtakes you'll ever see. Also stars Dax Shepard, Greg Kinnear, Romany Malco, Siobhan Fallon, Maura Tierney and Holland Taylor. Opens April 25 at local theaters. 2.5 stars

THE BAND'S VISIT (PG-13) Read Lance Goldenberg's review.

FUNKY FOREST: FIRST CONTACT (NR) One of the strangest and most inexplicably enjoyable films I've seen in ages, Funky Forest: First Contact is a movie that resists all logic but is almost impossible to get out of your head. Iconoclastic Japanese director Katsuhito Ishii (Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl, A Taste of Tea) and two of his filmmaking colleagues cobble together a mind-melting collage of visual and verbal non-sequiturs that play like a version of Saturday Night Live beamed in from an alternate universe both artier and infinitely more insane. Recurring characters include a gleefully abusive, white-clad "comedy" act called the Mole Brothers; a team of inscrutable mutant businesswomen dubbed the "Hot Spring Vixen Babes;" a hallucinating DJ and the lovelorn, candy-gobbling "Unpopular With Women Brothers." The skits eventually reveal themselves as loosely connected, although they never stoop to making anything remotely resembling conventional sense. At a running time of 150 minutes, the dish of snake-devouring-its-own-tail served up by Ishii and company is almost too much to digest at one sitting, but it's one of the tastiest things you'll experience this year. Stars Tadanabu Asano, Susumu Terajima, Ryo Kase, Chizuru Ikewaki, Yoshiyuki Morishita, Takahiro Sato, Kotaro Shiga and Andrew Alfieri. Plays April 25, 7 p.m., one time only, as part of The International Cinema Series. The screening is free and open to the public, and takes place in Miller Auditorium at Eckerd College, 4200 54th Ave. S, St. Petersburg. Visit www.eckerd.edu/internationalcinema for a complete listing of film screenings, show times and updates, or call 727-864-7979. 4 stars

HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY (R) Everybody's favorite White Castle-loving stoners are back, and Guantanamo's got 'em. Stars John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Paula Garces and Rob Corddry. Opens April 25 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)

ROGUE (R) Jaws in the Australian outback, with crocodiles. From the Aussie director responsible for Wolf Creek, for better or worse — although I couldn't really say which, as the studio didn't allow critics an advance peek. Stars Radha Mitchell, Michael Vartan, Sam Worthington, John Jarratt, Stephen Curry and Heather Mitchell. Opens April 25 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)

RECENT RELEASES

88 MINUTES (R) Al Pacino sports a goatee and a snappy action-hero name ("Jack Gramm") as an FBI forensic psychologist who finds himself matching wits with a brilliant (aren't they all?) serial killer. Be warned: The movie has already had its share of advance screenings, and the buzz is almost overwhelmingly bad. Also stars Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman and William Forsythe. (Not Reviewed)

10,000 B.C. (PG-13) 10,000 B.C. is the latest movie from Roland Emmerich, the man responsible for bombast-fests such as Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow, which should give you a fairly good idea of what to expect. Steven Strait and Camilla Belle play early humans running around in animal furs chasing and being chased by saber tooth tigers, woolly mammoths and other big, scary CGI creatures. There are some appealingly bizarre flourishes toward the end involving possible extraterrestrial influences on a quasi-Mayan/Egyptian civilization, but the movie is mainly just dull, silly (although not enough to be truly amusing) and a bit pretentious. Inexplicably, our grimy, dreadlocked heroes speak a stilted, prosaic English from a time when contractions apparently had not yet been invented. Also stars Cliff Curtis, Joel Fry, Tim Barlow and Nathanael Baring. 2 stars

