OK for all ages

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

(Animated, G, 88 minutes)

The furry singing sensations may have finally run completely aground. Though the franchise has never been what you'd call high art, there was something of an inspired silliness to the live-action/CGI mash-up that began in 2007 with "Alvin and the Chipmunks." But that streak may have peaked with 2009's "The Squeakquel." Giving voice to the critters is some top tier comic talent, including Justin Long, Amy Poehler, Anna Faris, Christina Applegate and more. But their presence basically goes for naught, with identifying traits or emotional range lost in the helium squeak.

Rating: H1/2

Info for Parents: Rated G

OK for 10 and older

We Bought a Zoo

(Drama, PG, 124 minutes)

This is a holiday movie worth rooting for. Directed by the cinema's last great romantic, Cameron Crowe, it features cute tykes, young romance and a grownup grieving for a lost love, adorable animals and the comically crotchety Thomas Haden Church. Matt Damon stars as Benjamin Mee, widower and father of two who decides to buy a little zoo out in the country. "We Bought a Zoo," with adult themes and dissonant bursts of profanity, kid-friendly romp, and stumbles when it reaches for emotional highs and lows.

Rating: HH1/2

Info for Parents: Rated PG for language and thematic elements

'The Adventures of Tintin'

(Animated, PG, 107 minutes)

Watching "The Adventures of Tintin" gives you the same thrill you felt when you saw "Toy Story" for the first time: Here is a next-gen animated film that builds on everything that has come before to create something new and exciting. In his first foray into animation, director Steven Spielberg uses the technology to achieve something that could be described as cartoonish photo-realism - the images look like impossibly beautiful hand-drawn photographs - and then frees his camera from all earthly constraints. And the 3-D! Spielberg is the third big-name director (after Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese) to give the gimmick a try this year, and the results are so extraordinary, they make you wonder if 3-D is a good idea, after all. The character of Tintin (played by Jamie Bell), an intrepid reporter who looks like a boy but actually is a man, is a beloved icon around the world but not that well-known in the U.S. The story here is a bit hard to follow, which makes the film feel more than a little frivolous. But there isn't a moment in the movie when you're not staring at the screen in wonder. "The Adventures of Tintin" will seem frenetic and exhausting to some viewers, but the movie's relentless pace is a big part of its charm.

Rating: HHH

Info for Parents: Rated PG for mock violence

Older 13s

'Red Tails'

(Action/Adventure, PG-13, 125 minutes)

The famed Tuskegee Airmen get the John Wayne-style heroic rendering they very much deserve, but also a hackneyed and weirdly context-less story that does them a disservice. George Lucas' pet project has the laudable goal of proving all-black movies can be a success, but "Red Tails" reduces a historical story of deep cultural significance to merely a flyboy flick. The film, directed by TV veteran Anthony Hemingway, superimposes the tale of the black World War II pilots on a dated, white genre of 1940s patriotic propaganda. "Red Tails" is blatantly old-fashioned, just with a change in color. It focuses entirely on aerial combat in Europe, skipping all that pesky backstory of black men braving the segregation of Jim Crowe America and, against the odds, rising up at the Tuskegee Institute. Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard play higher-ups, but the film is centered on a band of pilots, particularly the brash, talented Joe "Lightning" Little (David Oyelowo) and his alcoholic captain Marty "Easy" Julian (Nate Parker). The script, by John Ridley and Boondocks cartoonist Aaron McGruder is swaggering but hopelessly corny and curiously avoids really fleshing out the Tuskegee Airmen's other battle front: racism at home. The dogfights, though, are elegant and clearly staged, set against a majestic European landscape.

Rating: HH

Info for Parents: Rated PG-13 for some sequences of war violence

Warhorse

(Drama, PG-13, 146 minutes)

Men on opposing sides of war find their shared humanity in their love of animals in "War Horse," Steven Spielberg's sentimental epic about a country thoroughbred who travels from the fields of Devonshire to the trenches of the Somme in World War I. The film is a tale told on a vast canvas, with a wide array of characters - each of whom develops a connection to "Joey," one of the prettiest equines ever to grace the silver screen. But that crowded hodge-podge of characters fritters away the potential poignancy as we're taken away from the story's heart and soul - a boy and his horse. This "War Horse" does well by war and justice to the horse. It's the people who are shortchanged.

Rating: HHH

Info for Parents: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of war violence

Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol

(Action, PG-13, 132 minutes)

They've done without the number this time, but anyone who cares knows that "Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol" is really "Mission Impossible 4," the fourth time Tom Cruise's intrepid Ethan Hunt has taken on the evildoers of the world. Brad Bird makes his live-action debut after directing three exceptional animated films: "Ratatouille," "The Incredibles" and "Iron Giant." Bird has done a stylish and involving job here, turning in an entertaining production that's got considerable visual flair, especially in its action-heavy Imax sections. There are only 27 minutes of IMAX footage in the film, but every one of those minutes counts, which is one reason why Paramount chose to open this film in IMAX theaters five days before its general release.

