Family Film: A look at new movies, including 'Iron Man 2'

A guide to movies from a family perspective:

"Iron Man 2"

-- Rated: PG-13.

-- Suitable for: 8-year-olds and up.

-- What you should know: Tony Stark is back, and the world knows he's Iron Man. That makes him a target for a fellow weapons manufacturer, a vengeful Russian (Mickey Rourke) and, at one point, his one-time pal Rhodey (Don Cheadle).

-- Language: A couple of f-words are bleeped, one or two uses of profanity and a half-dozen mild expletives crop up.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: Very little. A woman is shown, briefly, in a bra while changing clothes in a car, there are some double-entendres that will go over younger moviegoers' heads and a couple is shown kissing.

-- Violence/scary situations: Lots, from fear that Iron Man is being poisoned by the device keeping him alive, to fights with fists, cars, robots and electrified lashes. A woman mows down, with martial-arts skills, or leaves hanging a dozen men in a single scene.

-- Drug or alcohol use: Iron Man turns morose and gets sloppy drunk at a party, and adults down alcohol from the bottle or glass.

"Furry Vengeance"

-- Rated: PG.

-- Suitable for: Kindergartners and up.

-- What you should know: Brendan Fraser plays a real-estate developer who becomes the target of animals when his company wants to level a forest to make way for high-end homes and a mall.

-- Language: Nothing notable.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: Fraser's character unwillingly shows a little flesh, and a gut, when critters ruin his clothes, and he's forced to wear his wife's too-small track suit.

-- Violence/scary situations: The movie has a nearly nonstop assault on humans by animals, from skunks who spray their victims to raccoons who engineer car mishaps. Everything, including humans who fall off roofs or out of bed, is played for laughs.

-- Drug or alcohol use: None.

"City Island"

-- Rated: PG-13.

-- Suitable for: Mature high-school students and older.

-- What you should know: Andy Garcia is the patriarch of a family in which everyone has a secret, large or small. He is a prison guard who wants to act, but that is only one of the things he's hiding.

-- Language: A handful of uses of profanity and a dozen and a half mild expletives.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: A scene is set in a strip club, a couple start to passionately kiss and there is reference to an affair that produced a child. Also, a character has a fascination with plus-sized women.

-- Violence/scary situations: A couple of scenes are set in a prison, and punches, kicks and a knife are thrown, but no one is seriously hurt.

-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink wine, whiskey, martinis and other alcoholic beverages.

"The Back-up Plan"

-- Rated: PG-13.

-- Suitable for: Teens and up.

-- What you should know: Jennifer Lopez plays a single New Yorker who decides to undergo artificial insemination in this romantic comedy. On that very day, however, she meets a man who could be Mr. Right, played by Alex O'Loughlin.

-- Language: One use of the f-word, a couple of uses of profanity and at least a dozen mild expletives.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: Some explicit talk in a fertility doctor's office. A couple kiss and are shown in the early throes of passion and afterward. An over-the-top home birthing scene is played for laughs, and there is a fleeting shot of a woman's thong-wearing derriere.

-- Violence/scary situations: A reference to someone who got sick, lapsed into a coma and died, years ago. Lopez's character becomes distracted and drives into a tree but the only thing hurt is the car.

-- Drug or alcohol use: A scene or two in which adults drink wine or champagne.

"The Losers"

-- Rated: PG-13.

-- Suitable for: High-school students and up.

-- What you should know: A comic-book series about a special-forces unit, betrayed and marooned in Bolivia, has been made into a movie starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Oscar Jaenada and Jason Patric.

-- Language: One f-word, a couple of uses of profanity and more than a half-dozen mild expletives.

-- Sexual situations and nudity: A steamy sex scene and a prolonged, violent physical fight that could be considered foreplay.

-- Violence/scary situations: Lots, although in keeping with the PG-13 rating, little blood or aftermath is shown. A helicopter with 25 children goes down in flames, killing everyone aboard. Others are shot and killed or injured. A man falls 57 stories, someone tries to gouge another's eye out and many punches are exchanged and knives flashed. A person is sucked into an airplane, which explodes, and someone tries to wreak global terrorism havoc.

-- Drug or alcohol use: Adults drink beer and harder stuff.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)

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