21 (PG-13) A blander Ocean's 11 meets Good Will Hunting, 21 stars Jim Sturgess as a brilliant but dirt-poor MIT student who's reluctantly recruited by a shady professor (Kevin Spacey) to partake in a card-counting scheme to take Vegas for millions. 21 is an odd and not particularly satisfying kettle of fish, loosely based on a true story but only giving off the vaguest whiffs of anything resembling authenticity. Visually, the movie is a bit drab and dark, a look probably designed to make us think something serious is going on, but that's curiously at odds with a basically jaunty sensibility that seems to aim for (but never quite achieves) the groovy swagger of the Ocean's movies. The film doesn't ever manage to communicate the kids' system very coherently, nor with much energy, and 21 consequently winds up feeling a little like a heist movie without a heist. Spacey, who also produced, is fun to watch as yet another one of those deliciously insidious characters he plays so well, but he's not enough to save the movie. Sturgess' character rises, falls and then does a bit more rising by way of a half-hearted coda, but by that time 21 is simply running on fumes. Also stars Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, Aaron Yoo, Jacob Pitts, Josh Gad and Sam Golzari. 2.5 stars

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (NR) There's a Romanian New Wave out there, so learn to surf it or get out of the way. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which won Cannes' coveted Palm d'Or and way too many other awards to mention, shares a steely worldview with other Romanian films, but writer-director Christian Mungiu never allows his movie, or us, to plunge into the abyss. Mungiu's characters may be so beaten down they're barely in touch with their own emotions, but the director teases such raw authenticity from the lives on screen that the film achieves a power transcending its neo-miserablist trappings. The movie takes place during the final soul-crushing years before the Iron Curtain fell, focusing on college student Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) helping roommate Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) make arrangements for a highly illegal abortion. 4 Months unfolds as an accumulation of details, and when Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the abortionist, finally makes his appearance, delivering a monotonous recitation of facts before exacting his pound of flesh, the film puts a human face on the banality of evil. The dialogue is unfailingly naturalistic; cinematographer Oleg Mutu somehow manages to always place his camera in exactly the right spot; and the film's use of real time is captivating. Without a single explosion or car chase in sight, Mungui's movie feels like a thriller in slow motion, revealing in firm but measured strokes the escalating urgency just beneath its surface. Also stars Alex Potocean. 4.5 stars

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS (PG) You might expect that Dave Seville's singing rodents would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but they make the transition fairly painlessly thanks to this sweet and occasionally amusing big-screen outing. Jason Lee stars as the aspiring songwriter who learns about family and responsibility (and all the other things people are supposed to learn in movies like this) when a trio of talking chipmunks moves into his house and turns his world upside down. The CGI is fairly high quality, and the fart and poop jokes are held to a blessed minimum, but even at not-quite 90 minutes, the movie feels padded, and the last act drags on for what seems like forever. On the up side, the hip-hop beat grafted onto "Witchdoctor" isn't quite as ridiculous as you might imagine. Also stars David Cross, Cameron Richardson, Jane Lynch and Ross Bagdasarian. 2.5 stars

THE BANK JOB (R) Although it's neither as engagingly moody as Layer Cake nor as cleverly stylish as Guy Ritchie's output, The Bank Job makes for a nice addition to the current crop of British crime dramas. Jason Statham (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) stars as Terry, a small-time thief who's talked into pulling off the titular heist by a former girlfriend (Saffron Burrows) with a suitcase full of ulterior motives. What Terry and his crew of East End bumblers don't know is that, in addition to the millions of pounds stored in the bank they're targeting, the safe deposit boxes contain blackmail photos of highly ranked Brits that a number of shadowy figures are all too ready to kill for. Based on a series of actual events that took place in the early '70s, The Bank Job captures the feel of the period nicely, but is curiously workmanlike in the way it lays out the details of its fascinating and somewhat convoluted story. Seductions and betrayals pile up steadily but without much fanfare for much of the movie's running time, and it's only in its final act, as the violence approaches Tarantino-esque levels, that The Bank Job begins to fully come alive. Also stars Stephen Campbell Moore, Peter De Jersey, Daniel Mays, James Faulkner and Alki David. 3 stars

