Family Filmgoer

Tiana grows up a gifted chef and dreams of opening her own restaurant. She works as a waitress and saves her money, putting a down payment on an abandoned sugar mill that is a major fixer-upper. Meanwhile, handsome-but-broke Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) arrives in New Orleans, an expat from overseas, in search of jazz music and a rich girl to marry. However, he and his valet are hoodwinked by an evil voodoo "shadowman," Dr. Facilier (Keith David), who puts a spell on the prince, turning him into a frog and his valet (Peter Bartlett) into a faux Naveen whom only Facilier can control.

Tiana meets Naveen-as-frog during a party at her friend Charlotte's (Jennifer Cody) house. Charlotte is determined to marry the prince, unaware that it's actually his valet she's flirting with. The frog prince is sitting on a windowsill, all green and slimy, talking to her. ("It's not slime; it's mucus," is one of the film's ongoing jokes.) After she gets over the shock of a talking frog, he begs her to kiss him and change him back, but when she does, she's turned into a frog, too. They both flee to the bayou in search of a voodoo priestess who can help them. Along the way, they're befriended by a hilarious Cajun firefly named Ray (Jim Cummings) who's in love with a star he thinks is a distant firefly, and a horn-playing gator named Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley) who saves Tiana and Naveen from other gators who want to eat them.

Eventually of course, all the spells are broken and people restored to their human forms. The film deals with racial segregation in subtle ways that adults will recognize. It makes a point when the young Tiana (Elizabeth M. Dampier) and her mother Eudora (Oprah Winfrey), a seamstress, leave a rich customer's (John Goodman) mansion and take the streetcar down to their own neighborhood of shotgun houses. But the customer's daughter Charlotte (Breanna Brooks as a child) is also Tiana's lifelong friend. It's subtly implied that Tiana's father James (Terrence Howard) dies in World War I. Dr. Facilier and the demons from the underworld he calls up are pretty spooky. Some younger children may worry briefly when Tiana and the prince, as frogs, are pursued by those gators. One animal character dies a sad death at the end, and has a funeral. Some of the humor is a little crude, but kid-friendly.

OK FOR MANY KIDS 6 AND OLDER:

"The Princess and the Frog" G (NEW) -- Kids 6 and older ought to be utterly taken with Disney's new animated feature. Hand-drawn in the old style, it completely re-imagines "The Frog Princess" by E.D. Baker. They've set it in early 20th-century New Orleans, and the heroine is a young African-American woman, Tiana (Anika Noni Rose). The charm-and-humor-rich characters, both human and animal, coupled with Randy Newman's catchy comic tunes and yearning anthems, have been blended into a highly enjoyable, if not wildly transporting, entertainment. Tiana grows into a gifted chef with the dream of opening her own restaurant. She works as a waitress and saves her money. Meanwhile, Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) arrives in New Orleans from overseas in search of jazz music and a rich girl to marry. He and his valet are bamboozled by an evil voodoo "shadowman," Dr. Facilier (Keith David), who puts a spell on the prince, turning him into a frog and his valet into a faux Naveen. When Tiana meets the frog/prince at a party, he's perched on a windowsill, all green and slimy. After she gets over the shock of a talking frog, he begs her to kiss him but instead of changing him back, the kiss turns Tiana into a frog, too. They both flee to the bayou in search of a voodoo priestess who can help them. They're befriended by a hilarious Cajun firefly, Ray (Jim Cummings), and a horn-playing gator named Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley). The film deals with racial segregation in a subtle way that adults will recognize. The young Tiana (Elizabeth M. Dampier) and her seamstress mother Eudora (Oprah Winfrey) leave a rich customer's (John Goodman) mansion and take the streetcar to their own neighborhood of shotgun houses. But the customer's daughter Charlotte (Breanna Brooks as a girl; Jennifer Cody as an adult) is also Tiana's lifelong friend. It is implied that Tiana's father (Terrence Howard) dies in World War I. Dr. Facilier and his underworld demons are pretty spooky, and when Tiana and the prince, as frogs, are pursued by hungry gators, it is briefly scary. One animal character dies and has a funeral. Some of the humor is a little crude, but kid-friendly.

OK FOR MANY KIDS 8 AND OLDER:

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" PG -- A savory blend of wit and whimsy -- with a bit of an edge -- Fantastic Mr. Fox" uses old-style stop-motion animation to wondrous effect. The furry characters are appealingly herky-jerky and the sets look like landscapes for toy trains. Director Wes Anderson has created a film (based on Roald Dahl's children's book) that anyone 8 and older can enjoy. The film may be too intense for under-8s, and a few who are older, when Mr. Fox (voice of George Clooney) and all the woodland creatures must frantically dig tunnels to escape farmers coming after them with guns, bulldozers and hoses. Mr. Fox, a former chicken thief, is bored, so he moves his family into a tree facing the land of three farmers. Unbeknownst to Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), Mr. Fox aims to raid the farms. He involves his nephew (Eric Anderson), but ignores his undersized son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman). Ash eventually proves the moral -- what makes you different is what makes you special. The animals' droll expression "the cuss you are!" is the only strongish language.

