RECOMMENDED,WITH RESERVATIONS
“SHE’S ALL THAT” (PG-13): Rising stars Freddie Prinze Jr. (“I Know What You Did Last Summer”) and Rachael Leigh Cook play Beverly Hills high schoolers from opposite sides of the swimming pool in this blithe comedy. Prinze is the big man on campus; Cook is the gawky girl in glasses. When Prinze’s gorgeous girlfriend gives him the boot, he bets his buddies that, in just eight weeks, he can cook Cook into one hot dish. It’s “Pygmalion: 90210.”
Language: Detention-worthy profanity.
Sex: High school students roll suggestively under the sheets, indicating they’re sexually active, without actually being nude.
Violence: One tame catfight, followed by tears.
Audience: Teens are the target audience, but the laissez-faire attitude toward drinking and sex might give some parents second thoughts.
NOT RECOMMENDED
“PAYBACK” (R): Mel Gibson is bad (and beautiful) as an urban heister who targets a couple of double-crossers who ripped him off for $70,000. Brian Helgeland’s remake of the John Boorman 1967 thriller “Point Blank” is sadistic and brutal even for a contemporary action film.
Language: Foul.
Sex: There’s an Asian dominatrix dressed provocatively, but not quite nude.
Violence: The movie begins with an uncertified (and drunken) medic removing two bullets from Gibson’s back – and it only gets bloodier from there.
Audience: Adults only – and they’llwant their pay back if they shelled out for the kids.
NOT RECOMMENDED
“VARSITY BLUES” (R): Football is a religion in West Canaan, Texas. And when Jonathan Moxon (James Van Der Beek of “Dawson’s Creek”) steps into the cleats of the crippled high school quarterback (Paul Walker), “Mox” becomes the new local messiah, and discovers the responsibilities and perks of his leadership position.
Language: Unsportsmanlike, but that’s the way these good old boys talk in Texas.
Sex: Abundant female frontal, male behinds.
Violence: Graphic gridiron head banging; Mox breaks his father’s nose with a football.
Audience: The movie aims for a teen audience – and Van Der Beek will draw many new female fans to the game – but you’ll want to defend your kids from the underage drinking, pill popping and (sexual) passes.
NOT RECOMMENDED
“GLORIA” (R): Sidney Lumet’s limp remake of John Cassavetes’ second-rate flick about a tough-talking gangster’s girl on the lam with a little boy who’s wanted by the mob gives Sharon Stone the chance to polish her Queens accent. It’s an opportunity she shouldn’t have taken.
Language: Very profane.
Sex: Stone sleeps with 7-year-old Nicky (Jean-Luke Figueroa), but there’s no hanky panky.
Violence: Brutal gangsters shoot the child’s family before our eyes.
Audience: This sentimental kid-in-peril movie is perilous to kids.