MOVIES
Caesars Palace headliner (at least until next February) Cher returns to the big screen in this musical, playing the proprietor of the title L.A. lounge, where a small-town hopeful (Christina Aguilera) hopes to make her dreams of stardom come true. Stanley Tucci, Alan Cumming, Peter Gallagher and Kristin Bell join "Twilight's" Cam Gigandet and "Dancing With the Stars' " Julianne Hough in the cast. At multiple locations. (100 min.) PG-13; sexual content including suggestive dance routines, partial nudity, profanity, thematic material.
FASTER
After a lengthy detour into family-friendly territory, Dwayne Johnson (the artist formerly known as the Rock) returns to action, playing an ex-con out to avenge his brother's death after they were double-crossed during a heist years ago. Billy Bob Thornton and Carla Gugino (Johnson's "Race to Witch Mountain" co-star) play the cops on his trail; Oliver Cohen and "Lost's" Maggie Grace are the killers on his trail. At multiple locations. (95 min.) R; strong violence, drug use, profanity.
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS
A free spirit (Anne Hathaway) entrances a freewheeling Viagra salesman in the latest from director Edward Zwick, who returns to relationship comedy following such dramas as "Defiance," "Blood Diamond" and "The Last Samurai." Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria and Judy Greer co-star. At multiple locations. (113 min.) R; strong sexual content, nudity, pervasive profanity, drug material.
127 HOURS
Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire" director Danny Boyle returns with this fact-based drama about ill-fated mountain climber Aron Ralston (James Franco), who resorts to desperate measures when he's trapped under a boulder while canyoneering alone in Utah. Amber Tamblyn, Kata Mara and Treat Williams co-star. At Green Valley, Village Square. (95 min.) R; profanity, disturbing violent content and bloody images.
TANGLED
Disney's 50th animated feature gives another fairytale princess -- Rapunzel -- a contemporary spin, as Mandy Moore supplies the voice of the mega-tressed teen and "Chuck's" Zachary Levi voices her far-from-princely hero. Broadway Tony-winner Donna Murphy, Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor and Brad Garrett round out the vocal cast for "Bolt" director Byron Howard and co-director Nathan Greno. At multiple locations; in 3-D at select locations. (92 min.) PG; brief mild violence.
ALREADY IN THEATERS
Movies are rated on a letter-grade scale, from A to F. Opinions by R-J movie critic Carol Cling (C.C.) are indicated by initials. Other opinions are from wire service critics.
ALPHA AND OMEGA
(C-) Two wolves at opposite ends of their pack's social order (voiced by Justin Long and Hayden Panetierre), transferred to an Idaho park, must work together to find their way home to Canada in an animated adventure that boasts advanced 3-D but a script that's a let-down in the humor and heart department. (88 min.) PG; rude humor, mild action.
CONVICTION
(B-) When her ne'er-do-well brother (Sam Rockwell) goes to prison for a murder he didn't commit, a high-school dropout (double Oscar-winner Hilary Swank) goes back to college and earns a law degree so she can prove his innocence. This fact-based drama may be a great story, but it's not exactly great storytelling; not content to let the facts speak for themselves, "Conviction" undercuts its dramatic power with only-in-Hollywood contrivances. Fortunately, powerhouse performances from Swank and Rockwell (along with standout support from, among others, Juliette Lewis, Minnie Driver and Ari Graynor) save the day. (107 min.) R; profanity, violent images. (C.C.)
DUE DATE
(C+) An uptight businessman (Robert Downey Jr.) heading home for the birth of his first baby finds himself saddled with a walking-disaster traveling companion: a childlike aspiring actor (Zach Galifianakis) on his way to Hollywood. This comedic cross-country jaunt sounds like it should be fun, especially with "Hangover" director behind the wheel. But this "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" retread for the road-rage era is crazy without being all that comedic, forcing us to endure a cinematic road trip almost as draggy (and sometimes as druggy) as the one shared by the movie's odd-couple buddies. (95 min.) R; profanity, drug use, sexual content. (C.C.)
