Less a sequel than a remake of the first “Rush Hour,” this version sets itself up to be the next “Lethal Weapon” franchise by meticulously repeating all of the elements of the first one. Those elements are: one motor mouth LA cop named Carter (Chris Tucker), one stoic kick-boxing Hong Kong cop named Lee (Jackie Chan), and a microscopic plot that moves the story along without distracting audiences or the performers too much from the fights, explosions, and wisecracks.

The problem with any sequel to a movie like this is that once we have already spent one movie getting the characters to respect and trust one another, it is difficult to create much dramatic tension. The plot is just as thin as the first one, but inherently less compelling. In “Rush Hour,” the plot centered on an adorable kidnapped child; in this one it is something about counterfeit money. Tucker’s comic riffs and Chan’s balletic fight scenes are mildly entertaining, but have a synthetic feel.

The high points include a fight staged in a massage parlor and the pyrotechnic contributions of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s” Zhang Ziyi. She doesn’t float through the air this time, but she has the same defiant pout. Her screen presence is electric, even in Mandarin. Don Cheadle shows up for a brief scene that reminds us of what real acting looks like. The best part of the movie is the outtakes shown during the final credits, which give us an even better sense of the chemistry between Chan and Tucker than the movie does. Maybe “Rush Hour 3” will be all outtakes – that would be a sure hit.

Parents should know that the movie has a lot of action violence and comic peril. That means that the fight scenes are not very graphic. In almost cartoon-style fashion, characters get beat up badly and then are shown in the next scene without any wounds. School-age kids who see this movie may get unrealistic ideas about the consequences of fighting. The movie also has some strong language, sexual innuendo, and a massage parlor scene in which Tucker is allowed to choose from an array of girls and selects several of them.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we decide whom to trust and the risks that undercover operatives must take. They may also want to talk about the challenges of making friends with people from other cultures and the way that Carter and Lee tease each other about the differences between blacks and Asians.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the original and some of Chan’s other movies, like Shanghai Noon.

There is real logic and there is movie logic. Audiences are usually very forgiving of lapses in movie logic — we recognize that people always get perfect parking spaces and have correct change and live in fabulous apartments that their characters could never afford because we recognize that these elements are there to make the story movie smoothly and because they make it more fun to watch. In the spirit of movies like “Flashdance” and “Grease,” this movie requires suspension of disbelief that is close to complete abandonment of any sense of reality. This is the kind of movie in which characters who live in the poorest circumstances seem to have all the money they need to buy fake IDs or expensive theater tickets. Students who get good grades never seem to do any homework or have any books in their backpacks. A teenager with a baby never has a problem with child care. Still, no one goes to this movie to gain great insights about the human condition. It is nowhere near “Grease” or “Flashdance” in style, soundtrack, or dance (and the use of a dance double in the ballet sequences is obvious), but it may appeal to teens who see it as one big music video.

Sara Johnson (Julia Stiles) is a ballet dancer who is nervous about her big audition for Julliard. Her mother promises to be there, but she is killed in a car crash on the way to the theater. Sara leaves her home in the suburbs to live with her musician father (Terry Kinney) in a tiny apartment in Chicago’s inner city. Memories of her old life are so painful that she wants to leave everything behind.

Her new high school has metal detectors at the entrance, and almost all of the students are black. She stands in the cafeteria, holding her tray, not knowing where to sit. Chenille (Kerry Washington) welcomes Sara to her table. Chenille’s brother Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas) is a smart kid torn between his loyalty to his old friends who are increasingly involved in dangerous activities, and his ambitions to go to college and medical school. Chenille brings Sara to a dance club (after a quick style makeover) and after some verbal sparring, Derek dances with Sara, teaching her a little about hip hop. He gives her a few more lessons. They become friends, then they become romantically involved. He finds out about her passion for ballet, and urges her to apply to Julliard again. Various complications ensue, especially when Chenille becomes angry and tells Sara that white girls should not become involved with “one of the few decent men we got left after jail, drugs, and drive-by.” Sara, Chenille, and Derek have to confront their fears and think carefully about loyalty and trust. Ultimately, what Sara has learned from Derek in dance and in life, helps her to follow her dream.

