First things first — it is better than the original, famously troubled 1994 version that sank under the weight of too many screenwriters (reportedly over 30) and too many commercial tie-ins. This prequel benefits from lower expectations (it was originally intended as a straight-to-video release) and improved technology (the CGI dinosaurs are terrific). Okay, it begins with a fart joke (the guilty party — a dinosaur — says, “Hey, I got three stomachs, cut me some slack!”). And the rest of the humor is only slightly more elevated. And some of its jokes are older than the Stone Age. But it is not too bad, there are even a couple of genuinely funny moments, and it can provide for a moderately enjoyable family outing or a first-class birthday party for anyone in the 5-8-year-old range. The kids at the screening I attended cheered and applauded.

Mark Addy (from “The Full Monty”) and Stephen Baldwin (from “The Usual Suspects”) play Fred and Barney as though they are really enjoying it. The wonderfully talented Kristen Johnston (“Third Rock from the Sun”) is sadly underused as Wilma, but she looks sensational in her “Isaac Miz- rock-hi” animal skins. Wilma is the pampered daughter of the snobbish Pearl Slaghoople (Joan Collins in sort of prehistoric “Dynasty” mode) and the loving but addled Colonel (Harvey Korman). She has no interest in a life of country clubs and snobs. She runs away and is befriended by waitress Betty O’Shale (Jane Krakowski of “Ally McBeal”). They meet Fred and Barney and all goes well until Chip Rockefeller (“Dharma & Greg’s” Thomas Gibson), who is after Wilma’s fortune, invites them to his new resort in Rock Vegas. But all ends well, and we even get to see the origins of Wilma’s upswept hairstyle and pearls.

The highlight of the movie is Alan Cummings. He plays both Gazoo, the space alien who comes to earth to observe human mating rituals, and Mick Jagged, the (what else) rock star, frontman for (what else) the Stones. It’s a real pity that he plays only two roles – the movie fades whenever he is off screen. In the soundtrack’s highlight, Ann-Margret simultaneously salutes two of her career highlights — the original Flintstones cartoon (as “Ann Margrock”) and “Viva Las Vegas” with a terrific rendition of “Viva Rock Vegas.”

Parents should know that there are a few naughty words and mild sexual references (one afternoon Betty tells Barney that she wants to come back to his apartment and make him breakfast, and he wonders what she wants to do until morning), and some pie-in-the-face/pratfall cartoon violence.

Families who see this movie should discuss why Wilma feels unsatisfied despite her wealth, why Fred feels that he has to make a lot of money to compete with Chip, and how Betty and Barney create trouble by jumping to conclusions instead of telling each other about what worries them. Parents will also want to talk about Betty’s decision to go off with Mick when she thinks Barney has been unfaithful. Whether it is out of spite or a way to bolster her spirits, it is a foolish response.

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy the old Flintstones and Jetsons cartoons, and may even get a kick out of looking for the similarities between them.

Two of the biggest stars in Hollywood took pay cuts to appear in what is essentially a quirky independent movie — with two of the biggrest stars in Hollywood. Even though Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts are both top-notch acting talents who do not get enough credit for taking risks (Pitt’s performance in “12 Monkeys” was one of the best of the decade), in this movie their star power overwhelms not just their acting but the movie’s story as well. The effect is like trying to juggle a bowling ball with a dozen eggs. Fortunately, when things get out of kilter or the plot begins to sag, there is all that star power to keep us happy and give us something to enjoy until it gets going again. If the movie has a lot of pieces that don’t quite fit together, at least they are all high-quality pieces. It may be something of a mess, but it is an interesting mess to watch.

Pitt and Roberts play Jerry and Samantha, a couple whose romantic relationship is complicated enough when Jerry is called on to perform one last errand for a mob boss. He has to go to Mexico to get a valuable antique gun called “The Mexican” from a man named Beck and bring them both back with him. Jerry tries to explain to Samantha that given a choice between letting down the mob and letting down his girlfriend, the fact that only one of those options involves death has to factor into the calculus. Samantha, who is a big fan of the women’s magazine school of relationships and who reads books like “Men Who Can’t Love” with a highlighter in her hand, tosses Jerry’s clothes out the window and sets off to pursue her dream of becoming a croupier in Las Vegas.

The mob guys know that Jerry’s focus and competence cannot be counted on without a little added incentive, so they arrange for Samantha to be kidnapped by a hitman named Leroy (James Gandolfini of HBO’s “The Sopranos”).

Gandolfini is just plan brilliant in the role, and the scenes between Leroy and Samantha are the best part of the movie. He explains that he is “here to regulate funkiness” and she tells him that he has “trust issues.” Soon they are giving each other relationship advice in between shoot-outs. Meanwhile, Jerry, who tends to “Forrest Gump through life,” is chasing after the gun, with intermittent success.