EASY A
(B) A sarcastic, witty teen ("Zombieland's" winning Emma Stone) uses her high school's rumor mill to enhance her bad-girl reputation when word gets around that she's no longer a virgin. This smart, sassy teen comedy (featuring Amanda Bynes, "Hellcats' Aly Michalka and "Gossip Girl's" Penn Badgley) hearkens back to those golden '80s days of John Hughes -- right down to scene-stealing adult performances from the likes of Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci and Lisa Kudrow. (93 min.) PG-13; mature thematic elements involving teen sexuality, profanity, drug material. (C.C.)
FAIR GAME
(B-) Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, who first teamed in "21 Grams," reunite for this fact-based political thriller about undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, who's outed by the White House after her husband, ex-diplomat Joe Wilson, questions the intelligence behind the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq -- in a New York Times article. Director Doug Liman ("The Bourne Identity," "Mr. and Mrs. Smith") never quite manages to balance to movie's personal and political conflicts; it would take more nuance, and less message-mongering, to make this a true standout. (108 min.) PG-13; profanity. (C.C.)
FOR COLORED GIRLS
(C-) Writer-director Tyler Perry's tone-deaf update of Ntozake Shange's 1974 "choreopoem" cycle "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" intertwines the lives of nine women trying to cope with a variety of torments. Timely and moving on the stage 30-plus years ago, this now seems strained and sentimental, stranding a mostly-terrific cast: Kimberly Elise, Anika Noni Rose and Phylicia Rashad are particular standouts alongside Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Thandie Newton, Kerry Washington and Whoopi Goldberg. Perry tries, and fails, to meld Shange's poetry with his own overblown brand of strained soap opera. (120 min.) R; disturbing violence including a rape, sexual content, nudity, profanity. (C.C.)
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST
(C) In the snoozy final (made-in-Sweden) chapter of Stiegg Larsson's best-selling trilogy, computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (the furious Noomi Rapace) is hospitalized with a bullet to the head -- and awaiting trial for murder, leaving it up to journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to prove her innocence. Watching Lisbeth stuck in a confined space is like seeing Superman trapped in a phone booth: It's a blueprint for a mighty boring movie. In Swedish with English subtitles. (148 min.) R; strong violence, sexual material, brief profanity.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1
(B) It's the beginning of the end for everyone's favorite boy wizard (hardly-a-boy-anymore Daniel Radcliffe) and his faithful Hogwarts companions Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) as they continue their life-or-death battle against the villainous Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). Director David Yates' third Potter movie is gorgeously bleak and thrilling off the top, but repeatedly sags in the middle before ultimately picking up at the cliffhanger climax; we'll all have to wait 'til next summer's finale to see what ultimately happens. (146 min.) PG-13; intense action violence, frightening images, brief sensuality.
HEREAFTER
(B) Director Clint Eastwood's psychological drama focuses on a blue-collar American (Matt Damon) with a special connection to the afterlife, a French journalist (Cecile de France) who survives a near-death experience and a London schoolboy (twins George and Frankie McLaren) desperate to connect with his dead brother. Not the emotional knockout it might have been, but this thematic departure for Eastwood nevertheless showcases his trademark easy, elegant storytelling. (129 min.) PG-13; mature thematic elements, including disturbing disaster and accident images, brief profanity.
INSIDE JOB
(B+) "No End in Sight" director Charles Ferguson returns with another acclaimed documentary, this one devoted to a thorough dissection of the country's, and the world's, economic collapse of 2008. It's a daunting, unwieldy topic, but with the help of user-friendly graphics and Matt Damon's narration, Ferguson breaks down the meltdown without ever being condescending. At the same time, he's managed to make a potentially headache-inducing subject cinematic. That doesn't make it any less depressing. You my think you don't want to see this -- but you should. (120 min.) PG-13; drug and sex-related material.
