Just about everything is a little off-kilter in this quirky story about a wildly dysfunctional family.

A prologue tells us that Royal (Gene Hackman) and Etheline (Anjelica Houston) had three children, all of whom were so prodigiously accomplished while still in grade school that they were the subject of books, including one by their mother.

It seems that they lived their lives backward, though. As children, they easily surpassed adults with their astonishing achievements in the arts (Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) was a playwright), sports (Richie (Luke Wilson) was a tennis champion), and business (Chas (Ben Stiller) was a financial wizard). But as adults, they have reverted to childhood, and either can’t or won’t perform anymore. One by one, they return home, moving into their old bedrooms. And then Royal, long estranged from the family, tells Etheline that he, too, wants to come home, to make his peace with the family before he dies of cancer.

The result is a crackpot blending of J.D. Salinger’s stories about the gifted Glass children, the classic Kaufmann-Hart play “You Can’t Take it With You,” and a made-for-TV movie called “The Gathering,” in which a tough old rich guy played by Ed Asner visits his long-estranged but never- divorced wife, played by Maureen Stapleton, and asks her to persuade their grown children to come together for Christmas.

But this is very far from the glossy but conventional “Gathering.” It takes place in a whacked-out fantasy version of New York City, where hotels employ uniformed elevator operators, decrepit taxis literally labeled “Gypsy Cab” show up whenever someone needs to go somewhere and there is a YMCA on “375th Street.” The production design is brilliant, especially the house (the children’s bedrooms are magnificent) and the hotel.

Director Wes Anderson and actor Owen Wilson (who plays the Tenenbaum’s neighbor, Eli) wrote the screenplay, and like their previous collaborations, “Bottle Rocket” and “Rushmore,” this movie defies categorization, combining elements of satire, fantasy, comedy, tragedy, farce, and drama. That’s a combination that will make some audiences uncomfortable, but will seem to others to be the best possible way – maybe the only possible way — to truly convey a story of family conflict. The result is messy, even outrageous, but reflecting a singularity of vision that is welcome in a mainstream studio film starring three Oscar-winners.

Families should know that the movie has very mature material including a graphic and bloody suicide attempt, sexual references and situations (brief nudity, brief shot of gay embrace, adultery and a possible romance between adopted siblings) and painful issues of betrayal and deception. There are references to a tragic death. An adopted child is made to feel like an outsider. A character has a serious drug abuse problem. Some people may find the light-hearted treatment of these issues offensive.

Families who see this movie should talk about whether its wild exaggeration of family communication problems can be of help to families who are struggling to connect to each other. What can parents do to give gifted children the stimulation and support they need without making them feel isolated from friends and family? Eli says to Royal “I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum,” and Royal responds, “So did I.” What does that mean? Why did such accomplished children become such fragile adults? Why did Chas react to his wife’s death by becoming obsessed with safety?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Rushmore.” Every family should see the Best Picture Oscar-winning “You Can’t Take it With You,” starring Jimmy Stewart.

The big surprise ending of “Unbreakable” is what a disappointment it is.

The writer/director of “The Sixth Sense” begins with many of the same elements — Bruce Willis, a Philadelphia setting, a strained marriage, a child who is grappling with some big issues, elements of the supernatural, and a twist at the end. Once again, he creates a haunting and portentous mood with subdued performances, somber hues, and fluid camera movements. But unlike “The Sixth Sense,” in which a surprise at the end kicked the entire movie into a higher gear (and inspired audiences to go see it again to help them unravel it), this one has an ending that inspired hoots and boos at the screening I attended. In particular, the “what happens after the movie ends” description that come up on the screen just before the credits is the worst I have ever seen.

Bruce Willis plays David Dunn, a security guard who seems disconnected from his own life, unable to remember very much about his past and unwilling to connect to his wife and child. When he is the only survivor of a train crash, walking away without a single injury, bruise, or scratch, he is contacted by Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a comic art dealer who has a congenital bone disease. Price has bones that break easily; Dunn has bones that never break. Price believes there must be a connection, and that he must help Dunn find his destiny.

Comic book themes of good and evil, hero and enemy, strength and vulnerability, thesis and antithesis, and destiny and choice appear throughout the movie. Several times, characters see something upside down at first, and then have to turn it around to see it clearly. Price helps Dunn realize that he is more than a security guard. He is a protector. When Dunn begins to use his gifts, he begins to lose the sadness that has always engulfed him. When he tells his wife he had a nightmare, he is not referring to the murderer he has just battled but to a past in which he was able to sense tragedy around him but was not aware that he had the ability to protect people from it.