We want Jerry and Sam to get together, but the movie becomes less interesting when they do. Even a surprise cameo from another big star does not help us through a final act that involves the loss of characters we have come to care about. Jerry and Samantha react and behave in ways that we are not used to seeing characters played by big stars behave. Pitt and Roberts give it all they have, but the script does not have enough weight to help make that behavior consistent with what we know of the characters.

Parents should know that the movie is very violent, with a lot of shooting, graphic injuries, and the deaths of important characters. A woman commits suicide when her lover is killed. Characters drink and smoke and one character is drunk. There are mild sexual references, including a homosexual relationship. Some of the Mexican characters could be considered stereotypes, but then so could some of the American characters.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people work out the complexities of relationships and why it is that so many of the characters care more about relationships than about money or the life and death situations all around them. Leroy may have more than most people to worry about when he thinks about what a romantic prospect will think about what he does and who he is, but that is always a concern for anyone contemplating an intimate relationship. The idea that “the past doesn’t matter — it’s the future that counts” is a beguiling one — is it true? Under what circumstances? Leroy talks about being “surrounded by lonliness and finality,” and about how the people who die having loved are different from those who die alone. This is worth discussing, along with the way that Sam and Jerry begin to think about their relationship as being special enough so that they cannot walk away from it.

Families may also want to talk about the way that Jerry’s friend justifies participating in criminal acts by compartmentalizing, explaining that he is just doing his “portion.”

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Raising Arizona.”

Once upon a time there was a princess. She discovered that she was not the real princess after all. Her late father had imprisoned the real king and queen. All were now dead, but the real rulers had produced a son, who was now in hiding with two scholars. The princess determined to find him and give him back the throne that was rightfully his.

So, the princess went to spy on the prince and, this being a fairy tale, she fell in love with him at first sight. But no women were allowed near him. The scholars kept him in total seclusion, not just to protect his life, but also to protect his heart. They believed in pure rationality and spurned emotions, especially love. So the princess and her lady’s maid dressed up as boys and arrived at his doorstep, whereupon various complications ensue.

This story comes from a play first produced in 1732, now adapted to the screen by Clare Peploe and produced by her husband, Bernardo Bertolucci. Peploe keeps the setting of the story within its period, filming on location at magnificent houses dating back to the 18th century, but there are flickers of theatricality and modernity. A character appears to glimpse an audience in modern dress, seated on the magnificent lawn. Antique instruments on the soundtrack are briefly joined by an electric guitar (played by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour). And at the end, the performers come out in for a curtain call, wearing their own clothes.

These references to the dualities of 18th/21st centuries and male/female roles are supposed to echo the story’s themes of duality and disguise. But it does a disservice to elements of the story that can only be understood in the context of their era. The princess (Mira Sorvino) has only three strategies – she commands, she bribes, and she seduces. Most of the story has her seducing the scholars Hermocrates (Ben Kingsley), his sister Leontine (Fiona Shaw), and, of course, the prince (Jay Rodan). In each succeeding conversation with the first two, she tells more and more lies. With the prince, she begins with lies, and then tells more and more truth, revealing more to him each time they meet.

Kingsley and Shaw are magnificent, but the clash between the artificial structure of the story and the more contemporary, naturalistic tone of the film only makes it more painful for us to see them manipulated so horrendously by the princess. Rachael Stirling (daughter of “Avengers” star Diana Rigg) is delicious as the lady’s maid and brightens the film whenever she appears.

Parents should know that the movie includes gender-bending seductions, including a same-sex kiss. There are no four-letter words, but there is some spicy language and brief nudity.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people right the wrongs of their forebears and about the complications of getting to know someone and have to decide how much of the truth about yourself to share.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, also featuring Kingsley and the romantic complications of a woman dressed as a man.

Like “Lady and the Tramp,” this story is told from the perspective of dogs, this time two dalmatians, Pongo and Perdita, the cherished pets of Roger and Anita. Anita’s old friend, one of the most notorious villains in movie history, is the aptly named Cruella De Vil. Her henchmen kidnap Perdita’s puppies and eighty-four others so she can make them into a dalmatian fur coat. Pongo and Perdita, with the help of their animal friends, undertake a daring rescue. The puppies are adorable, and the movie is exciting, funny (with a sly poke at television and the kids who watch it), and fun.

Movieline magazine once asked actresses to name the most memorable female villain in the history of the movies — Cruella was at the top of the list. Families who enjoy this movie might also like to see the 1997 live- action version released in 1997, with Glenn Close as Cruella. Close is wonderful, but the movie relies too much on slapstick and the real dogs do not have the personality and range of expression of their animated predecessors. The 2000 sequel, “102 Dalmatians,” also featuring Close, is disappointing.

