THE PERFECT MAN With the lovely Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants still in theaters, only the most ardent Lizzie McGuire fanatic would conceivably make this imperfect movie her top choice for a night out with the girls. Hilary Duff, a personable but one-note actress who seems to be playing Lizzie even when her characters are named something else, tackles the role of Holly Hamilton, a teenager who doesn't like the fact that her single mom (Heather Locklear) uproots the family every time she gets dumped by a loser. Landing in Brooklyn, Holly decides to cheer up her mother by fabricating a Mr. Right: Taking suggestions from her friend's unwitting uncle (Chris Noth), Holly anonymously sends her mother flowers, writes her poems and shoots her cheery Instant Messages. But it never occurs to Holly that, duh, her mom might eventually want to meet this seemingly perfect man in the flesh, and that's when her scheme begins to unravel. Even allowing that this is supposed to be a frothy comedy aimed at younger viewers, the film is so casually cruel in its treatment of its characters (particular Locklear's pathetic single woman, who craves a man like a junkie craves his next fix) that a bad taste lingers even after everybody instantly learns a valuable life lesson during the final 10 minutes. And Hollywood's gay panic continues unabated: On the heels of Miss Congeniality 2's masochistic stylist and The Longest Yard's parade of swishy queens, we now get a mincing bartender (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Carson Kressley) who practically has an orgasm as he wipes the brow of a sweaty construction worker. Enough already! 1/2

RIZE Mad Hot Ballroom may be currently earning kudos (and rightly so) for showing the positive effects that formal dance training can have on select 11-year-olds attending New York's public schools, but for an even better nonfiction feature that also shines its light on a particular mode of "dance fever," check out the raw and incendiary Rize. Directed by renowned photographer David LaChapelle, this compelling feature centers on a vibrant musical revolution that's been all but ignored by the media (both mainstream and alternative). Born from the ashes of civil unrest in the wake of the Rodney King beat-down, "clowning" was a new form of artistic expression in which LA's inner-city blacks found release by emulating the very violence that was perpetually raging around them. "Clowning" eventually gave way to the harsher "krumping" (less makeup, more thrashing), and Rize masterfully shows how these two musical manifestations have since provided young African-Americans - most stranded in the war zones of South Central - a path away from the guns'n'poses of the area's self-styled gangstas and drug lords. Rize doesn't pretend that clowning and krumping can magically solve all the problems of its participants: Death is still a grim reality for even the most innocent of bystanders, and tempers (and egos) flare during a massive clowning-vs.-krumping contest held in an LA coliseum. Yet beyond a reverence for the creative impulse and its ability to often fashion triumph out of tragedy, the movie also earns its keep simply by focusing on the sort of ordinary Americans who don't usually find their way onto the nation's movie screens. As for the dancing, it's hot enough to burn the celluloid on which it's been captured. 1/2

Current Releases

BATMAN BEGINS One of the finest superhero films ever made, Batman Begins marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship - between the creative forces who have resurrected a popular franchise and the fans who felt betrayed when that same franchise went belly up in the late 90s. Never afraid to peer into the darkest recesses of the mind, director Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia) has created a brooding picture that has as much in common with his previous works as it does with the storied saga of the Caped Crusader. To dismiss this as escapist fare would be to ignore the myriad adult themes that bulk up the picture, issues ranging from the duality of man to the politics of fear. Christian Bale leads a sterling cast that also includes Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson; their committed performances help make this that rare summer movie in which thought often speaks louder than either action or words. 1/2

HIGH TENSION In this dismal French import badly dubbed into English, a filthy guy (Philippe Nahon) in mechanic's garb murders a married couple and their little boy before setting about raping the daughter (Maiwenn). But unbeknownst to the killer, the girl has a pal (Cecile De France) who tries to figure out a way to rescue her friend from the clutches of this madman. There are slivers of genuine style to be found in writer-director Alexandre Aja's approach - here's a man who, for better or worse, is trying to deliver a no-holds-barred exercise in grueling horror, and he has the technical savvy to back him up. But any semblance of psychological complexity remains a no-show until an absurd final twist: The film isn't scary, suspenseful, thought-provoking or - heck - even remotely entertaining, and the murderer goes through the motions as mechanically as the slashers in the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises.

