!! 1/2 "Leatherheads"

George Clooney wins frequent comparisons to Clark Gable and Cary Grant. But we don't have to go back that far: 2005's "Good Night, and Good Luck," with its obvious political leanings (to the left, to the left) proved that Clooney is more like Warren Beatty. (He acts, he directs, he deflects the praise he seeks. What a gentleman.) Now they've both made romantic comedies tinged with football. I'm partial to "Heaven Can Wait," Beatty's 1978 gauzy remake of "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941), with Beatty as a dead quarterback's ghost. The joke premise turned into a sort of existential crisis. Clooney's movie, "Leatherheads," turns the birth of professional football into a screwball farce. (PG-13)

One of the more pleasant aspects of "Nim's Island" is that it doesn't fit any of the known profiles for modern family movies: no hip pop-culture references aimed at mom and dad, no world-weary kids cracking wise, no tie-in soundtrack CD. Another bonus is that 8- to 12-year-olds will have a good time, and you'll have a good time watching them have a good time. Otherwise, the film's an oddity — an engaging, slightly overcooked fantasy about a castaway-island girl and the agoraphobic San Francisco novelist who comes to her rescue. (PG)

!!! "Flawless"

The values of competence seem greater during dire movie seasons. "Flawless," a diamond heist flick set in 1960 London, is assured and neatly crafted — the time zips by while you're watching it. The director is Michael Radford, who has solid, literate work like "1984," "White Mischief," and "Il Postino" on his ledger. Next to them, "Flawless" is a gimcrack, a genre exercise, yet it's a confidence game in the best sense of the phrase. Radford knows the rules — when to bend them, when to break them, and when to play by them. That's an increasingly rare skill. All this and Demi Moore giving a good performance. She plays Laura Quinn, an American-born, Oxford-educated executive at the all-powerful London Diamond Corporation who's so sick of being passed over for promotion that she goes in on a robbery plot with a cagey night janitor named Hobbs (Michael Caine). (PG-13)

!! "Stop-Loss"

"Stop-Loss" is co-produced by MTV, and the soundtrack consequently works overtime. Heavy metal, alt-pop, southern rock, orchestral swells, wailing Middle Eastern tunes all vie for our attention, but none of this noise drowns out the sound of good intentions twisting themselves into an impotent knot. The movie's the latest off-Hollywood drama to examine the effects of the Iraq War on the U.S. soldiers fighting it, and like previous films — "In the Valley of Elah," "Home of the Brave," "Lions for Lambs," "Redacted" — it's earnest, outraged, and more than a little confused. Pundits wonder why no one wants to see these movies, and it's true American audiences don't have the stomach for bad news (especially when it's about us), but can't the films themselves be at fault, too? Writer-director Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") tells a story of Texas buddies who grew up together and shipped out together; now they're back home and a mess. (R)

! 1/2 "21"

Movie critics have their own way of counting cards. When characters in a Hollywood movie do something that feels true and freshly observed, the count goes +1. When they behave tritely, spout cliches, and generally act as if the screenwriters understand life only from other movies, it's -1. A lovemaking montage that dissolves from one gauzy, disembodied limb to another? -10. By any fair count, "21" is -372, and that's a shame, since a lot of people were holding out high hopes for this one. Recent converts to the neo-Vegas gambling craze craved the buzz they get from drawing a skeet flush. Readers of the film's nonfiction source, Ben Mezrich's "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions," wanted the book's grubby little details. Fans of British actor Jim Sturgess hoped the dreamy "Across the Universe" star would ascend to the next rung of fame. MIT alums looked forward to seeing their campus on screen. Others just wanted a decent card movie. But everyone gets dealt a stiff hand in this bust from director Robert Luketic. (PG-13)

! 1/2 "Drillbit Taylor"

"Drillbit Taylor" sounds like a rediscovered blaxploitation movie or a name near the top of the NFL draft. It's just Owen Wilson's second comedy since it was reported last year that he tried to end his life. Now we have to look at that face and assume we can see sadness between the laugh lines. His stoned sunniness has lost its Teflon coating. Wilson plays the title character, an Army deserter now homeless in Santa Monica. When three high-school freshmen (Nate Hartley, Troy Gentile, and David Dorfman), tired of being pushed around, place an ad looking for a bodyguard, Drillbit shows up, sensing an opportunity to grift, bilk, and purloin whenever he can. The kids take a cockeyed liking to his alleged military expertise and his bogus training methods. But as the bullying persists, they come to suspect he's a fraud. By that point the movie has already given in to its disturbing sadistic side. (PG-13)

