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THE LAST AIRBENDER This live-action spectacle is based on the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and were writer-director M. Night Shyamalan really as brilliant as his admirers insist, he would have demanded that the studio retain the word Avatar in the title — that act alone could have added an extra $10 million to the coffers from ill-informed folks thinking they were going to witness a sequel to the James Cameron smash. Left to its own devices, though, it's difficult to ascertain whether the picture's good-but-not-great gross is enough to warrant its planned sequels or not even enough to allow Shyamalan to Super-Size his next fast-food order. Unlike most of the family-friendly films of today, this has nothing to offer adults — it's strictly kid stuff all the way. That may not be the case with the source material, but it's unlikely anything here — beyond some of the special effects — will capture the imagination of anyone over 12. Those effects are occasionally excellent, and they're the only things that provide any pulse to an otherwise poorly executed story of how one young lad, Aang (Noah Ringer), proves to be the only person in his world with the ability to control all four elements of air, water, fire and earth. This is a clunky, soporific undertaking punctuated by some truly cringe-worthy dialogue. *1/2
THE LAST EXORCISM The prospect of journeying to Hell and back seems less daunting than sitting through another horror yarn made in the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project, but this one proves to be a pleasant surprise. Director Daniel Stamm uses the fake cinéma vérité style to milk a lot of tension out of this feature in which the disillusioned Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) takes along a documentary crew to perform an exorcism in some remote Louisiana hellhole, to prove that exorcisms are bogus and merely prey upon the superstitions of rubes. Cotton thinks he's found a perfect showcase as devout farmer Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum) insists that his sweet teenage daughter Nell (Ashley Bell) is demonically possessed. After some initial scoffing, Cotton realizes that there is indeed something wrong with the girl, but is it merely psychological trauma or is Satan really hanging around? Propelled by unexceptionally fine performances from Fabian and Bell, this creepy yarn builds to a powerhouse ending that would be even stronger were it not so choppy and truncated. In fact, too many unanswered questions prevent this movie from soaring to even greater heights. Still, as a deftly executed piece of unsettling cinema, it's only fair to give Daniel Stamm — and the devil — their due. ***
MACHETE More fun than a barrel of Sylvester Stallone DVDs, Machete is gleeful trash that delivers on the promise it held when it was just a twinkle in creator Robert Rodriguez's eye, as one of the mock trailers shown in 2007's Grindhouse. Everything about Machete is so over the top that it's impossible to feel as if one's morals are being compromised: When a movie quickly moves from a sequence in which the title bad-ass (played by Danny Trejo) decapitates several men with one swift 360-degree turn to a scene in which a naked woman retrieves a hidden cell phone from her vajayjay, it's clear that nothing is to be taken seriously. As expected, the Mexicans are the heroes, demanding to be treated like people and eager to have a crack at the American Dream. On the other side are the rich Texas fat cats determined to keep them down, including a right-wing Senator (Robert De Niro) who guns down illegal border crossers when he's not busy hitting the campaign trail. Machete is coerced into taking out this slimy politico, but he quickly realizes he's been double-crossed, and he has to rely on two women (Michelle Rodriguez and Jessica Alba) to help him out. Whether it's a beefy Steven Seagal or a topless Lindsay Lohan, viewers never quite know who or what Machete will throw at them next. ***
NANNY MCPHEE RETURNS Considering that 2005's Nanny McPhee hasn't exactly established itself on this side of the Atlantic as a family classic, there's nothing about the title Nanny McPhee Returns to suggest that this sequel will fare any better. Perhaps Universal Pictures would have been wise to keep the film's original British moniker, Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, in the hopes that a few ill-informed folks stateside would mistake it for a softcore romp and hand over their hard-earned dollars. Certainly, this children's tale could use more bang for the filmgoer's buck, relating an occasionally clever but often daft yarn about the efforts of the title character (again played by Emma Thompson) to help a struggling mother (Maggie Gyllenhaal, affecting a fine English accent) with her brood while her husband's off fighting in World War II. The children are all well-cast, but this overdoses on the saccharine: Watching CGI critters do supposedly cute things (a bird constantly belching, pigs engaging in synchronized swimming) isn't exactly my cup of tea — English Breakfast, English Afternoon, or otherwise. **
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