Scheduled to Open Friday
THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (PG-13) -- Matt Damon returns as David Webb/Jason Bourne in the second installment of the Robert Ludlum spy trilogy, with the CIA in a panic when a fake &179;Jason Bourne&178; assassinates a Chinese official and the real &179;Jason Bourne&178; goes on the hunt for him. Director Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday) replaces Doug Liman, with Franka Potente, Julia Stiles and Brian Cox returning to the cast.
CATWOMAN (PG-13) -- Halle Berry (meow!) takes on the furry crusader, with Patience Philips murdered when she learns husband-and-wife cosmetics firm owners Sharon Stone and Lambert Wilson are up to no good. Benjamin Bratt supplies the romantic chemistry. Mono-named Pitof directs.
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ANCHORMAN (PG-13) -- D This ham-handed Will Ferrell comedy feels like a lame Saturday Night Live skit stretched into a feature. The talents of Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd and Fred Willard are wasted in a script that makes little sense and produces way too few laughs to merit an outing. Only Steve Carell, who could probably make me laugh reading the phone book, provides the flick with the barest of a passing grade. (Barton) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
BEFORE SUNSET (R) -- A Richard Linklater&185;s sequel to 1995&185;s Before Sunrise is a fluid, engaging, charming, frustrating, funny and lively movie. The characters have seasoned over the years, their outlooks are not as carefree as they were in their youth, and their responsibilities in life have multiplied and grown roots. The filmmakers, too, have grown along with the characters. Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke wrote the Before Sunset screenplay with Linklater, based on characters Linklater created with his Before Sunrise co-screenwriter Kim Krizan. Although the characters and their backstories are carefully thought out, Delpy and Hawke deliver their dialogue as if spontaneous and unmeditated. If nothing else, Before Sunset reminds us that there indeed can be a point to making a sequel and provides the following lesson: Next time, get the phone number in writing. (Baumgarten) (Reviewed in this issue.) Canal Place
THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK (R) -- Vin Diesel returns in the title role in this sequel to 2000&185;s Pitch Black, as a futuristic superhero who can see in the dark and gets ensnared in a galactic battle between two worlds. Co-stars Dame Judi Dench, Keith David, Colm Feore and Thandie Newton. AMC Palace 20
A CINDERELLA STORY (PG) -- Hilary Duff plays a shy, insecure high school student (um, sure) ruled by wicked stepmother Jennifer Coolidge and stepsisters and who struggles to fit in at her high school when a charming young man finds her lost cell phone. Straight-to-video vet Mark Rosman gets his feature-length directing debut in this umpteenth update of the fairy tale. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
THE CLEARING (R) -- C First-time director Pieter Jan Brugge and first-time screenwriter Justin Haythe spin a fragmented story about the kidnapping of a wealthy man (Robert Redford) and the impact of the crime on his family. Helen Mirren plays the WASPy wife to perfection, her face a mask of fragility, decorum and loss. Redford&185;s character is less well-defined; his rental car company tycoon is set up as an absentee husband and father, but his children (Alessandro Nivola and Melissa Sagemiller) seem to remember him differently. As Arnold, the down-on-his-luck kidnapper, Willem Dafoe delivers a clipped, melodramatic performance. Mirren and Redford realize they are in a play masquerading as a movie; Dafoe plays this one as though he were onstage. The overly long script contains far too much back and forth between Mirren on the homefront and Redford&185;s dealings with Dafoe. Still, the opening moments are nice; Mirren and Redford share a poolside breakfast fraught with unspoken hostilities and time-worn affection. Looking at Redford after all these years, it&185;s hard not to imagine that this is what eventually happened to Hubbell and his girl. (Carlson) AMC Palace 20, Canal Place
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (PG-13) -- C- Roland Emmerich&185;s special effects-driven, apocalyptic take on global warming feels all wrong, from the weird science and clunky narrative to the poorly sketched characters and even the eye candy. The cast of Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, Sela Ward and others are given very little to do but ride the storm out. In trying to keep a more somber tone than the one he provided in the 1996 guilty pleasure, Independence Day, Emmerich doesn&185;t know what movie he wants to make. (Simmons) AMC Palace 20, Causeway Cinema, Grand
DE-LOVELY (PG-13) -- D Another failed attempt at a film version of Cole Porter&185;s life, De-Lovely is better than 1946&185;s Night and Day, but only just. Screenwriter Jay Cocks (The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York) sinks this film with an over-thought but underdeveloped script that relies too heavily on sophomoric narrative devices. The unconventional relationship of Cole (Kevin Kline) and his wife, Linda (Ashley Judd), is terribly simplified; the film -- which purports to be the whole truth -- does acknowledge his bisexuality, but any sense of sexual freedom is downplayed in favor of his unconvincing love affair with Linda. Contemporary pop stars are shoehorned into the film and deliver only mediocre renditions of Porter&185;s greatest works, fitting for such a prosaic treatment of this American poet&185;s life story. (Carlson) (Reviewed in this issue.) AMC Palace 20, Canal Place
DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY (PG-13) -- Vince Vaughn and the rest of his dorky friends try to save their local gym from a corporate-chain takeover led by Ben Stiller by facing off in a dodgeball challenge in Las Vegas in this comedy from first-time writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber. Co-stars Gary Cole, Jason Bateman, Stephen Root, Justin Long, Missi Pyle and Christine Taylor. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, North Shore Square
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (R) -- B Oscar-winning director Michael Moore&185;s scathing indictment of the Bush administration&185;s reaction to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq is as polemic and loose with the facts as his previous work. But there is so much humanism to see here -- rarely seen footage of U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties, interviews with disillusioned military members and families of soldiers, reasoned accusations from observers and members of Congress -- that Fahrenheit 9/11 remains a compelling work. Moore remains the left&185;s boldest filmmaker, and maybe that&185;s why he&185;s the most frustrating to watch; having been so emboldened, he seems unwilling to support his arguments with more specific research. (You can counter or temper half his arguments with about three clicks of a computer mouse.) Moore is at his most effective when he gets out of the way and allows his subjects to speak for themselves, for better or for worse. (Simmons) AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Canal Place, Causeway Cinema, Grand, Hollywood Cinemas 9
GARFIELD (PG) -- D- Perhaps the worst five minutes you&185;ll spend with any kid this summer is watching a CGI Garfield crooning &179;New Dog State of Mind.&178; (If you don&185;t go to the movies with kids, feel free to move on to the next blurb.) Not even Bill Murray&185;s voicing of Jim Davis&185; cartoon feline can help this sorry display of tired gags, relentless product placement and clunky special effects that make old Meow Mix commercials look like The Matrix. Oh yeah, there&185;s also a romantic subplot featuring Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt. (Tisserand) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Movies 8
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (PG) -- A- Finally, a film that matches the gorgeous imagination of author J.K. Rowling. Harry and friends return for a third year at Hogwarts, shadowed by prison escapee Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). Michael Gambon dutifully steps into the role of Dumbledore, but predictably, the late Richard Harris is sorely missed. Thankfully, director Alfonso Cuarón steps in, and no one misses Chris Columbus one bit. With his artist&185;s eye and Gothic-tinged sensibility, Cuarón provides the texture, dimension and thrill that has been missing from this superbly cast film series all along. (Carlson) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Entergy IMAX, Holiday 12, Movies 8
I, ROBOT (PG-13) -- Cop-of-the-future Will Smith suspects that a robot has done the unthinkable -- committed murder -- in this sci-fi film inspired by Isaac Asimov&185;s nine-story anthology of the same name. Directed by Alex Proyas and co-starring Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell and Chi McBride. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8
KING ARTHUR (PG-13) -- C+ Director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter David Franzoni combine their mediocre talents to offer a visually flat, only superficially smart demolition of Arthurian legend. The reenvisioning of Camelot iconography is, at times, satisfying, but gets lost in the murkiness of both story and scene. Ultimately, the poorly shot film survives on charismatic performances: Clive Owen&185;s brawny, brainy Arthur; Keira Knightley&185;s manipulative, pugnacious Guinevere; Ioan Gruffud&185;s long-suffering Lancelot; and a host of spectacular second-tier characters including Ray Winstone&185;s bawdy Bors and Stellan Skarsgard&185;s wicked Saxon warrior Cerdic. (Carlson) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
LEWIS & CLARK: GREAT JOURNEY WEST (NR) -- The famed explorers, here portrayed by Kelly Boulware and Sonny Surowiec, set out West as commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, in this IMAX version of their story. Entergy IMAX
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (PG) -- A- Co-writer and director Jared Hess has created one of the most blissfully abstract comedies in recent memory in his story about Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder), a dorky high school student who might actually be a superhero. In what almost feels like a goof on John Hughes&185; &185;80s teen comedies, Hess has produced something thoroughly offbeat and surprisingly profound, displaying a love for people who aren&185;t nearly as ordinary as we think. Plus it has one of the coolest opening title sequences of all time. (Simmons) Canal Place
NASCAR 3-D: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE (PG) -- The IMAX cameras go deep inside the race cars and race tracks of NASCAR land. Entergy IMAX
THE NOTEBOOK (PG-13) -- Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams co-star in Nick Cassavetes&185; adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks romance novel about a romantic triangle recalled by an older man (James Garner) to his former love (Gena Rowlands), who is now suffering from Alzheimer&185;s disease. (Gosling and McAdams play two of the younger lovers.) Rowlands, it should be noted, is the mother of Cassavetes and widow of John Cassavetes. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8
OCEAN WONDERLAND (NR) -- IMAX takes its cameras to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the coral reef of the Bahamas. Directed by Jean-Jacques Mantello. Entergy IMAX
