“Hancock”
*** 1/2 Rating | Played with finesse by Will Smith, damaged superhero Hancock shows scant signs of shaking off his bitter moods. The unkempt L.A. denizen is sleeping it off on a bench when a major freeway shootout transpires. Signs of Hancock’s disenchantment range from alcohol abuse to rank personal hygiene to sorry interpersonal skills with regular folk. His don’t-give-a-damn rejoinders tip the movie’s PG-13 rating toward R. A typically clumsy intervention by the super-gifted bum leads to an intervention of a different sort and sends this action-FX ride in surprisingly humane directions. PG-13. 1 hour, 32 minutes. Lisa Kennedy
“Mamma Mia!”
** 1/2 Rating | Fans of the ABBA musical will likely bring a happy sense-memory of the play with them into the multiplex. That will be all they need to be off and humming along to this story of a daughter on the cusp of marriage, her mother and the three men who may be her father. Those hoping to be wowed by what is a tantalizing, grown-up cast — Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Christine Baranski — are in for choppier waters. But you can’t accuse Streep and Co. of not being super troupers. They sing. They dance. Only too often, it seems like exertion when play should be the thing. Instead theater director Phyllida Lloyd has made “the play the thing.” One of the three creators of the onstage smash, Lloyd has little sense of cinema’s less-is- more powers. Not to say that she’s delivered a dud or a dirge. Far from it. It’s just that “Mamma Mia!” feels like a souvenir program: something to revive the feelings you had watching the stage performance. PG-13. 1 hour, 48 minutes. Lisa Kennedy
“Space Chimps”
*** Rating | “Chimps,” from the animation studio that gave us “Valiant,” is one of those cartoons parents won’t mind sitting through while little Miss or Mister 8-and-under chuckles at the cute talking primates. And chuckle they will. With adorable critters and icky monsters and oodles of potential toy accessories (to say nothing of a video game tie-in), this movie looks for that sweet spot in every 7-year-old’s heart for chimpanzees and movies about them. And the script manages the occasional wisecrack or movie lovers’ inside joke to keep the grown-ups awake, too. G. 1 hour, 21 minutes. Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel.
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