Movie Guide

New Releases

Director: Francis Ford Coppola. With Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Harrison Ford, Laurence Fishburne, Christian Marquand. (196 min.)

Sterritt **** Coppola has restored 53 minutes of material trimmed from the original 1979 release of "Apocalypse Now," his legendary drama about the Vietnam War, and reedited the movie as a whole. The story, based on Joseph Conrad's haunting 1898 novella "Heart of Darkness," hasn't changed: A young soldier (Sheen) travels up a jungle river to find and assassinate a renegade military officer (Brando) who's gone insane and established a private kingdom ruled by terror. The film is episodic and uneven, but it has moments of great emotional power and stands as a key document for anyone hoping to understand American ambivalence toward the Vietnam War and its soul-searching aftermath.

Director: Abel Ferrara. With Matthew Modine, Claudia Schiffer, Dennis Hopper, Béatrice Dalle. (100 min.)

Sterritt ** A movie star relocates from Hollywood to Miami, develops contrasting relationships with two different women named Annie, and suffers the consequences of a night so dissolute that he retains no memory of what happened. This isn't a Ferrara classic like "King of New York," but even his less- memorable pictures carry an eccentric kick no other director could duplicate.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa. With Koji Yakusho, Masato Hagiwara, Anna Nakagawa, Tsuyoshi Ujiki. (115 min.)

Sterritt *** A police officer tries to figure out the mystery behind a series of savage murders perpetrated by a widely varying group of people who have no memory of the crimes they've committed. The story dawdles and meanders, but Kurosawa's visual imagination keeps it cinematically stimulating. Be warned that, like some other Japanese productions of the late '90s and early '00s, it contains quite a few grisly and ghastly images. In Japanese with English subtitles

Director: Garry Marshall. With Julie Andrews, Anne Hathaway, Heather Matarazzo, Hector Elizondo. (114 min.)

Sterritt ** Andrews is excellent as the queen of an itsy-bitsy European principality who decides the nation's next ruler should be her granddaughter, a San Francisco teenager who's never been told she has royal blood. With its leisurely pace and unfancy filmmaking, this is a likable throwback to an old tradition of family-friendly comedies from the Disney studio, spinning its unpretentious yarn with a quiet but inventive sense of humor. The problem is that it goes on much too long, stretching a modest story into a marathon that outlasts its welcome by about 30 minutes.

Director: John Farrell. With Matte Osian, Kadina Delejalde, Deb Snyder, Tom Turbiville, Ellen Zachos. (93 min.)

Sterritt * A modern-dress version of William Shakespeare's minor history play about a smart but ineffectual monarch who finds his supporters shrinking in number, while a rival tries to engineer his downfall and death. Shot with nondigital video equipment on an island in Boston Harbor, this ultra-low-budget production has a scruffy cinematic interest, but isn't photographed or acted with enough imagination to carry much weight as Shakespearean drama.

Director: Bret Rattner. With Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Zhang Ziyi, Chris Penn, Don Cheadle. (88 min.)

Staff **1/2 Just put Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in a room together for 90 minutes, and you've got a hit movie. Here, the odd-couple detectives chase evil Triad counterfeiters from Hong Kong to Las Vegas. But never mind all that. The plot is full of holes anyway. And never mind that the sequel's stunts and fight-scene choreography aren't quite as impressive as that of the first movie - the amped-up comedy more than compensates to carry the day. Actor chemistry matters. By Matthew MacLean

Currently in Release

Director: Joe Roth. With Julia Roberts, John Cusack, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Billy Crystal. (109 min.)

Sterritt * To build enthusiasm for an expensive production, a Hollywood publicist (Crystal) asks a feuding movie-star couple (Cusack and Zeta-Jones) to fake a reconciliation, helped by an assistant (Roberts) who has her own personal stakes in the situation. This story is complicated enough to look interesting on paper, but it falls flat on screen, weighed down by far-fetched plot twists and touches of needlessly crude comedy.

Staff ** Formulaic, funny (at times), half-baked.

VS/N: 6 scenes of innuendo, 1 scene of implied sex. VV: 3 scenes, including one fight. VP: 31 harsh expressions. VD: 1 scene with smoking, 9 scenes with drinking, 2 scenes with pill-taking.

Director: Lawrence Guterman. With Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Perkins, Alexander Pollock. (87 min.)

Sterritt * Goldblum plays a scientist working on an anti-allergy medicine, but the real action centers on wicked cats who want to take over the world and resourceful dogs who want to save us all. The plot pants so hard to please all conceivable tastes that it makes less sense than the average pet-food commercial.

Staff **1/2 A casual joy, not quite purrfect, witty.

VS/N: None. VV: 16 scenes of cartoon-like violence. VP: 4 very mild. VD: None

Director: Steve Carr. With Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wilson, and voices of Steve Zahn, Lisa Kudrow. (90 min.)

Staff *1/2 Murphy reprises his 1998 role as Dr. Dolittle who must help save a forest from money-hungry loggers. The writers must have thought, "Hey, if we can feature a mafia-type raccoon, a drinking monkey, and a Latino chameleon that can talk, this movie will write itself!" They were so wrong.

By Lisa Leigh Parney

VS/N: None. VV: None. VP: 10 mild expressions. VD: 2 with alcohol.

Director: Rob Cohen. With Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordanna Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez. (140 min.)

Staff **1/2 Brian (Walker), a not-so-hot rookie detective goes undercover to get to the bottom of a rash of truck hijackings. But will Brian learn how to double-pump the clutch before he blows out another set of piston rings? And did I mention there are lots of neat car chases? By Alex Kaloostian

VS/N: 3 instances of innuendo. VV: 11 scenes, including fighting. VP: 58 harsh expressions. VD: 3 scenes with smoking, 3 scenes with drinking.