THE BUCKET LIST (PG-13) Director Rob Reiner layers on the schmaltz, and Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman supply the star power in a meathead's delight that might just have well been called Grumpy Old Terminally Ill Men. Freeman's obligatory opening voice-over sets the tone, cramming in the words "love," "fate" and "folks" in under a minute, as dying roommates Carter (Freeman) and Edward (Nicholson) decide to spend their final months, and a sizeable chunk of the latter's fortune, doing all the things they never got around to doing. Endless footage ensues of the old coots skydiving, getting tattoos, driving fast cars, and popping up in a virtual travelogue encompassing the Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China. Freeman's wise but slightly prickly character periodically pontificates on the nature of the world, eventually teaching the meaning of life to the considerably richer but far more cynical Nicholson, and it all feels like the spitting image of a made-for-TV movie. Also stars Sean Hayes and Beverly Todd. 2 stars

CHARLIE BARTLETT (R) Precocious, privileged Charlie (Anton Yelchin) is booted out of prep school and forced to join the unwashed masses at public school in Charlie Bartlett — a movie that seems determined to recycle Rushmore for a new generation. After being subjected to some cursory bullying, Charlie too-quickly learns to make friends and influence people by supplying them with various highly coveted prescription drugs and playing shrink to his classmates in the boy's bathroom. Robert Downey Jr. is both believable and borderline dangerous, but there's not much else about Charlie Bartlett that's particularly convincing. Too many of the characters are lazily written (the school bully, the depressed loner, the slow, fat kid), the movie's sense of ironic detachment comes and goes (the drug pushing is sometimes played for laughs, sometimes for pathos), and the quirks are often uncomfortably forced. Also stars Kat Dennings, Tyler Hilton and Hope Davis. 2.5 stars

DEFINITELY, MAYBE (PG-13) This sweet but not exactly starry-eyed romantic comedy challenges us to figure out which of its multiple dreamgirls is the real Ms. Right, keeping us guessing long enough to qualify as the Where's Waldo of rom-coms. Ryan Reynolds stars as a vaguely dissatisfied dad telling his precocious young daughter about how he met her mother. The twist here is that Reynolds relates a tale involving a trio of old flames, giving all of the women pseudonyms in order to prolong the suspense and keep the identity of the woman he'll eventually marry a secret until the last possible moment. The three women — conveniently color coded as a blonde, a brunette and a redhead — are all equally adorable and receive roughly equal screen time, so it's pretty much anyone's guess whom Reynolds will wind up with. The movie overstays its welcome by at least 15 minutes, but it's still nice to see a romantic comedy that doesn't get completely dragged into the pitfalls of formula or fall all over itself aping the new rom-com standards established by Judd Apatow and the Farrelly Brothers. Also stars Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, Kevin Kline, Derek Luke and Abigail Breslin. 3 stars

DOOMSDAY (R) The new film from talented writer-director Neil Marshall (The Descent, Dog Soldiers) arrives without much buzz or even a chance for critics to review it, but we'll ignore the danger signs and hope for the best. This one's an action thriller set in a future where humankind faces imminent disaster. Stars Rhona Mitra, Chris Robson, Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell. (Not Reviewed)

DRILLBIT TAYLOR (PG-13) Everybody's favorite suicidal actor (Owen Wilson) returns as a bargain-basement bodyguard protecting grade-school kids from bullies. Also stars Leslie Mann, Josh Peck, David Dorfman and Troy Gentile. (Not Reviewed)