!! "Shutter"

Photographs can be creepy. They may not steal your soul, but they can certainly steal your image, preserving a simulacrum of your identity at one particular moment of time. If you're lucky, it's a good moment. If you're unlucky, you're Megumi Tanaka (Megumi Okina), the wan specter who menaces a newlywed couple in "Shutter." The blushing bride is Jane (played by Australian actress Rachael Taylor), the grinning groom is genius photographer Ben (Joshua Jackson of "Dawson's Creek"), and their first of many mistakes is deciding to honeymoon in Japan. As we know from recent American remakes of "Ringu" (2002's "The Ring") and "Honogurai mizu no soko kara" (2005's "Dark Water"), Japan is a prime exporter of contemporary horror films. So when Jane and Ben accidentally run over a nubile hitchhiker while driving through the Japanese countryside, we aren't especially shocked. Although the basic elements are familiar — a vengeful ghost, attractive 20-somethings, exotic locales — director Masayuki Ochiai and screenwriter Luke Dawson manage to combine the elements in novel and not uninteresting ways. (PG-13)

!! 1/2 "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns"

In his quest to make the perfect movie for African-American church ladies, writer-director Tyler Perry is inching closer and closer to the mark. He's getting cannier in the casting department as well. "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns" doesn't so much star Angela Bassett as adores Angela Bassett, partially because it knows we do, too. Her character, Chicago single mom Brenda Brown, is at the end of her tether — she just lost her job, the electricity has been cut off, and her basketball star son Michael (Lance Gross) is hanging with the dealers — but the set of Bassett's jaw and her ungodly muscle tone signals the strength that'll pull Brenda through. Not that Perry hasn't written the actress more than enough despairing monologues, and not that she doesn't play each of them as if it's the big one. (PG-13)

!!! "Doomsday"

What is it about London and flesh-eating viruses? In "Doomsday," the year is 2035, and the city is beset by people keeling over with bubbling chins. They've got something called the "Reaper" virus. Yes, the government is desperate for a cure. No, they haven't tried Noxzema. Instead, they've dispatched an elite team of heavily armed specialists, led by the lethally efficient Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), to head into quarantined Scotland and find the cure. "Doomsday" is not a sequel. It's not even based on a video game. It's a flying circus from the agile mind of writer-director Neil Marshall, who moves past the movies that sound a lot like this one (those often starring Milla Jovovich or Kate Beckinsale) and builds a sleek new car from old parts. And we get what he's up to. Rather than ponder the craziness of erecting a Hadrian's Wall around Scotland, Marshall prefers to send a severed head flying toward the screen. He brings schlock as close to pop art as it can get. (R)

!! "Never Back Down"

Call "Never Back Down" "The Karate Kid" for MySpace cadets. Call it "Teen Fight Club." Call it "So You Think You Can Brawl." While you're noticing how this roughhouse drama is just like a bunch of other movies and reality shows, it's worth singling out for courageously showing us what boys really want — sure they're into cars and action and stuff. Some of them even like girls. But what they crave more than anything is to be popular. So thank you "Never Back Down" for confirming what CW has been suggesting for over a year: High school boys are the new high school girls. Jake (Sean Faris) is the new guy at some Orlando public school (he's a lapsed quarterback from Iowa). Since his dad died in a car accident, he's been moody, petulant, and arrest-prone. Video of his famous "Friday Night Lights"-style gridiron brawl has been virally spread all over his new school, where the kids now check him out in the halls. It used to be a nice face and good dental work made you a star. Here it's the public awareness that you can knock out a dude's teeth. (PG-13)

!! 1/2 "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!"

"Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" is strictly average computer-animated kiddie fare. But it's a relief not to have to put up with Mike Myers as a cretin in a cat suit. Second, after one Saturday morning screening, every 4-year-old stood and applauded. With a movie like this, they're the critics. If you have a kid or have ever been one, you know the story. Horton (the voice of Jim Carrey) is a big gormless elephant lumbering happily through the jungle until the day he hears a voice coming from a dust-speck. On that speck is the entire village of Whoville, and in that village is the Mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell). Unfortunately, the rest of the jungle thinks Horton's hallucinating. Led by a fascist soccer-mom kangaroo (Carol Burnett) and the Wickersham Brothers — a tribe of rampaging blue simians who stand as Dr. Seuss's most inspired vision of mob-think — the animals come after the elephant with a vengeance, bent on immolating the speck in a vat of boiling Beezlenut oil. Apply the political witch-hunt parallels as you see fit. (G)