The Forbidden Kingdom

From a philosophical viewpoint it’s fitting that the inaugural movie to unite martial arts legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li is a fantasy film for young teenagers. Its primary intent is to celebrate the dynamic artistry of the two masters against an appropriately mythic narrative background. After finding an ancient staff in a Chinatown pawnshop, bullied teen Jason (played Michael Angarano) wakes up in ancient China to discover that he is the "seeker" chosen to return the magical staff to the immortal Monkey King who has spent the past 500 years as a stone statue. Jet Li has dual roles as the furry-faced Monkey King, and as a monk who teams up with Jackie Chan’s drunken master Lu Yan to train Jason in the Kung Fu skills necessary to battle the evil immortal warlord waiting atop a group of impossibly high mountains. "The Forbidden Kingdom" may not be "Enter the Dragon," but it’s not supposed to be.

Rated PG-13, 113 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

The Fall

The Fall

Sophomore Indian director Tarsingh ("The Cell") goes off the rails with a movie best described as Tweet! Tweet! Arf! Arf! Lee Pace (television’s "Pushing Up Daisies") plays bedridden ‘20s era stuntman Roy Walker whose girlfriend left him for their film’s leading man after a stunt accident. At a missionary hospital where Roy recovers he’s visited by a precocious 5-year-old patient named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) that he plies with surreal adventure stories to persuade her to steal him bottle of morphine that he can use to overdose on. The director’s eye for painterly compositions only adds to the film’s sleep-inducing quality. This movie sucks.

Rated R, 116 mins. (D-) (Zero Stars)

The Golden Compass

Based on author Philip Pullman's award winning novel "His Dark Materials," "The Golden Compass" is a fantasy adventure, set in an alternative world, where people's souls manifest themselves as animals. At the center of the story is Lyra, a 12-year-old girl who starts out trying to rescue a friend who's been kidnapped by a mysterious organization known as the Gobblers - and winds up on an epic quest to save her world. The hullabaloo surrounding any alleged "anti-religious" theme to Pullman’s 1995 trilogy takes a distant backseat to screenwriter/director Chris Weitz’s spotty filmic adaptation that never locates a throughline to the convoluted narrative. Newcomer Dakota Blue Richards plays Lyra Belacqua, a 12-year-old orphan raised at an elite English college under the supervision of her uncle Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), a scientist and explorer intent on traveling to the Arctic Circle to examine golden dust that connects mystical worlds. Coincidentally, a Nazi-like group called the Magisterium has been kidnapping children and spiriting them off to a compound in the Arctic to separate the youth from their daemons (souls) which manifest as alter ego pets that can change species, at least until the child’s personality becomes fixed. Lyra is inexplicably and secretly given the last Golden Compass, a device that ascertains the underlying answer to any question asked of it. With no idea of how to use the compass Lyra is an easy mark for one slinky and cunning Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) to abscond with the rebellious girl and her daemon (voiced by Freddie Highmore) in order to steal the compass for the Magisterium’s use.

Rated PG-13, 114 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Love in the Time of Cholera

The famed 1985 magical realist novel of Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez gets an ambitious but off-key cinematic adaptation that trips up except in the casting of Javier Bardem as its romantically enthusiastic protagonist. British director Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral") works from a script by Ronald Harwood ("The Pianist") to tell the epochal story of Florentino Ariza, a young poet living in turn-of-the-century Cartagena, Columbia who falls hopelessly in love with a girl named Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). Fermina’s protective father (John Leguizamo) facilitates her rushed marriage to Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt), a European-educated aristocrat, thereby dooming Florentino to swear a lasting love that waits busily for the doctor’s death in order to reclaim his true love. But when the momentous event finally occurs some 51 years later, Fermina takes torrential offense at Florentino’s vulgar attempt at cashing in on his vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love. "Don't show your face again for the years of life that are left to you; I hope there are very few of them." Fermina’s hostile rebuke sets off the film’s flashback progression that eventually makes some sense of the its grotesque title.

Rated R, 138 mins. (C+) (Two Stars)

The Seeker

Based on Susan Cooper’s "Dark Rising" children’s book series, "The Seeker" is a monotonous blend of limp science fiction and witchcraft. Young American foreign-exchange student Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig) wants to enjoy Christmastime with his family in the rural English country house where they dwell for the holidays. But warrior Will’s status as the "seventh son of the seventh son" means that he must engage in some meandering time travel battles to collect a set of talismans that will prevent Dark forces from taking over the world. Director David L. Cunningham and screenwriter John Hodge ("Trainspotting") conspire with a gruelingly slow pacing to underpin nebulous special effects sequences. "The Seeker" is a children’s fantasy movie worth avoiding.

Rated PG, 94 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Penelope

Christina Ricci does her otherworldly best as Penelope Wilhern, the protected daughter of a wealthy British family. Born with a pig’s nose, the result of an ancient family curse, Penelope believes the curse can only be reversed if she marries a male counterpart of equal disadvantage. Penelope’s parents (played by Catherine O'Hara and Richard E. Grant) arrange parlor dates with potential suitors that Penelope observes from the safety of a two-way mirror. Enter tabloid reporter Lemon (Peter Dinklage) to bribe a young gambler (James McAvoy) to captivate Penelope and thus provide front-page ammunition with proof of her existence. "Penelope" is a new twist on an old fairy tale template that succeeds for the heartfelt performances of Ricci and James McAvoy.