FLAWLESS (PG-13) It's hard to avoid calling Flawless a heist movie, but anyone who puts too much stock in that description is bound to come away disappointed. The movie has a couple of things going for it, but the big jewel theft at the center of the story is a wash-out. Demi Moore stars here as Laura Quinn, an ambitious female executive repeatedly passed over for promotion at the London Diamond Corporation, while a series of less-qualified males sail right past her. With her head bruised from banging against that glass ceiling, Laura finds herself listening closely when an aging night janitor (heist-movie icon Michael Caine) approaches her with a plan to rob the corporation blind. The planning and execution of the heist turn out to be fairly perfunctory and rather uneventful, with director Michael Radford (Il Postino) spending more time dwelling on the post-crime investigation and ramifications — neither of which proves terribly interesting. The film is pleasant enough to look at, however, with solid production values and meticulous attention paid to its 1960 time period — but most of the performances (beginning with Moore's) are modulated to the point of lifelessness, and the movie is way too methodical for its own good. It's all bookended by some laughable latex make-up on Demi at the outset, and some annoyingly simplistic moralizing at the end that leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. Also stars Lambert Wilson and Joss Ackland. 2.5 stars

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM (PG-13) From the vintage movie posters fetishized in its opening title sequence to its dream pairing of martial arts icons Jackie Chan and Jet Li, The Forbidden Kingdom is nothing if not a kung fu fanboy's wet dream. The hero here, Jason (Michael Angarano), is very much representative of the film's target demographic (at least domestically) — a doughy white boy who worships at the altar of Bruce Lee — and the movie immediately jettisons logic and demands our total suspension of disbelief as it transports this modern misfit back to ancient China, where he's charged with returning an all-powerful staff to its rightful owner. Aiding him in this quest are a pair of kung-fu whizzes — an enigmatic monk (Li) and a wine-guzzling immortal (Chan) — and standing in the way are the minions of a particularly nasty and supernaturally endowed war lord (Collin Chou). Jet Li and Jackie Chan both do what they do best here. Chan, looking vaguely ludicrous under a wig of long dreadlocks, mugs and mixes goofy humor with impressive physical agility, while Li is all Zen-like calm and precision, even when fighting, a cool-as-ice presence who's only marginally less effective when he opens his mouth to speak. Also stars Bingbing Li and Yifei Liu. 3.5 stars

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (R) The latest rom-com from the Judd Apatow Hit Factory, Forgetting Sarah Marshall stars Jason Segel (who also wrote the script) as a good-natured slacker on the rebound from an ex-girlfriend who keeps turning up to torment him. Also stars Kristen Bell, Mila Knis, Russell Brand, Bill Hader and Jonah Hill. (Not Reviewed)

HORTON HEARS A WHO! (G) Dr. Seuss is in the house again, with a feature-length adaptation of his tale about a very large elephant who gets in trouble when he pledges himself to protect a very tiny group of fellow creatures. Don't look between the lines for political allegories, and you might have a swell time. Featuring the voices of Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Will Arnett, Carol Burnett, Isla Fisher, Amy Poehler, Jaime Pressly and Seth Rogen. (Not Reviewed)

JUNO (PG-13) Director Jason Reitman's second film is loopy in a more conventional way than his first, Thank You For Smoking, but it's equally clever and, even more crucially, just as much fun. The deliciously baroque plot twists of Smoking are almost entirely absent in Juno, but Reitman makes good use of this new-found, off-kilter minimalism, focusing his often static camera on characters whose endearing qualities rarely get in the way of their monumental oddness. Ellen Page is extremely appealing as the title character, a self-described "freaky girl" who gets pregnant, opts not to abort, and agrees to hand the infant over to a barren couple advertising in the local penny-saver flyer. Things start out impossibly light and bouncy, with everyone speaking in bursts of such glibly stylized strangeness (think Rory Gilmore meets Kevin Smith) that it's sometimes hard to take the characters seriously — but Juno eventually allows just enough cold reality to seep in to get our attention. Still, even when our heroine's water breaks and she's rushed to the delivery room, Juno has time for one last kitsch clarion cry, hollering "Thunderbirds are go!" It's that kind of a movie. Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody seem to be having a ball referencing all the hippest bands and grooviest horror movie directors, and they fill their movie with music by Cat Power, Belle and Sebastian, and whimsical pop tunes a la The Velvet Underground's "I'm Sticking With You," which are so simple and achingly sincere they seem to cross the line into pomo irony. Just like the movie. Also stars Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons. 3.5 stars