This is a formulaic coming of age/teen romance with an MTV spin (MTV co-produced the movie). While the script is below average, even by the low standards of this genre, its performers are attractive and sincere (Kerry Washington is particularly appealing) and most teens are still so new to this category of film that it may not seem clichéd to them.

Parents should know that the characters use strong language and the soundtrack lyrics have even stronger language, including the n-word. Chenille has an out of wedlock child (and a difficult relationship with the child’s father). Derek has to decide whether his loyalty to an old friend (and his sense of guilt at the friend’s having taken the rap for them both) means that he must go along with him when he plans to shoot someone. Characters object to the interracial romance, mostly because they are jealous. The characters buy fake IDs so they can go to a club that serves liquor, and they drink and smoke.

Families who see this movie should talk about the choices Sara and Derek must face. Sara blames herself for her mother’s death. How does she overcome that feeling and allow herself to take the risk of auditioning again? How do Derek and Sara get into trouble by not being honest with each other about what is bothering them? How do they sort through their loyalties, Derek to his friend Malakai (Fredro Starr) and Sara to Chenille? Malakai tells Derek, “You act like you don’t know who you are anymore.” How do Sara and Derek decide who they are? Where do they find their support?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Footloose” and “Fame,” both with some mature material.

I’ll admit it with some embarrassment – this movie made me laugh. Yes, it is a very dumb comedy, but as dumb comedies go, it is one of the best because it stars four of the most able comic actors around. The situations are mildly funny (though, as I said, very dumb), but Jack Black, Steve Zahn, Jason Biggs, and Amanda Peet are so much fun to watch that I dare you not to smile.

Black, Zahn, and Biggs play three lifelong buddies who think that life can’t get much better than watching football with a beer bong or performing “Holly Holy” in their Neil Diamond tribute band, “Diamonds in the Rough.” Darren (Biggs) gets involved with a nightmare girlfriend (Peet as Judith -– not “Judy” -– a psychologist), who refers to Darren as her puppet and herself as his puppet master. Darren’s two pals decide the only way to save him is to kidnap Judith so that he can spend some time with the only girl he loved in high school. She happens to be a former trapeze artist about to become a nun.

If this sounds like an Adam Sandler movie, that might be because Sandler produced it, and because it was directed by Dennis Dugan, the director of “Big Daddy” and “Happy Gilmore.” It has the loose construction (and the juvenile attitude toward women) of a Sandler movie. Scenes were apparently created based on, “You know what might be funny?” instead of “You know what this character would do next?” That approach can be disarmingly unpretentious, but it can also be repetitive. How many dead fiancé stories do we really need? And there are a number of similarities to the rest of the Sandler oeuvre, including the contrast between the sweet, forgiving, blonde angel dream girl and the greedy and controlling girlfriend who nevertheless inspires love and loyalty from the hapless hero. There are other similarities, too — to the extent that this is a reworking of “The Wedding Singer,” the part of Billy Idol is played by…Neil Diamond.

In the end, though, it works, thanks to the inescapable pleasure of watching Zahn, Black, and Biggs. Peet is less well served by the script, which has her as some sort of pre-pubescent fantasy of a man-eating girlfriend, but she still glows – and looks great in some very revealing outfits.

Parents should know that this is a PG-13 movie that could easily have qualified for an R, and they should be very cautious about evaluating its appropriateness for teenagers. The coming attraction and commercial use computer graphics to make the movie seem less raunchy – Zahn’s nude yoga pose (with sexual overtones) is disguised with computer-added underpants and Peet’s revealing blouse is made much less revealing. The movie has very strong language and jokes about oral sex, masturbation, and homosexuality. A “butt cheek implant” operation is shown in brief but gross detail. Drinking too much beer is portrayed as a humorous bonding experience. The movie includes comic kidnapping and comic fatalities. A woman uses sex to control a man.

Familes who see this movie should talk about what happens to friends when they start to become involved in romance and why a man like Darren would put up with a woman who treats him with no respect or affection. What would be the right thing to do if you believe your friend is in a bad relationship?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “The Wedding Singer” and “Big Daddy.”

