Sun | T.G.I.F.

(RATINGS: The movies listed below are rated according to the following key: **** - excellent; *** -- good; ** -- fair; * -- poor.)

* AMERICAN BEAUTY: A stunning dark comedy about a middle-class suburban family that loses its grip on the American Dream. The father, Lester (Kevin Spacey) quits his job and regresses into adolescent drug use and lusts after his daughter's Lolita-like best friend. His wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), has an affair, as does his daughter, juxtaposing the hypocritical adults and yearning kids as the family makes its playful but fatalistic plunge. R. 1:58. *** 1/2

(Bainbridge, Kitsap Mall, Poulsbo, South Sound)

* THE CIDER HOUSE RULES: This is a coming-of-age tale about New England orphan Homer Wells' (Tobey Maguire) initiation into the world. Michael Caine co-stars in this deliberately old-fashioned, yet successful, film about first love, the World War II home front and social consciousness. R. 2:09. *** 1/2

(Bainbridge, Poulsbo, Silverdale, South Sound)

* DROWNING MONA: A comedy murder mystery about a group of dimwitted townsfolk who haplessly try to solve a murder mystery in which the victim - Mona Dearly (Bette Midler) - was so vile-tempered and nauseating that everyone in town who had ever met her is a suspect. PG-13. 1:35. * 1/2

(Kitsap Mall)

* ERIN BROCKOVICH: Julia Roberts stars as Erin Brockovich, a Los Angeles working mother who parleys a job as a file clerk at a seedy law office into a self-created position as head investigator in a lawsuit against a California utility giant that is contaminating the water supply. R. 2:11. ****

(Bainbridge, Poulsbo, Redwood, Silverdale)

* FINAL DESTINATION: After a 17-year-old visualizes that the plane he and his classmates are on explodes midair and that all on board meet their final destination - death - he and six others leave the aircraft, only to struggle to stay alive on the ground. R. 1:30. * 1/2

(Poulsbo, Redwood, South Sound)

* GALAXY QUEST: This comedy is a postmodern parody of "Star Trek," a kind of PG-rated "Scream" for Trekkies. Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver star in a movie that ambles rather than builds momentum, and whose characters are overly familiar with a certain genre's formula. PG. 1:42. **


* THE HURRICANE: Denzel Washington gives an outstanding performance in this offbeat sports docu-drama with a keen contemporary edge that tells the story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a middleweight boxer of the mid-'60s who was wrongly convicted of a triple murder and unjustly imprisoned for 22 years. R. 2:26. ****


* MISSION TO MARS: A NASA-sanctioned space adventure movie that imagines what things will be like in 2020, when a core group of astronauts make two seemingly blighted expeditions to Mars. PG. 1:53. ***

(Bainbridge, Kitsap Mall, Poulsbo, South Sound)

* MY DOG SKIP: When his best friend is shipped off to serve in World War II, a shy 9-year-old becomes fast friends with the new puppy his mother brings home to help him adjust. PG. 1:35. ***

(Bainbridge, Poulsbo, Silverdale, South Sound)

* THE NEXT BEST THING: Real-life buddies Rupert Everett and Madonna star in "The Next Best Thing," a contemporary romantic comedy about the troubled lives of a gay male gardener and his straight female best friend. PG-13. 1:50. ** 1/2

(Bainbridge, Poulsbo, Redwood, South Sound)

* THE NINTH GATE: A chase-horror thriller in which international bookfinder Dean Corso (Johnny Depp), on a deadly hunt for a 17th Century Satanic text, falls gradually into the clutches of Lucifer himself. R. 2:07. ***

(Kitsap Mall)

* PITCH BLACK: After their space transport plane crash lands on a desert planet, a group of half-witted survivors must pull together to prevent being killed by stronger, faster, meat-eating beasts. 1:37 R. H

(Kitsap Mall, South Sound)

* REINDEER GAMES: A recently released convict (Ben Affleck), who assumes the identity of his deceased former cellmate, becomes entangled with a sinister bunch of casino robbers (led by Gary Sinise) in this John Frankenheimer thriller. R. 1:38. ** 1/2

(Poulsbo )

* SCREAM 3: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox Arquette and other familiar characters return for the final installment of the teen-oriented horror trilogy. A masked slasher once again wreaks havoc on a group of young adults. R. 1:56. **

(Charleston, Poulsbo)

* THE SIXTH SENSE: A story about child psychologist (Bruce Willis) helping an 8-year-old boy overcome his alienation. It's both frustrating and pleasurable because much of the time you're not sure what the movie is about. But it bravely engages our deepest emotions on issues of death, madness, illusion and forgiveness. PG-13 (intense thematic material, violent images). 1:55. *** 1/2

(Plaza Twin, Silverdale)

* SNOW DAY: A delightfully playful film about the antics that prevail when a freak blizzard hits Syracuse, N.Y. PG. 1:30. ** 1/2

(Poulsbo, Redwood, South Sound)

* STUART LITTLE: Rob Minkoff ("The Lion King") directs this patronizing and predictable film based on E.B. White's episodic book about a lively, humanlike mouse named Stuart Little. In Minkoff's adaptation, a couple adopts Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) so their son George can have a younger "brother," only George isn't happy about it. PG. **


* SWEET AND LOWDOWN: Woody Allen's latest is a comic valentine to '30s jazz; its subject -- a fictitious jazz guitarist named Emmet Ray (Sean Penn) - is a self-destructive natural talent, America's best jazz guitarist, but cursed by the fact that he'll always be second in the world to the great Django Reinhardt. PG-13. 1:35. ***


* THE TIGGER MOVIE: Tigger sets out to discover where he came from and where the rest of his family lives in this charming Disney movie. G. 1:16. ***

(Poulsbo, Silverdale, South Sound)

* TOY STORY 2: You can't ask for a family film to do more than "Toy Story 2." It's smart and playful enough to entertain adults, yet it never aims above the heads of kids. "Toy Story 2" is essentially a raucous tale about toy mortality, and the lead characters -- plastic spaceman Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) and lanky cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks) - are back for more adventures with new toy mates. G. ****

(Plaza Twin)

* WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM? A battle-of-the-sexes comedy in which a man from an unnamed planet visits Earth with the sole purpose of impregnating a woman. 1:49. R. ** 1/2

(Poulsbo, South Sound)

* THE WHOLE NINE YARDS: An unassuming dentist (Matthew Perry) who innocently befriends a contract killer (Bruce Willis) stumbles into a world of assassins for hire and must fight his way out. 1:41 R. **

(Kitsap Mall, Poulsbo, South Sound)

* WONDER BOYS: Michael Douglas stars as Grady Tripp, a novelist who is disastrously entangled with his boss and his students and who has to compose his endless novel in a house that his wife has long since deserted. R. 1:52. *** 1/2

(Bainbridge, Kitsap Mall, Plaza Twin)