THUNDERBIRDS (PG) -- Jonathan Frakes (of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame) directed this film adaptation of the popular '60s British TV puppet/animation show about a family of rescuers led by an Air Force veteran (Bill Paxton). Co-stars Ben Kingsley, Anthony Edwards and Ron Cook.
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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's sequel to 1995'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) Canal Place
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 'Jason Bourne' assassinates a Chinese official and the real 'Jason Bourne' 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. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8
CATWOMAN (PG-13) -- Halle Berry takes on the furry crusader, with Patience Philips murdered when she learns husband-and-wife cosmetic firm owners Sharon Stone and Lambert Wilson are up to no good. Benjamin Bratt supplies the romantic chemistry. Mono-named Pitof directs. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
A CINDERELLA STORY (PG) -- Hilary Duff plays a shy, insecure high school student ruled by wicked stepmother Jennifer Coolidge and stepsisters and struggling 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, Grand, 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, but Redford's rental car company tycoon is less well-defined. Watching the two of them together, it'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'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. (Simmons) AMC Palace 20, Causeway Cinema, Grand
DE-LOVELY (PG-13) -- D Another failed attempt at a film version of Cole Porter's life, De-Lovely is better than 1946's Night and Day, but only just. Screenwriter Jay Cocks 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. (Carlson) AMC Palace 20
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 20, Grand, Holiday 12
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (R) -- B Oscar-winning director Michael Moore's scathing indictment of the Bush administration'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. (Simmons) AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Canal Place, Causeway Cinema, Grand, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
GARFIELD (PG) -- D- Perhaps the worst five minutes you'll spend with any kid this summer is watching a CGI Garfield crooning 'New Dog State of Mind.' (If you don't go to the movies with kids, feel free to move on to the next blurb.) Not even Bill Murray's voicing of Jim Davis' 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. (Tisserand) AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Movies 8
HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE (PG-13) -- Korean-American twentysomething Harold (John Cho) and Indian-American pal Kumar (Kal Penn) learn a little lesson about life in an all-night journey that involves curing the munchies by eating at the fast-food chain of the title. Co-stars Jamie Kennedy, Anthony Anderson and Neil Patrick Harris (as himself). AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20
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). Thankfully, director Alfonso Cuarón steps in, and no one misses Chris Columbus one bit. With his artist'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 20, Entergy IMAX, Movies 8
I, ROBOT (PG-13) -- C Will Smith contributes his usual summer action feature. This time he's a homicide detective who hates robots and thinks some artificial malevolence is involved in the apparent suicide of a leading robotics designer. Will takes on hundreds of robots at a time, but don't bet against him. In short, we've seen this all before, and we'll see it again. For the robots have already established their foothold on our world. It's called Hollywood. (Barton) (Reviewed in this issue.) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8
INTO THE DEEP (NR) -- IMAX cameras take a journey through the undersea world. Entergy IMAX
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's brawny, brainy Arthur; Keira Knightley's manipulative, pugnacious Guinevere; and Ioan Gruffud's long-suffering Lancelot. (Carlson) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, North Shore Square
LEWIS & CLARK: GREAT JOURNEY WEST (NR) -- The famed explorers, here portrayed by Kelly Boulware and Sonny Surowiec, set out West 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' '80s teen comedies, Hess has produced something thoroughly offbeat and surprisingly profound, displaying a love for people who aren'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' adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel about a romantic triangle recalled by an older man (James Garner) to his former love (Gena Rowlands), who is now suffering from Alzheimer'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
SHREK 2 (PG) -- A- Mike Myers is certainly seeing the green, as everyone'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'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'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
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, Chalmette, Grand
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. (Tisserand) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8, Prytania
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. (Simmons) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Causeway Cinema, Movies 8
WHITE CHICKS (PG-13) -- FBI agents Shawn and Marlon Wayans assume the identity of the white heiresses they'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'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
