Movie Capsules: Now showing

Capsule descriptions and starred mini-reviews by The Commercial Appeal movie writer John Beifuss.

OPENING TODAY

Adam (PG-13, 99 min.)

Ridgeway Four.

The Final Destination (R, 81 min.) Death in 3-D (at selected theaters).

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Halloween II (R, 101 min.) Rob Zombie takes another stab at Mike Myers.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Soul Power (PG-13, 93 min.)

Ridgeway Four.

Taking Woodstock (R, 121 min.)

Ridgeway Four, Collerville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

SPECIAL MOVIES

Gone with the Wind (G, 238 min.) Leg amputation, attempted rape, prostitution, turnip- vomiting, Prissy-slapping, Bonnie Blue Butler's fatal fall, that "Frankly, my dear" line -- can you believe this movie was assigned a "G" when the ratings board first reviewed it for a 1971 reissue?

7:15 p.m. today at the Orpheum, 203 S. Main. Admission: $6 per adult, $5 per senior or child (12 and younger). Visit orpheum-memphis.com or call 525-3000.

Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk: The latest IMAX documentary follows two environmentalists on a daring rafting ride down the Colorado River. Narrated by Robert Redford; music by Dave Matthews Band. Runs through Nov. 13. Tickets $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 320-6362 for tickets and reservations.

Herb and Dorothy (Not rated, 100 min.) A documentary about a postal clerk and a librarian who didn't let their modest incomes stop them from building a great modern art collection in their rent-controlled, one-bedroom Manhattan apartment.

2 p.m. Sunday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: $5, or free for Brooks members. Visit brooksmuseum.org or call 544-6208.

Humpday (R, 94 min.) The acclaimed comedy from writer-director Lynn Shelton (currently shooting "$5 Cover: Seattle") makes its Memphis debut in a special Indie Memphis "members-only" screening.

7:30 p.m. Monday, Studio on the Square. Admission: Free for Indie Memphis members. (Year's membership: $50, or $30 for fulltime students.)

Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs: Follow researchers and explorers as they piece together archaeological and genetic clues of Egyptian mummies. The IMAX film plays through Nov. 13. Tickets: $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times.

Crew Training International IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 320-6362 for reservations and tickets.

Tricks. (Not rated, 118 min.)

8 p.m. today, New Daisy, 330 Beale. Tickets: $20 (includes DVD and after-party). Visit tricksmovie.com.

Under the Sea: This new IMAX adventure transports you to some of the most exotic and isolated undersea locations on Earth, including South Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Triangle islands of Papua, New Guinea, and Indonesia. Runs through March 5, 2010. Tickets: $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times.

Crew Training International IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 320-6362 for reservations and tickets.

NOW SHOWING

Aliens in the Attic (PG, 86 min.) Kids protect their home from funny-looking outer-space invaders.

Stage Cinema, Majestic, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema.

The Collector (R, 85 min.) Directed by Marc Dunston (a veteran "Saw" sequel scribe), this implausible, ultra-sadistic, efficiently single-minded Grand Guignol endurance test plays like something cooked up by a clever 14-year-old devotee of Bloody-Disgusting.com (in fact, the Web site is thanked during the end credits), as a burglar (Josh Stewart) with bad timing breaks into a home while the title maniac is inside, torturing the residents and booby-trapping the premises with razor blades, bear traps, trip wires and knife chandeliers. Painful.

Majestic, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

District 9 (R, 113 min.) This gory, galvanizing science-fiction thriller from producer Peter Jackson ("The Lord of the Rings") and South African novice feature director Neil Blomkamp delivers an unfortunate mixed message through the "alien apartheid" metaphor of its clever but confused premise, as human-sized outer-space crustaceans (disparaged as "prawns") are segregated into crime-ridden slums after their spaceship breaks down over Johannesburg. Presented "documentary" style, like some sort of monster mashup of "The Office" and "Alien Nation," the movie is technically impressive; also admirable is newcomer Sharlto Copley's tour-de-force performance as a bureaucrat who comes to sympathize with the aliens. But it's troubling that almost all the black African characters in this parable of racism are thugs, gangsters and even cannibals, with none of the dignity of the "prawns"; a young white suburbanite might emerge from a screening thinking that aliens are cool, but, y'know, black folks are really scary.