THE HONEYMOONERS The classic 1950s TV sitcom gets refitted for a 21st century big-screen excursion, but unfortunately, it's the audience who gets it right in the kisser. The plot centers on the efforts of irascible Ralph Kramden (Cedric the Entertainer) and his dim-witted friend Ed Norton (Mike Epps) to raise enough money to put a down payment on a duplex coveted by their wives (Gabrielle Union and Regina Hall). To make that dream a reality, Ralph invests their savings in dubious schemes involving an abandoned train car and an abandoned mutt. One character makes a crack about The WB, which in all honesty is where this feeble film belongs. Forget Jackie Gleason's "To the moon, Alice" catchphrase - "To the video bargain bin" is more like it. 1/2

THE LONGEST YARD Faithfulness to director Robert Aldrich's hard-hitting 1974 film, in which a former football star leads a ragtag group of convicts in a match against the sadistic guards, isn't the problem: Major plot points are kept intact, snatches of dialogue find themselves lifted wholesale, and characters' fates remain the same. But when this version does deviate from its source material, the results are disastrous - and kill any chance the film has in maintaining its modest pleasures. The leading character (Burt Reynolds in the R-rated original, Adam Sandler in this PG-13 piffle) has been softened considerably, while the rampaging homophobia is astonishing (and annoying). Insult comedy can be uproarious in the right hands, but here it's merely witless, the cinematic equivalent of the school bully giving a weaker classmate a wedgie and then declaring himself the epitome of fine-honed drollery.

LORDS OF DOGTOWN The excellent 2002 documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, which chronicles the rise of the Venice, CA, teens who almost single-handedly revived skateboarding as a national phenomenon during the 1970s, has now been given the fictionalized Hollywood treatment, yet the resultant film fails to capture anything beyond random surface pleasures. Initially, the choice of Catherine Hardwicke as director seemed inspired, but the ample party scenes that drove her gritty film Thirteen seem extraneous here and take the focus away from the real story. Lords of Dogtown is well acted (especially by Heath Ledger as the group's stoner-mentor), and Hardwicke ably recreates a specific time and place. Yet the movie rarely conveys the import of what these lower-income kids accomplished: As depicted here, their cultural revolution seems no more noteworthy than a day spent at the mall.

MADAGASCAR Unlike the banal Robots and Shark Tale, this animated delight strikes an appropriate balance: It's hip without being obnoxious, and it's sentimental without being cloying. Through a wild chain of events, four animal pals from a New York zoo - lion (Ben Stiller), zebra (Chris Rock), hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) and giraffe (David Schwimmer) - find themselves stranded on the title island. Despite the ingratiating leads (Rock, for one, has never been better), despite the eye-popping animation, and despite the presence of other scene-stealers (check out the lemurs), the main reason to see this is to catch the penguins, four no-nonsense types who plan to dig their way to Antarctica but instead end up hijacking a ship. First Opus, then Sparky, now these guys - the lion may be comfortably ensconced as king of the jungle, but when it comes to the thick brier of popular culture, it's the penguin who reigns supreme. 1/2

MAD HOT BALLROOM Reminiscent of the superior Spellbound, this documentary centers on several groups of kids who, as students enrolled in the NYC public school system's ballroom dancing classes, hope to find themselves competing in the annual tournament. This is yet one more nonfiction film that ably extols the transformative power of the arts and its ability to allow individuals to discover the best within themselves. But the movie also goes beyond that: It captures the palpable love that teachers can feel for their students, and, most intriguingly, it hangs out with these 10- and 11-year-olds as they chat in that open, unaffected manner as only kids can. It's a pleasure spending down time with these lovely boys and girls (most from the lower rungs of the economic ladder), which is why it's disappointing when the movie shifts away from their individuality to focus on the mechanics of the tournament.

MR. AND MRS. SMITH Based on the countless scenes in which Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie strip down to their undergarments, it's clear there isn't an ounce of flab on either of those bodies - it's just too bad the same can't be said about the film itself. Playing a suburban couple who are actually both skilled assassins, Brad and Angelina gleefully throw themselves into this chaotic action flick in which the sharp dialogue too often gets drowned out by the incessant explosions. The film begins promisingly, with Simon Kinberg contributing a script that's full of wry observations about the level of secrecy that's inherent in most marriages, and how the stakes might be raised exponentially when the spousal subterfuge occurs between people who kill for a living. But once the emphasis shifts from the characters to the hardware they employ, it becomes just another noisy spectacle. 1/2

THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS Ann Brashares' best-selling book (at least among female readers) has been transformed into a luminescent motion picture for anyone interested in an emotional high. As they prepare to go their separate ways for the summer, four high school friends (winningly played by America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel, Blake Lively and Amber Tamblyn) stumble across a pair of jeans that miraculously fits all of them. They quickly decide that the pants will be passed among them throughout the summer, as a way of staying in touch over long distances. Statutory rape, parental abandonment, the death of a child - these are heavy issues for any movie, let alone one aimed at young girls. Yet while Sisterhood occasionally skirts around the full import of these hot-button items, it's still honest enough to acknowledge the perils of adolescence as well as the pleasures.

OPENS WEDNESDAY:

HERBIE: FULLY LOADED: Lindsay Lohan, Michael Keaton.

OPENS FRIDAY:

BEWITCHED: Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell.
LAND OF THE DEAD: Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper.
RIZE: Documentary.