“The Wild Thornberrys” are a family that travels to exotic locales all over the world to film nature documentaries for television. The on-camera talent is the relentlessly cheerful father, Nigel (voice of Tim Curry) with a frightfully posh, “Mumsy, do have a spot of tea”-style British accent. Behind the camera is the efficient but affectionate mother, Marianne (voice of Jodi Carlisle). The heroine of the story, though, is their daughter, Eliza (voice of “Party of Five’s” Lacy Chabert), a kind of Dr. Dolittle in braids and braces. She can understand and communicate in animal language thanks to special powers given to her by a shaman, on condition that she never tell anyone about it. Eliza has an older sister, Debbie, who would much rather be at the mall talking with other teenagers about what is and isn’t cool.

The family also has a pet chimpanzee named Darwin (voice of Tom Kane), who is Eliza’s best friend. And they have adopted a toddler named Donnie (voice of rock star Flea). It is an amusing twist that the chimp is more human than monkey, almost excessively civilized while the human baby (as explained in another movie, raised by orangutans) is more monkey than human and just about feral.

The Thornberrys are filming in Africa. One night, while Eliza is playing with some cheetah cubs, one is snatched via helicopter by a poacher. Eliza risks her life to save the cub, but is knocked to the ground when the poacher cuts the rope ladder. Her parents, worried for her safety, send her to England to boarding school and Darwin goes with her by hiding in her suitcase. But she and Darwin return to Africa when she learns that the poachers are after a herd of elephants. It’s up to Eliza to save the day, and it will require great courage and the willingness to sacrifice anything, even her ability to talk to animals.

Like “Rugrats,” created by the same team, “The Wild Thornberrys” is a popular series on Nickeoldeon. So, like “Rugrats,” it is wholesome enough to appeal to parents and funny enough to appeal to kids. The series is affiliated with the conservation group the National Wildlife Federation and so occasionally there are nuggets of nature facts thrown in to add a little substance. Eliza is in the grand tradition of adventuresome pre-adolescent fictional heroines like Alice, Pippi, Dorothy, and Pollyanna. She is brave, smart, loyal, and empathetic. She has good judgment most of the time, but when she doesn’t, she learns from her mistakes.

The voice talent is first-rate, including Rupert Everett, Lynn Redgrave, Marisa Tomei, and Alfre Woodward. The action sequences are handled well and there are some witty moments, as when Debbie tries to explain to her father that she is trying to be sarcastic. It is nothing more than a supersized version of the television series projected onto a theater screen, but it never pretends to be anything more and is relatively pleasant for children and relatively painless for parents.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Eliza and Debbie feel so differently about the animals. They should also talk to children about why Eliza’s decision to run away from school without telling her parents was wrong, no matter how worthwhile her reasons. They should discuss the way that Eliza keeps a very big secret from her family and how to know when you should not keep a secret from your parents. Some families will also want to discuss the religious figure who bestows “powers” on Eliza and how we can respect and find common ground with other religions but still remain true to our own faith.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Rugrats: The Movie” and “The Crocodile Hunter.”

Star Trek has a language and following all its own. For those who are not devotees of the series, the way the characters speak often needs to be decoded, causing the viewer to spend more time trying to figure out what the characters are saying rather then why. After a while, if the story doesn’t make itself clear somehow, the viewer loses interest.

This is important to remember during the latest installment of the ever going “Star Trek” franchise, “Star Trek: Nemesis.” The story follows the “Next Generation” crew and their captain, Jean-Luc Picard (the always wonderful Patrick Stewart). A clone of Picard’s younger self, Shinzon, has somehow overtaken the Romulan senate and wants to make peace. Picard and his crew don’t trust this sneaky “clone,” and are suspicious of his origins and what they portend. Of course, treachery is afoot and the crew must stop the Romulans before they destroy or conquer, well, pretty much everything.

The series has had its up and down moments, ranging from excellent, (“The Wrath of Kahn”), to overly silly (“Star Trek V”). It has also had its share of “we’re running low on new ideas,” and “Nemesis” skirts the edges of that territory.

