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"Baby Mama" (Quality rating: 7) (PG-13: crude and sexual humor, vulgarity and a drug reference) (1:36) -- Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sigourney Weaver, Greg Kinnear.  Surrogate motherhood is in the spotlight in this light comedy-drama as a Philadelphia 37-year-old executive, Kate (Fey), realizes that she's missing something big in her life without a child. But due to a womb problem, her chances for pregnancy being but million-to-one, she contracts with a working-class girl, Angie (Poehler), to be her surrogate. With Angie's low-life slob boyfriend in the picture, the process begins as Angie, suddenly jobless, moves in with Kate. The culture clash dominates as child-rearing illumination joins with Kate's constant admonishing of Angie to change from her junk diet. And now a devious plot begins surfacing between Angie and boyfriend. Considering that this very women's-issues film was written and directed by a man, the film is appealing, mostly due to the sprightly chemistry between Fey and Poehler.  It's all off the top with an almost caricatured flavor and a pleasant, though hardly credible ending. Funny?  The situations are, but no clever laugh lines are apparent.

 "88 Minutes"  (Quality rating: 3) (R: violence, vulgarity, brief nudity) (1:48) -- Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Neal McDonough, William Forsythe, Leelee Sobieski. Death Row-condemned serial killer Jon Forster rages that forensic psychiatrist-college professor Jack Gramm manipulated the jury to get witnesses to testify against him. On the eve of Jon's execution, Jack gets a phone call advising him that he has only 88 minutes left to live. It does appear that there's a copycat killer out there  murdering pretty young women in the same manner as Forster. Jack's got some work to do figuring out what's going on and this will involve only very young women in the most unlikely professions. The film's directions are incoherent, the acting is clumsy and hammy, and, as Jack ambles about town in real time that had to be hours, all suspense is lost. For the deviant voyeur, however, there are perverted slayings of young women and absurd situations. You may not last 88 minutes.

"The Forbidden Kingdom"  (Quality rating: 5) (PG-13: violence, martial arts action) (1:53) -- Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michael Angarano, Crystal Liu Yi Fei. Location: Boston, and Heng Dian, China. What could be more appealing -- a teenager in kung fu land!!  Yes, here he is, American youth Jason (Angarano), a fanatical fan of Hong Kong cinema, who's been transported back into time to rescue a great sage and warrior. The Monkey King has been held in a stone confinement by the evil  Lu Yan Jade warlord (Collin Chou) for five hundred years. Jason will have the aid of a drunken kung fu master, the inscrutable, martial arts skilled Silent Monk (Jet Li), and the vengeful kung fu beauty, Golden Sparrow (Crystal Liu Yi Fei). They will mow down scores of Jade Warriors, Cult Killers, then to meet the deadly White Hair Demoness, Ni Chang (Li Bing Bing). As expected, the film is targeted solely to under-16 boys, for whom it does its job well. Nothing else should be expected of it.

"Forgetting Jessica Stein" (Quality rating:  6)  (R: considerable sexuality including                         graphic and oral sex, explicit male frontal nudity, vulgarity) (1:52) -- Jason Segal, Kristen Bell, Russell Brand, Mila Kunis. Broken-hearted L.A. musician Peter Bretter, just dumped by his TV celebrity girlfriend Sarah Marshall, heads out to Hawaii for an`escape. Except that it's not. By coincidence, there's Sarah with her hip new British-rocker boyfriend at the same resort hotel. But maybe the beautiful hotel reception clerk will generate a new romance, even as jealousies and recriminations abound. The film's predeliction for penis views and jokes, much nudity and generous graphic sex capers plays garishly to the 16 - 35 audience but its gags are many and funny. Still, the hero is plain and unappealing and the leisurely, almost indifferently structured "plot"  hardly supports the cardboard, texture-less conflicts.

Horton Hears a Who" (Quality rating: 7) (G) (1:28) -- animated feature with voices of Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell, Dan Fogler, Carol Burnett. Horton is an elephant known for his outsized imagination. And now he's really put to the test as he believes he actually hears a cry for help emanating from a tiny speck of dust floating through the air. Despite the ridicule of his friends over his belief that there is life on that speck, he soon finds himself in an entire microscopic city named Who-ville, inhabited by the Whos. The film's whimsical visual style and the inventive expansion of the original Dr. Seuss story provide lots of kid-appealing action and plot magic. 