OK FOR MANY KIDS 10 AND OLDER:

"Old Dogs" PG -- John Travolta and Robin Williams look desperate in this sad, cheesy comedy. They play Charlie and Dan, respectively -- friends and business partners. Charlie is a happy bachelor. Dan is lonely and longs to reconnect with Vicki (Kelly Preston), a woman he met and drunkenly married in Las Vegas seven years earlier, though the union was annulled. Vicki arrives and tells Dan they have 7-year-old twins she's been raising alone. She must go to jail for two weeks for overzealous environmental activism and asks Dan to care for Zach (Conner Rayburn) and Emily (Ella Bleu Travolta -- real-life daughter of Travolta and Preston). Dan hasn't a clue about kids and the hijinks that follow are painfully unfunny. In addition to divorce and depression themes, the film has toilet humor, slams in the crotch, prescription drug side-effects gags, and drinking. Not for under-10s.

"Disney's A Christmas Carol" PG -- Though it sticks pretty closely to Dickens' fable, director Robert Zemeckis' dour rendering is more a showcase for actor Jim Carrey (intense and unfunny) and for advances in computer animation. For kids under 10, the film could be too creepy and unleavened by humor. Some children may need lobby breaks during spookier scenes. Zemeckis uses the same "performance capture" technology (shooting live actors, then overlaying their performances with animation) he used in "The Polar Express" (PG, 2004). He has added 3-D to intensify the many nightmarish scenes and Scrooge's dizzying flights with the ghosts. Scrooge (voiced by Carrey, who also plays Scrooge's younger selves and the spirits who visit him) is so stooped and surly, kids may be scared by mere close-ups of his gnarled hands. All the "visitations" are quite chilling, starting with Marley's ghost (Gary Oldman). Happier moments are simply overshadowed. We also see a Londoner taking snuff.

PG-13s OF VARYING INTENSITY:

"Invictus" (NEW) -- Reverent, slow and stately, this docudrama, as directed by Clint Eastwood, is more good intentions than good art. It chronicles how Nelson Mandela (a wholly convincing Morgan Freeman), as the new president of South Africa in the post-apartheid 1990s, sought to pull white and black citizens together with sports. Mandela urges the captain of South Africa's troubled national rugby team, Francois Pienaar (an uncharacteristically flat Matt Damon), to rally his players to victory against the odds in the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Mandela wants to show that he and his government support rugby, a sport favored by white South Africans, as a way of uniting the country. The film takes its title from a poem that gave Mandela solace while he was a political prisoner. "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley ends with the famous lines, "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." The sports scenes are rough and tumble. There is some profanity, implied racism and threats of violence that don't materialize. OK for teens.

"Me and Orson Welles" (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) -- Teen idol Zac Efron may not reach his fans with this rather stilted period film based on a novel by Robert Kaplow. He plays a theater-loving New York high-school kid who lucks into Orson Welles' fabled Mercury Theatre troupe for their 1937 production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." Young Richard (Efron) mingles with the capricious, brilliant Welles (Christian McKay), finds romance with Welles' assistant (Claire Danes), and meets future stars Joseph Cotten (James Tupper) and John Houseman (Eddie Marsan). But director Richard Linklater's film, shot in the U.K., looks artificial and is populated with many Brits doing American accents. There's plenty of good acting -- Ben Chaplin as Mercury actor George Coulouris is a standout, and McKay's Welles is impressive -- but Efron still lacks big-screen gravitas. The re-enactment of the opening night performance is great fun, but it's a long time coming. There is much smoking, drinking, implied promiscuity, sexual slang and innuendo, and profanity. Not so much for middle-schoolers.

"Armored" (NEW) -- A cliched, half-baked crime film, "Armored" wastes the talents of several good actors and an audience's time. That noted, high-schoolers who crave action flicks may find it marginally diverting. It's pretty violent for middle-schoolers. Columbus Short ("Stomp the Yard," PG-13, 2007) plays Ty, a new guard with an armored truck company, brought in by his godfather, Mike (Matt Dillon). With his parents dead, Ty is raising his teen brother (Andre Kinney) and trying to save their house from foreclosure. Mike lures him into joining several other guards to hijack a truckful of cash. After Ty realizes his mistake, he tries to get out of it, but by then the supposedly nonviolent heist has turned bloody, thanks to one trigger-happy cohort (Laurence Fishburne). There are shootings, stabbings, fires and explosions, some of them pretty graphic for a PG-13. There is also drinking, midrange profanity, and a theme about losing one's parents.

"Everybody's Fine" -- Intermittently touching, but too often saccharine or downright inert, this family drama feels dated and isn't likely to grab teens, though it's not inappropriate for them. Frank Goode (Robert De Niro), a recently widowed retiree in frail health, travels the country to see his adult children after they cancel a weekend visit to see him. Frank goes first to New York, where there's no sign of David (Austin Lysy). In Chicago, he finds that Amy (Kate Beckinsale), a successful ad executive, has an unhappy marriage. In the Pacific Northwest, he learns that Robert (Sam Rockwell) only plays drums in an orchestra that Frank thought he led. In Las Vegas, Rosie (Drew Barrymore), a dancer, has a complex love life. The film has rare, sometimes strong, profanity, references to a lethal drug overdose, subtle sexuality themes, a briefly violent mugging, smoking, an implied heart attack, and themes of grief and loss.

