A guide to movies from a family perspective:
'Hellboy II: The Golden Army'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: 13 years and older.
r What you should know: This is the second movie based on the Dark Horse comic book character Hellboy (Ron Perlman), an affectionate demon who smokes cigars and shoots monsters who threaten humanity. In this installment by Guillermo del Toro, he fights a mechanical army designed to destroy the human race.
r Language: Crude with some mild expletives.
r Sexual situations and nudity: All implied.
r Violence/scary situations: That's for sure — for example, humans are consumed by creatures called Tooth Fairies that leave nothing but blood and calcium behind. Also, epic battle scenes with swordplay, beheadings and explosions. Creatures are very intense — the monsters that nightmares are made of.
r Drug or alcohol use: Hellboy likes his beer.
'Journey to the Center of the Earth'
r Rated: PG.
r Suitable for: 8 and older.
r What you should know: The latest film version of the popular 19th-century Jules Verne science-fiction novel, about a trio looking for a lost explorer and finding a lost world in the middle of the Earth.
r Language: Nothing objectionable.
r Sexual situations and nudity: One kiss, but nothing more than that.
r Violence/scary situations: Many harrowing plunges and narrow escapes from various prehistoric reptiles and flying fish with big teeth. The 3-D effects are more ornamental than frightening.
r Drugs or alcohol use: None.
'Hancock'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: 9 and older.
r What you should know: Will Smith plays an unhappy superhero — surly, often drunk and sad — who gets an image makeover after he meets a public-relations specialist played by Jason Bateman.
r Language: Adults and children typically call him an offensive seven-letter word that starts with "a." One f-word and other less harsh expletives are used throughout, and people give the finger. The word "homo" is also used to describe traditional comic-book characters.
r Sexual situations and nudity: A quick partial shot of Hancock's behind after his clothes are burned.
r Violence/scary situations: Lots of both, including car chases, an exchange of gunfire, a hostage-taking, a super-size fight, the slicing off of a hand and the near-deaths of key characters.
r Drug or alcohol use: At the beginning, Hancock is drinking or drunk, lugging around a whiskey bottle with him.
'Get Smart'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: 8 and older.
r What you should know: The 1960s TV series, a spy spoof starring Don Adams, has been turned into a big-screen movie with "The Office" star Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99.
r Language: About a dozen uses of generally mild four-letter words.
r Sexual situations and nudity: Hathaway is seen, briefly, in lingerie, a reference is made to an affair and a couple of kisses are exchanged.
r Violence/scary situations: A steady stream of both, some played for laughs. There are explosions, fires, airplane mishaps, weapons planted in public places, exchanges of gunfire, a car-train collision and other scary stunts.
r Drug or alcohol use: Champagne is served at a party.
'The Love Guru'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: Middle school and older.
r What you should know: Mike Myers is "The Love Guru," who comes to America to become the No. 1 self-help celebrity and assists a woeful hockey star with his love life.
r Language: Crude jokes and mild profanity throughout.
r Sexual situations and nudity: Mostly verbal and lots of innuendo.
r Violence/scary situations: Slapstick comic violence without visible injuries resulting.
r Drug or alcohol use: Many references to being or getting high, but no on-screen use.
'The Incredible Hulk'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: 9- or 10-year-olds and older.
r What you should know: The Marvel Comics character, the focus of a 1970s TV show and a 2003 movie with Eric Bana, gets another big-screen treatment. This time, it stars Edward Norton as scientist Bruce Banner, who turns into the Hulk against his will. The cast also includes Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Tim Roth.
r Language: A dozen or so mild profanities, at least one with "God" attached.
r Sexual situations and nudity: In a discreetly filmed shot, a naked man curls up on the bottom of a tub. A couple kiss while reclining on a bed but stop because if Banner gets too "excited," he will transform into the Hulk.
r Violence/scary situations: Lots of both. Banner turns into the Hulk, and a soldier becomes an even bigger behemoth called the Abomination. They have a violent, noisy fight, and the story also has military attacks, explosions, fires, injuries that send people to the hospital, chases and old-fashioned fisticuffs.
r Drug or alcohol use: A brief scene is set in a bar where a character downs a couple of drinks.
'Kung Fu Panda'
r Rated: PG.
r Suitable for: Preschoolers and older children who can sit through a 90-minute movie.
r What you should know: A klutzy panda, working in his family's noodle shop, is unexpectedly chosen to be the next dragon warrior in this action-packed, colorfully animated film with the voices of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie.
r Language: None.
r Sexual situations and nudity: None.
r Violence/scary situations: An evil snow leopard, with glowing eyes, escapes from a dark, spooky prison. Lots of martial-arts mayhem, including a number of nasty fights. An elderly character, whose time has come, disappears into a swirl of peach blossoms.
r Drug or alcohol use: None.
