Instead of the annual G-rated musical cartoon released just as school lets out, this year Disney’s big summer release is “Dinosaur,” a stunning integration of computer graphics over live backgrounds.

Aladar is an orphan Iguanodon raised by monkey-like lemurs. When flaming meteors destroy their home they join a group of dinosaurs trying to find food and water. The leader of the group, Kron, insists that stopping to help the older or slower dinosaurs is too dangerous. But Aladar shows the others that cooperation, teamwork, and kindness make more sense because then everyone gets a chance to contribute. That resolution brings to mind another dinosaur — a big, purple one on PBS. Aladar just is not that interesting a character. Disney worked very hard to make sure that the faces of the dinosaurs were expressive, but should have worked a little harder on giving them some more complex and subtle emotions to express. Even in a movie for kids, it is not enough for the characters to overcome some external challenge. What makes a story get into your heart is seeing the characters learn and grow and overcome internal challenges. It is a marvel of skill, but does not have half of the heart or wit of either of the “Toy Storys” or “A Bug’s Life.”

The technological mastery is dazzling to watch, though, especially the textures. Fur, scales, eggshell, water, and goo are all so vivid you can almost feel them. It is a shame that the story and characters are not as strong as the visuals, though that will be more of a problem for the adults in the audience than the children.

Parents should know that the movie is dark and scary at times. Characters are frequently in peril and some are killed. A three year old sitting near me cried for more than half of the movie. But most kids find enormous appeal in the idea of creatures that are amazingly huge and powerful and reassuringly long departed. While they may not connect to these characters the way they do with the animated films, most kids will like watching the dinosaurs and will find the conclusion satisfying.

Families who see the movie may want to talk about the narrator’s comment that “sometimes the smallest thing can make the biggest changes of all.” What is the “smallest thing” and what are the changes? How did being treated with kindness change the way some of the characters behaved? How did making Baylene feel needed change the way she behaved? Why was Aladar’s point of view so different? Could it have been due to the loving way he was raised? How did Aladar help Neera see things differently?

Families — especially blended, foster, and adoptive families — may also want to talk about how the lemurs decide to “adopt” the huge dinosaur, and about how some species were intolerant of others. Older children may want to talk about Kron’s view that the only way to keep some members of the herd alive was to sacrifice those who could not keep up, and the way his behavior showed that he believed the only way to maintain power was to refuse to listen to anyone else.

Kids who like this movie will enjoy “The Land Before Time” and its sequels and “Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.”

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), who grew up in New York and went to college at Berkeley, stands in the middle of his first Iowa corn crop and hears a voice say, “If you build it, he will come.” He begins to understand that this means he must plow under the corn crop and build a baseball field so that Shoeless Joe Jackson, barred from baseball since 1919 and dead for years, can play on it. Ray and his wife (Amy Madigan) know this is a crazy thing to do, but they do it. And “Shoeless”Joe Jackson does show up, with his teamates. Jackson had been the hero of Ray’s father, a former minor leaguer, with whom Ray had never been able to connect.

The voice speaks again: “Ease his pain.” Ray comes to understand that this refers to an iconoclastic author of the 1960s named Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones), now a recluse. Ray finds him, and together they hear the voice say “Go the distance.” This leads them back in time to find an elderly doctor (Burt Lancaster), who had a brief career in baseball but never got a chance at bat in a major league game. On their way back to the farm, they find him again, as a young man, and together, they go home, just as the farm is about to be foreclosed. The doctor gets his chance at bat. Mann gets to tell another story. And Ray gets a second chance to do what he regrets not doing as a teenager, to play catch with his father.

Discussion: The themes of this movie are dreams, family, and baseball. There are echoes of Ray’s father throughout the movie. It begins with Ray’s description of growing up, using his refusal to play baseball as his teenage rebellion, and as a way to test his father’s love. Ray tells Mann that his father’s name was used for a character in one of Mann’s books. Ray builds the field to bring back Shoeless Joe, his father’s hero, the hero Ray accused of being corrupt because he knew that would hurt his father. And of course at the end, it turns out that the dream all along was not bringing back the greats of baseball, but of a reconciliation with his father that was not possible before he died. “I only saw him when he was worn down by life,” Ray says. His own understanding and maturity are what enable him to see his father as he really was, even before he reappears on the baseball field. Ray asks his father, “Is there a heaven?” and his father answers, “Oh yeah. It’s the place dreams come true.”

Family discussion: Why doesn’t Annie’s brother Mark see the baseball players at first? Why is he able to see them later? · What did Ray mean when he talked about how he needed to insult his father’s hero when he was a teenager? · How do you know when to follow a dream that seems crazy or foolish?

If you like this, try: Find out more about Shoeless Joe Jackson and the famous “Black Socks” scandal. “Eight Men Out,” with D. B. Sweeney as Jackson, tells this story sympathetically. The Ken Burns PBS documentary about the history of baseball also has a video devoted to the story. See also baseball history movies “Bingo Long” and “Sandlot” (both also starring Jones) and “A League of Their Own.” And listen to James Earl Jones as the voice for Darth Vader in “Star Wars.”

There are two kinds of Adam Sandler movies: the kind where he plays a complete idiot and uses a (supposedly) funny voice through it all and the kind where he just plays a sweet doofus with his regular voice. Generally, those regular voice movies (“Happy Gilmore,” “Big Daddy,” and “The Wedding Singer”) are more broadly appealing than the funny voice movies, like “The Waterboy.” Although this movie is in the funny voice category, it benefits from higher production values and a strong supporting cast and ranks as one of the better Sandler movies. That voice gets extremely annoying very quickly, though — like after the first thirty seconds.