JACKASS 3D
(C) Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O and the rest of the "Jackass" gang are comin' at you with a third big-screen round of in-your-face mayhem that's even more in-your-face than ever before, thanks to 3-D. But more often than not, this installment (directed, as always, by Jeff Tremaine) doesn't take advantage of its visual potential; very little occurs in "Jackass 3D" that wouldn't have sufficed in 2-D. (94 min.) R; male nudity, extremely crude and dangerous stunts throughout, profanity.
MEGAMIND
(C+) A dastardly super-villain (voiced by Will Ferrell) who turned evil because of a bad upbringing finds himself seduced to the good side to defeat an even badder guy. Didn't we just see this in "Despicable Me"? This latest DreamWorks action romp (in 3-D and IMAX 3D at select locations) features dazzling computer-animated design and action. Yet, ultimately, the underdeveloped story and characters (voiced by, among others, Brad Pitt and Tina Fey) seem to be there to service the visuals, rather than the other way around. (96 min.) PG; action, some profanity.
MORNING GLORY
(B-) A beleaguered producer (spunky Rachel McAdams), hired to revamp a network's low-rated morning program, tries to keep her anchors -- an arrogant news legend (hilariously grouchy Harrison Ford) and a chirpy ex-beauty queen (divine diva Diane Keaton) -- from sabotaging the show, and each other. Patrick Wilson and Jeff Goldblum co-star in a "Broadcast News"-meets-"Devil Wears Prada" comedy that's the cinematic equivalent of a TV morning show -- overstuffed, scattershot and sometimes scatterbrained, yet diverting all the same. (102 min.) PG-13; sexual content including dialogue, profanity, brief drug references. (C.C.)
THE NEXT THREE DAYS
(B-) A mild-mannered professor (dependable chameleon Russell Crowe) takes matters into his own hands to prevent a miscarriage of justice, plotting to break a convicted murder -- his wife (Elizabeth Banks) -- out of jail. This adaptation of the French thriller "Pour Elle (Anything for Her)" loses something in the translation; "Crash" writer-director Paul Haggis' intermittently gripping tale of love, loyalty and desperate measures spends too much time on plot mechanics and not enough on the characters caught up in them. (133 min.) PG-13; violence, drug material, profanity, sexuality, thematic elements. (C.C.)
THE OTHER GUYS
(B-) Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg make an amusingly arresting team as mismatched New York City detectives -- one a by-the-book desk jockey, the other a street guy itching for action -- who stumble onto Wall Street chicanery. Not the bust-a-gut buddy-cop spoof it wants to be -- it careens between action and comedy too much for that -- but its intermittent goofiness makes it easy enough to go along for the ride. (107 min.) PG-13; crude and sexual content, profanity, violence, drug material. (C.C.)
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2
(D+) If there was any lesson to draw from the first "Paranormal Activity," it's that men should take their girlfriends' concerns seriously, especially when it comes to encounters with the demonic. This slightly Hollywood-ized sequel follows similar gender lines, as a family of four (Sprague Grayden and Brian Bolden play the parents) wilt when a malevolent presence haunts their house. Once again, almost everything we see is from surveillance cameras, a perspective that makes the sequel's frights seem natural -- and almost everything else seem boring. (91 min.) R; profanity, brief violent material.
RED
(C+) When a mysterious hit squad tries to take out a former CIA black-ops agent (Bruce Willis), he rounds up a few "Retired, Extremely Dangerous" colleagues (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren) to find out why in yet another comic-book adaptation with the accent on run-and-gun fun. Its top-chop cast (which also include Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban, Richard Dreyfuss and Brian Cox), seems to be having a collective blast, but "Red" keeps interrupting them for cartoony action sequences we've seen a zillion times before. (110 min.) PG-13; intense action violence, brief profanity. (C.C.)
RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE
(D) With the world ravaged by a viral infection that transforms its victims into the Undead, Alice (Milla Jovovich) continues her quest to find survivors and lead them to safety -- and her battle with the Umbrella Corp. Ali Larter, Kim Coates, Shawn Roberts, Boris Kodjoe, Wentworth Miller co-star for director Paul W.S. Anderson (Jovovich's husband), a serious contender for worst filmmaker in the biz. This fourth installment of the "Resident Evil" franchise is the first to go 3-D, but that doesn't improve this witless workout. (90 min.) R; strong violence, profanity.
