'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' first in saga to use animated form
Part of the mythical Jedi Knights' chivalrous code, we learn in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (Warner Bros.), is to share fighting skills with young warriors in training, much as medieval men-at-arms did for the squires who apprenticed with them.

Accordingly, this seventh big-screen installment of the intergalactic saga -- the first in animated form -- has master fighter Anakin Skywalker (voice of Matt Lanter) teamed with an unlikely and initially unwanted sidekick, a 14-year-old girl named Ahsoka (voice of Ashley Eckstein).

Anakin's commander, Yoda (voice of Tom Kane), has created this odd couple with the hope of smoothing some of the rough edges of his courageous but arrogant underling. For her part, Ahsoka will have to get her soldierly education on the fly since -- wouldn't you know -- there's a war on, pitting the Republic, which the Jedi serve, against seceding planets known collectively as the Separatists.

The titular clones are created as endless cannon fodder for the Republicans, with robots serving the same purpose on the secessionists' side. But this morally fraught back story is just a device to keep the bullets flying and the screen filled with troops.

As Ahsoka begins to prove her worth, winning Anakin's grudging approval, the two are dispatched on a quest by Yoda and fellow commander Obi-Wan Kenobi (voice of James Arnold Taylor). Their mission is to free the kidnapped infant son of master bandit Jabba the Hutt, whose control of trade routes makes him a vital ally.

The blobby, malodorous baby is being held at a remote monastery as part of the nefarious schemes of Count Dooku (richly voiced by Christopher Lee), who's aided by his battle-hardened minion Asajj Ventress (voice of Nika Futterman).

Despite all the details of the elaborate mythos, storytelling takes a back seat to prolonged battle sequences in director Dave Filoni's noisy addition to the franchise. But the violence never becomes graphic, and there's virtually no objectionable material.

The stylized computer generated animation -- partly inspired by the 1960s British television series "Thunderbirds" -- may strike some viewers as iconic, others as merely stiff.

The film contains moderate fantasy violence and one mild oath. (A-II, PG)

Henry Poole Is Here (Overture)
Moving little fable of a depressed loner (Luke Wilson) whose life is changed when a warmhearted Latina busybody (Adriana Barraza) discerns a miraculous image of Christ's face on his stucco wall, after which he slowly opens up to her and the other neighbors: an empathetic widow (Radha Mitchell), her sad child (Morgan Lily), a nearsighted grocery clerk (Rachel Seiferth) and the local priest (George Lopez). Despite some formulaic turns and occasional platitudinous dialogue, director Mark Pellington sustains a suspenseful, sometimes poetic, generally unsentimental mood, not without humor, solidly anchored by Wilson whose transformation from spiritual emptiness to redemption is fully believable, with themes of faith and community strong pluses for the Catholic viewer. Two instances of profanity and a few crass words. (A-II, PG)

Tropic Thunder (DreamWorks)
Relentlessly vulgar and only fitfully funny action comedy about a group of washed-up movie actors (Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. among them) who think they're making a big-budget war movie in Vietnam, but actually find themselves facing off against ruthless heroin dealers. Co-writer and director Stiller's premise must have seemed better on paper, but despite some sharp jibes here and there, and a game cast that includes Matthew McConaughey and a wildly out-of-character Tom Cruise, the frenetic satire never quite reconciles its uncertain tone between Hollywood send-up and genuinely brutal adventure. Nonstop rough language and profanity, crass expressions, strong violence and gore, torture, brief irreverence, drug use, scatological humor and frank sexual references. (O, R)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (MGM/Weinstein)
Best friends vacationing in Spain -- one nonchalantly uninhibited (Scarlett Johansson), the other respectably pragmatic (Rebecca Hall) -- accept a charming artist's (Javier Bardem) invitation for a cozy weekend in a resort town, leading to triangular complications, eventually muddied further by the arrival of the artist's volatile ex-wife (Penelope Cruz), and the formation of a temporary "menage a trois." Though this diverting romantic comedy is almost fablelike in presentation (and therefore not to be taken literally), the cast and locale engaging, overt sexual elements minimal, and the characters' actions not entirely devoid of moral weight, the premise of the film may still prove problematic. An implied sexual threesome, a casual view of nonmarital sex and two brief nongraphic encounters, an implied extramarital dalliance, a nihilistic worldview, a few crude words and profanities, and brief gun violence. (L, 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. Office for Film & Broadcasting classifications: A-I --- general patronage; A-II --- adults and adolescents; A-III --- adults; L --- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling; O --- morally offensive.