'Son of Rambow' affirms faith and friendship
"Son of Rambow" (Paramount Vantage) is a rollicking but also touching chronicle of boyhood friendship set in 1980s Britain.

Reserved, introspective Will (Bill Milner) and rambunctious Lee (Will Poulter) seem an unlikely pair. But one day at school Will, the son of a puritanically religious widowed mother (Jessica Stevenson), is excused from watching an educational television program in accord with the strictures of his Amish-like sect. At the same time, Lee is, as usual, kicked out of class by his exasperated teacher. The two bond, resulting in an accidentally broken fish tank, a summons to the headmaster's office and a lasting friendship.

Lee's often absent parents leave him in the care of his dictatorial older brother, Lawrence (Ed Westwick), whose demands include Lee making bootleg videos of current movies. The sheltered Will is thus exposed to his first film -- one of Sylvester Stallone's "Rambo" adventures -- and becomes an instant enthusiast.

Christening himself "Son of Rambow" (he's never seen the name spelled out), Will collaborates with his new friend on a wildly frenetic sequel featuring a series of harebrained and hair-raising stunts. Didier (Jules Sitruk), an impossibly precocious, charismatically cool French exchange student, also wants to participate.

But perennial outsider Lee mistrusts the newcomer and his band of adoring disciples. As Didier, the school's Pied Piper, threatens to wrest control of the project from Lee, Will has to decide whose side to take. He also has to try to prevent his mother and the other members of "The Brethren" -- a stand-in for the Plymouth Brethren, a technology-shunning Christian movement founded in Dublin in the 1820s -- from discovering his ongoing sin of moviemaking.

Writer-director Garth Jennings' warmly humorous film, which draws on his own childhood experiences, portrays the religious atmosphere as stifling enough to justify its main character's conflicted resistance and evasions. But "Son of Rambow" ends by affirming faith as well as friendship in its thoroughly affecting final scenes.

The film contains shoplifting, underage smoking, a painful accident, and occasional crude and profane and some crass language. (A-III, PG-13)

The Fall (Roadside)
Exceedingly strange but fitfully affecting tale set in a Los Angeles hospital circa 1915 about the unlikely relationship between two patients: a spunky 5-year-old girl (adorable Catinca Untaru with, alas, an often impenetrable accent), and an embittered movie stuntman (Lee Pace) who keeps her enthralled with a story of bandits mirroring his devastating real-life breakup with his girlfriend. Director Tarsem's film -- imaginative in many ways -- goes on far too long and its elaborate fantasy sequences (alternately sophomoric and serious) are more wearying than illuminating, while the redemptive ending fails to compensate for a pervasively heavy and lachrymose tone. Action violence with bloodshed, a suicide attempt and a couple of instances of profanity. (A-III, R)

Iron Man (Paramount/Marvel)
Sleekly effective science-fiction tale about a devil-may-care playboy weapons manufacturer (Robert Downey Jr.) who, after being captured by an ambitious Afghanistan-based warlord (Faran Tahir) and ordered to build a replica of his most advanced product, with the help of another captive and scientist (Shaun Toub), instead constructs an impregnable suit of armor, escapes and begins to re-evaluate his life, with the support of his loyal girl Friday (Gwyneth Paltrow) and despite the doubts of his junior partner (Jeff Bridges) and military liaison (Terrence Howard). In between the impressive special effects, executive producer-director Jon Favreau's screen adaptation of this popular comic-book series charts its main character's conversion from callous genius to dedicated defender. Nongraphic sexual activity, torture, a graphic medical procedure, sci-fi violence, occasional crude language, a brief profanity, sexual humor and innuendo. (A-III, PG-13)

Made of Honor (Columbia)
A callous playboy (a charming Patrick Dempsey) comes to realize he loves his longtime best friend (Michelle Monaghan) just when she announces she's engaged to a Scottish lord (Kevin McKidd), and he agrees to be her "maid of honor" in the hopes of dissuading her from the marriage. Paul Welland's formulaic but ultimately winning film starts with some highly problematic elements having to do with the playboy's unbridled love life, but settles into a sentimental story about the hero learning the true meaning of love, while generally promoting an acceptable moral worldview. Nongraphic encounters, divorce, alcohol use, innuendo, and some crude words and expressions. (A-III, PG-13)

Speed Racer (Warner Bros.)
Overly long and only so-so live-action adventure yarn -- based on the 1960s Japanese animated TV series -- about a young race car driver (Emile Hirsch) who, with the loving support of his parents (John Goodman and Susan Sarandon) and girlfriend (Christina Ricci), stands up to the corrupt race sponsor (Roger Allam) and other baddies to compete in the race that killed his big brother. The Wachowski brothers, co-writers and directors, employ colorful animated backgrounds, and the positive family values and nice performances are added pluses, but the alternately chaotic and sentimental plotline will be of most interest to diehard fans of the cartoon, while some of the violence and language are a tad strong for those youngest viewers who might appreciate it most. Imax and conventional. Some intense, but not graphic, action violence, some crass language and expressions, and mild profanity. (A-II, PG)

What Happens in Vegas (Fox)
An inebriated couple -- a commodities trader (Cameron Diaz), dumped by her longtime boyfriend, and a womanizing slacker (Ashton Kutcher), fired from his closet-building job -- get married in Las Vegas, much to their later regret, and must live with the consequences when they return to New York and a judge orders them to try to make the marriage work for six months, if they are to decide who keeps the $3 million jackpot they won at the slots. Director Tom Vaughan's romantic comedy is lame, tasteless and unfunny, despite a premise that could work in better hands, while the warm-if-predictable ending fails to erase the sophomoric ineptitude of what has come before it. Pervasive vulgar humor, implied premarital cohabitation, scatological elements, some skimpy costuming, much crude language and brief profanity. (O, PG-13)

John Mulderig is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.