Opening Friday:

Failure to Launch

(PG-13)

Sarah Jessica Parker is hired to seduce Matthew McConaughey out of his parent’s house. You know what he likes about his parent’s house? He keeps getting older, it stays the same age.

The Hills Have Eyes (R)

Advice for our times: You should not venture into a government atomic testing zone, because that’s where they keep the mutants.

The Libertine (R)

Johnny Depp plays 17th century debauchee and playwright John Wilmot. First Casanova, now this: is there no end to dead sex fiends?

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (PG-13)

See preview on page 15.

The Shaggy Dog (PG)

Tim Allen turns into... well, what do you think he turns into? An elephant? An armoire? A pimento and cheese sandwich? Read the stinking title.

Recently Opened:

16 Blocks (PG-13)

Non-Lethal Weapons

Aquamarine (PG)

A storm washes a cute mermaid into the lives of young girls. Of all the people who could use the appearance of a cute mermaid, she visits some little girls? This strikes us as unfair.

Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (R)

The Best Things in Life

The Kid and I (PG-13)

Tom Arnold remakes True Lies with a handicapped child. Yes, that’s the plot. Really.

Ultraviolet (PG-13)

Milla Jovovich’s advanced mutations make her the target of government agents. As opposed to her natural gifts, which make her the target of leering teens.

The World’s Fastest Indian (PG-13)

Anthony Hopkins tries to break a speed record with an Indian motorcycle. But it doesn’t have a soul like a Vincent ’52.

Still Showing:

Big Momma’s House 2 (PG-13)

Martin Lawrence dons the fat suit again. Question: Have fat suits ever been funny? Answer: No.

Brokeback Mountain (R)

Despite what you may have heard, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are not gay cowboys. They are shepherds, watching over their Wyoming flocks by night, when - lo! - the glory of a furtive embrace shines round about them, and they are sore afraid. Their feelings unfold among shockingly beautiful mountain landscapes and with a placid inevitability: they develop an easy, roughhousing camaraderie, a friendship complicated by desire and ultimately consummated with harsh carnality. As Ennis, Heath Ledger adds new shadings to the word taciturn: he initially seems aloof and possibly thick, but he emerges as a man for whom both words and emotions are terrifying mysteries. Jake Gyllanhaal’s Jack is a somewhat less mesmerizing character, if only because he’s nearly always talking, clowning or crying. Director Ang Lee takes significant pains to show the damage that the lovers inflict on the women they married; the look on Michelle Williams’ face as she sees her husband kissing another man is a heartrending mix of confusion and betrayal. But there’s no escaping the movie’s basic premise: the only true pleasure for men is when they can escape from women and romp together, innocent again in the pastoral West. - Aaron Mesh

Curious George (G)

Will Ferrell lends his voice to The Man in the Yellow Hat, who accidentally picks up a monkey on a tropical voyage. Which is better than some other things he could have picked up.

Date Movie (PG-13)

Alyson Hannigan stars in a send-up of romantic comedies. See, this we don’t get: these movies are already funny, right? So how is making fun of funny things funny? Strange times.

Doogal (G)

A humble dog must rescue magic gems from an evil wizard. Yes, it’s a computer-animated parody of J. R. R. Tolkien! Just the thing you begged for.

Eight Below (PG)

Paul Walker searches for his lost dogs. But they’re lost in Antarctica. So taping flyers to telephone poles probably won’t help.

End of the Spear (PG-13)

Christian missionaries encounter an unenthusiastic reception from Amazon warriors. No, not those Amazon warriors. That would be a very different kind of movie.

Firewall (PG-13)

Harrison Ford must save his family from kidnappers by breaking into his own bank. These are the moments when you regret not having memorized your PIN number.

Freedomland (R)

A missing-child movie filled not only with implausibilities but with extremely annoying implausibilities. Police investigator Samuel L. Jackson has a ferocious asthma attack as soon as he learns that Julianne Moore’s son has been kidnapped? Oh no he doesn’t. Moore wanders off in the neighborhood where her son was stolen, and the cops simply let her do this - before they even finish a preliminary interrogation? Oh no they don’t. A search in the woods for the little boy’s body, complete with sticks poking at the brush for signs of a corpse, becomes an inspirational, unifying event for all involved? Oh no it doesn’t. Even in the rare moments when Freedomland makes sense, it manages to rankle every reasonable sensibility. Perhaps this is because all the characters are heels or morons, and sometimes both. Jackson, holed up in the projects with an anguished, insensible Moore, reaches deep down for a profound speech - and comes up with the vapid non-suggestion that she should “let go and let God.” Watching this, I waited for an extra to dart into the frame and slap Jackson in the face. When none did, I gave up on the entire charade. - Aaron Mesh

Match Point (R)

Woody Allen has unleashed a fiendish energy and funneled it into a cold-blooded case against human feeling. As an exercise in audience complicity, it has few recent peers. As an attack on the moral philosophy of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, well, it’s not likely to have very many challengers. And as a movie, it is both unnerving and mildly unsatisfying. Fitting, since its hero is a man not easily satisfied, or sated. He’s Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a minor British tennis phenom turned London club pro, and a man whose lusts are submerged but uncomplicated: he wants money, and sex. Or maybe he wants sex, and money. That order is going to be a big question in this movie. Soon after Chris and Chloe (Scarlet Johansson) tumble into the rain for an al fresco liaison, she is unencumbered of her engagement - and he is married to his buddy’s sister. Did I mention that the sister (Emily Mortimer) has money? And that Chloe is broke? The taxonomies in Match Point are carefully structured - perhaps too much so - and they create a mood of glum inevitability. That’s very much the point of Match Point, and it actually increases the tension. We know what Chris is going to do, but will he get away with it? - Aaron Mesh

The Pink Panther (PG)

Steve Martin revives Inspector Clouseau to solve another diamond heist. He can also help The Man in the Yellow Hat get a license for his monkey.

Running Scared (R)

Paul Walker plays a small-time mobster who rather badly needs to recover a gun. It’s kind of like Doogal, but without the evil wizard.

Transamerica (R)

Felicity Huffman’s Bree is a pre-surgery transsexual, which means she has all the qualities of a lady, plus a little something extra. That something she would very much like to be rid of, and the movie’s heartiest laughs are triggered by Huffman’s physical comportment - the way her newfound femininity turns her punctilious and conservative, more like a Victorian than a sexual pioneer. She’s not a boy, not yet a woman. But she is a dad. Word that she not only has a son, but that son is in lock-up for drug possession, sends Bree reluctantly packing from California to New York. Terrified of explaining her relation to her progeny, she takes on the most convenient guise - a social worker from “The Church of the Potential Father.” Transamerica quickly develops into a fairly straightforward picaresque, with the requisite oddballs and sages along the road. I could have done with a little more bite, but the congeniality is vastly preferable to stereotypes of bigoted rednecks, and anyhow the traveling duo has more than enough troubles on its own. It’s not uncommon for a teenage boy to develop an Oedipus complex, but it complicates matters when your father is attempting to become your mother. - Aaron Mesh

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion (PG-13)

It’s a rare moment when you can describe a film as “the other black-comedian-dressing-as-a-woman movie.” But here we are.