Forest Hill 8, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Drag Me to Hell (PG-13, 99 min.) "Spider-Man" director Sam Raimi returns to his "Evil Dead" roots -- while borrowing liberally from "Night of the Demon" and EC Comics (the story here barely justifies its feature length) -- for a scary, wacky, gooey and timely tale of a young bank officer (Alison Lohman) cursed by the gypsy (Lorna Raver) whose housing loan she denies. The sleeve inside the Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed advised: THIS RECORD SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD. Prints of this film must be stamped with a similar order: Much of the tension is created by ear-smashing NOISE, which isn't a cheat but a characteristically Raimiesque attempt to create a feeling of hell-on-Earth temporary insanity within the rattled viewer.

Bartlett 10, Majestic.

(500) Days of Summer (PG-13, 95 min.) Hopping about as if at random through the improvised calendar of its title, director Marc Webb's film frequently rings true as it depicts the nice-while-it-lasted relationship between a romantic greeting-card copywriter (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and a free spirit named Summer (Zooey Deschanel) who says she doesn't believe in love. Like many recent youth-oriented, self-consciously "indie" romantic films, the movie's non-stop hipper-than-thou pop-culture references become annoying (are there really karaoke bars where you can sing to the Pixies and Lee Hazlewood?); but in this Age of Apatow, a shy and even gentlemanly lead male character is not just a novelty but a relief.

Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema.

Funny People (R, 146 min.) Sex, conception, death: Writer-director Judd Apatow follows "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" with this messy, self-indulgent and apparently highly personal project (he casts his wife, Leslie Mann, and children in large supporting roles) about a wealthy but lonely comedian turned Hollywood superstar (Adam Sandler) who begins to reassess his life after he is diagnosed with cancer. The prickly narcissism of Sandler's character is intriguing (is the man-child of "Happy Gilmore" -- Apatow's former roommate -- really this unlikable?), but the movie only really comes alive when it abandons its capital-S Serious theme to focus on the competitive "friendship" of the struggling actor-roommates played by Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman.

Bartlett 10.

G-Force (PG, 88 min.) Have you ever wondered what a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced talking-animal movie would be like? Me, neither. But here's the answer: The Disney/Bruckheimer collaboration "G-Force," in which the car chases, explosions, transforming robot battles and "Mission: Impossible" suspense sequences are as intense as in an "adult" movie, except instead of Tom Cruise and Will Smith, the heroes are members of an elite squad of commando guinea pigs and insects, plus one star-nosed mole (nerdily voiced by Nicolas Cage). I would have been happier if the "black" guinea pig (Tracy Morgan) didn't get all the stereotypical comic-relief lines ("Pimp my ride," "That was off the huh-zook"), and if the female guinea pig (Penélope Cruz) wasn't obsessed with romantic mind games.; even so, longtime special effects supervisor-turned- debuting director Hoyt Yeatman has delivered a fairly amusing spoof of James Bond/comic-book superteam conventions. With Memphis' Chris Ellis as "the director of the FBI."

Stage Cinema (in 3-D), Majestic, Collierville Towne 16 (in 3-D), DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), Paradiso (in 3-D), Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D), Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (PG-13, 120 min.) The cartoon inspired by the Hasbro "action figures" inspired this chuckleheaded but coherently staged action movie that overcomes the burden of its reported $170-million budget to be surprisingly fun. With its massive sets, lack of "Transformers"-style bathroom humor, comic-book heroes ("Heavy Duty" and "Snake-Eyes," to name two), male and female eye candy (when Rachel Nichols suits up for action, you notice that large breasts have been pre-molded onto her body armor), ninja duels and scenery-chewing villains (the juiciest is a mad doctor with a horribly burned face), the film harks back to the pulpy spirit of "Doc Savage" adventures and Roger Moore-era James Bond movies. The result is director Stephen Sommers' first likable film since "The Mummy" in 1999.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (R, 89 min.) Jeremy Piven as a used-car dealer.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Paradiso.

