ShareThisA guide to movies from a family perspective:
"Race to Witch Mountain"
-- Rated: PG.
-- Suitable for: 8-year-olds and up.
-- What you should know: This is a sort-of remake of 1975's "Escape to Witch Mountain." It stars Dwayne Johnson (previously known as The Rock) as a Vegas cab driver trying to help two alien teens save their home planet and Earth.
-- Language: Nothing notable.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.
-- Violence/scary situations: Lots, including the exchange of punches, violent car chases, a massive train derailment, much gunfire, a scary robot and dogged UFO investigators who pursue the children and hold them captive. The prospect of aliens from outer space, even blond ones who travel through wormholes, could be unsettling.
-- Drug or alcohol use: None.
"Watchmen"
-- Rated: R.
-- Suitable for: 17 and older, just like the R rating says.
-- What you should know: Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
-- Language: R in nature; liberal use of the f-word.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: Yes and yes. Most disturbing is a brutal attempted rape, and most explicit is a scene of nude lovemaking. A prostitute bares her breast, and a naked Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) is seen from behind. Dr. Manhattan, a digitally created blue superhero who is anatomically correct, often walks around nude.
-- Violence/scary situations: Both, throughout. The blood flows almost from the opening scene. People are killed in as many ways as you can imagine. Bones are broken, limbs are severed - no one is spared, including children and animals.
-- Drugs and alcohol: Liquor and wine are consumed.
"Fanboys"
-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Sci-fi fans who can laugh at themselves and enjoy crude, sometimes homophobic humor.
-- What you should know: Four friends travel from Ohio to San Francisco in 1998 to break into George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch to see "Star Wars: Episode I" before it's released in theaters. One member of their group is dying of cancer.
-- Language: The movie contains some profanity. Middle fingers are extended.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: The "Star Wars" geeks try to get women to remove their tops without success, but the guys do moon their enemies.
-- Violence/scary situations: "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" fans rumble, but it's played for laughs.
-- Alcohol and drug use: The geeks get high and imagine an Ewok among them. They also visit a house party, gay bar and casino where alcohol is served.
"Confessions of a Shopaholic"
-- Rated: PG.
-- Suitable for: Tweens and above.
-- What you should know: Based on a pair of Sophie Kinsella novels, this movie stars Isla Fisher as a writer up to her eyeballs in debt but advising magazine readers about finance.
-- Language: Mild, maybe one use of a stronger version of darn.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: Kisses are exchanged.
-- Violence/scary situations: Played for laughs.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults knock back champagne and frothy alcoholic drinks.
"Push"
-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: 15-year-olds and up.
-- What you should know: Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning are caught in a world of psychic espionage where people can see the future, move objects with their minds or plant ideas in others' heads.
-- Language: Some profanity and expletives, including what sounds like a single f-word.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: Kissing, mainly behind closed doors, and a scene where a husband learns his wife has been unfaithful.
-- Violence/scary situations: Nearly nonstop, with references to Nazi experiments along with people being shot at or killing themselves at the behest of others, being injected with experimental drugs, falling to their deaths and slugging it out with fists.
-- Drug or alcohol use: To sharpen her powers, Fanning's 13-year-old character gets drunk. Adults are shown drinking.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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