"The Twilight Saga: New Moon" -- "New Moon" is really a snoozer, but teens in love with the "Twilight Saga" books, films and actors will be happy with it, anyway. The longing drags on in this dark, slow-moving adaptation of the second book in Stephenie Meyer's quartet. High-school senior Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) goes into a deep melancholy after the vampire she loves, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), leaves. Always a gent, he wants to protect and distance her from his world, though she wants to be part of it. Bella's friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) reveals that he and his Native American tribe can morph into werewolves. They despise vampires, though they have a treaty with the Cullens. Jacob adores Bella, but she wants Edward. Whenever she does anything risky, such as jump off a cliff into the ocean, Edward appears to her, so she takes more chances. "New Moon" is full of subtle sexual innuendo, but shows no more than a desire-filled kiss. The mayhem includes an implied neck-snap beheading, a few bloody gashes, and a woman with scars from a werewolf claw, but most fights between the huge werewolves and yellow-eyed vampires are loud, fast and nongraphic. There are subtle suicide references. OK for teens.

"The Blind Side" -- One could dismiss this uplifting film as a phony feel-good tale in which an inner-city African-American youth is saved by idealistic white people. But this story is fact-based, taken from Michael Lewis' book, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game." A wealthy Memphis decorator, Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock as a likable steamroller), takes under her wing a homeless teen, Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), a charity case who is flunking out of her kids' private Christian school. Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy (country singer Tim McGraw) become Michael's guardians, get him a tutor (Kathy Bates) and ready him for football and college, though the path isn't easy. (Oher now plays for the Baltimore Ravens.) Director John Lee Hancock lays it on a little thick, but "The Blind Side" is thoroughly engaging and will hold many teens rapt. There is mildly crude language, overt and implied racial slurs, nonlethal violence, drinking, drug references, a car crash and a gently implied marital sexual situation.

"2012" -- Who knew the end-of-the-world could be such fun? "2012" has a refreshingly diverse cast and world view. The last half-hour of the thriller degenerates into silliness, but before that, it's cool to watch the White House science adviser (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the president (Danny Glover) and his hard-bitten chief of staff (Oliver Platt) agonize over what to do (and whether to tell "the people") that the Earth's crust is shifting and quakes and tsunamis will shortly wipe out civilization. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) meets a wild-eyed radio talker (Woody Harrelson) at Yellowstone who says ancient predictions are coming true. Jackson learns the government has huge "arks" to rescue a few hundred-thousand and is determined to get his loved ones onto one of them. The film shows people falling to their deaths, being crushed or swept away, but the cataclysms look manufactured and most injuries are nongraphic. There is rare profanity and drinking.

R's:

"Up in the Air" (NEW) -- George Clooney brings his ironic charm to the tricky role of Ryan Bingham, who travels the country firing people because their bosses are afraid to do it themselves. Clooney is surrounded by a fine cast in this expertly wrought dramatic comedy, loosely based on a book by Walter Kirn. High-schoolers with a sophisticated taste in movies will be taken with everything about "Up in the Air." Director and co-screenwriter Jason Reitman layers in sharp characterizations and situations with inspired visuals of airports and flyover country. Clooney's Ryan Bingham is a tragic character, though he wouldn't think so. He's obsessed with accumulating air miles and avoiding all human commitment. Then life starts to throw Ryan curves: He meets Alex (Vera Farmiga), a fellow business traveler who shares his need for no strings. His boss (Jason Bateman) hires a pert young efficiency expert, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who goes on the road with Ryan to learn the art of firing people firsthand. And Ryan's sister (Amy Morton) and niece (Melanie Lynskey) make demands that threaten to pull him into family stuff that terrifies him. The scenes of people getting fired are terrifically poignant. Some of those fired are nonactors -- people who really lost their jobs. There are implied sexual liaisons, backview nudity, some strong profanity and crude language, a suicide theme, a betrayal theme, and drinking. OK for high-schoolers.

"Brothers" -- How can a war fighter be plucked from hell, dropped back into his old life, and expected to be his old self? That's the question behind this stunningly acted drama. Marine Capt. Sam Cahill (Toby Maguire) comes home altered after having been held prisoner and tortured by Afghan insurgents. His wife Grace (Natalie Portman) had been told he was dead. Joy turns to anguish on his return as Sam's haunted personality scares his young daughters (Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare) and worries everyone. His ne'er-do-well brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), recently out of jail, helped Grace while Sam was believed dead, but Sam is convinced they had an affair. "Brothers" ends too abruptly, but at least with hope. It has scenes of intensely implied wartime violence and torture, though the camera cuts away at moments of injury. Post-traumatic stress disorder, suicide and possible family violence are key themes. There is gently implied marital sex, marijuana use, occasional strong profanity, smoking and drinking. Not for under-17s.