The Hangover (R, 100 min.) Or: Dude, Where's My Bachelor? Sometimes tasteless, frequently hilarious, this "Superbad" with grown-ups (the dentist played by Ed Helms even resembles an adult "McLovin") chronicles several hours of irresponsible, occasionally criminal male conduct, as three best buds (Helms, Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha) and a tagalong demented future brother-in-law (Zach Galifianakis) road-trip to Vegas for an overnight bachelor party; director Todd Phillips ("Old School") cuts from the pals' Jägermeister toast to the painful morning after in a destroyed hotel suite, where the evidence of debauchery includes a live chicken, a missing tooth, loss of memory, an Elvis jumpsuit, Mike Tyson's Bengal tiger, an unidentified baby and the absence of the bachelor himself.

Stage Cinema, Collierville Towne 16.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (PG, 153 min.) As the apparently physically mature "boy wizard" (Daniel Radcliffe) begins his sixth year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, there's not a house elf nor comical ghost in sight, and the most impressive magical creature onscreen, a giant spider, is dead. Voldemort's at the gates, so the palette is grim and the mood is somber; but Harry and his best friends, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), remain stalwart and true -- to each other, to the vision of author J.K. Rowling, and to fans' expectations for what has been a truly remarkable movie series. Director David Yates (returning from "The Order of the Phoenix") fumbles what should be the emotionally devastating death of a major character, but he does wonderful work with the cast, including the teenagers (now as interested in "snogging" as Quidditch); Jim Broadbent, as the new potions professor, Horace Slughorn; and the many other British character actors, who intone their lines with the sincere and intense glee of cats sucking a songbird's bones.

Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Southaven Cinema.

The Hurt Locker (R, 131 min.) Wired like a ticking time bomb, director Kathryn Bigelow's stunner focuses on three soldiers in an Army bomb-disposal unit as they try to survive the final 38 days of their field rotation in the forbidding, alien environment of Iraq. A thoughtful nail-biter, the film inspires us to appreciate the precariousness and relative brevity of existence, as the soldiers' encounters with IEDs and wired-to-explode Iraqis become extreme representations of the tug between life and death that challenges each of us every day, however mundane and seemingly safe our environment. The movie is not without political content (a soldier's apology to a doomed Iraqi seems addressed to the entire country), but mostly it expresses genuine admiration for the professionalism -- the heroism, if you will -- of the soldiers. "Good job," one says to another, after a particularly intense situation has been resolved; as in a Howard Hawks movie, that is the highest praise possible.

Ridgeway Four.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (PG, 94 min.) Sid the Sloth (slurringly voiced by John Leguizamo) and the fanged rat-squirrel known as Scrat (the unluckiest cartoon character since Wile E. Coyote) are as amusing as ever, but this third computer-generated "Ice Age" forsakes action for ancient sitcom-style platitudes about the importance of "the herd" (family) until the characters finally break into a lost world of prehistoric reptiles.

CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Inglourious Basterds (R, 151 min.) The cameo by Rod Taylor and the references to Yvette Mimieux (the stars of 1960's "The Time Machine") are the tip-offs: This is Quentin Tarantino's celebration of cinema as time machine -- a device that not only can erase the years (where can you see the young and beautiful Marilyn Monroe walk and talk but in a movie?) but, on an imaginative level, can change the past, as in this World War II fantasy, in which the tragic flammability of old nitrate film stock provides the spark for the perpetration of what is presented as a righteous, Nazi- exterminating holocaust. (Says supreme cinephile Tarantino: If our film heritage must perish in flames, as has happened so often through the decades, at least yet the fires serve a purpose -- let the movies mean as much to the world as they have meant to me.) Talky and gory, outrageous and exhilarating, and awash in movie references, this "kosher porn" revenge film (to use co-star Eli Roth's term) stars Brad Pitt as the leader of the bloodthirsty title commandos, who adopt "Apache" tactics to not just kill but terrorize Nazis: They use monstrous violence against a Reich that rules with monstrous violence. Is this approach -- by Tarantino and by the "Basterds" -- defensible or merely grotesque? Perhaps anticipating the reaction of some critics, Tarantino has himself (or at least a dummy cast in his likeness) scalped in an early scene; among those with more memorable roles are Diane Kruger as a glamorous German actress; Christoph Waltz as an urbane SS officer and Mélanie Laurent as a cinema owner with a secret.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Julie & Julia (PG-13, 124 min.) An old-fashioned star vehicle of the highest order, director Nora Ephron's fact-based saga about the drama of (a) cooking and (b) blogging would be flat as a soufflé without egg whites if not for the charm of its lead actresses, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, who are in almost every scene, although never together. Streep is the warbly, big-boned Julia Child in the 1950s, before she became TV's "French Chef"; Adams is Julie Powell in 2002, who earned an online following by chronicling her attempt to cook all 524 recipes in Child's famous cookbook in 365 days. Jumping back and forth in time to follow the progress of its culinary heroines as they "reinvent" themselves through food, the movie lacks conventional drama and conflict -- and is none the worse for those absences. In fact, Ephron stumbles only when she tries to make her recipe nutritious as well as delicious; story elements involving McCarthyism and marital stress are as unnecessary as the promise of vitamins on a box of Frosted Flakes.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Land of the Lost (PG-13, 102 min.) Revamping the 1970s Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday-morning cult classic as a family-friendly comedy-adventure would have made sense, but this misbegotten project immediately alienates kid-toting parents with shameless and incessant product plugs, surprisingly foul language and other inappropriate references (the perfect woman, children are told, would have big "boobs" but no head; show tunes are "gay"). Will Ferrell is a goofy "quantum paleontologist" who lands in a timeless alternate dimension, along with an eye-candy colleague (Anna Friel) and a crude self-appointed sidekick (Danny McBride); there, they befriend Jorma Taccone as Chaka, the ape-boy, and are menaced by cool-looking dinosaurs and reptilian alien Sleestaks. Between the tired Matt Lauer cameos that bookend this dud, director Brad Silberling manages three or four funny scenes. My favorite: Ferrell is punctured by a thirsty prehistoric mosquito.

Bartlett 10.

My Sister's Keeper (PG-13, 109 min.) Abigail Breslin stars as a young girl who sues her parents (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) for "medical emancipation" so they will stop using her blood, marrow and other body parts as donor material for her older sister (beautifully played by Oscar-worthy Sofia Vassilieva), an angelic, even wise teenager whose life has been a constant struggle with leukemia.

Bartlett 10, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (PG, 105 min.) As Amelia Earhart, Amy Adams adds plenty of welcome "moxie" (and a tight pair of aviator's britches) to an extraordinarily busy but simple-minded scenario that finds security guard-turned- infomercial magnate Ben Stiller traveling to Washington when his New York living-exhibit pals (Owen Wilson as a cowboy, Steve Coogan as a centurion, etc.) are relocated to the Smithsonian, where an evil pharaoh (Hank Azaria) with a Karloffian lisp plans to take over the world .

Bartlett 10.