Rated PG, 104 mins. (B)

Paprika

If an animated scattershot clusterfuck tweaking under the influence of a determinedly Japanese mindset sounds like a good way to substitute a cinematic drug experience for the real thing, then go right ahead to Satoshi Kon’s overflowing excess. But don’t expect the level of humor found in say, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” “Paprika” takes its “manga” animation seriously, and there’s plenty of absurdist rigor applied to the story of a stolen dream machine that a therapist and a cop are trying to locate. Oh yes, there are plenty of doppelgangers for all of your autistic desires, and parade scenes that enable every square inch of the screen to be packed with color and disposable visual trinkets. Smoke this movie as you will. Rated R, 90 mins. (C)

Rated R, 90 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

Brand Upon The Brain!

Guy Madden is a kind of lo-fi David Lynch, and “Brand Upon The Brain!” is a fitting evolutionary step for the director of such cinematic morsels as “Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary” (2002) and “The Saddest Music In The World.” House painter Guy Maddin (Erik Steffen Maahs) arrives on the shores of the tiny Black Notch Island where he was raised, and goes into a chapter-headed reverie about his bizarre childhood. A young Guy (Sullivan Brown) and his sister “Sis” (Maya Lawson) share the joys of the remote island when they’re out of reach of their possessive mother (Gretchen Krich), who runs an orphanage in the lighthouse where they live. Guy's negligent father (Todd Jefferson Moore) works away on some strange potion in the gloom of the lighthouse basement. The story kicks in with the arrival of Wendy and Chance Hale, a famous brother and sister detective duo who begin investigating Guy’s parents for their suspicious behaviors. Puppy love and adult lust converge in Madden’s grainy, humor-ridden “silent movie” that will certainly leave a brand upon your little brain.

Not Rated, 96 mins. (A-) (Four Stars)

Marie Antoinette

With her third film, Sophia Coppola exhibits an annoying preference for style over substance. There isn’t a guillotine to be found in Coppola’s cotton candy rendering of France’s 18^th century Austrian-born princess (played fluidly by Kirsten Dunst) after she takes up residence at Versailles at the naïve age of 14 to soon marry the Dauphin Louis Auguste. Jason Schwartzman gives the worst performance of the year as the sexually troubled King Louis XVI. Coppola eschews history in favor of a purely presentational fantasy involving fancy gowns, lavish desserts and post-punk music that gives the effect of one very long music video. French and international critics alike booed and hissed the film into oblivion during its premiere at Cannes.

Rated PG-13, 118 mins. (C-)

Tideland

It seems, from the flat-out filmic disaster of "Tideland," that director Terry Gilliam is intent on ensuring a decisive end to his checkered filmmaking career. Just as wrongheaded as this year’s only worse film "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things," and similarly themed, "Tideland" is a grotesque absurdist non-story about Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) the adolescent daughter of heroin junkie parents. Jeliza-Rose leaves for the countryside with her father Noah (Jeff Bridges) after her mother Queen Gunhilda (Jennifer Tilly) dies in bed. When her father overdoses, Jeliza-Rose is orphaned to a creaky house under the big skies of the Midwest where she befriends a strange woman from Noah's past with a talent for taxidermy and her mentally retarded brother Dickens (Brendan Fletcher). Gilliam flirts with necrophilia and pedophilia as Jeliza-Rose and Dickens share a dubious romantic relationship. The film is based on Mitch Cullin’s novel of the same title.

Rated R, 120 mins. (F)

The Science of Sleep

Navel-gazing director Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") wears his developmentally arrested heart on his sleeve, on his pants, and on his forehead in the most self-indulgent movie of 2006. Gael Garcia Bernal ("Babel") plays Stephane Miroux, an insecure and childish graphic artist who alternately woos, stalks and terrorizes his neighbor Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg – "21 Grams") who has the misfortune of living in the same Paris apartment building that Stephane moves to from Mexico after his father’s death. Stephane’s crippling immaturity prevents him from pursuing a sexual relationship with Stephanie, so he substitutes arts and crafts overtures as a form romantic connection. Gondry intercuts plenty of Pee Wee Herman-inspired animated sequences to underscore his oh-so-precious view of puppy love infatuation. Anemic, weirdly depressing, and tedious in the extreme, "The Science of Sleep" is an excruciatingly puerile cinematic experience that has nothing to do with science or sleep.

Rated R, 105 mins. (D)

X-Men: The Last Stand

The final chapter of the X-Men trilogy sees a seamless directorial changing of the guard from Bryan Singer’s beloved cinematic vision of the popular Marvel comic book to the capable hands of Brett Ratner (of the "Rush Hour" franchise). Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine leads the 16-primary-character-narrative in which a "cure" for mutancy gives birth to a war between Magneto’s (Ian McKellen) Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Charles Xavier’s (Patrick Stewart) school of mutants. It’s an energetic comic book movie with heart and just enough vague social commentary about conformity to balance its outrageous visual sequences of pure spectacle.

Rated PG-13, 104 mins. (B)

Fantastic Four

Another Marvel comic book movie, in the vein of "X-Men," for 10-year-old boys splashes across the screen with special effects that fall short of exemplifying the source material’s action and eccentric characters. Astrophysicist Dr. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd – "Black Hawk Down") and his crew of astronauts get caught in a cosmic storm while researching mysteries of the human genetic code under the immediate supervision of billionaire industrialist Victor Von Doom (Juilan McMahon). The crew suffers side effects that leave Reed able to elongate his body; his love interest Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) is able to become invisible at will; Sue’s brother Johnny (Chris Evans) becomes a human torch and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) turns into The Thing, a strongman made of stone. In spite of the dubious quality of his "rock" costume Michael Chiklis steals the movie with an outstanding performance. Director Tim Story ("Barbershop") sets an uneven tempo for the embarrassingly clunky script by Michael France ("Hulk") and Mark Frost ("Storyville").

Rated PG-13, 100 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)