Freedomland

Starring Julianne Moore, Samuel L. Jackson, Edie Falco. Rated R

You gotta see this if: Your daily soap operas haven’t had enough drama lately.

final analysis: ** Remember Susan Smith, the woman who murdered her children then claimed the crime was committed by a black assailant? Her story appears to be the basis for “Freedomland.” Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) is a woman claiming a black man jacked her car with her 4-year-old son in the backseat. Samuel L. Jackson portrays the cop assigned to her case who begins to doubt Brenda is telling the whole truth when the fabric of her story starts to tear. “Freedomland” has good intentions. It desperately wants you to get angry when an entire black community is held under lockdown to search for the missing child. And it wants you to cry for Brenda’s damaged soul and her lost child. Unfortunately, good intentions don’t hold up under a barrage of melodrama. There’s too much hysteria, too many Scarlett O’Hara moments. This movie tries so hard to wring every drop of emotion out of its audience that it becomes a parody of itself. By the time the drawn out conclusion arrived, I could hear Rhett Butler saying, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Eight Below

Starring Paul Walker, Bruce Greenwood, Jason Biggs. Rated PG

You gotta see this if: After “Snow Dogs” you vowed never to see another animal movie.

final analysis: *** This is a movie that will probably generate a huge boost in the sale of husky pups. I’d like to find one myself and I already have two dogs. “Eight Below” takes place at a scientific base in Antarctica. Dog trainer Gerry Shepherd is forced to leave his team of eight huskies behind when a massive storm hits camp and there is no room in the helicopter for his beloved team. He is assured that the dogs will be rescued in a few hours but storm conditions prevent any return to the base and the dogs are left to survive on their own for six months. How they survive is the meat of the movie and the dogs deserve Academy awards for their performances. Each has a distinct personality and will keep all but the most rabid of animal-haters captivated. The human actors in the movie are pretty good, too. Paul Walker proves he’s more than a pretty face as the trainer fighting to get his dogs rescued. But it’s the huskies that steal the show over and over again. After a long dry spell, Disney finally got one right.

Date Movie

Starring Alyson Hannigan, Jennifer Coolidge. Rated PG-13

You gotta see this if: You recently dropped out of High school to fulfill your lifelong ambition of flipping burgers.

final analysis: * I thought “Scary Movie” was stupid and unfunny, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t like “Date Movie” either. At least “Scary Movie” accurately parodied the horror film genre. “Date Movie” does nothing more than grab bits of various movies from as far back as 1989 and mush them together. Some of the movies mimicked aren’t even romantic comedies, which, presumably, is the genre being mocked. Was “Revenge of the Sith” a chick flick? How about “Kill Bill?” A good parody mocks a genre by exaggerating its classic elements and incorporating them into original material. Think “Airplane” or “Blazing Saddles.” “Date Movie” is a cheap imitation of the movies it mocks with toilet humor and gross out gags thrown in at every opportunity. You’d think the writers of this movie were 14-year-old boys instead of grown men. If watching a cat straining on the toilet or seeing giant prosthetic buttocks is your idea of prime humor, then this is just the movie for you. But if you take your girlfriend, don’t expect romance.