Opening Films

by INLANDER STAFF & r & & r & HANCOCK & r & & r & Ah, one of those superhero-as-drunken lout stories. Will Smith plays John Hancock, a man of unknown origins who can fly, beat up villains and bounce bullets off his chest. But he shouldn't fly when he drinks because a sloppy path of destruction usually trails in his wake. Here's a film that starts off funny, and is loaded with fantastic visuals, but ends up elsewhere, somehow becoming a rumination on family relations as well as public relations. An outrageous story, with unexpected plot turns and solid acting from Jason Bateman and a glowing Charlize Theron. (ES) Rated PG-13





KIT KITTREDGE: AN AMERICAN GIRL


There's absolutely nothing wrong with a wholesome, old-fashioned movie about kids and families getting by during the Depression -- especially if you're an 8-year-old female viewer and you're wealthy enough to own one of the absurdly expensive dolls the film is based on. Cute little Abigail Breslin takes the title role -- a reporter in the making who's trying to figure out who's pulling off home robberies and blaming it on residents of a nearby hobo camp. Well done, but nothing special. (ES) Rated G





MONGOL


Russian director Sergei Bodrov's sweeping steppe epic about the history and legend of Genghis Khan, a man who would eventually conquer one-third of the known world, is by all accounts a massive film, with a size and scope that hearkens to the great old Hollywood epics while still having modern flourishes and a clarity of vision that make the large-scale battles harrowing and comprehensible. (LB) Rated R