New on DVD: God, Tweens, and Debauchery

What's new on DVD this week? You have a few good choices. Enjoy!

The Adjustment Bureau

The Gist: Matt Damon plays David, a young political superstar. He meets Elise (Emily Blunt), a freespirited dancer. Clearly they’re meant to be together, but the universe is bent on keeping them apart. No, really. There’s a cosmic bureaucracy which controls human history, all part of a benevolent Plan. You can tell who the Bureau members are because they wear nifty hats. Can true love fight the ultimate City Hall? Read our full review and interview with the director.

The Ups: Good performances by Damon and Blunt make the romance very real. The sci-fi meets Mad Men setting keeps a high concept interesting and hip. An intriguing and philosophic central theme asks deep questions about free will versus an Ultimate Authority.

The Downs: The analogy of the Adjustment Bureau, as is often the case with analogies, breaks down to a degree and becomes confusing, but not before offering some good insight and raising some questions.

The Verdict: This is definitely one to see.

Be Aware: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, some sexuality, and a violent image. This is a thinking movie and would be good to watch with teens. The biggest problem for parents will be the fact that David and Elise have sexual relations without marriage. The scene shows some sensual movement but is not graphic.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

The Gist: Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) is back in this sequel to Diary of a Wimpy Kid. This time, he’s a cool seventh grader held back by his harassing brother, his unintentionally humiliating mother, and his goofy best friend. How is he supposed to impress the cute new girl and take his rightful place as the fly dude of the junior high? Read our full review.

The Ups: Funny and sweet, this movie centers on brothers becoming friends despite all their fighting. It also uses hyperbole to make us all laugh at the exquisite horror of being a junior high kid. Everything is so darn embarrassing.

The Downs: The film feels at times like a series of skits loosely strung together by a plot. Also, sometimes it goes too far in humiliating poor Greg Heffley, making the audience cringe instead of laugh. Can’t the poor kid get a break?

The Verdict: All in all, you and your tweens will enjoy and laugh at this movie. Together. It’s not the best film on tweendom ever made, but it is pretty good.

Be Aware: Rated PG. the film is clean, almost laughably clean. At Rodrick’s big, bad high school party while the parents are gone, the girls all behave chastely and the wildest sin that’s committed is spraying whipped cream directly from the can into the mouth. Wow! Those high school kids do live, don’t they?

Cedar Rapids

The Gist: An impossibly innocent insurance salesman (Ed Helms) represents his office at the regional insurance convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Apparently, the convention is an annual cesspool of debauchery, drunkenness, and illegal behavior. Shocking.

The Ups: I mostly hated this movie, but there is a scene in which a mild-mannered African-American agent (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) rescues his friends from a thug-infested drug flophouse by channeling his favorite character from “The Wire.” It made me laugh so hard milk came out my nose. And I wasn’t even drinking milk.

The Downs: The film just feels tired and not funny. The actors are all top notch, but the whole innocent gets exposed to increasingly sordid levels of bad behavior plot line is now boring. You know what would be funny? Someone going to Vegas or Cedar Rapids looking for debauchery and finding none. That would be fresh. This genre has been done to death. I’m calling it now: Debauched weekends are no longer funny. Find something new.

The Verdict: Skip it.

Be Aware: Rated R for everything from crude incessant sexual references to drug use to nudity to constant profanity. Pick your poison.