Family Film: New movies, including 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'

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A guide to movies from a family perspective:

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Mature tweens and up.
-- What you should know: This is a prequel to the three "X-Men" movies, and it explains how the character of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) came to be. It also introduces many other mutants, including Victor Creed, a/k/a Sabretooth.
-- Language: Some profanity, several uses of "hell" and other mild expletives.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: Jackman, briefly, is photographed naked from behind, while on the run, or leaping into a waterfall. He and his girlfriend are seen in bed.
-- Violence/scary situations: This is where the movie earns its rating. You watch countless killings, including the death of a main character. Also features a montage of wartime violence, fiery explosions, fatal shootings or slashings, fights, falls, rage, imprisonment, scary medical experiments and transformations.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Some brief scenes in bars where people are drinking.

"Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Teens and up.
-- What you should know: Matthew McConaughey plays womanizer Connor Mead, who, like Ebenezer Scrooge, is visited by ghosts who show him past, present and future. Engineering this trip is his late playboy uncle.
-- Language: A couple of uses of "Jesus," mild four-letter expletives and a derogatory term for a gay man.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: Models are shown in their underwear. Much like his uncle, Connor has slept with scores of women, and that theme runs throughout. Mistaking a woman for a ghost, he fondles her breasts. Much is made of hooking up at weddings and some past bedroom liaisons.
-- Violence/scary situations: Connor and his younger brother lost their parents in a fatal car accident, which is mentioned but not dramatized. Other situations, such as a face slap, a tumble from bed or a car chase, are played for laughs.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink champagne, shots, wine and lots of other alcohol, and someone recalls a party with a "pile of blow," slang for cocaine.

"Battle for Terra"

-- Rated: PG.
-- Suitable for: School-age children and up.
-- What you should know: This is a 3-D animated movie, about a planet called Terra that comes under attack from the last surviving humans adrift in an aging spaceship. A friendship develops between a Terrian and an injured human pilot, voiced by Evan Rachel Wood and Luke Wilson.
-- Language: A single use of the harshest form of "darn."
-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.
-- Violence/scary situations: Lots of animated battles, some bringing injury or loss of life, along with an abduction. Potentially scary is the notion that Earth is inhabitable.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Nothing notable.

"The Soloist"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Teens and older moviegoers.
-- What you should know: Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. star in this story, inspired by real events and people, about a homeless musician with schizophrenia and a Los Angeles Times columnist.
-- Language: Two uses of the f-word, some profanity and expletives.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: None.
-- Violence/scary situations: In addition to a physical outburst, the scenes in which Foxx's character is tormented by voices are disturbing, as are images of scores of homeless, a bicycle accident and bloody evidence of an attack.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Homeless people are shown smoking crack, a woman is tipsy on champagne and others drink in a bar or at home.

"Fighting"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Tweens and above.
-- What you should know: The world of underground fighting in New York provides the backdrop of this Channing Tatum-Terrence Howard film.
-- Language: At least a dozen mild four-letter expletives.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: A couple kiss and are shown after a romantic interlude.
-- Violence/scary situations: Four bare-knuckle fights, one more bruising than the next, punctuate the movie.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Some scenes are set in a club where patrons drink.

"17 Again"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Ideally, tweens and older moviegoers. Some mature material may go over the heads of younger patrons.
-- What you should know: Matthew Perry plays a 37-year-old dad, on the verge of divorce and just passed over for a promotion, who magically becomes 17 again -- and this time, his character is played by dreamboat Zac Efron.
-- Language: Generally mild.
-- Sexual situations and nudity: A character gives up a possible college scholarship after learning his girlfriend is pregnant. A class lesson about sexuality includes distribution of condoms, a couple make out, a refusal to have sex prompts a breakup and adults are shown in bed after a night together. Also, a pharmaceutical sales meeting makes mention of a prolonged erection.
-- Violence/scary situations: Bullying, fisticuffs, a jump from a bridge and face-slapping.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink wine, and when the 17-year-old reaches for a beer, he's told he is not allowed to indulge. A teen party gets raucous, but there's no obvious drinking.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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