The film does have a few good action sequences, and some solid acting from Stewart, Brett Spiner as the android Data, and Tom Hardy as Shinzon. Hardy’s performance carries the movie in many of its otherwise sub-par scenes, and he and Stewart give the dialogue a lot of help. But the film is too muddled in “Trek talk” and way too overdramatic at times. Its conclusion is not just easy to predict, but laughable. “Star Trek: Nemesis” is not a bad film, but one that will most likely only leave the ever-devoted “Trekkers” as the only completely-satisfied customers.

Parents should know the film contains some violence, most of it sci-fi oriented. Lots of laser beam shooting occurs, almost all of it bloodless. The villain cuts his hand at one point and gives the bloody knife to Data. The beginning contains a rather intense and scary sequence in which a Romulan places a disk in the senate which lets out “spores” that land on the Romulans. These “spores” make the aliens begin to wither away, and then turn them to stone. One then crashes on the floor. There is also a quite surprising and graphic love scene in which two senior officers who have recently married begin to sleep together. During the scene, Commander Troy begins to see Shinzon instead of her husband, and struggles to get him away from her.

Families who see this film should discuss the many positive messages in the film. “Star Trek” has always been about gaining peace, and unlike many movies now, one gets the sense the crew does try to use the least amount of violence necessary to accomplish this mission. Parents may want to discuss why this is, and point out Picard’s constant reluctance to fight. Parents also should discuss the idea of forgiveness preached in the film. Why does it bother Picard so that this clone reminds him of his former self? Another discussion topic may be how we deal with loss, since a major character does meet his end in this film. Why do Picard and his crew toast their fallen comrade and hide their grief?

Families who enjoyed this movie will also like “Star Trek: First Contact,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” and “Minority Report.”

Even by the low standards of Saturday Night Live-alumni movies, and by the even lower standards of Adam Sandler-produced movies, “The Hot Chick” is simply excruciating. It is loathsome, offensive, vile, and, even worse, it is not funny. To add insult to injury, it is also much too long.

This is yet another body-switching movie. There is a pointless introductory scene in which an ancient princess uses some enchanted earrings to switch bodies with a servant girl so that she can get out of an arranged marriage. Cut to the present day where Rob Schneider plays a petty thief who switches bodies with a bitchy blonde high school princess named Jessica (Rachel McAdams), after she steals the earrings from a store specializing in ancient artifacts.

The rest of the movie is about Jessica (now played by Schneider) trying to get back into her old body. Along the way, we are subjected to horrifyingly awful jokes about the different ways men and women go to the bathroom, a cross-dressing child, priest molestation of young boys, the thief (now in Jessica’s body) having to buy tampons, bulimia, places to hide marijuana, parents of different races, homosexuality, and incest.

There is a lot of blame to go around here – from producer Adam Sandler (who appears in dreadlocks long enough to make the same joke about marijuana three different times in another one of his stupid silly voices) to star and co-writer Rob Schneider (who, bi-racial himself, should be especially ashamed of the racist stereotyping of a Korean woman and her bi-racial daughter), to director Tom Brady, who brings out the worst in his cast and has no sense of comic timing whatsoever. But we have to reserve a special blame category for the MPAA, which gave this horrendously crude and vulgar film a PG-13 rating, when its content is closer to NC-17.

Parents should know that the movie includes extremely explicit and offensive humor in just about every category. A father complains to his daughter (not knowing it is his daughter) that his wife won’t give him oral sex (making this the second movie this season with such a parent-child conversation, after “8 Mile”). A mother grabs the person she thinks is their gardener (not knowing it is her daughter) and kisses him passionately. A child is a cross-dresser. Teenagers drink at a bar and a character talks about places to “hide weed.” There are jokes that are racist and homophobic.

Families who like this movie should see the far better “Tootsie” and “All of Me.”

