Capsule reviews of films playing the week of Jan. 7 

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SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE I'm not sure how a film in which a small boy gets blinded by someone deliberately pouring hot liquid onto his eyeballs while he's unconscious ends up being hyped as the "feel-good" movie of the year, but that's the story with Slumdog Millionaire. The modern-day sequences find lanky, likable Jamal (Dev Patel) working his way through the questions on India's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Jamal has coped with poverty all of his life, and it's his unlikely ascension that has the entire nation rooting for him. But Jamal isn't doing this for money; he's doing it for the love of beautiful Latika (Freida Pinto), who, as we see in ample flashbacks, grew up on the streets alongside Jamal and his hotheaded brother Salim (Madhur Mittal). Initially, the movie's structure is ingenious in how it feeds on incidents from Jamal's past to allow him to get the right answers on the TV game show, in effect suggesting that what's most important in this life is what we learn firsthand. As for the sequences revolving around the characters' rough childhoods, they're refreshingly raw and uncompromising, a cross between Charles Dickens and City of God. It's a shame, then, that director Danny Boyle and scripter Simon Beaufoy toss aside all innovation in order to bind the final half-hour into a straightjacket of rigid formula plotting. The boy-finds-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-tries-to-save-girl angle is flaccid enough, although it's the arc involving bad bro Salim that's especially groan-worthy. Still, three-quarters of a stellar movie is nothing to sneer at, meaning that those who take a chance on Slumdog Millionaire will get their money's worth. ***

TWILIGHT Working from the first novel in Stephenie Meyer's literary franchise, director Catherine Hardwicke and scripter Melissa Rosenberg have made Twilight a love story first and a vampire tale second. Kristen Stewart stars as Bella, who moves to Forks, Wa., and finds herself attracted to the enigmatic Edward (Robert Pattinson), who sports a pasty-white complexion and avoids the company of the other high school kids. But he is likewise drawn to Bella, and as their relationship grows, he exposes his true nature to her. Twilight is occasionally overwrought, yet Hardwicke turns that into a blessing rather than a curse. The astute director, who previously helmed Thirteen, understands her teen protagonists, and rather than speak down to them (and, by extension, to the film's youthful viewers), she allows their angst-filled behavior, their oversized emotionalism, to register as the most important thing in the world (because, to a teenager caught up in the moment, that's exactly what it is). This ripeness in the movie's form and content fuels the heated romance between Edward and Bella, and the romantic sessions between them have an aching sweetness, marred only by an obtrusively florid score (by the usually reliable Carter Burwell) that threatens to turn these sequences into Viagra for Teens commercials. There's some late-inning action when Edward and his family must stop a "bad" vampire (Cam Gigandet) who's determined to snack on Bella's blood, but this part of the film feels rushed and tacked-on. Clearly, Hardwicke's interest remains firmly on matters of the heart – a heart unencumbered by the traditional wooden stake, of course. ***

VALKYRIE Ever the stalwart hero, Tom Cruise takes on the Nazis in Valkyrie, but it proves to be a losing effort for both the actor and the picture itself. Based on a true event that occurred in 1944, this handsome yet emotionally distant film centers on the efforts of a group of proud Germans to assassinate Adolf Hitler and wrest control away from the murderous tyrants (i.e. the SS) who served under him. Chief among these conspirators is Colonel Stauffenberg (Cruise), who, just like the progressives here in our own country this year, is willing to fight the fascists for change that he can believe in. Aided by a mix of officers, soldiers and politicians (among the familiar players are Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Izzard and Terence Stamp), Stauffenberg initially seems to triumph in his mission impossible, only to ... well, we all know how history turned out. Only marginally involving, Valkyrie is defeated by a thin script that fails to flesh out a single character, instead employing them all as pawns in a chess match in which the deck is already heavily stacked. Worse, the plan as presented in Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander's script doesn't seem like an especially sound one, and Stauffenberg's handling of his assignment makes him come across as a careless bungler. While the denseness of the good guys in no way ennobles the enemy, it does make them seem like the more worthy combatants. For better or worse, then, Valkyrie brings to mind that classic line from The Producers' "Springtime for Hitler" musical number: "Don't be stupid; be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi party!" **