MARRIED LIFE (PG-13) A curious blend of comedy, noir-mystery, overheated melodrama and one or two other genres that don't normally cozy up to each other, Married Life does a remarkable job of making its disparate elements feel welcome in the same movie. Chris Cooper stars as Harry, a quiet and decent man who plans to kill his loving wife Kay (Patricia Clarkson) because he can't bear the thought of her suffering when he leaves her for a younger woman (Rachel McAdams). Meanwhile, Harry's best friend (Pierce Brosnan) has own designs on his pal's pretty new girlfriend, and that's only the beginning of the twists and monkey wrenches that begin accumulating in this oddly understated little period piece. The movie's delirious romanticism recalls a more stripped-down take on Douglas Sirk, but the main influence here may well be none other than Alfred Hitchcock. Married Life displays oodles of the sort of slyly elegant humor in which Hitch reveled, never resorting to flashiness as it takes its perverse pleasures in the intricacies of its story's crimes. Inertia and a wave of red herrings threaten to take over by the end, but Married Life is still well worth your time. 3.5 stars

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY (PG-13) Bumbling out-of-work governess Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) worms her way into a gig as a social secretary for a fast-living starlet (Amy Adams) and finds herself lighting up lives, including her own, in the fizzy but thoroughly disposable Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The movie takes place in London on the eve of World War II, which is supposed to add an undercurrent of dramatic tension to the lighter-than-air romantic dalliances here, but mostly serves as an excuse to puff up the fluff with swell-looking period costumes and English accents. There's some fun to be had in watching Adams flit about as the promiscuous, aspiring actress (channeling Marilyn Monroe with her breathy, little-girl voice), but the movie too often feels both predictable and hopelessly stagebound as it goes about the business of showing us McDormand's character magically smoothing over the bumps in the love lives of everyone she encounters. It's obvious from the start who's going to wind up with whom, and by the time the prim and proper Miss Pettigrew loses her inhibitions and hooks up with her own Prince Charming, the movie has all but worn out its welcome. Also stars Lee Pace, Ciaran Hinds, Shirley Henderson and Mark Strong. 2.5 stars

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL (PG-13) Sex and sibling rivalry juice up this historical drama about two sisters competing for the attentions of Henry XIII. Stars Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Jim Sturgess, Mark Rylance and Kristin Scott Thomas. (Not Reviewed)

PENELOPE (PG) Christina Ricci stars as a poor little rich girl born with a big heart and a snout for a nose. Penelope is more candy-colored cartoon fantasy than Elephant Man journey into darkness, but both are essentially ugly duckling fairy tales about uncovering the beautiful swan within. There's much to enjoy here, but the problem with Penelope is that it can't quite seem to decide if it wants to be a lighthearted romance or something meatier and more disturbing. The film wraps itself in an actively quirky sensibility and a semi-edgy visual style that, appealing though they can be, are often at odds with the gentle romantic comedy Penelope seems to be on its most basic level. Ricci's Prince Charming turns out to be a down-on-his-luck scoundrel (James McAvoy), and both are transformed by true love, but the movie's symmetry is upset by too many uneven scenes and a truly awful last act that seems to come out of nowhere. The performances are generally very good, but the movie itself feels unfocused, often rambling so noticeably that it seems to rely on Ricci's voiceover narration to hold it all together. Also stars Catherine O'Hara, Simon Woods, Reese Witherspoon, Peter Dinklage and Richard E. Grant. 3 stars