SAVED! (PG-13) -- B+ This sweet and funny look at life in the halls of a Christian high school is written with all the affection of the proximate. Saved! is definitely an inside job, its satire knowing and notable, from the altar-call school assemblies of wannabe hipster Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan) to the holier-than-thou head trips of cheerleadery church girl Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore). Brian Dannelly and Michael Urban&185;s story focuses on Jena Malone (Stepmom, Cold Mountain), making good use of her permanently protruding lower lip as Mary, a confused high school senior who sleeps with her gay boyfriend because she has a vision of Jesus telling her to help him. She gets pregnant, and Christ-filled chaos ensues. Urban and Dannelly, who also directs, take a page from Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman) and actually seem to like the people they make the most fun of. Saved! isn&185;t a searing (or particularly subversive) indictment of religion; its believers are simply human with all the attendant absurdities of trying to do good and be good in a world where very few of us can do either on our own. Look for Mary-Louise Parker, Macaulay Culkin, the ever-charming Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) and Eva Amurri. (Carlson) Causeway Cinema
SHREK 2 (PG) -- A- Mike Myers is certainly seeing the green, as everyone&185;s favorite ogre returns with his new wife, Fiona (Cameron Diaz), for this record-breaking sequel. The animation is twice as sophisticated, Myers is just as lovable, and the script is, at times, almost as crazily clever as the 2001 original. Aided considerably by Ab Fab&185;s Jennifer Saunders as a scheming fairy godmother and the purrfect addition of Antonio Banderas as a positively feline Puss in Boots, the story turns Fiona&185;s homeland of Far, Far Away -- and every accepted fairy tale convention -- on its ear. Nothing could match the come-from-nowhere charm of the original, but Shrek 2 is undeniably a very close second. (Carlson) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, North Shore Square
SLEEPOVER (PG) -- High school freshmen-to-be hold a slumber party that turns into an all-night treasure hunt adventure in this film starring Alison Vega, Jane Lynch, Jeff Garlin and Mika Boorem. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
SPIDER-MAN (PG-13) -- B Tobey Maguire spins a believable web as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in this Sam Raimi effort. Superb casting, excellent use of Matrix technology and occasional flashes of visual brilliance make this one a solid summer flick, but it&185;s not nearly the total comic book package that Darkman -- or even Batman -- was. (Carlson) Special free screening 8 p.m. Wednesday at Marconi Meadow in City Park, on a 40-foot inflatable screen
SPIDER-MAN 2 (PG-13) -- A- Director Sam Raimi finally displays his spidey sense in this superior sequel to the 2002 hit movie. An unhinged-yet-sympathetic Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) is the villain, but the real struggle here is between identity and secret identity, as Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) wrestles with the tangled question: to be or not to be a webslinger. In the best Stan Lee tradition, Alvin Sargent&185;s screenplay offers believable characters, touches on (but doesn&185;t belabor) some grand themes, and never forgets that the whole thing is supposed to be fun. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon teamed up with Smallville co-creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough on the screen story. (Tisserand) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8, Prytania
THE STEPFORD WIVES (PG-13) -- C+ As rejiggered as the idealized suburban wives of novelist Ira Levin&185;s imagination, director Frank Oz&185;s new version of the 1975 classic sports a decidedly different vibe, creepy suspense giving way to hopped-up hilarity. The cast is immensely enjoyable, and Paul Rudnick&185;s script is chock full of dialogic smarts, if a bit lacking in logic of any other kind. The Stepford Wives is a mess, but it&185;s fun, and it&185;s probably the best bad movie you will see this summer. (Carlson) AMC Palace 20
THE TERMINAL (PG-13) -- C+ In a film that feels trapped in a Bermuda Triangle of E.T. , Cast Away and the inverse of Catch Me If You Can, Steven Spielberg reunites with Tom Hanks in this loosely fact-based story of an eastern European immigrant (Hanks) who becomes trapped inside JFK Airport with an invalid visa when his country is dissolved in a civil war. This is Spielberg at his most constructed, sentimental and obvious; every character and situation feels two-dimensional and calculated. Hanks gamely tries to rise above the material with some of his best physical comedy in years, but Stanley Tucci, Catherine Zeta-Jones and others are all but wasted here. Kudos to Spielberg and a crew that included cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler&185;s List) and production designer Alex McDowell (Minority Report), who indeed create an airport that feels like a world unto itself. (Simmons) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Causeway Cinema, Movies 8
TWO BROTHERS (PG) -- Two tigers who were separated as cubs reunite under difficult circumstances in Cambodia in this film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, who scored a wild-kingdom blockbuster with 1998&185;s The Bear. Co-stars Guy Pearce and Christian Clavier. AMC Palace 12
WHITE CHICKS (PG-13) -- FBI agents Shawn and Marlon Wayans assume the identity of the white heiresses they&185;ve been assigned to protect in this comedy directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans and co-written by every Wayans brother not named Damon, and others. We&185;ve come a long way from Imitation of Life, eh? AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
