Family Film: New movies, including 'Star Trek'

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A guide to movies from a family perspective:

"Star Trek"

-- Rated: PG-13.
-- Suitable for: Moviegoers 9 or 10 and older.
-- What you should know: This sci-fi adventure explains how the core characters came to be. It introduces Kirk as a newborn and then rebellious boy in Iowa, and Spock as a scorned child on his home planet. They quickly turn into young men played by Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. In addition to introducing them on their first big mission, the movie shows how other key characters joined the crew.
-- Language: Nine or so mild four-letter words, the sort sometimes heard on TV, plus stronger versions of "butt" or "nonsense."
-- Sexual situations and nudity: A woman is shown in childbirth, a couple canoodle on a bed and others are shown kissing.
-- Violence/scary situations: Characters, including a father, die offscreen or on-, and there are lots of violent fights, explosions, risky maneuvers, near-death moments and scenes of peril.
-- Drug or alcohol use: Characters are shown drinking beer, and a scene set in a bar touches off a brawl.

"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.

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