 "Iron Man" (Quality rating: 9)  PG-13 (intense high action, vulgarity, sexually suggestive content) (2:06)  -- Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow.  A self-made superhero, Iron Man has been designed by genius inventorTony Stark, a super-rich industrialist philanthropist, maker of the most  advanced of military technology. The circumstances in which this happened were that during a weapons sale mission to Afghanistan he was ambushed on the desert by insurgents and ordered into a high tech facilitated cave to assemble a super missile. Instead, he assembled a high tech suit of armor to destroy his captors. But once home, he's had it with killing people and wants to turn to doing good. His ruthless partner, Obidiah, is not happy about this and designs his own iron man to face Tony's. And yes, this is virtually a sea change in the genre, with a strong uman element, snappy, witty dialogue, real characters, a workable plot, and unbelievable action. The bar has now been raised by many a notch in high tech delivery, certainly in the quality of the slam-bang action but also for the sheer imagination in its sci-fi concepts.

"Made of Honor"  (Quality rating: 6) PG-13 (sexuality, vulgarity) (1:41) -- Patrick

Dempsey, Beau Garrett, Michelle Monaghan, Sydney Pollack. Handsome, charming,

womanizing bachelor Tom Bailey has been stringing his childhood sweetheart Hannah

along without commitment for just a little too long. Just when he's up and ready to

propose to her, she returns from a business trip to Scotland with a rich and handsome

Scotsman, and they're engaged to be married in Scotland. Tony accepts her invitation

to be Maid of Honor but he'll really be plotting to torpedo the wedding and try to get

her to realize that he is her true life's love. Truth be told, this is indeed an overcooked,  

hackneyed romance-comedy plot. You know all the tricks and turns. But no matter,

it's also very entertaining all the way, with appealing characters. It's there. It's fun. It's

enjoyable, funny in situations but a bit short on gaglines. The Scottish scenery is to die

for and the Scottish traditional wedding procedure with bagpipes, regalia and Highland

Games at a castle is eye-popping spectacle.

"Nim's Island" (Quality rating: 5) PG (adventure action, brief vulgarity) (1:35) -- Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler, Abigail Breslin. Based on the Wendy Orr children's novel.
       The family film is about Nim, a young girl living alone with her microbiologist dad on a remote South Pacific island. Her close friends, with whom she dances and frolics, are a dragon lizard, a pelican and a fur seal. Her own idyll is the bold adventurer Alex Rover, a fictional character created by San Francisco-based Alexandra Rover. Also a recluse -- of a very different kind -- Alexandra lives in an obsessive fear of descending into the streets. But she has just received an e-mail from Nim pleading that she needs her to come and help her find her missing father. Courage and fear will unite the two, each approaching with anxiety what appears to them to be a threatening world. The film, occasionally bordering on the amateurish, wants so badly to be an 8- to 12-year-old girl's perfect fantasy movie, but winds up mired in some of the most overcooked,  dialogue and cringingly simplistic dialogue. Its whimsy is limited, buried under a pile of misguided story techniques and devices.

"Redbelt" (Quality rating:  7) R (strong vulgarity) (1:39) -- Chiwetel Ejiofor, Emily Mortimer, Alice Braga, Tim Allen.  This is by high-brow writer-director David Mamet, a curious reach
by him into the world of professional jiu-jitsu. As is typical of his films, his action tends
to be too weak for the plot but his substance is generally absorbing. This one is set
superbly within a milieu of scammers, promoters, fighters, and self-imagined modern
samarai. A bit different from "Rocky"-type films, it gives the protagonist an
intellectual-philosophical bent rather than pure physical underdog status.
      In this, Master jiu-jitsu teacher Mike Terry, emotionally supported by his
wife Sondra, scrapes a living from his little academy in a rundown section of
West Los Angeles. Commercially speaking, Mike's his own worst enemy as he will not
deal with the crass mercenary world. He refuses to prime his students for
competitions."I train people to prevail," he proclaims proudly. He focuses on mental
gamesmanship.
     But times are getting worse. One evening, an uptight attorney stops by.
Events lead to a cop's gun accidentally firing, shattering the storefront's plate glass
window. There's a law infraction involved here but, as a courtesy, the cop, Joe, agrees not to report it. This friendly act, however, will lead directly to an
entangling chain of events:  One night at a bar, he rescues movie star Chet Frank
from threat at a bar. Chet showers Mike with gratitude, inviting him and his
wife to dinner.  He tempts him with a major film job, sends him an expensive watch,
even as Chet's wife is drawn by Chet's wife into a new partnership in a fashion line.
       But poor Mike will soon be in financial peril, leaving him and his wife menaced by
underworld predators which include a fight promoter and a scumbag loan shark. Mike
is finding that precisely the world he has been trying to avoid is now descending upon
him.
     The film leaves a variety of unanswered plot questions, making its rather basic,
low-budget action finish a bit unsatisfying. Ejiofor is excellent.