Orphan (R, 116 min.) Didn't Vera Farmiga learn her lesson in her previous kid-from-hell horror flick, "Joshua"? This time, the woman who may be the world's finest actress plays a melancholic classical pianist who introduces a 9-year-old adopted Russian orphan into her privileged household; the results are alternately predictable and outrageous, as the preternaturally possessed but spooky Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman, in a tour-de-force performance) demonstrates a need for a straitjacket as well as for eyebrow tweezers. Stylishly directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (the weird 2005 "House of Wax"), the film is distinguished by a loony plot twist and by its sympathetic treatment of characters, especially children.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

A Perfect Getaway (R, 97 min.) A couple (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) on a remote jungle trek in Hawaii learn there's trouble in paradise: a newlywed-murdering maniac is on the loose. David Twohy's modest but twisty B-thriller is elevated by nice character touches, witty writing and its tropical setting. (It's refreshing to see people menaced in the sunshine, for a change.)

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, DeSoto Cinema 16, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Ponyo (G, 103 min.) The 10th feature film from Japanese animaster Hayao Miyazaki (and the third to be distributed in the U.S. by Disney) is as eco-conscious as "Princess Mononoke" and the Oscar-winning "Spirited Away," but its simpler, gentler narrative marks a return to such earlier child-friendly masterpieces as "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Kiki's Delivery Service" (my favorite Miyazaki). The title character is, essentially, a goldfish princess who longs to be human after she meets a five-year-old boy in a seaside town; the sight of the giddy and newly bipedal Ponyo racing atop the waves of a magically roiling flood may be the happiest and most memorable image of the movie year.

Ridgeway Four, Collierville Towne 16, Cordova Cinema, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Post Grad (PG-13, 89 min.) (zero stars) "Gilmore Girls" alum Alexis Bledel stars as Ryden Malby, a recent college graduate forced to move back home when she can't find a job. Director Vicky Jenson's combination of "Gilmore"-esque comedy-drama and "Little Miss Sunshine" eccentric-family shenanigans is pointless and unfocused, and apparently is aimed at "tweens" who are about a decade away from post-campus life (despite a down-to-the-bra sexual encounter, Bledel acts more like a little girl than a young woman). Carol Burnett is grandma, who brings Cheetos and an oxygen tank to Ryden's graduation; Bobby Coleman is little brother, whose soapbox derby race pads the film to feature length; and Michael Keaton is Ryden's dad, who utters what could come to be regarded as the direst threat in movie history: "From now on, it's Malby time."

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

The Proposal (PG-13, 108 min.) A romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.

Stage Cinema, Collierville Towne 16, Paradiso.

Public Enemies (R, 143 min.) More a reverie of romantic banditry and paean to movie love than rat-a-tat-tat gangster yarn, director Michael Mann's dreamlike crime film -- condensed from Bryan Burrough's definitive nonfiction history -- imagines the Depression-era "Golden Age of Bank Robbers" as the final, sputtering flame of American lone-wolf integrity and contrariness, extinguished by a lethal squall of FBI bullets and the windstorm profit margins of modern organized crime. Shot in crisp but sometimes jarring hi-def (images seem captured rather than composed), the violence is intermittent and -- to Mann's credit -- far from cathartic.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Shorts (PG, 89 min.) Director Robert Rodriguez abandons the gore of "Grindhouse" and "Sin City" for a return to the kid-friendly fantasy-adventure of his "Spy Kids" movies.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Star Trek (PG-13, 127 min.) Director J.J. Abrams' megabudget reboot of the beloved science-fiction franchise rushes along at warp factor 12, crowding its story with an impressive amount of characterization and action as it introduces new actors (Chris Pine is Kirk, Zachary Pinto is Spock) in youthful Starfleet-recruit versions of the roles made famous by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and others in the 1966-69 TV series. The result is fun and ingenious , but like most of the 10 previous movies, it doesn't approach the quality of the best television episodes of "Star Trek" or "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Bartlett 10.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (R, 106 min.) According to reports, the cast and crew of this remake of a 1974 thriller about a hijacked subway car were required to attend New York Transportation Authority safety classes before production started, because much of the shooting was to take place on location, on active train tracks. But why bother with such realism when a couple of minutes into your movie you're going to reveal that your bad guy is John Travolta, looking "street" in a wool cap, a leather jacket, a pistol neck tattoo, a diamond ear stud and a Village People mustache?

