"The Black Dahlia"

Brian De Palma's fictionalized tale of two Los Angeles detectives assigned to the gruesome 1940s murder of a real-life wannabe starlet begins as a slow but intriguing character study that gradually unravels into a turgid mess. Like so many De Palma pictures, the convoluted story gets choked amid the flash and flourishes of the filmmaker's visual excess, and characters who start out promisingly idiosyncratic become caricatures by the end. Adapted from James Ellroy's noir mystery thriller, the movie stars Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart as cops hunting for the psycho who killed and mutilated a young actress (Mia Kirshner) then cut her in half in a notorious unsolved Hollywood homicide. Hilary Swank plays a femme fatale and Scarlett Johansson co-stars as a woman involved with both cops. R for strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content and language. 121 minutes. HH

"Everyone's Hero"

A scrawny little boy, growing up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium during the Depression worshipping Babe Ruth, learns self-esteem when he goes on an adventure with a talking baseball and the Bambino's beloved bat. (The movie is animated, by the way, and not a documentary by Ken Burns.) Given his professional sports affiliation and his name, you'd think young Yankee Irving (voiced by Jake T. Austin) would be insufferably overconfident, but that's a conversation for another time. Instead, "Everyone's Hero" is exceedingly earnest with its feel-good message of perseverance, which ordinarily would make it an easy target for trashing. But Christopher Reeve was directing this when he died, and his late wife, Dana, was a producer and provided the voice of the boy's mother, and everyone involved seems committed to carrying on their legacy posthumously. So the kindest thing we can say is this: The movie means well and, like tee ball, it's probably best suited for the littlest kids only. Rob Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg and William H. Macy are among the vocal cast, with the ideally cast Brian Dennehy bellowing as the Babe. G. 85 min. HH

"Gridiron Gang"

Running alongside the closing credits is a series of clips from the 1993 documentary that provided the basis for this drama about a football team at a Los Angeles juvenile detention center. The real people say and do the same things we just saw actors say and do, only in a stripped-down, matter-of-fact manner without the swelling of bombastic music to accompany every feel-good or poignant moment. Those final few moments are more powerful than anything we saw during the previous two hours, simply because they don't try so hard to be. Former television and music video director Phil Joanou is relentless in his attempts to inspire us, but the result is just overbearing and redundant. The football scenes themselves, though, are sufficiently visceral in their bone-crunching intensity. And Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson exudes his usual natural magnetism as the probation officer turned coach. (Not once does he try to wring a laugh out of raising that famous eyebrow of his.) PG-13 for some startling scenes of violence, mature thematic material and language. 120 min. HH

"Haven"

White-collar criminals and dangerous thugs, haves and have-nots, sex and drugs, all mixed together in a secretive, tropical setting: This has the makings of a decadent nighttime soap, but none of the components of a cohesive, satisfying film. It probably sounded like a juicy idea to writer-director Frank E. Flowers, a native of the Cayman Islands who set and shot his movie there. The 24-year-old wanted to expose the ugly side of paradise with his intersecting, overstylized stories of greed and deception. But even the supposedly sympathetic characters -- a young couple from disparate socioeconomic backgrounds whose love is forbidden and doomed -- merely come off as whiny and annoying. The story of Shy (Orlando Bloom, who's also an executive producer) and Andrea (Zoe Saldana) is just one of those plot lines, all of which feature impossibly beautiful characters who are impossible to care about. Each of them has drama, but none of them has any dramatic tension. Anthony Mackie, Bill Paxton, Agnes Bruckner and Victor Rasuk co-star. R for language, drug use, sexual content and some language. 98 min. H 1Ž2

"The Last Kiss"

If names like Tony Goldwyn and Paul Haggis weren't attached, you'd swear this was just another Edward Burns movie. In fact, it's a lot like Burns' last movie, "The Groomsmen," even though it's a remake of the Italian "L'Ultimo Bacio." Four guys, longtime best friends, reach a crisis point in their respective relationships as they approach 30 and they all do it in hyperarticulate terms. Michael (Zach Braff) is reluctant to marry his pregnant girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) and ends up having a fling with a vivacious college student (Rachel Bilson of "The O.C." in her first big film role). Chris (Casey Affleck) is thinking about leaving his wife after finding that having a child together didn't improve their marriage. And so on. Goldwyn, directing Haggis' adapted screenplay, veers jarringly between wackiness and melodrama. But he gets some lovely moments out of Tom Wilkinson and Blythe Danner (with talent like that it would be impossible not to) as Barrett's parents, whose 30-year marriage is also on the verge of collapse. When they're on screen, "The Last Kiss" feels like a different film -- one that's substantial, alive and achingly real. R for sexuality, nudity and language. 107 min. HH

"The Covenant"

Amazing that a movie about hot teenage warlocks trying to destroy each other at an elite New England boarding school would be withheld from critics before opening day. That's been the annoying trend with nearly all the horror movies that have come out this year -- though all that's scary about "The Covenant" are the words that appear before the title: "A Renny Harlin Film." This latest offering from the man behind "Cutthroat Island" and "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane" feels more like the pilot for a geek-friendly prime-time drama on the old WB. It's trying very hard to establish its own unique supernatural world, albeit one that functions squarely within a recognizable, contemporary setting. (A reference to the latest Brad Pitt movie, for example, just feels weak and wedged in, though.) The film follows the pampered descendants of four families (Steven Strait, Taylor Kitsch, Toby Hemingway and Chace Crawford) that have had extraordinary powers since they arrived in Massachusetts in the late 1600s. A member of a fifth family (Sebastian Stan), which was cut out of the covenant, shows up seeking revenge. PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, sexual content, partial nudity and language. 97 min. H

"Hollywoodland"

It should have been more decadent, this L.A. story of love, fame and jealousy. It should have been more lurid, with its competing conspiracy theories about murder vs. suicide and the high-powered players under suspicion. Instead, "Hollywoodland" sidles up to you, glamorously looking the part but delivering far less than the goods. This retracing of the death of TV's Superman, George Reeves (Ben Affleck), oozes period authenticity and features several strong performances, notably from Diane Lane who's vibrant and vicious as Reeves' older, married mistress. Even the supporting actors are powerful in the briefest of roles, including Joe Spano as MGM's publicist and Lois Smith as Reeves' grieving mother. But there's something sadly inert about the feature debut from longtime TV director Allen Coulter ("Sex and the City," "The Sopranos"), a lethargy to the pacing that makes it feel as if it will never end after only an hour. Adrien Brody stars as the detective investigating Reeves' death, with Bob Hoskins playing the crass MGM president. R for language, some violence and sexual content. 126 min. HH

"The Protector"

This is probably the only movie you'll see this year in which a character runs around yelling, "Where are my elephants?" in subtitled English before annihilating anyone in his path who provides the wrong answer. Yes, "The Protector" gleefully revels in its own ridiculousness, which is probably why Quentin Tarantino was drawn to it and wanted to share it with American audiences. Tony Jaa, star of the 2003 cult favorite "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior," once again dazzles with his mastery of the Muay Thai martial art, kicking and spinning and snapping the arms and legs of a seemingly endless stream of attackers. His character's mission: Retrieve his family's regal elephant and its baby, who have been stolen by gangsters and smuggled to Sydney for sale on the black market. Go see Prachya Pinkaew's movie for the complicated choreography -- especially an impressive four-minute, continuous take -- not for the acting, dialogue or production value. R for pervasive strong violence and some sexual content. In Thai with English subtitles. 84 min. HH