SAW 3D
(D) In the seventh, presumably final chapter of the "Saw" saga -- the first in 3-D -- several of the diabolical Jigsaw's victims must deal with his deadly legacy, including a self-help guru (Sean Patrick Flanery) with his own dark secrets. Another autumn, another torture porn outing, despite a chilling flashback turn for Jigsaw himself (Tobin Bell) and the return of Carey Elwes. It's all bunk and has been for years; whatever moral lessons were presented in the earliest "Saw" films seem to have been dispensed with as the movies grow more and more gruesome. (87 min.) R; grisly bloody violence and torture, profanity.
SECRETARIAT
(B-) In the early '70s, feisty housewife Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane) literally bets her family's deep-in-debt horse farm on the success of a rangy thoroughbred who turns out to be the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years. Both Secretariat and Tweedy deserve better than this illustrated lecture, full of important Life Lessons in which Penny and her wonder horse show everyone what being a champion is all about. Yet "Secretariat's" thrilling racing sequences capture both the beauty and the pulse-pounding suspense of the title character's awe-inspiring feats. (116 min.) PG; brief mild profanity. (C.C.)
SKYLINE
(D) Those pesky extraterrestrials are back, heralded by strange lights outside L.A. that lure unsuspecting residents outside -- and toward a strange force that threatens to zap humanity off the face of the Earth. "Haven's" Eric Balfour, "NCIS' " Scottie Thompson and "Scrubs' " Donald Faison headline this no-thrills sci-fi thriller; like those of us stuck in the audience, they're simply bystanders -- observers of a special-effects battle that plays like a special-effects experiment in search of a movie. (92 min.) PG-13; intense sci-fi action and violence, profanity, brief sexual content.
TAKERS
(C) When smooth criminals (Idris Elba, Hayden Christensen, Paul Walker, Michael Ealy and Chris Brown) pull off a Los Angeles bank heist, a dogged detective (Matt Dillon) gives chase in a movie that recycles the usual cops-and-robbers claptrap in a routine workout that's not exactly redeemed by its attractive cast or rock-'em, sock-'em action sequences. (107 min.) PG-13; intense violence and action, sexual situations, partial nudity, profanity, drug references. (C.C.)
UNSTOPPABLE
(B) A runaway freight train filled with toxic chemicals rumbles toward derailment -- unless a veteran engineer (Denzel Washington) and a rookie conductor (Chris Pine) can figure out a way to avert disaster. This full-steam-ahead action thriller, inspired by a real-life 2001 Ohio incident, marks the fifth collaboration between Washington and director Tony Scott, and it's a big improvement over last year's overheated "Taking of Pelham 123" remake, keeping the accent on the action without overlooking the human dimension. The legendary Orson Welles once likened moviemaking to "the biggest electric train set a boy ever had," and in "Unstoppable," Scott embraces that philosophy with undisguised glee. (99 min.) PG-13; action, peril, profanity. (C.C.)
WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS
(B) Michael Douglas reprises his Oscar-winning role of Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's timely sequel to 1987's "Wall Street," as just-out-of-prison Gekko tries to reconcile with his estranged daughter ("An Education's" Carey Mulligan), who's involved with a young Wall Street whiz (Shia LaBeouf). Frank Langella and Josh Brolin (Stone's "W." star) deliver sterling support as Wall Street titans old and new in an overstuffed tale that's surprisingly entertaining. (133 min.) PG-13; brief profanity, thematic elements. (C.C.)
YOU AGAIN
(C-) Despite stars Sigourney Weaver, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kristin Bell, this strained comedy -- about two generations of high-school frenemies destined to clash at a family wedding -- traps its talented cast members in a mechanical, predictable romp that arranges the inevitable complications like dominoes carefully designed to fall on cue. Not even the presence of Betty White, as hot-to-(fox)trot Grandma Bunny, can help. (105 min.) PG; brief profanity, rude behavior. (C.C.)