Audiences who have been wondering when we were going to get a great comedy about incest can keep wondering. “Say it Isn’t So” is a mediocre comedy about incest, a pale retread from the producers (but not the writers or director) of “There’s Something About Mary.” They are clearly trying here for the same results, but miscasting and going once too often to the well of “I can’t believe they did that” get in the way. Its primary appeal will be on video, to excited middle schoolers who think they are cool for watching an R-rated movie and can’t tell the difference between gross, outrageous, and funny.

Sweet Gilly Noble (Chris Klein) meets up with the world’s worst hairdresser, Jo Wingfield (Heather Graham) and they fall in love and become engaged. But then Gilly finds out that the birth parents he has been looking for are none other than the Wingfields, Valdene (Sally Field!) and Walter (Richard Jenkins), Jo’s parents. So, the lovers part, and Jo returns to her old boyfriend, rich, handsome, charming Jack Mitchelson (Eddie Cibrian). A year later, as Jack and Jo are about to get married, Gilly finds out that he is not Jo’s brother, and he races off to get her the message before the wedding.

All of this is just an excuse for jokes involving amputated limbs, bikini waxes, paralysis, pierced nipples, bestiality, a town named “Beaver,” a guy with his arm stuck in a cow’s rear end, and, of course, lots of incest humor. The few bright spots feature Orlando Jones as Gilly’s one friend (an amputee pilot).

Parents should know that this movie contains extremely strong language, many sexual references and situations, and a lot of gross-out material. There is brief nudity and drug humor, and characters smoke and drink. Most parents will not find this movie suitable for children or teenagers.

Families who do see this movie should talk about what to do when someone you care for is about to marry someone you think is a bad choice, and about how a highly dysfunctional family like the Wingfields could produce a sweet daughter like Jo.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy There’s Something About Mary(very mature material).

The credits for “Scary Movie 2” show seven different screenwriters, which means an average of 1.3 good jokes per writer. But hey, if you thought that this movie would have witty repartee, you never saw the first one.

Though a slight improvement over the original, “Scary Movie 2” is the same hour and a half of easy, dumb humor: insults, pop culture references, political incorrectness, and bodily fluids, gallons and gallons and gallons of bodily fluids.

I’d like to point out for what I am sure will not be the last time that it is not enough to simply insult someone or make a politically incorrect comment or drown someone in excretions. That’s the easy part. The tricky part, and the worthwhile part, is to make those things funny, and this movie misses so often that its hits seem almost inadvertent. So what we have is a lot of fake and lazy attempts at humor. They may have the rhythm and cadence of jokes, but there is nothing really funny inside. On the other hand, the movie is so cheerfully unassuming about being in the worst possible taste that it is hard to be bothered by it.

What passes for a plot begins with a brief parody of “The Exorcist,” with James Woods in the Max von Sydow role as the title character. This is the highlight of the movie, especially when Veronica Cartwright, in the Ellen Burstyn role, segues from singing “Hello Dolly” with her friends to a rousing chorus of “Shake Ya Azz.” But it ends with tragedy, and we skip ahead to a year later, when a professor (Tim Curry) and his wheelchair-bound assistant take some students to the mansion where it took place, for some paranormal experiments. The rest of the movie is just an avalanche of parodies of everything and anything, from Monica Lewinsky’s dress to “The Weakest Link,” and violations of every possible standard of good taste. Not one but two handicapped characters are played for laughs (with extended comic use of a withered hand), and, as was once said about the infinitely better movie, “The Loved One,” there is something to offend everyone. Woods and Tori Spelling(!) should get good sport Oscars, but the other cast members are mostly forgettable.

Parents should know that this movie is filled with explicit, graphic and offensive humor about every possible kind of sexual act, and that it contains material that would easily get an NC-17 rating in a drama. Peril is mostly comic, but at least two characters are killed and there are some jump-out-at-you surprises. As one would expect in a movie written, produced, and directed by black performers, there are some pointed and valid references to the stereotypical portrayal of black characters in Hollywood films, and the female characters are (in a comic context) brave and capable. However, the movie can be seen as sexist and homophobic, while at the same time parodying sexism and homophobia.

Families who see this movie should talk about the process and role of parody and satire in helping us to see what we take for granted in a new way. How does this movie affect the audience’s ability to enjoy standard thrillers? If they break their promise again and come out with another sequel, what will that one find to make fun of?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the movies that inspired it, including What Lies Beneath and Scream.