Family Filmgoer / Jane Horwitz
‘Meet Dave’ is harmless
Updated: 07/17/08 6:38 AM
“Meet Dave” PG
This science-fiction comedy geared to grade-schoolers is half-baked conceptually, but an amiable enough diversion. Eddie Murphy turns his physical comedy skills to playing a space alien. As part of a race of brainy humanlike creatures who are minute compared to the “primitive” people of Earth, he captains a spaceship designed to look like an Earthling, created in his own image. His mission is to use the humanoid ship to scope out Earth for energy sources and destruction. Captain and crew operate the arms, legs and mouth, etc. as the captain’s avatar interacts with New Yorkers. “He” takes the name Dave Ming Chang and befriends a single mom (Elizabeth Banks) and her little boy (Austyn Lind Myers). Eventually, the goodness of people changes the captain’s mind about Earth. The movie includes much toilet humor, mild sexual innuendo, mild gay jokes and some drinking.
“The Dark Knight” (PG-13, 2 hours, 22 minutes)
Heath Ledger walks away with “The Dark Knight” as Batman’s nemesis, The Joker. His performance demonstrates what a loss his passing will be to the art of film acting. Ledger’s Joker is insane, evil, scary, funny, and even pathetic in his psychopathic lack of feeling. He is also the sort of character that could give younger kids nightmares. This is not a movie for teens younger than high school age, let alone grade-schoolers. Directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan, based on comic book characters by Bob Kane, “The Dark Knight” oozes post-9/11 paranoia. The Joker describes himself as an agent of chaos, and his random acts of violence are pure terror. He even broadcasts a video in which he kills someone, a la actual hostage executions by groups such as al-Qaida; the camera cuts away, but still.
It is bizarre that “The Dark Knight” is rated PG-13. While “Batman” films have always been grimmer than other comic book adaptations, this one avoids an R rating only by limiting the flow of blood during the graphic violence. The movie depicts hostage situations with children in danger, point-blank shootouts and assassinations. The Joker puts a pencil through someone’s head. A character loses half his face in a fiery explosion and becomes the gruesome Two-Face. There is rare crude language.
“Mamma Mia!” (PG-13, 1 hour, 43 minutes)
“Mamma Mia!” should lift teen and adult audiences into a zone of dizzy good humor, even if younger people (as happened at a preview The Family Filmgoer attended) giggle when middle-aged characters burst into song. Based on the hugely successful stage show built around hits of the 1970s (and early ’80s) pop group ABBA, “Mamma Mia!” is, to quote another lyric of yore, simply irresistible. The movie is a very mild PG-13, but does include drinking, discussion of out-of- wedlock pregnancy and youthful promiscuity, mild sexual innuendo, rare semicrude language, and one briefly bare behind.