Bartlett 10.

Terminator Salvation (PG-13, 115 min.) It's crabby human freedom fighters vs. even crankier Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots of all models and makes (hey, fanboys, dig those literally electric eels!) in this appropriately mechanical fourth film in the series, programmed for maximum blockbuster efficiency by the director who calls himself McG. Essentially, this is a grim and gritty war movie, airlifted and updated from 1940s Europe to America in 2018, complete with ambushes in bombed-out city streets, ego clashes among resistance fighters, Holocaust references of dubious tastefulness, and a final-act secret infiltration of the enemy's headquarters.

Bartlett 10.

The Time Traveler's Wife (PG-13, 108 min.) Rachel McAdams learns it's hard to be married to a guy (Eric Bana) who involuntarily hops around in time.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (PG-13, 151 min.) Director Michael Bay's instant megahit sequel to 2007's "Transformers" is tinnitus with pictures. It's like sticking your face inside an electric can opener and your finger in a wall socket -- and those are the good parts. The state-of-the-art rock-'em, sock-'em giant robot mayhem is, as expected, impressive; what's not impressive is the racial stereotyping ("Skids" and "Mudflap" are illiterate Autobots with gold teeth who speak in African-American slang) and the warmongering (with its desert climax, this apologia for the Iraq War -- one evil Decepticon shouts "Jihad!" -- suggests Barack Obama is an appeaser and a coward). The disconnect between the scary hyper-realism of the in-your-face effects and the juvenile, even infantile and cartoonish content of the story and gags (a robot farts out a parachute) is unnerving.

Majestic, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Southaven Cinema.

The Ugly Truth (R, 96 min.) If romantic comedies -- or "chick flicks," as they're now rather revealingly labeled -- are aimed at women, why do they always seem to let men off the hook? Director Robert Luketic's predictable if potty-mouthed opposites-attract sitcom of a romcom is yet another film that exploits the particularly heinous fantasy that a woman who puts her faith in a rotten man will be rewarded when she exhumes the heart of gold beneath the lumpen clay of his golem exterior, while the happy-go-lucky male is under no obligation to alter his crude and insulting behavior. Without even trying, he's sure to attract a beautiful and smart professional woman like "control freak" TV producer Katherine Heigl to be his rescuer, especially if he's as ruggedly charming as "über-moron misogynist" talk-show host Gerard Butler.

Collierville Towne 16, Cordova Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Up (PG, 102 min.) "Up," up and away -- Pixar, with its 10th feature film in 14 years, again demonstrates it has no intention of losing ground to the competition, which at this point includes not just other animation studios but all of Hollywood. If "Up" (in 3-D at some theaters) doesn't quite soar to the heights of some previous Pixar releases, it nonetheless is unfailingly charming, exciting, inventive and moving. It's kind of weird, too -- a vibrantly colored, highly stylized and literally uplifting tale of house-hoisting helium balloons, talking dogs and prehistoric goony birds that owes as much to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, L. Frank Baum, Frank Capra and even Richard Connell (author of "The Most Dangerous Game") as to Walt Disney. Having already turned a rat and a robot into movie stars, Pixar's artists have no trouble making a surly septuagenarian into an admirable cartoon hero: Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) is a widower and would-be explorer who's as blocky as the old house he refuses to abandon. When he and a chubby boy scout land on a lost plateau in South America, director Pete Docter's story takes on something of the craziness of the classic Donald Duck adventures created by comic-book artist Carl Barks in the 1940s and '50s.

Bartlett 10.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (PG-13, 109 min.) Reprising his scene-stealing (scene-slashing?) role from three previous films, Hugh Jackman is the title mutton-chopped mutant, a surly Canadian with retractable adamantium claws and an intractable personality. As pure pulp entertainment, it works.

Bartlett 10.

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