Film capsules are written by Lawrence Toppman. If there's no star rating, he hasn't seen the movie. Grades: 4 stars = excellent, 3 stars = good, 2 stars = fair, 1 star = poor.

The comedy troupe Broken Lizard ("Club Dread," "The Dukes of Hazzard") set this movie in Germany, where brothers (Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske) realize grandpa stole a beer recipe and feel obligated to beat German beer-guzzlers at their own games. 110 minutes. Pervasive crude and sexual content, language, nudity and substance abuse.

A fifth-grader (Luke Benward) challenges a bully and ends up accepting the dare of the title to change the balance of power at the school. Writer-director Bob Dolman adapted Thomas Rockwell's novel. 98 minutes.

Debut director Bryan Barber got famous directing videos for Outkast. Now he's written and directed a Prohibition-era musical starring its members, Antwan Patton and André Benjamin, as a club manager fending off gangsters and a piano player choosing between his woman (Paula Patton) and obligations to his father (Ben Vereen). The score is all modern hip-hop.

In 1976, 30-year-old bartender Vince Papale walked out of the economic depression of South Philadelphia and onto the field at Veterans Stadium. His triumphant story is now a fine, conventional sports biography full of uplift, like "The Rookie" and "Miracle" (also from Disney). But director-cinematographer Ericson Core gives it grit by setting it against the depressed cityscape: Papale becomes a symbol of hope for his unemployed pals. Mark Wahlberg is just right as the troubled Everyman. 105 minutes.

A high school senior (Justin Long) rejected by college after college "invents" a university online to fool his parents, then discovers students from all over the country want to attend. With Blake Lively and Jonah Hill. 90 minutes.

This animated film takes its visual style from "Antz" and its premise from "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"; the climax, by bad luck, resembles the finale of the more interesting "Over the Hedge." (Animals repel a deranged exterminator.) The film is competent, if simplistic, in its preachy message that bullies are bad, but there's nothing for adults. The title character, a boy who attacks the anthill in his yard, is shrunk by an ant magician and forced to work in the colony until he learns about cooperation and sacrifice. Voices include Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Paul Giamatti and Meryl Streep. 88 minutes.

An idea inspired by Gary Larson's "The Far Side" meets zany humor, wild musical numbers and a very traditional story about maturing and sharing. Otis the cow (Kevin James) learns to take care of the weaker animals and live up to the teachings of his dad (Sam Elliott), keeping coyotes at bay and falling in love with Daisy (Courteney Cox). Manic, uneven fun. 90 minutes.

The latest IMAX movie at Discovery Place is an exploration of some of the planet's most unique, dangerous and colorful creatures, from the Wolf Eel to the Giant Pacific Octopus. Veteran underwater cinematographer Howard Hall ("Coral Reef Adventure") directed; Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet narrated; Danny Elfman wrote the score. The photography is sumptuous, especially when manta rays sweep up plankton by moonlight, though there's an awfully strong emphasis on the fish-eat-fish toughness of their world. 45 minutes.

Effective horror with a simple set-up -- six women go caving in the Appalachian mountains -- a gradual buildup of suspense and a gorily effective payoff. Writer-director Neil Marshall satisfies us for a while with dead ends, near-falls into deep pits, paranoia and claustrophobia. Then he introduces the crawlers, who are white, hunched, hairless, bat-eared carnivores. No plot and not enough character development, but lots of thrills. 99 minutes.

Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush and Arielle Kebbel take revenge on a sports star in their high school, who's a serial dater (Jesse Metcalfe). Directed by Betty Thomas ("I Spy"). 87 minutes.

An adoptive father (Shawn Wayans) mistakes a midget criminal on the lam (Marlon Wayans) for his new infant son. Keenen Ivory Wayans directed and wrote the script with brothers Shawn and Marlon. 90 minutes.

Six members of the dysfunctional Hoover family bond while driving from New Mexico to Redondo Beach, Calif., to take the daughter (adorable Abigail Breslin) to a beauty pageant. That description doesn't do justice to the dark comedy, bizarre situations and hard edge of this film, which satirizes unsavory preteen pageants and (unlike most Sundance favorites) doesn't get soft and gooey at the core. The ensemble cast includes Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano and Greg Kinnear; the sure-handed first-time directors are Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. 100 minutes.