Sandler, surrounded by his usual gang of college pals and SNL alums, plays the title character, the third son of a loving father who happens to be Satan (Harvey Keitel). The two older sons (wrestling star Tom “Tiny” Lister, Jr., and “Notting Hill’s” wacky roommate Rhys Ifans) are furious that Satan will not allow one of them take over as commander-in-chief of hell, so they decide to leave and form their own Hell in New York City. Unless Little Nicky can get them back home within a week, their father will literally fall apart. So even though he has never been to earth before, he goes to New York to try to bring them back. A talking guardian bulldog is there to help.

Little Nicky learns important lessons about life on earth, from eating and sleeping to staying out of the way of heavy moving metal things. He also learns about the butterflies in the stomach feeling he gets from talking to a pretty girl (Patricia Arquette) and some other feelings he gets from eating a cake laced with marijuana. And he learns something about who he really is and how powerful he can be.

All of this is just an excuse, of course, for a lot of low-wattage jokes, usually repeated for no additional benefit. But the movie is enlivened by some funny cameos (Rodney Dangerfield as Satan’s father, Reese Witherspoon as an angel, Henry Winkler as himself, and a surprise visit by a rock star). Sandler fans will enjoy it, but it will not have the cross-over appeal of “The Wedding Singer.”

Parents should know that this movie is right up at the R edge of PG-13, with one use of the F-word and a lot of other strong language and sexual references. One of Satan’s daily tasks is to punish a French-maid’s-uniform-clad Hitler by inserting a pineapple into his rear end. Satan punishes another character by making realistic-looking breasts grow out of his head, and in subsequent scenes they get fondled by other characters. A character is a weird transvestite who pours hot wax on his chest and plays with his nipples. A voyeur gets sent to hell. In addition to the marijuana mentioned above, the devils lower the drinking age to 10, and we see drunken children coming out of a bar (and puking). They also change New York’s tourism slogan to “I love hookers.” And there are some jokes that can be interpreted as homophobic.

Families who see this movie should talk about the idea of a “balance between good and evil.” Is there a balance? Why? They may also want to talk about their own ideas about heaven and hell.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “The Wedding Singer” and “Happy Gilmore.”

This is a big overstuffed everything- and the kitchen sink mess of a movie. It is an ambitious, often gorgeous, occasionally brilliant mess. But for all its superficial abundance, there is an essential stinginess at its core. It teases the audience with glimpses of dazzling images and snippets of familiar songs but never gives either a chance to connect. It’s like one long coming attraction, without the payoff of a chance to relish the full version. There is more than enough for the eye, but nothing for the soul.

The story is supposed to be eternal, with echoes of classic themes from Orpheus to La Bohème (with references to everything from “Singin’ in the Rain” to “The Sound of Music,” Nirvana, Fellini, MTV, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, and even a love triangle with a gun climax right out of “Titanic”). Those may be shortcuts to pleasure and even amusement, but they don’t work when it comes time to making us care about what happens. The movie is busy to the point of hallucination, but it has so little time for its characters that it comes across more as melodrama, with young lovers menaced by a villain who all but twirls his moustache and ties her to the train tracks. The story tells us that it is supposed to be about love, but it tries so hard to be postmodern and ironic that the audience is left feeling as cold-hearted as the wicked Duke.

The movie opens brilliantly with a proscenium arch and as the curtain goes up we see the conductor and hear a song about “a very strange enchanted boy.” Christian (Ewan McGregor), a naive young poet, comes to Paris at the turn of the 20th Century and meets up with a group of Bohemian artists who want him to write a musical play for the star of a combination nightclub, dance hall, and brothel, a “kingdom of nighttime pleasures” called the Moulin Rouge. The star’s name is Satine (Nicole Kidman), and she and Christian fall in love, which is bad for business. The emcee of the show (Jim Broadbent as Ziglar) wants Satine to get the wealthy Duke to pay to transform the Moulin Rouge into a legitimate theater and back the first show. That means that she has to persuade the Duke that she is in love with him, and she has to sleep with him.

Satine wants stardom and she wants Christian. She does not have much time; she faints at the end of her big musical number, and she has been coughing up blood.

Christian learns that it is not as easy to be a Bohemian as he thought; Satine learns that acting like she loves many men is not as hard as acting like she does not love one. They both learn that the show is more real than they thought. The sitar (played by John Leguizamo as Toulouse-Lautrec) does tell the truth and love’s first kiss does wake the princess,

The highlight of the movie is the art direction. The sets and costumes are spectacular, and everything else is secondary at best. McGregor and Kidman use their undeniable star power to do as much to hold our attention as anyone could. Their singing voices are passable, but not arresting.

Parents should know that the movie has some strong language (including double entendres) and sexual references and situations. The main character is a prostitute and the atmosphere is decadent. Christian and his friends drink absinthe, and have a hallucination.

Families who see this movie should look at some of the pictures by Toulouse-Lautrec of the real Moulin Rouge. They should talk about Satine’s comment that she had learned to think that she was only worth what someone would pay for her. How did being in love with Christian change that? Did the Bohemians really change the world around them? What do you think will happen to Christian? To the Duke?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Luhrman’s other films, “Strictly Ballroom” and “Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet,” which have his trademark visual flair and clever musical selections, and which also have better scripts.