'American Girl' series premieres on big screen with 'Kit'
Yes, Virginia, there was life before cell phones. For proof, see "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" (Picturehouse/New Line).

This charming chronicle of a 10-year-old aspiring reporter's (Abigail Breslin) experiences during the Great Depression in Cincinnati brings the titular series of dolls and children's books to the big screen (three made-for-television films about other characters have aired since 2004).

As Kit surveys the world of 1934 from the safety of her backyard treehouse, a number of adult-size problems are headed her way. Having lost his job, her car salesman father (Chris O'Donnell) departs for Chicago to look for work. To stave off foreclosure, her calm, level-headed mother (Julia Ormond) takes in a collection of colorful boarders (Joan Cusack, Glenne Headly, Zach Mills and Colin Mochrie, among others), relegating Kit to the attic.

When indigent teen Will (Max Thieriot) and his younger traveling companion, Countee (Willow Smith), arrive in town, Kit befriends them and her mother feeds them in exchange for their doing odd jobs. This exemplary compassion comes despite the disapproval of some of her friends and the suspicions that fall on hobos generally after a recent crime wave.

Will introduces Kit to the social life and moral code of the local homeless camp, giving her fodder for the series of articles she's hoping to sell irascible newspaper editor Mr. Gibson (Wallace Shawn). But after a robber makes off with her mother's meager savings, and the police accuse Will, intrepid Kit devotes her considerable energies to clearing him.

"Little Miss Sunshine" Oscar nominee Breslin, who starred most recently in "Nim's Island," continues to prove why she's one of the most appealing of child performers, whether she's standing her ground with sourpuss Shawn or quietly mourning her father's downfall and subsequent absence.

Director Patricia Rozema's warm adaptation -- as scripted by Ann Peacock from stories by Valerie Tripp -- presents a somewhat sanitized, Waltons-style view of the era. But this pleasingly innocent tale of a quieter, though hardly carefree time, which has Julia Roberts as co-executive producer, fosters persistence in pursuing goals, opposes stereotyping and will likely hit a bull's-eye with targeted tweens. (A-I, G)

--- John Mulderig

Get Smart (Warner Bros.)
Good-natured update of 1960s TV series with secret agent Maxwell Smart (a perfectly cast Steve Carell), alternately bungling and clever, and his partner, Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), dispatched to Russia by their chief (Alan Arkin) to battle the evil KAOS crime syndicate boss (Terence Stamp). Director Peter Segal deftly balances action, comedy and sentiment, with quite a few pearly moments, but though the action sequences are never gory or the comedy gross or mean-spirited, the elements listed below are arguably still strong enough to preclude the youngest viewers. Much comic action violence including killings, light sexual references and innuendo, some crude language and crass expressions, a vulgar gesture and brief rear-male nudity; acceptable for older teens. (A-III, PG-13)

The Love Guru (Paramount/Spyglass)
Flat comedy, only fitfully enlivened by some clever gags, about a guru (Mike Myers) enlisted by the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team (Jessica Alba) to reunite their star player (Romany Malco) with his wife (Meagan Good) who has left him for his rival (an unrecognizably hirsute Justin Timberlake), the French-Canadian goalie for the opposing team, thereby restoring the former player's prowess on the ice. Unabashedly vulgar and tasteless despite its saccharine ending and some moderately redemptive elements, the film, directed at an often tentative pace by Marco Schnabel, feels too long by half and the jibes at celebrity and bogus Indian mysticism wear thin. Much sexual and scatological humor and innuendo, some crude language, adultery and an implied premarital relationship, drug references and comic violence. (O, PG-13)

More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

Office for Film & Broadcasting classifications: A-I ---- general patronage; A-II ---- adults and adolescents; A-III ---- adults; L ---- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling; O ---- morally offensive.