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by THE INLANDER & r & & r & 10,000 BC & r & & r & The story of some vaguely caveman-like people who get abducted by some vaguely Arab-looking dudes who schlep them all over the place, from what looks like Argentina to what looks like Japan until they finally arrive at the bank of a great river in the middle of a huge desert and are sold as slaves to ... wait for it ... the Egyptian empire. Then there's a battle and stuff. Anachronisms abound. (LB) Rated PG-13





THE BANK JOB


A heist caper about a 1971 British safe-deposit box burglary becomes ridiculously entertaining in director Roger Donaldson's retelling, mostly because of the subsequent newspaper gag order and government cover-up. Jason Statham leads a bunch of patsies who think they're clever when they're actually being set up. (MJ) Rated R





THE BUCKET LIST


Two strangers who are complete opposites (Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman) meet in a hospital, where both have been told they have a year left. They decide to join in a series of adventures they've scrawled on a "to do" list to be finished before they, you know, kick the bucket. (ES) Rated PG-13





COLLEGE ROAD TRIP


Martin Lawrence plays a cop and overprotective father ferrying his daughter (Raven-Symone) around the country to visit colleges. Good old-fashioned family hilarity ensues. Just when things couldn't possibly get any funnier, Donny Osmond shows up as a gratingly cheery WASP dad. (JS) Rated G





THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY


POV is everything in Diving Bell. Director Julian Schnabel wants us to experience what "Locked-In Syndrome" is like, so he adopts the viewpoint of Jean-Dominique Bauby's left eye -- the only part of his still-alert body that's not paralyzed. Schnabel does a miraculous job of making his film feel hemmed-in without seeming claustrophobic. It & iacute;s relentlessly compelling. (LB) Rated PG-13





DRILLBIT TAYLOR


Three kids hire Owen Wilson as protection (a "Budget Bodyguard") from playground bullies. There's a joke in here about career suicide, but we'll restrain ourselves. However, Seth Rogen (who co-wrote this movie) has failed in restraining himself from indulging in every geeks-punch-meanies-and-get-the-babes gag he could muster. Rated PG-13





FOOL'S GOLD


Fool's Gold finds Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson as divorcing spouses, formerly a team of treasure hunters. Now he's made a new discovery in their longtime search for a lost 18th-century hoard and he needs her help, even though she's just whacked him across the head with a blunt object. Not one single element works. (MJ) Rated PG-13





HORTON HEARS A WHO!


All anyone had to do to get Dr. Seuss on film properly was to use animation instead of live actors in goofy costumes. This mostly computer-animated adaptation tells of a happy-go-lucky elephant (voice of Jim Carrey) who believes he can save a miniscule world inside a speck of dust, and it hits every mark. Cute and frantic and funny for kids; hip, outlandish and funny for adults. And Steve Carell gets to be more crazed than Carrey as the voice of the ditzy Mayor of Whoville. (ES) Rated G





JUMPER


In the world of Jumper, there are people who have the same superpower as Nightcrawler from X-Men. It stars Hayden Christensen (Star Wars: The Crappy Ones).Jumper isn't worth even 90 minutes of your life. It may not even be worth the 90 seconds you'll spend reading this review. Seriously. (BK) Rated PG-13





JUNO


Offbeat and surprising, Jason Reitman's second film is about perky, outspoken, wisecracking Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page), a 16-year-old with the kind of curiosity that leads her to have sex with her best pal Paulie (Michael Cera). That leads to a pregnancy test, the results, breaking the news to Paulie, a confession to her parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) and a trip to the abortion clinic. But something happens, and that's only the beginning of this sweet, funny, heartfelt film. (ES) Rated PG-13





MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY


Frances McDormand, playing an out-of-work nanny, heads to the house of Amy Adams, playing something of a slutty wannabe starlet. Amy needs help with her "boys," who turn out to be not children, but three grown men all vying for her arm. A comedy of errors set in wartime London. Call up Grammy, it's time for a matinee! (LB) Rated PG-13





THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL


Is Natalie Portman the scheming minx while Scarlett Johansson is the adulterous harlot? Or is it the other way around? No matter. A soap opera in Renaissance finery like this one doesn't trouble itself with characterization as long as it can get some of its characters coupled up and doing the four-poster romp. (MB) Rated PG-13








RUN FAT BOY RUN


David Schwimmer's feature directorial debut misses the mark, but it's not his fault. The story of a nice-guy loser (Simon Pegg) who panics and literally runs away from his pregnant bride-to-be (Thandie Newton) on their wedding day, and years later still pines for her -- even vows to run a marathon to win her back -- has a scattered script by Pegg and Michael Ian Black. The actors give their all, but it's only funny in starts and stops. Schwimmer's direction is competent; he just needs better material. (ES) Rated PG-13





SHUTTER


Shutter is about newlyweds who move to Japan where the husband works as a photographer while his wife hangs out in Tokyo. Why, that's the plot of Lost in Translation! Except that Shutter works it without Bill Murray. If we were to rank movies based on how much Bill Murray they contain, The Man Who Knew Too Little would get a rating of five Bill Murrays, the highest ranking possible. Shutter would score zero Bill Murrays, except that it constantly reminded me of movies that do have Murray, causing me to feel his absence all the more keenly. Therefore Shutter actually gets a score of negative two Bill Murrays, which is equivalent to pure cinematic sadness. In all of film history, there is nothing lower than negative two Bill Murrays.(BK) Rated PG-13





SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES


The bestselling book series crosses to the screen, with the fatherless Grace family moving in to the creepy Spiderwick mansion and finding lots of dark secrets. Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) plays the twins Jared and Simon, and puts on a pretty darn good American accent. There's plenty of fantasy to go around, but also some frightening bits that might freak out viewers under 7, as well as a believable human element. (ES) Rated PG





STOP-LOSS


Director Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry) taps Americans' collective angst about the war in Iraq by depicting troops (Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) whose position is untenable in Iraq (especially when they're compelled to return for a second, involuntary tour of duty), untenable back in the States, untenable even in their own minds. (MAJ) Rated R





VANTAGE POINT


Eight different perspectives from an attempted assassination of the U.S. president twist and turn this action thriller in all directions. Dennis Quaid stars as a Secret Service agent uncovering a massive plot against America. Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver co-star as witnesses and possibly plotters in this political whodunit. (TLM) Rated PG-13





SUPERHERO MOVIE


Like Scary Movie and Date Movie, but with, you know, superheroes. Tracy Morgan better have got paid a stupid amount of money for this... (LB) Rated PG-13





21


A based-on-fact, Hollywoodized story about the fellow (Kevin Spacey) who masterminded, along with a group of sharp MIT students, a plan to take Vegas for large sums of money. They succeed, they get caught, things go awry, then turn bad. Fresh from his lead role in Across the Universe, Jim Sturgess -- playing the leader of the group -- puts on a solid American accent and acts convincingly frightened when casino heavy Laurence Fishburne turns tough on him. (ES) Rated PG-13