"Smart People"  (Quality rating: 6) (R: vulgarity, drug use, some sexuality) (1:34) -- Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church. Literature professor Lawrence Wetherhold, a widower, brilliant in his teaching but dysfunctional at home with his two problem kids, both in upper teens, is belabored with domestic challenges. Acid-tongued Daughter Vanessa, an overachieving Young Republican, and secretive college student James are problems enough, but now comes Lawrence's adoptive brother Chuck, a deadbeat moocher, who crashes for awhile. After Lawrence's head accident, the attending ER doctor (Sarah Jessica Parker) turns out to be a former student of Lawrence's who had a crush on him. Considering its academic settings, the wit level is disappointingly low. The romance is low energy, without nuance. Ellen (Juno") Page is good, everyone else is forgettable. 

"Speed Racer"  (Quality rating:  5) PG (hard action, vulgarity, some violence) (2:09) -- Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, Matthew Fox, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman. And away we go with the most fiery, fearsome and furious car race of all time. Our hero is Speed Racer. He drives by every nerve and fiber in his body, by instinct, yes, and by an aggressive spirit unmatched in the sport. His race car, the thundering Mach 5, was designed by his father who ran a whole racing business. But Speed, learning that at the top the most major of races are all fixed, manipulated for max profits, turns down a lucrative deal. But the company's maniacal CEO goes out of his mind in rage and will see to it that he never finishes another race! The film features cars turning somersaults, spinning through the air, surging up sheer cliffs and shooting impossibly huge weapons at each other. The modest, gratuitous plot is spare. It's not why you're there.
        

 "21"  (Quality rating: 7) PG-13 (violence, sexuality, partial nudity) (2:02) -- Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne. The true story, Hollywood-ized for screen appeal, is about how some bright young M.I.T. students bilked Las Vegas for millions. A group of them head off for the blackjack tables in Vegas each weekend, led by a maverick math professor and a statistics genius who will lead the strategists in a card code which they've cracked. There's a little romance involved, from which one player may push his luck, and a sharp casino enforcer who's scrutinizing them. The basic hook is in the detailed mechanics of a forbidden process, from which reliable and irresistible suspense is generated. The film takes its characters reasonably seriously, with full-blooded dimension on and away from the tables.

"The Visitor"  (Quality rating 8) PG-13 (some vulgarity) (1:48) -- Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira. College prof Walter Vale, a lonely widower who has all but abandoned life, stops in at his Manhattan co-op apartment for a stay while attending an NYU conference. But he finds a couple, Tarek, a Syrian man, and Zainab, his Senegalese girlfriend, living there, they having been scammed by a con artist into thinking the place was available. Walter, disarmed by the warm-hearted Tarek's personality, he invites them to stay. As Tarek teaches him the African drum, a real bonding develops. But this is is post-9/11 and the harsh, cruel and unthinking hand of the immigration authorities put the couple in peril of deportation. Walter takes their plight on as his mission. Making no grandiose statements, no pretensions at profound observation, "The Visitor," a post-9/11 drama of the heart, will settle deeply into your psyche by sheer honesty.  It is essentially a story of polar opposites organically coming together in a gripping and fast-growing garden of emotions. Most startling, most arresting about the film is the naturalness of performance in its lead characters, as is caught on candid camera, such that you may feel at times embarrassed as eavesdropping into their presence.

 "What Happens in Vegas"  (Quality rating: 5)  PG-13 (sexual content, crude material, vulgarity, one drug reference) -- Cameron Diaz, Aston Kutcher, Rob Corddry, Dennis Farina. Only in Las Vegas!  After a night of decadence and sex in free abandon, two total strangers happen to awaken together in a motel to discover that at some point in the night they got married. They despise each other. Then to add spice to the situation, he wins a huge poker jackpot -- by playing her quarter. Each, of course, feels entitled to all the loot. With the help of friends they plot and counterplot against each other in order to grab the winnings. Of course, in the ways of Hollywood romance comedies, you know where this is going. Loud in delivery, lazy in concept, this fast paced, sloppy slapsticky romance comedy hardly covers for its lack of any well-conceived comedy energy. While its artless, and mostly laughless, brute force energy won't let you take your eyes off the screen, you may feel trampled by hostility and venom that wasn't very rewarding.