This generic summer popcorn movie would be instantly forgettable if not for the sour aftertaste left by its climax, with a nuclear bomb set to explode in New York City’s Grand Central Station. We are just not ready for a scene like that, and it would not be so bad if we never were again.

Chris Rock plays Jake Hayes, a streetwise hustler who finds out that not only did he have an identical twin brother who was adopted while he was shuttled to foster homes, but that his brother was a brilliant, sophisticated spy, and that he was killed just as a crucial future-of-the-world-depends-in-it deal was about to be concluded. His brother’s partner, Gaylord Oakes (Anthony Hopkins), a spy so cool that he chews gum while he shoots people, recruits Hayes to take his brother’s place. Oakes has nine days to train Hayes and is instructed by his supervisor not to tell him that he may be killed.

Rock is not an actor. He can barely get through the part of Hayes, which is written around his strengths, and his brief attempt to play the spy brother is painful to watch. Every so often, the script lets him go into one of his stand-up rants and his charm and wit come alive. Hopkins, of course, is a magnificent actor, and he does his best to create a real character out of the cardboard script.

Parents should know that the movie has a great deal of violence with characters, including a terrified young woman, in frequent peril. They use strong language and there is some drug humor. Hayes says that if his girlfriend is pregnant, he will marry her, but if she is not, he is not in a hurry. Hayes has the opportunity to have sex with a gorgeous woman. He jokes about it, but remains faithful to his girlfriend. Rock’s mugging is occasionally uncomfortably reminiscent of the racist stereotypes perpetuated by early movie stars like Step’n Fetchit.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Hayes and his brother turned out so differently. They had some things in common, like playing chess, and were both very talented, but they went in entirely different directions. Is that attributable to the way they were raised? Did seeing what his brother could do change Hayes’ ideas about what he could do?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Beverly Hills Cop, Rush Hour and 48 Hours.

This third in Ice Cube’s “Friday” series has something to offend everyone, with highly politically incorrect jokes in just about every category. On the other hand, it is better than the last one, and I have to admit that at the screening I attended, the audience loved it. I’ll even admit that I laughed a few times, too.

This time, it is the morning of December 24, and Craig (Ice Cube) and his cousin Day-Day (Mike Epps) are asleep in their apartment when a burglar disguised as Santa Claus breaks in and steals all of their Christmas presents and the stereo speakers where Day-Day hid their rent money. Their mean landlady and her just-out-of-prison son want that money by the end of the day, so Craig and Day-Day take jobs as security guards at a seedy little strip mall and then have a rent party, which all leads to various encounters with colorful characters.

This is a comedy with no aspirations for anything other than a forgettable good time, so it is unfair to expect it to make sense or respect the dignity of its characters. But I still think it is worth noting that unlike comedy predecessors from Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin through Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Steve Martin, and Jim Carrey, all of whom created humor by their failed attempts to fit into the accepted of society, this movie and all of its characters share an unstated assumption that traditional notions of success are barely relevant and even a little depressing.

All comedy is subversive, but this unrelenting bleak insistence on opting out of any opportunity for finding meaning in relationships or work just becomes sad. It is especially disconcerting coming from Ice Cube, whose own life is in sharp contrast. Although the subject matter of his early work with the rap group NWA was very anti-establishment, no one has worked harder within the rules to achieve the most traditional forms of success in producing, writing, and starring in movies. Ice Cube is a fine actor and has appeared in first-class films like “Boyz N the Hood,” “Three Kings,” and his own recent unexpected hit, “Barbershop.”

Parents should know that this movie has extremely strong language, including the n-word. If the movie had been made by whites, it would have been justifiably excoriated for its offensive racial stereotypes. It is racist, sexist, homophobic, and extremely vulgar. In the mall, there is a clothing store called “Pimp’s and Ho’s.” Everyone loves smoking pot, even the police. Everyone lies, cheats, and steals. A character has a threesome. There are nasty jokes about homosexual rape.

Families who see this movie should talk about how the members of the family in this movie do – and don’t – communicate and take care of each other.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the original “Friday,” and the much better “Barbershop.”