Rating: PG-13, for some thematic material, including violence.
Blake Lively stars in this romantic fantasy as a beautiful woman who stopped aging at 29 after a cosmic car accident. Decades later, she’s been moving around and changing her identity to avoid being discovered — and she’s been reluctant to let anyone get close to her. This handsomely crafted film features a couple of major car crashes, actually. It suggests that Adaline has sex with the handsome philanthropist (Michiel Huisman) she allows herself to fall for, but we don?t actually see anything. There’s also a dog death, which might choke you up. (It got to me). And it features some very mature notions about love and immortality. Still, this is probably suitable for tweens and older — especially those with an interest in history or fashion. The statuesque Lively gets to wear some gorgeous period clothes.
Rating: PG-13, for some thematic material, including violence.
Don’t let the title fool you. This is a rather intense and violent film that may be too disturbing for your own little boy or girl. Jakob Salvati stars as a diminutive 8-year-old named Pepper, who’s mercilessly teased by bullies in 1940s small-town California. When his father and only friend (Michael Rapaport) goes off to fight in World War II, Pepper performs a series of charitable acts in hopes of bringing him back at the suggestion of the town priest (Tom Wilkinson). This is a faith-based movie that features war footage, a hate crime and racial epithets against a Japanese man, shootings, a major death and a funeral. It’s also kinda terrible. Avoid it if you can.
Rating: PG-13, for intense sequences of violence and action, and for brief strong language.
If you have seen the previous two Taken films, you pretty much know what you’re in for here: muscular, brutal and implausible PG-13 violence. Once again, Liam Neeson shows off his particular set of skills in the third (and supposedly last) installment in the series. This time, Neeson’s former covert operative is framed for the killing of his ex-wife (Famke Janssen). He must outsmart Los Angeles police, Russian gangsters and various government agencies to prove he’s innocent and protect his daughter (Maggie Grace) from becoming the next victim. Messily edited fistfights, shootouts, chases and crashes ensue. If you love Neeson and insist on seeing everything he’s in — or if you’re dying to know what happens next in the Taken series — I guess you’ll want to catch this. But you’ll probably be just fine if you don’t.