Spike Lee’s new movie is ambitious, provocative, complex, thoughtful, and just about review-proof. Anyone who doesn’t like it could be accused of not getting it. Anyone who does like it could be accused of liking it for the wrong reasons and not getting it, either. So the best I can do is describe it and react to it and hope that it will give readers some idea about whether they want to see it for themselves. I hope they do.

Damon Wayans plays the lone black executive for a troubled television network. He has given himself the name “Pierre Delacroix,” which has no association with his racial, cultural, or family heritage. He has adjusted his speech so that speaks with a precise, Ivy League accent. And he has adjusted his ideas so severely that even he is not sure what he thinks about the compromises he has had to make to work in the white world.

His boss, Mr. Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport) insists that he is blacker than Delacroix. He decorates his office with photos of black athletes and African art. Dunwitty says that his black wife, bi-racial children, and identification with black culture give him the right to use words like “nigger.” He says, “If Old Dirty Bastard can use it, why can’t I?” He says that he is the one who is “keepin’ it real.”

Dunwitty tells Delacroix to develop a new television show that will boost the station’s ratings, a real “coon show.” Delacroix, disgusted with himself, sets out to create a program so offensive that he will be fired. With the help of his dedicated assistant, Sloan (Jada Pinkett Smith), he puts together the most racist, insulting program imaginable. It is a minstrel show performed by black people in blackface, set in a watermelon patch, with every possible stereotype from Topsy to Aunt Jemima to a black man wearing a leopardskin loincloth.

The show is a huge hit. All across America, white and black fans put on blackface and happily yell out, “I’m a nigger!” adopting the exaggerated mannerisms of black images from our bigoted past.

The show’s stars, former street performers, are thrilled to be rich and famous, but increasingly haunted by the roles they must play. Sloan’s militant brother Julius, who wants to be called Big Black Africa, is the leader of a gang called the Mau Maus. They want their own television show (“Like the Monkees!”) and they want to do something to protest the minstrel show. They kidhap the star, with tragic results.

This movie has some of the most striking images ever put on film. The stars of the minstrel show put on blackface made from burnt cork, exactly as their predecessors did a century ago. They peer into mirrors to put on exaggerated red lips. A tear slips down a blackened cheek. Two characters argue in front of highly stylized life-size cutouts of the minstrel show characters. While Dinwitty collects African art, Delacroix begins to surround himself with racist items, beginning with a “jolly nigger bank.” Delacroix visits his father, a black entertainer who does not compromise to be acceptable to white audiences. He is comfortable with himself and with his all-black audiences, but he is an alcoholic. Lee, himself a maker of award-winning commercials, creates searing parody ads for malt liquor and “Timmi Hillnigger” clothes. The sole white member of the Mau Maus is the only one who survives a shoot-out. Montages of minstrel images from real old movies and racist toys and collectibles are devastating.

The movie draws from earlier films like “Network,” “Putney Swope,” and “The Producers” (in which an intentionally terrible show — a musical about Hitler — becomes a huge success). It raises dozens of important questions about the roles that both blacks and whites play in perpetuating racist stereotypes. Lee suggests that the current UPN and WB sitcoms featuring black characters may be the modern-day equivalent of a minstrel show.

In this movie, militant protesters take names like “Big Black Africa” and decide that they are oppressed by the “C” in “black” — but are willing to compromise their values to be on television. A street performer desperate to make a living is told that he will have to perform in blackface and all he says is, “Hey, we’re going to need a little more money for this.” When one of the minstrel show stars tries to perform as himself instead of the caricature, the audience hates it. As soon as another performer appears behind that reassuring, almost anonymous blackface, they applaud.

The movie is uneven. Dialogue has never been Lee’s strong point. But each scene has depth, integrity, intelligence — and anger — that is a welcome antidote to the usual formulaic Hollywood product. It is a profound and stimulating movie. I walked out of the theater with a thousand ideas and reactions. I heard the black woman walking out ahead of me say to her friend, “That is the best movie I ever saw.” It made me want to call every black person I know to ask them what they thought. Maybe that’s the point.

Parents should know that the movie has strong language and violence. Characters are shot and killed. There is some social drinking and one character abuses alcohol. There are sexual references and the movie makes some telling points about sexist assumptions about a woman’s use of sex to advance her career.

Families who see this movie will find a lot to talk about, including this country’s history of racism and the difficulty of bridging the gulf it has created.

Families who enjoy this movie should see some of Lee’s other films, including “Do the Right Thing” and “School Daze.” They may also like “Putney Swope,” “Network,” and “The Man in the Glass Booth.”