Opening Films

by INLANDER STAFF & r & & r & 10,000 B.C. & r & & r & Holy anachronisms Batman! Somehow the metal-sword-wielding, pyramid-building Bronze Age Egyptians (the ones who lived around 2,500 B.C.) figured out a way to travel back in time or something to 10,000 B.C., when dreadlocked stone-age hunter-gatherers were still stalking mammoths across the savannahs of Africa, to enslave the barely dressed nomads. Either that, or no one involved with the making of this film has a grasp of the ordering of prehistoric epochs. Seriously, saber-tooth tiger fights on the pyramids at Giza!? Plus, it's directed by Roland Emmerich, who's never met a computer-generated effect he didn't love, so expect those saber-teeth to be a bit pixelly around the edges. (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 to take a fall. They may be the villains, but they're proper British villains, and they're fun to root for. (MAJ) Rated R





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, as dad scares away boys and wrecks the family SUV. Just when things couldn't possibly get any funnier, Donny Osmond shows up as a gratingly cheery WASP dad. It's like Bad Boys meets Big Momma (but with Donny Osmond). (JS) Rated G





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