The Family Filmgoer

Flyboys (PG-13, 139 minutes)

Based on fact, but using fictionalized composite characters, "Flyboys" recounts how a few brave (or foolish) young American men, for honor or adventure, volunteered in 1916 as pilots for France's Lafayette Escadrille fighter squadron, well before the United States entered World War I. They flew rickety little planes with machine guns mounted on them and engaged German pilots in aerial dogfights above the battlefield trenches. The pilots' survival rate, we're told, was three to six weeks. James Franco plays the key protagonist, a rancher who loses his land and joins up. He becomes a fearless flying ace and falls, of course, for a French girl (Jennifer Decker). Martin Henderson plays a driven veteran pilot who tells the new men to "find your own meaning in this war." Abdul Salis plays an African American expatriate who had been a successful prizefighter in France and joins up to thank that country for its acceptance of him. The film portrays swooping, bullet-riddled dogfights and thundering ground warfare, all with ballistic realism, but the blood and death portrayed -- including a man's hand being severed -- include little gore. "Flyboys" also contains a suicide, shootings, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, mild sexual innuendo (including scenes at a French brothel with women in bustiers and bloomers), rare profanity, racial slurs, brief toilet humor and drinking.

Jackass: Number Two (R, 95 minutes)

Crude beyond all measure and so gross it may actually trigger gagging in the audience, "Jackass: Number Two" has moments of lowbrow hilarity. It is not really a movie but a kind of reality show made by guys who never outgrew their lazy, hazy days of frat-house punking. It is sure to draw teen audiences, though it pushes its R rating nearly to NC-17 and would be considered inappropriate for under-17s by many parents. Featuring Johnny Knoxville and the gang from MTV's "Jackass" show (and "Jackass: The Movie"), the guys try ridiculous stunts that could get them killed and then whoop at their own idiocy. This includes going off piers in rocket-powered grocery carts, running from rampaging bulls, wrestling with an anaconda that bites them bloody, letting another snake sink its fangs into a sock puppet covering a guy's member and doing a totally offensive "terrorist" skit. The toilet humor is gross and real, including on-screen defecation, vomiting and the consuming of byproducts from a horse's bodily functions. The film is totally profane and full of almost-but-not-quite frontal male nudity.

ALSO PLAYING

6 and Older

"Everyone's Hero" (G). Amiable, if unexceptional, computer-animated Depression-era fable (directed early on by Christopher Reeve -- completed by others after his death) about 10-year-old Yankee Irving (voice of Jake T. Austin), whose dad (Mandy Patinkin) gets fired from his job at Yankee Stadium after Babe Ruth's bat disappears; the boy deduces a sleazy Cubs pitcher (William H. Macy) did it and takes off on a heroic journey from New York to Chicago to get the bat and return it to Ruth (Brian Dennehy); a talking baseball (Rob Reiner) and later Ruth's bat (Whoopi Goldberg) accompany him -- only Yankee can hear them or see their faces; Negro League players and hobos help him. Cartoonishly harrowing chases; gross "booger ball" pitch; flatulence gag; Yankee's parents worrying; nasty dig at Eleanor Roosevelt in script.

8 and Older

"How to Eat Fried Worms" (PG). Funny gross-out fable (based on the 1973 kids' novel by Thomas Rockwell) about 11-year-old Billy (Luke Benward), who bets the bully (Adam Hicks) at his new school that he, Billy, can eat 10 worms in a day; a nice girl (Hallie Kate Eisenberg) lends moral support, but Billy must chew alone; film deftly shows value of friendship, understanding -- even for bullies; Billy eats worms fried in lard, exploded in a microwave, pureed with broccoli; vomit jokes; worm sphincter gags; Billy's little brother says "penis"; ragged, scary proprietress of a bait shop chases kids.