Director: Joel Hopkins. With Tunde Adebimpe, Hippolyte Girardot, Natalie Verbeke, James Wilby. (97 min.)

Staff ** Strait-laced George (Adebimpe), a Manhattan office worker from Nigeria, hopes to honor his departed parents and please an overbearing uncle by going through with an arranged marriage. En route to the ceremony, he encounters a suicidal Frenchman (Girardot) and a free-spirited Latina (Verbeke), whose passionate family threatens to set George's buttoned-down lifestyle on a new path. This feature film debut by writer-director Hopkins suffers a bit from its low budget, but its witty script and multicultural cast never fail to delight. By M.K. Terrell

VS/N: 2 instances of mild innuendo; 1 scene of implied sex. VV: None. VP: 20 harsh expressions. VD: 4 scenes with alcohol.

Director: Joe Johnston. With Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Laura Dern. (90 min.)

Sterritt ** After their 14-year-old son disappears into an island jungle inhabited by Jurassic Park's prehistoric critters, an unhappy couple shanghais mild-mannered paleontologist Alan Grant into helping their rescue effort. The cast is solid, and the special effects are impressive, but the screenplay is so stale that fans of the previous "Jurassic" installments might think this is one clone too many.

Staff *1/2 Poorly paced, summer fun, empty theme park ride, blessedly short.

VS/N: None. VV: 11 scenes of dinosaur attacks. VP: 5 mild instances. VD: 1 scene with drinking.

Director: Robert Luketic. With Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma Blair. (94 min.)

Sterritt ** When her boyfriend proposes breaking up instead of getting married, a ditsy sorority girl follows him to Harvard Law School and continues her courtship on his own turf. Witherspoon fills the screen with bright-eyed bounce but the rest of the cast is as forgettable as the flimsy story.

Staff **1/2 Perky, Light-hearted, delightful.

VS/N: None. VV: None. VP: 15 mild expressions. VD: 4 scenes with alcohol.

Director: Tim Burton. With Mark Wahlberg, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Michael Clarke Duncan. (119 min.)

Sterritt ** Wahlberg crash-lands his spaceship on a world where supersmart simians have all the power and human beings are their slaves. Burton is an imaginative director with a distinctive artistic vision, but his originality is nowhere to be seen in this by-the-numbers retread of a science-fiction premise that seemed much fresher in 1968, when the original "Planet" was released. And what's the point of having gifted actors like Carter and Roth, when it's hard to savor their talents under all that monkey makeup?

Staff *1/2 One-dimensional, Burton succeeds again, never dull, terrific sets and makeup.

VS/N: 1 scene of innuendo. VV: 22 scenes, including gore. VP: 10 mild expressions. VD: 2 scenes with smoking; 2 scenes with drinking.

Director: Damon Wayans. With Carmen Electra, Shannon Elisabeth, Hector Elizondo, Tim Curry. (88 min.)

Staff * The original "Scary" movie was a smart, funny riff on horror movies but all this sequel can offer is lots of clichés and bathroom humor. You won't laugh, and you won't be scared, but you may be embarrassed for the teenagers trapped in an archetypical haunted house for a weekend. By Alex Kaloostian

Director: Frank Oz. With Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando, Angela Bassett. (124 min.)

Staff ** "The Score" boasts De Niro, Norton, and Brando - three great actors from three different generations. But this heist movie is also third-rate material. De Niro plays a safecracker who, you guessed it, accepts one last job before he retires. Like the other actors, he's hardly stretching himself here.

By Stephen Humphries

Staff *** Intelligent, no emotional drive, thrilling.

VS/N: None. VV: 5 scenes, including beating. VP: 79 harsh expressions. VD: 2 scenes with smoking; 6 scenes with drinking.

Directors: Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson. With voices of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy. (90 min.)

Sterritt *** An amiable ogre, a talkative donkey, and a domineering princess set off on a fairy-tale quest that brings out the hidden decency of the monster. The story has rollicking moments and animation fans will find a generous amount of fun.

Staff *** Irreverent, fairy tale turned inside out.

VS/N: None. VV: 3 scenes of cartoon violence. VP: 4 mild expressions. VD: 3 scenes with alcohol.

In Stores August 7

Director: Gore Verbinski. With Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Gene Hackman. (123 min.)

Sterritt *** Pressured by mobsters, a small-time crook takes on one last job - retrieving an exotic pistol from a Mexican village - which places him in very hot water and lands his estranged girlfriend in the hands of an eccentric kidnapper. Lively acting makes this an engaging comedy-drama, although its attitude toward violence is disconcertingly romantic.

Staff **1/2 Edgy, quirky, Gandolfini shines.

Director: Demian Lichtenstein. With Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Christian Slater. (115 min.)

Staff * Kevin Costner plays an evil-minded criminal who's obsessed with Elvis. What better way to use it than as a disguise to steal millions of dollars? The movie's twists and turns are nonsensical and mindless. Only the movie's comical moments with the young David Kaye as Cox-Arquette's streetwise son save it from being a "dud." By Lisa Leigh Parney

(In stores Feb. 23)

Director: Tommy O'Haver. With Kirsten Dunst, Ed Begley Jr., Sisqo, Martin Short, Swoosie Kurtz. (90 min.)

Staff *1/2 Berke tries out for the school play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," hoping to win his ex-girlfriend back from her new boyfriend/costar. His best friend's little sister (Dunst), also in the play, helps him with his acting, but secretly loves him, too. This grab bag of dreams, fantasies, and musical numbers, though amusing, never really comes together. By M.K. Terrell