Barnyard (PG, 83 minutes)
Kids 8 and older may laugh now and again at this ill-conceived animated comic fable about barnyard animals who party like frat boys when the farmer isn’t looking, but it surely doesn’t earn the laughs through good storytelling or beautiful animation. Parents may find themselves trying to explain why key characters in "Barnyard" are milk cows with udders who are supposedly male. And since the animals walk on two legs when the farmer isn’t around, those udders on male "cows" with male voices look even weirder.
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The villain is the main reason for the 8-and-older age recommendation — a snarling, cadaverous, yellow-eyed coyote who steals chickens, kills a cow and threatens worse until the bovine hero stands up to him. Confrontations with Dag (voice of David Koechner) and his coyote gang are not graphic or bloody, but are quite violently portrayed, with animals hurled against trees. The reluctant hero, Otis (Kevin James), is a party-loving cow who loses his father, Ben (Sam Elliott), to a coyote attack. The film includes mildly crude animal-centric humor and occasionally gratuitous sexual innuendo. A human police officer’s remark about strip-searching teenage joy riders is bizarre, though most younger kids won’t get it. A human teenager (a runny-nosed, cow-tipping bully) is shown with his behind partly exposed. There is talk of a pregnant female cow in labor. Otis and his pals go joy riding in a car, chugging bottles of milk.
"Barnyard" is a coming-of-age tale in which Otis learns how to fill his dad’s hoof prints as protector of his fellow farm animals and earn the love of the new cow, Daisy (Courteney Cox). Alas, neither the preachy message nor Otis’s funny mouse pal Pip (Jeffrey Garcia), nor his wise donkey mentor Miles (Danny Glover), can save "Barnyard."
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8 and Older
"The Ant Bully" (PG). Occasionally very intense computer-animated fable about a friendless boy (voice of Zach Tyler Eisen) who gets bullied and takes out his anger on an anthill, nearly drowning the ant city in a garden-hose tsunami (a scary moment, shown from ants’ point of view); ants sneak into his room and slip him a potion mixed by their wizard (Nicolas Cage), which shrinks the boy to ant size; they take him to their world; their queen (Meryl Streep) declares he must learn ant ways; a kindly ant (Julia Roberts) teaches him; he learns courage, selflessness, empathy. Some under-8’s may be unfazed, but others may cringe during action bits, including a wasp attack, a frog that swallows ant-sized boy and a battle with the exterminator (Paul Giamatti); toilet humor; penis/gender joke; visual "plumber’s butt" gag.
"Monster House" (PG). Terrific, truly scary animated creep show for kids, 12-year-old DJ (Mitchel Musso) spies on the rundown house across the street, believing cantankerous owner (Steve Buscemi) and his house swallow up kids and others who venture onto his lawn; DJ and his pal (Sam Lerner) and a new girl (Spencer Locke) go in after Chowder’s lost basketball and solve the mystery, dangerous though it seems. House growls, roars, belches smoke, has creeping shadows, a hall runner that acts like a tongue to snatch people up, a crypt-like cellar; yet scariest scene is a human one — the owner seems to have a fatal seizure while holding DJ in his grip, screaming at him; witty script contains mild sexual innuendo, including references to puberty; gross toilet humor; references to beer. Plot giveaways: The owner survives; climax is a kind of secular exorcism. Too scary for under-8s, some older kids.
PG-13s and an Unrated Film
"Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (PG-13). Will Ferrell as a dim stock car driver in broad, often funny sendup of NASCAR culture, which some may find condescending; film shows Ricky Bobby’s blue-collar childhood, his reprobate dad (Gary Cole), his early wins, his crash/loss to a snooty French driver (Sacha Baron Cohen), subsequent fear of driving, loss of pal (John C. Reilly) and trophy wife (Leslie Bibb), and eventual redemption. Crude sexual innuendo and slang; lewd, comedic references to erections, male parts, animal sexuality; implied toplessness; talk of posing for porn magazines; homoerotic innuendo; homophobic slurs; midrange profanity; stronger profanity partly muffled; characters drink, smoke; references to selling, using illegal drugs; crazy driving, crashes, including a preschooler taking a joy ride; comedic violence shows arm broken, mountain lion pouncing, Ricky sticking a knife into his own thigh. Not for middle schoolers.