Parents should know that this movie has a lot of violence. Although most of it is offscreen, its themes, including sexual assault, murder of the parents of two children, and genocide, may be especially disturbing. A child uses a gun. There is a brief vulgar reference and an implication of date rape.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we find our “place in the world,” and the importance of recognizing our special gifts so that we can make the best use of them. If members of the family enjoy comic books, they may want to talk about the tradition of pictoral story-telling, the themes of hero and arch-villain and what makes them so enduring. We often think of good guys and bad guys as opposites, but we should also think about what they have in common.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “The Sixth Sense” and a better teaming of Willis and Jackson in “Die Hard: With a Vengeance.”

For the third time in a row, Disney departs from its traditional animation release formula with this non-musical, intense-action adventure (rated PG for violence) about the search for the legendary city that mysteriously disappeared in ancient times.

Michael J. Fox appealingly provides the voice of Milo Thatch, a scholar and linguist who dreams of realizing his late grandfather’s quest to find Atlantis. He works at Washington’s Smithsonian Institution, where he is relegated to the boiler room. A wealthy and eccentric friend of his grandfather’s offers to fund an expedition, and Milo finds himself on a submarine led by Commander Lyle T. Rourke (James Garner). The crew includes hundreds of sailors led by Helga, a sultry mercenary (Claudia Christian); Sweet, a genial half-black, half-Native American doctor (Phil Morris); Audrey, a teenaged Latina mechanic (Jacqueline Obradors); Vinnie, a demolitions expert (Don “Father Guido Sarducci” Novello); Mrs. Packard, an unflappable, chain-smoking communications officer (gravel-voiced Florence Stanley); and the Mole, a geologist who loves dirt (Corey Burton).

They set off on a journey reminiscent of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” culminating in a ferocious battle with the Leviathan, a mechanical sea monster that destroys the ship and kills most of the crew. Those who are left struggle through every obstacle imaginable but finally make it to Atlantis, where they meet Kida, a Pocahantas-style princess (Cree Summer) who speaks every language and is thousands of years old. She wants to make friends with the strangers, but her father wants them killed, so no one else will ever find them. Milo helps Princess Kida uncover the secret source of her country’s power but another threat appears – it turns out that Rourke and the others are only there to loot Atlantis. Milo has to find a way to save the place that has become his real home.

Parents should know that this movie is more intense and scary than the usual Disney release, with lots of (highly anachronistic) dive-bombing planes, lots of guns, a huge robot monster, fire, and the death of hundreds of anonymous sailors. Characters are mean to each other and some betray each other. Major characters are in peril and some are killed. One character is a chain-smoker, and there is a joke about whiskey, one about sleeping in the nude, and a whoopee-cushion gag. Milo becomes seasick. The movie does a good job of showing an inter-racial cast working well together, and there are both male and female good guys and bad guys.

Families should talk about the rise and fall of cultures over time, and how the study of history is essential in keeping a culture alive. Kids might want to learn more about the legends of Atlantis and read about the Greek Island of Santorini, which may be the source for some of them. Families might also want to talk about some of the anachronisms and plot holes in the movie. A key element of the plot involves a reference in an ancient document to Iceland, not Ireland, which, of course, had different names and were spelled with different alphabets thousands of years ago. The technology is also inaccurate – we are willing to suspend belief for Jules Verne-style science fiction machinery, but this features airplanes and trucks as commonplace items.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “The Thief and the Cobbler” – the character of the thief (voice of Jonathan Winters) may have inspired this movie’s Mole.

In this likeable family comedy, Jason Shepherd (Frankie Muniz of “Malcolm in the Middle”) plays an 8th grader who relies on his easy smile and even easier lies to keep him out of trouble, with a little help from his reluctant but loyal friend Kaylee (Nickelodeon’s Amanda Bynes). But it all catches up with him when he tells his teacher an elaborate story about being late with his homework because his father choked on a meatball. Though he thinks he has backed it up by pretending to be his father on the phone, he is busted when his parents show up at school. He has until 6:00 pm to turn in the paper, which must be in his own handwriting. If he doesn’t get it in on time, he’ll have to repeat the class in summer school.