Rating: HHH

Info for Parents: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

(Action/Thriller, PG-13, 129 minutes)

Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is about to lose Watson (Jude Law), his perfect foil and bantering partner, to matrimony. But botching the stag party and almost ruining the wedding itself won't be enough of a sendoff. It is "our last adventure, Watson. I intend to make the most of it." That entails derailing the honeymoon. Downey is more Chaplinesque, more whimsical and more English in this sequel, a two-fisted howitzer-barreled blast that manages to be lighter, funnier and yet more violent than the first Downey-Ritchie Holmes film.

Ritchie takes his Sam Peckinpah slow-motion violence fetish to artful new extremes and treats us to more scenes in which Holmes' peerless powers of concentration and perception give him an almost supernatural ability to play through the variables in a coming fight in his mind, before actually martial-arts-ing his way past legions of evil henchman. Downey and Law click like a polished comedy team, with Law more than holding his own with Downey's hilarious excesses. But with Holmes nemesis, Professor Moriarty, played by the unimposing Jared Harris ("Mad Men," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"), you can't help but wonder if the evil genius was more menacing off camera.

Rating: HH1/2

Info for Parents: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some drug material

Mature high-schoolers

'Underworld: Awakening'

(Action/Horror, R, 89 minutes)

After sitting out the last one, Kate Beckinsdale returns to the werewolf-vs-vampire franchise she helped make famous, this time joining forces with her lycanthrope pals to bag the most dangerous game of all: humans.

Rating: Not screened for critics

Info for Parents: Rated R for strong violence, gore and some language

'Haywire'

(Action, R, 93 minutes)

A straight-up action picture may sound unusual coming from Steven Soderbergh, but as he's repeatedly demonstrated throughout his career, he's keen to experiment with every genre imaginable. And if you look closely here, you'll find it reveals glimmers of some of his greatest hits, including "The Limey," "Traffic" and the "Ocean's" movies. By comparison, it feels like minor Soderbergh: zippy, hugely entertaining and well-crafted as always (since he once again serves as his own cinematographer and editor), but not one of his more important films. It does, however, mark the auspicious film debut of MMA superstar Gina Carano as special-ops bad-ass Mallory Kane. Carano had never acted before, and not only did she do all her own stunts, she had to do them in a way that she wouldn't injure her male co-stars, including Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender and Channing Tatum. Her dialogue delivery may seem a bit stiff - and she has acknowledged that Soderbergh made some tweaks to her voice in post-production - but she has tremendous presence: an intriguing mix of muscular power and eye-catching femininity. Mallory must figure out who double-crossed her, and why, after a mission in Barcelona. Soderbergh wisely emphasizes Carano's strengths. He lets the elaborate fight scenes play out - lets us see every kick, punch and body slam - without a lot of needless edits and even without any music. You may feel as if you've been worked over as well. But in a good way.

Rating: HHH

Info for Parents: Rated R for some violence

Contraband

(Remake/Action, R, 110 minutes)

Mark Wahlberg, with Popeye biceps and broody stares, stars as an ex-smuggler forced to go back and do one last job in order to stop a twitchy, tattooed thug from menacing his family. Kate Beckinsale is the wife, Giovanni Ribisi the baddie, and Ben Foster the old partner with the fancy loft apartment. Gritty, pulpy, predictable.

Rating: HH

Info for Parents: Rated R for violence, profanity, drugs and adult themes

'The Devil Inside'

(Horror, R, 147 minutes)

The things young Isabella Rossi sees on her fateful trip to Rome! She sees bodies contort into pretzels and climb walls and fling themselves across rooms, breaking restraints as they do. She sees blood and hears all manner of blood-curdling cursing in languages familiar and foreign. The un-emotive Fernanda Andrade plays a young woman whose mother killed three members of the Catholic clergy 20 years before in an American exorcism. She visits Mom (Suzan Crowley, very creepy) alone, in her hospital room. And Mom, switching accents, rolling her eyes, showing off her collection of cross-cuts on her arms and lips, rattles Isabella (not that Andrade lets us see this). It's a profoundly foolish script filmed with a shaky cam, a movie that goes to great pains to explain how many cameras there are and where they're placed in a room, only to drop that conceit and show us unexplained subjective shots.

Rating: H

Info for Parents: Rated R for sexual references, disturbing violent content, language and grisly images

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

(Drama, R, 152 minutes)

For the first hour of David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," you cringe at its grave horrors and wonder why, exactly, Fincher bothered to make it.But then comes the first scene in which Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara appear on the screen together - and just like that, all is forgiven. The dynamic between Craig and Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is so spontaneous and sensational, it instantly elevates the movie.

Rating: HHH1/2

Info for Parents: Rated R for vulgar language, nudity, explicit sex, rape, violence, gore, adult themes