PERSEPOLIS (NR) In the tradition of great comic-book chronicles like Maus and some of the more personal cartoons of Robert Crumb, the animated feature Persepolis reflects modern life with a passion, wit and complexity rarely achieved in the more "legitimate" corners of literature and cinema. Director Marjane Satrapi adapts her own autobiographical graphic novels to relate a story beginning in Iran in the late '70s, just as the Islamic Revolution is gathering steam. Young Marjane (voiced by Gabrielle Lopes) would much rather be watching Bruce Lee movies than talking religion or politics, but when the country transforms into a theological police state, she finds that remaining on the sidelines is no longer possible. The movie cleverly contrasts the girl's oppressive new world with her love for decadent, disposable Western culture. And as the Islamo-Orwellian double-speak intensifies, so does our hero's lust for forbidden ABBA LPs and black market Iron Maiden cassettes. Persepolis doesn't preach, but it offers reams of pointed commentary in the richly drawn journey of its main character. The black-and-white animation is simple and cleanly stylized, almost looking like woodcuts in places, but these 2D images offer more depth than most stories you'll see at the multiplexes these days. Featuring the voices of Gabrielle Lopes, Chiara Mastroianni, Danielle Darrieux and Catherine Deneuve. 4 stars

RUN FATBOY RUN (PG-13) Aging arrested adolescent Dennis (Simon Pegg) attempts to impress his adorable ex (Thandie Newton) and her impossibly perfect new boyfriend (Hank Azaria) by entering a 26-mile charity run. This is an act designed to show both ex-girlfriend and audience that he's a mature, responsible adult, although it's mostly an excuse to gawk at our pale and hopelessly out-of-shape hero looking dopey in skimpy shorts, contorting his body into absurd positions, adjusting his crotch and gasping for breath. Run Fatboy Run was written by two extremely funny guys, Pegg (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) and Michael Ian Black (MTV's The State and Comedy Central's Stella), and although it's not a bad movie per se, it's more than a bit disappointing, considering the talent involved. The film glides along on a mildly quirky, Full Monty-esque vibe that gets some decent mileage from its London setting and colorful secondary characters, but director David Schwimmer, the ex-Friends star making his behind-the-camera debut, doesn't let much originality or personal style shine through. Also stars Dylan Moran, Harish Patel, India de Beaufort and Matthew Fenton. 3 stars

SEMI-PRO (PG-13) The latest in an apparently never-ending line of sports comedies from Will Ferrell. The subject this time is basketball. Also stars Woody Harrelson, Andre Benjamin, Maura Tierney, Will Arnett and Andy Richter. (Not Reviewed)

SHUTTER (R) The latest Hollywood remake of a popular Japanese horror film stars Rachael Taylor and Joshua Jackson as an American couple creeped out by a dead girl who keeps showing up in their photographs. Also stars Megumi Tanaka, David Denman and John Hensley. (Not Reviewed)

SMART PEOPLE (PG-13) Fresh from Sundance, dysfunctional family dramedy du jour Smart People boasts Juno It-girl Ellen Page and a sprinkling of semi-big names like Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church butting heads to see who's the biggest mess. Also stars Dennis Quaid, Ashton Homes and David Denman. (Not Reviewed)

SNOW ANGELS (R) The latest project from David Gordon Green, acclaimed writer-director of the exceedingly lyrical, low-key indies George Washington and All the Real Girls is a slight departure, showing us the filmmaker working in a somewhat feistier, more plot-driven mode. The film presents us with a rich, almost Altman-esque tapestry of loosely interwoven lives, although the primary focus is on Annie (Kate Beckinsale), a small-town waitress raising a young daughter while deflecting the advances of her loose-canon ex-husband (Sam Rockwell), a booze-battling born-again with a few demons of his own. Paralleling the waitress's story is that of Arthur (Michael Angarano), a cherubic teen who washes dishes at Annie's restaurant and who eases the pain of his parents' messy break-up by hanging out with a quirky new girl at school (Olivia Thirlby). The kids' sweetly offbeat romance is the muted highlight of Snow Angels; otherwise, there's so much narrative crammed in here that the weight is almost too much for the film's delicate frame to bear. The landscape-loving Green puts his evocative northern locales on almost equal terms with the humans, but the director's gentle, poetic style sometimes seems at a loss before the characters' overheated behavior. Also stars Jeanneta Arenette, Amy Sedaris, Griffin Dunne and Nicky Katt. 3.5 stars

THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES (PG) Freddie Highmore fans will get more than their money's worth watching the young actor doing double duty as twin brothers Simon (the passive, buttoned-up one), and Jared (the rumpled, feisty one), who discover an all-powerful coveted by all manner of fantastical creatures. Some of these creatures are warm and fuzzy constructs, including a porcine Muppet voiced by Seth Rogen and a honey-sucking imp called Thimbletack (Martin Short) who looks like Ben Stein transformed into a 3-inch-tall version of The Hulk. But outside the house lurk swarms of nastier entities in the form of sharp-tooth-and-nailed goblins, commanded by a big-cheese ogre called Mulgrath (Nick Nolte). The special effects and action sequences are nothing to sneeze at, but what really distinguishes The Spiderwick Chronicles is flesh and blood. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice the name John Sayles (Return of the Secaucus Seven, Secret of Roan Inish) listed as one of the movie's screenwriters, and the touchy family dynamics underpinning the film are distinctly his. Also stars Sarah Bolger, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn and Joan Plowright. 3.5 stars

STOP-LOSS (R) The new drama from director Kimberly Pierce (Boys Don't Cry) stars Ryan Phillippe as a soldier who finishes his tour of duty in Iraq and returns home to find that the war won't stop haunting him. Also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum, Rob Brown and Ciaran Hinds. (Not Reviewed)

SUPERHERO MOVIE (PG-13) Scary Movie did it for horror flicks, Date Movie did it for romantic comedies, and now pop eats itself again in this week's big-screen send-up of movies featuring men in tights. Stars Drake Bell, Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald, Kevin Hart, Brent Spiner and Jeffrey Tambor. (Not Reviewed)

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (R) Loosely based on Uptown Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!, this monumentally ambitious new opus from Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) offers up chilly scenes from the life of proto-capitalist Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a ruthlessly single-minded entrepreneur who makes a fortune raping the land during the early years of the 20th century. It's not always a pretty picture, but as captured by the camera of Anderson's longtime cinematographer, Robert Elswit, the process takes on its own kind of dirty poetry. Far from some grand oil-empire epic á la Giant, Blood is essentially a spare, almost painfully introspective art film, more driven by details than narrative momentum or life-changing events, and with moments of heroic power compromised by stretches that feel clumsily confrontational, as if the director were more interested in breaking down walls than advancing his story. Anderson's dazzling, convoluted movie is simply too big a meal to digest at one sitting, and I can't wait to watch again to see where it leads next time. Also stars Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciaran Hinds and Dillon Freasier. 4 stars

VANTAGE POINT (PG-13) Calling Vantage Point a Rashomon-lite is both an insult to Kurosawa's enigmatic classic and an awfully lazy way of describing director Pete Travis' silly, amateurish thriller. It's true that Vantage Point, like Rashomon, offers multiple accounts of the same key event (a presidential assassination), each from the perspective of a different participant. But the similarities end where they begin, and Vantage Point's structure quickly reveals itself as an annoyingly transparent gimmick for making a rather run-of-the-mill action flick seem far more intriguing than it actually is. The titular points of view belong to a shell-shocked secret service agent (Dennis Quaid), an American tourist with a camera (Forrest Whitaker), a Spanish cop with romantic problems straight out of a telenovela (Edgar Ramirez), the president himself (William Hurt) and a bunch of slimy Islamic terrorists. For all the points of view and frantic running around, though, there's very little going on here — just the same information tediously replaying numerous times from slightly different perspectives without really adding much that's new. Also stars Matthew Fox and James LeGros. 1 star

This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2008.