He writes a story called “Big Fat Liar.” Racing to get it in on time, he collides with a car that turns out to contain an even bigger liar than he is, Hollywood producer Marty Wolf (Paul Giamattti). Jason gets into Wolf’s car and everything falls out of his backpack. He shoves it all back in, but when he gets to the school, the story is missing. Summer school is bad enough, but even worse is that no one believes that he really did write the story or that he got a ride from a Hollywood producer. He is literally the boy who cried (Marty) Wolf.

Summer comes, and summer school is miserable. At the movies, Jason sees a coming attraction for a Marty Wolf movie called….”Big Fat Liar.” Wolf has taken the story Jason left in the car and turned it into a major motion picture!

Jason sees this as his chance to prove to his parents that for once he really was telling the truth. When his parents go away for the weekend, Jason take his entire bank account and buys two tickets to Los Angeles so that he and Kaylee can find Wolf and make him tell Jason’s father the truth.

Jason and Kaylee scam their way into getting a limo ride from the airport and duck off the Universal Studios tour bus to find Wolf’s office. Then they scam their way into his office, but Wolf refuses to tell the truth. So Jason and Kaylee, along with a growing group of fellow Wolf-haters, set up a series of pranks designed to torture Wolf into admitting that Jason wrote the story for his new movie.

Muniz and Giamatti are deft comic actors, but the highlight of the movie is Bynes as Kaylee. Her two different but equally hilarious renditions of Hollywood secretaries are gems. Giamatti is so relentlessly selfish and egotistical that it gets a bit tedious, but he does do a wonderful little dance to “Hungry Like a (what else?) Wolf.”

Parents should know that, while the movie’s theme is the importance of telling the truth and being trustworthy, the message is a little mixed. In order to prove that he was telling the truth about finishing his story, Jason and Kaylee have to lie, steal, vandalize, and generally behave in an irresponsible – and illegal – manner, even by the standards of comic fantasy. And at the end, Jason’s parents are proud of him for proving that he was not lying when he said he had written his paper, never mentioning that perhaps two 14-year-olds should not have flown to California when they were supposed to be at home. One small bright spot worth mentioning is that all of Jason’s efforts are intended to show that he was telling the truth. His motive for pursuing Wolf is never getting any money or credit for his story. Another strength of the movie is its racially diverse cast.

Families who see this movie should talk about why people lie and how it feels not to be trusted. When someone is caught in a lie, how can he or she regain the trust of those who have been disappointed? Would you like to see the movie based on Jason’s story? What do you think it would be like?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Harriet the Spy. The Kid, and Snow Day.

I may sound like the Movie Grandmom here, but it is a darned shame that this smart and sassy movie has to include unnecessarily raunchy humor. Otherwise, this would be a terrific movie for kids, because it raises some important issues and it is a lot of fun.

Kirsten Dunst plays Torrence, whose whole life revolves around competitive cheerleading. She has just been elected captain of her squad, the five-time national champions, and it seems as though her senior year will be everything she dreamed of. But then one girl on the squad is out with a broken leg. And then real disaster strikes — it turns out that their award-winning routines were stolen from another squad, black cheerleaders who could not afford to go to the national competitions. Torrence has to face challenges of ethics and leadership and romance to sort all of this out before the nationals.

The movie strikes just the right note, respecting Torrence’s commitment and sportsmanship, but not taking any of it too seriously. The opening and closing cheers are the movie’s high point, the first one mocking the cheerleader ideal and the one that accompanies the closing credits to the classic 80’s “Mickey” song by Toni Basil. The issues of the white appropriation of black culture (going back at least to Elvis and Pat Boone) is an important one for kids to understand.

Parents should know, though, that while the behavior of the kids in the movie is mostly unobjectionable, the language and sexual references get pretty raunchy. It isn’t just the four-letter words that are typical these days in movies intended for a high school audience. But a boy jokes about slipping his finger in a girl’s underpants while he is holding her up during a cheer, and the insults are more vulgar than usual. Torrence’s little brother is practically demonic in his behavior. Parents should also know that Torrence’s boyfriend cheats on her (there is a girl in his bed). But Torrence and her new love have just one kiss (and, believe it or not, a very romantic tooth-brushing scene).

Families who see this movie should talk about the way that Torrence decides what is important to her and shows determination and commitment. At first, she tries a moral compromise in hiring a professional choreographer because “everybody does it,” but she knows it is wrong, and she is scrupulously honest and fair in her preparation for the nationals. She also handles the results with grace, and she believes in herself enough to break up with the boy who does not believe in her. Kids should also talk about the way that Missy and her brother Cliff support each other.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy watching some of the real-life cheerleader competitions on ESPN. They are amazing!