10 and Older

"Invincible" (PG). Surprisingly poignant reality-based tale of Vincent Papale (Mark Wahlberg in sensitive, believably athletic turn); an out-of-work teacher and part-time bartender in 1976 Philadelphia, Papale is a champ at neighborhood football games; when new Philadelphia Eagles coach Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) holds open tryouts as a publicity stunt, Papale goes; he impresses Vermeil and makes the NFL team, despite the pro players' hostility toward a 30-year-old rookie. Rare mild profanity; understated sexual tension between Papale and a new love (Elizabeth Banks); football field mayhem; beer.

PG-13s

"All the King's Men." Handsomely shot but soporific adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's novel stars Sean Penn in overwrought, too-simplistic turn as Willie Stark, a small-town populist who becomes governor and grows corrupt and demogogic -- though the change in him occurs unsatisfactorily off-screen; Jude Law as Jack Burden, the newsman, and film's narrator, who works for Stark; Kate Winslet and Mark Ruffalo as Burden's friends; Anthony Hopkins as his godfather -- all people Burden fails. A bloody, slow-motion shootout; implied suicide; near-nudity; sexual innuendo, implied sexual liaisons; occasional profanity; drinking, smoking. Teenagers.

"Gridiron Gang." Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as youth counselor Sean Porter, who started a football team in a California detention center for violent juvenile offenders, using it to turn around gang members' lives; uplifting fact-based story feels preachy and long but might inspire teenagers who like sports dramas. A couple of fatal shootings; rough fights; lots of midrange profanity, a few stronger words; mildly crude sexual language; racial slur; themes about teenagers fathering babies, losing a parent, grief.

"The Covenant." Music video masquerading as a movie spins silly yarn about cadre of teen warlocks at a New England prep school; as descendants of Salem witches, they must keep their powers secret; Caleb (Steven Strait), on the eve of his 18th-birthday "ascendance" to full power, is challenged by a new kid (Sebastian Stan) who aims to steal his powers. Dead bodies with blank white eyes; a skeletal human; swarming spiders; rats; warlocks slam each other against walls, zap each other with light; much teen sexual innuendo; a few make-out moments; shower scene with implied nudity; gross-out humor; middling profanity; homophobic slur; smoking, drinking.

Rs

"The Black Dahlia." Deeply flawed and convoluted film noir -- hilariously melodramatic with maddeningly obscure dialogue; based on James Ellroy's novel, in turn based on gruesome real-life 1947 murder of struggling Hollywood actress Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner); Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett as cops obsessed with the crime, Scarlett Johansson as a woman they both love, Hilary Swank as a rich girl with secrets. Graphic views of mutilated corpse; shootouts; bullet-riddled victims, including a child; bloody baseball bat and razor attack; rough boxing match; steamy but abbreviated, nongraphic sexual situations; toplessness, back-view nudity; semi-explicit scenes from lesbian porn film; profanity; racial slur; drinking, smoking; references to drug use. 17 and older.

"The Last Kiss." Affably rumpled, ultra-articulate adult dramedy about thirty-somethings and the pain of learning to be adults; Zach Braff stars as a guy suddenly terrified that his longtime girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) is pregnant; Rachel Bilson as the college girl who tempts him; Casey Affleck, Michael Weston, Eric Christian Olsen as his pals, their love lives also in turmoil; Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson as his girlfriend's folks in a rocky relationship, too. Explicit sexual situations with near-total nudity; profanity; marijuana; drinking; toilet humor. Not for most under-17s.

"Hollywoodland." Expert, atmospheric film-noirish murder mystery set in 1950s Hollywood, inspired by apparent 1959 suicide of actor George Reeves (Ben Affleck), who played Superman on TV but longed for a film career; Adrien Brody as unethical private eye who tries to pry the truth from Reeves's ex-lover (Diane Lane) and her studio exec husband (Bob Hoskins), imagining various reasons for the actor's demise. Graphic gun violence; bloodied victims; explicit, though clothed, sexual situation; steamy sexual innuendo; milder love scenes; implied nudity; strong profanity; drinking, smoking. 16 and older.