"Wondrous Oblivion" (Unrated). Heartwarming, atmospheric tale of friendship across racial, religious, cultural barriers in 1960s London, about cricket-loving son (Sam Smith) of Jewish immigrants and his friendship with Jamaican neighbors in a grim, anti-immigrant blue collar district; the Jamaican patriarch, Dennis (Delroy Lindo, in a lovely turn), coaches him in cricket while his daughter (Leonie Elliott) and the boy become fast friends; the boy’s parents are nervous, but his mother (Emily Woof), married to a workaholic older man (Stanley Townsend), is drawn to Dennis; the friendship, though fraught with near-disaster, survives. Hate-fueled vandalism; racial, ethnic slurs; rare profanity; drinking, smoking; steamy kiss; sexual innuendo. High schoolers.
"John Tucker Must Die" (PG-13). Crass, mean-spirited, poorly acted teen comedy glorifies teen sexual gamesmanship; three high school hotties (Ashanti, Sophia Bush and Arielle Kebbel) learn they’re all being two-timed by the same jock (Jesse Metcalfe); they enlist a new girl (Brittany Snow) to enthrall and humiliate him, with their help. No graphic sexual situations, but much leering sexual innuendo — jokes about erections, genital herpes; toilet humor; occasional profanity; seminudity (plus a thong). Dubious fare for middle schoolers.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest" (PG-13). Frequently diverting, funny-scary sequel is far too long, confoundingly plotted; Johnny Depp keeps production afloat as pirate Capt. Jack Sparrow, the drunken charmer with golden luck, this time pursued by ghostly, squid-faced lord of the deep, Davy Jones (Bill Nighy); Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, as lovers from first film, also seek out Sparrow. Nongraphic swordfights, a stabbing, a whipping (bloodied back shown); subtle remark about sexual passion; joke implying a man is a eunuch; cool-but-gross imagery of Davy Jones’s un-dead pirates, their decaying bodies crusted with sea creatures; Sparrow munches on a severed hand while a captive of cannibals; crows peck out prisoners’ eyeballs (mostly sound effects); monster squid attacks ships, snatches men; man’s false eye pops out; ghost pirate’s conch-shell head falls off, sprouts crab legs; beating heart lives outside a body; rum guzzled. Iffy for preteens, grade schoolers.
Rs
"The Night Listener." Moody, intriguing, but disappointingly ambiguous tale, based on Armistead Maupin’s reality-based novel, stars a somber Robin Williams as late-night radio storyteller who recounts to listeners his sadness at breaking up with his lover (Bobby Cannavale) and how it prompted him to dig deeper into his correspondence with a sickly teenager (Rory Culkin) who was sexually abused and his adoptive mother (Toni Collette); he suspects the boy may not exist and the woman is pretending to be him on the phone and in letters, so he flies to Wisconsin to find out. Strong profanity; ethnic, homophobic slurs; flashbacks subtly implying sexual abuse of children; marijuana. 17 and older.
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"Little Miss Sunshine." Priceless off-center adult comedy — wonderfully acted and directed — about dysfunctional American family whose angst is mitigated by affection; the dad (Greg Kinnear) is a failed motivational speaker; his dad (Alan Arkin) is a heroin-snorting, sex-obsessed, profane senior citizen; his wife (Toni Collette) is stressed out; her brother (Steve Carell) is a suicidal gay college professor; their teenage son (Paul Dano) is silent; their still-happy daughter (Abigail Breslin) longs to be in a creepy little-girl beauty pageant; they all pile into an also-dysfunctional VW van to get her there. Strong profanity, sexual language; porn magazine covers; drug use; professor admits he was in love with a student; homophobic slurs; issues of loss, grief. 17 and older.
"Miami Vice." Slick update of 1980s TV show looks good but feels padded and dull between gun battles; confounding plot has undercover cops Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) posing as movers of contraband in sting designed to bring down drug cartel; Sonny falls for bad guys’ financial whiz (Gong Li) while the less existentially tortured Tubbs has a cop sweetheart (Naomie Harris). Deafening, sometimes very bloody gunplay, bone-breaking fights; explicit sexual situations with partial nudity; milder sexual innuendo; profanity; drinking, smoking. 16 and older.