Wealthy sisters (Hilary and Haylie Duff) lose their inherited fortune and learn to survive like normal folks. Not screened for critics anywhere, thank goodness. 97 minutes.

A staggering misfire by director Michael Mann, who adapts the zippy TV show he created into something grungy, charmless, slow, obvious and stupid. Miami detectives Crockett and Tubbs (Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) go undercover to bust a ring of drug dealers and Aryan supremacists, and Crockett falls for the top man's girlfriend (Gong Li). One character actually ends up in a coma, which accounts for her unresponsiveness; the others have no excuse. 135 minutes.

The action-capture animation used creepily in "The Polar Express" finds its perfect expression in this horror comedy, as three kids -- brave D.J. (Mitchel Musso), smart Jenny (Spencer Locke) and Chowder (Sam Lerner) -- figure out the secret of the possessed suburban house that eats people when its owner (Steve Buscemi) is carried away after a heart attack. The film runs off the rails near the end, but it's a roller-coaster ride until then. Not for the youngest children, but adults will have fun with the humor. 91 minutes.

Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams), a depressed radio monologist in New York City, cheers up when his publisher gives him a memoir written by one of his fans, a 14-year-old Wisconsin boy dying of AIDS. Noone develops a tender phone relationship with the teen, until he begins to suspect the affair is a cruel hoax begun by a manipulative woman (Toni Collette). Armistead Maupin adapted his own novel with rewrites by Terry Anderson and director Patrick Stettner, and they undermine fine actors by making an implausible mess of almost every situation. 88 minutes.

Another remake of a Japanese horror film, this one about a hacker who channels a wireless signal; coeds must prevent an evil force from taking over the world. Kristen Bell, Christina Milian and Riki Lindhome star. 110 minutes.

No news here, as writer-director Woody Allen loosely recycles the idea of "Manhattan Murder Mystery." A well-off woman (Scarlett Johansson) believes a wealthy charmer is a killer, and her reluctant accomplice (Allen) agrees to help investigate. Hugh Jackman does good, simple work as the playboy, but the patchwork, coincidental plot gives away all its surprises too fast. Allen seems to be reliving the role of Broadway Danny Rose as a schlumpy magician who tries to fit in among British millionaires. He's never written a weaker script, and that's saying a lot. 97 minutes.

An assassin tries to kill a witness in protective custody by emptying a crate full of poisonous snakes on a plane crossing the Pacific Ocean. Not screened for critics anywhere, and you know what THAT means. Samuel L. Jackson, Byron Lawson and Nathan Phillips star. 105 minutes.

A guy (Channing Tatum) trashes an arts school, is ordered to do community service by cleaning up his vandalism and falls for a ballet dancer there (Jenna Dewan). 98 minutes.

Another of Will Ferrell's sloppy, casually funny comedies about a man-boy who hits bottom before achieving his dreams, this one a NASCAR driver whose egotism alienates his trophy wife (Leslie Bibb) and longtime pal (John C. Reilly). Ferrell wrote the screenplay with director Adam McKay, who teamed with him on the equally careless "Anchorman." As before, they've interspersed laugh-out-loud segments with dry, repetitive material, but they don't seem to know the difference. 110 minutes.

In 1996, General Motors launched its EV1 electric vehicle, which required no gas, no oil changes, no mufflers, and rare brake maintenance. But the fanfare surrounding the EV1's launch disappeared -- as did the cars. This documentary asks what happened: Was it lack of consumer demand, as carmakers claimed, or were other forces at work? 90 minutes.

This intimate, optimistic movie is an atypical project for director Oliver Stone. Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña play Port Authority policemen who went into the building after the Sept. 11 attacks and were trapped by collapsing concrete; the film follows their points of view as they wait for rescue and the moods of their families, which range from confusion to rage to thwarted hope. (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal play wives at home.) The effort to pull McLoughlin and Jimeno from the rubble becomes a metaphor for the nation's attempt to pull itself out of mourning afterward. 125 minutes.

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