'You Don't Mess With the Zohan'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: Mature high-school students and older.
r What you should know: Adam Sandler stars in this comedy as a top Israeli commando who fakes his death so he can move to America and become a hairdresser. This pushes the rating with its sexual situations and nudity, making it inappropriate for tweens and younger moviegoers.
r Language: A dozen or so profanities, most relatively mild, along with a derogatory Yiddish word for a homosexual.
r Sexual situations and nudity: Naked backsides are shown, more than once, and there is evidence or references to male potency, erections, sexual liaisons and couplings either interrupted or played out behind closed doors.
r Violence/scary situations: Characters are kicked into walls, pushed from balconies and chased. People fire weapons, vandals deface buildings and set them on fire, a limo ride makes a passenger vomit and characters talk about building a bomb, all for comic effect.
r Drug or alcohol use: Nothing notable.
'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: 9- or 10-year-olds and up, keeping in mind the violence described below.
r What you should know: This is the fourth movie starring Harrison Ford as archaeologist-adventurer Indiana Jones. He is joined by a young sidekick, played by Shia LaBeouf, in a story set during the Cold War in 1957. The movie's rating is for adventure violence and scary images.
r Language: Pretty clean, with a handful of mild expletives.
r Sexual situations and nudity: A couple of kisses are exchanged.
r Violence/scary situations: Lots of both. People are gunned down, kidnapped or held captive, and plenty of punches exchanged. An atomic blast levels blocks of a neighborhood, empty except for one interloper who survives. Chase scenes are lengthy and perilous, and there are skeletons, armies of ants and references to UFOs and alien remains. Characters sink into something like quicksand, mind games are played and a person's eyes burst into flames.
r Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink wine and when LaBeouf's character tries to grab a beer, Indy stops him. Another adult has an almost-empty bottle of booze that he apparently consumed.
'Son of Rambow'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: 9- or 10-year-olds and up but probably best for tweens and older moviegoers.
r What you should know: Inspired by "First Blood" and Rambo, a school bully decides to make a movie and enlists an unlikely collaborator, a boy who belongs to a religious sect that forbids movies, TV or music but who has an overactive imagination. The story is set in England in the 1980s.
r Language: A dozen or so uses of mild expletives or "Jesus Christ."
r Sexual situations and nudity: Couples kiss.
r Violence/scary situations: One of the boys recounts the sudden death of his father, from an aneurysm. There is also bullying, tussles, accidents (including one that appears to be deadly or very serious), shoplifting and scary stunts involving the making of the movie. A child imagines an evil scarecrow coming to life, two boys cut their hands so they can become blood brothers and there are very brief clips from the real Sylvester Stallone movie.
r Drug or alcohol use: One of the boys occasionally smokes a cigarette and a movie theater is filled with smokers.
'Young@Heart'
r Rated: PG.
r Suitable for: Tweens and older. While there's little objectionable, there are sad moments dealing with serious illness and death.
r What you should know: This is a documentary about a New England senior-citizens chorus that does covers of songs by The Clash, Coldplay and other unlikely groups. It's as entertaining as it is inspirational.
r Language: A naughty word or two.
r Sexual situations and nudity: An older man has a trinket that says "Still a sexy beast" and, in a brief response to a question, says he is still sexually active although it "takes longer" but is more fun.
r Violence/scary situations: A couple of key members of the chorus fall ill and die, and it's very sad when the news is announced.
r Drug or alcohol use: Nothing notable.
'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian'
r Rated: PG.
r Suitable for: 9- or 10-year-olds and up.
r What you should know: This is the sequel to the popular "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." It is darker and more intense, and many critics have complained that it's closer to a PG-13 than PG.
r Language: Nothing notable.
r Sexual situations and nudity: A kiss.
r Violence/scary situations: The rating is for epic battle action and violence, and while you don't see much blood, you know injuries or deaths occur. School children tussle, a character escapes an assassination attempt ordered by a family member and another is rescued after being bound and tossed into the water. The most intense scenes involve a castle raid — some outsiders are trapped and left behind — and a violent, protracted, big-scale battle.
r Drug or alcohol use: Negligible.
'Iron Man'
r Rated: PG-13.
r Suitable for: 9- or 10-year-olds, due to scary material.
r What you should know: This movie skews slightly older than the first "Spider-Man," particularly because it's about a man rather than a teen-ager. Robert Downey Jr. plays the comic-book character Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist and genius inventor who constructs his alter ego, Iron Man.
r Language: A handful of expletives, including at least one use of God's name.
r Sexual situations and nudity: Stark is a ladies' man who invites a woman back to his home. We watch them kiss and see the woman in his bed the next morning and then wandering around in a man's shirt.
r Violence/scary situations: This is where the movie earns its rating. Stark is kidnapped amid a fiery display and held captive and tortured (dunked in water, forced to undergo surgery) overseas. A minor character is shot to death, another person appears to die and there are explosions, fires, falls, chases and deadly exchanges of weapons. Tony and many others are put in potentially fatal danger.
r Drug or alcohol use: A fair amount of everything, from champagne to martinis and sake, is ordered or consumed.
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