- Next April 15 is the 555th birthday of Leonardo Da Vinci. So we have 331 days in which to lift our Leonardo vision from Dan Brown's novel, "The Da Vinci Code," and its new movie version. Brown's book has redefined "best seller" and caused the grandest Leo-mania since DiCaprio sank in "Titanic." It's a major page-turner, if you like nearly every page to crowbar your nerves with a new teaser. In the film, Hanks often seems fuddled, as if waiting for someone to decode the script for him. Director Ron Howard (of "Cinderella Man," but no Renaissance man) and writer Akiva Goldsman (of "A Beautiful Mind," but no Leonardo mind) shove Brown's lurid thriller into a Louis Vuitton bag of devices. There are even computerized flashbacks to medieval and pagan times. "DVC" is a freakish book and a lavishly ludicrous film, a bouncing mass of high-priced gas given some stability by culture-tour settings (even Isaac Newton's tomb and, of course, the Mona Lisa) and by Hanks' solid, sensible presence. It is crazily viewable, but not persuasive. A huge crowd awaits this movie (did the prophetic Leonardo predict it?). Some of us, of a more worldly faith, await "The Givenchy Code," starring Audrey Hepburn and the outfits that launched a billion sighs. That, too, can use the Louvre. A Columbia Pictures release. Director: Ron Howard. Writer: Akiva Goldsman. Cast: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Jean Reno, Jurgen Prochnow and Paul Bettany. Running time: 2 hours, 29 minutes. Rated PG-13. 2 stars.

- There are people who don't like fuzzy critters with big eyes, but they are outside the demographic of "Over the Hedge," a DreamWorks cartoon huggable (released by Paramount) aimed at the 5-to-10 set. Kiddies can get their summer cooking with this one, and it will probably be out on DVD before summer ends. Kids know what it means to scavenge for treats. They can identify easily with woodland creatures who invade a big housing development to raid for food, especially the domestic principality of a witchy yuppie named Nancy who calls in an exterminator worthy of the Balkans at their meanest. A Paramount Pictures release. Directors: Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick. Writers: Len Blum, Lorne Cameron, David Hoselton, Karey Kirkpatrick, Michael Fry and T. Lewis. Voice cast: Bruce Willis, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Steve Carell, Garry Shandling, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara and Allison Janney. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes. Rated PG. 2 stars.

: Viewing "Poseidon" is like watching Hitler playing with a big rubber ducky in his bathtub. This sado-nautical movie has its own Fuhrer, director Wolfgang Petersen, who famously tortured a U-boat in "Das Boot." Now, Petersen has a huge cruise ship, the best that computer effects can buy (nice effects, but the Poseidon never seems as real as the big star of "Titanic"). With a studio tsunami, he turns it upside down, in faithful derivation of "The Poseidon Adventure," the 1972 hit neatly summed up by Pauline Kael as "about an ocean liner that turns turtle." Now, most of the budget goes for effects, not actors, including many floating corpses. Kurt Russell is Ramsey, a former mayor of New York, living up to his name by becoming top torpedo of escape, up through the bowels of the dying ship, sharing the honors with gambler Dylan (Josh Lucas). They just happen to take along three of the ship's best-looking, barely scratched women, including Ramsey's daughter (Emmy Rossum), who stay tightly wrapped in their party outfits while swimming through ugly hells of flotsam and snagging objects. A Warner Bros. release. Director: Wolfgang Petersen. Writer: Mark Protosevich. Cast: Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum, Kevin Dillon, Josh Lucas. Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes. Rated PG-13. 1 1/2 stars.

: Meant to be entertaining, "Mission: Impossible III" is about as much fun as somebody dipping into your brain with a motorized ice cream scooper. As your mind goes, you can offer some popcorn to Tom Cruise. Cruise is back in his money series, as Special Agent Ethan Hunt. This time, he's ready to marry adorable Julia (Michelle Monaghan). Their love is the "heart" of the story, and, to fan the warmth, the film opens with Julia being tortured, perhaps fatally, while strapped-down Ethan screams. He doesn't stay impotent. For this is a Total Tom Workout, a marathon - racing free of machine gun bullets, jumping through blast waves of glass, zooming a car off a traffic-choked and burning causeway, wire-jumping between Shanghai towers, stripping off metal restraints as if they were jokes, even rushing to defend Julia while an implant in his head scrambles his reflexes. Cruise (evidently without Robert Towne helping this time on the script) fought to get TV director J.J. Abrams. In a recent interview, Abrams admitted, "There were moments of lucidity where I would realize 'What in the name of God am I doing?' And then I would just get distracted by the issue at hand, run off and blow something up." A Paramount Pictures release. Director: J.J. Abrams. Writer: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, J.J. Abrams. Cast: Tom Cruise, Billy Crudup, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Running time: 2 hours. Rated PG-13. 1 star.

- After "V for Vendetta," there comes "RV," as in "RV for Really Vapid." Amusing in spots, but still a vapor trail. Twisted in aging knots by his swinish young boss at a soft drinks firm, Bob Munro (Robin Williams) drops his family's getaway vacation to Hawaii and packs them off in a huge, rented RV to Colorado. He lies to them as he secretly files a big report, even slips off to vital business meetings. But (the plot insists) there is still meaningful family bonding. Perky stick Cheryl Hines is the darling wife. There's a cute teen daughter and a cute kid brother, who tend to treat Bob terribly. Being a mouse man, he takes it. The RV abuses him, too - smashing things, rolling down slopes, plunging into a lake, testing him beyond what Lucy and Desi endured in "The Long, Long Trailer." A Columbia Pictures release. Director: Barry Sonnenfeld. Writer: Geoff Rodkey. Cast: Robin Williams, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, JoJo Levesque, Kristin Chenoweth. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes. Rated PG. 2 stars.

- Just about everyone loves the girlish gymnasts at the Summer Olympics. Anyone needing a fix between the quadrennial events can have one, slickly packaged, in "Stick It." Main maker Jessica Bendinger wrote the cheerleaders hit "Bring It On." She brings on an awful load of flirty technique, reliant on MTV cutting and earnest voice-overs by the lead character, then lots of nudgy commentary during the big meet. That character, Hayley Graham, nearly gets swallowed as the movie seems to keep promoting itself. But Missy Peregrym, the Canadian beauty who has done mostly TV, personalizes the role, that of a rising star who "bailed" out of a world competition. Blame it on internal pressures and overzealous parents, but don't ask for analysis from this jumpy show. A Buena Vista release. Director, writer: Jessica Bendinger. Cast: Jeff Bridges, Missy Peregrym, Vanessa Lengies, Tarah Paige, Gia Carides, Kellan Lutz. Rated PG-13. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes. 2 1/2 stars.

- This film flirts on the horror margin of soft porn. A trendy photographer, 32, picks up a girl, 14, via online chats, then gets her into his tasteful home only to find himself disarmed by her tougher agenda. Jeff, 32, is acted by Patrick Wilson, worlds away from his heroic Travis in 2004's "The Alamo." Hayley, the Lolita trap, is Canadian Ellen Page, filmed when she was 15. She plays on Jeff's squishy mind, suspecting he is a pedophile and blaming him for a murdered girl. Even Vladimir Nabokov would have had to push his pen to curl the kinks of sweetly button-faced but ruthless Hayley. Adroitly paced and acted (Wilson puts manhood on the line), "Hard Candy" is a tough little grinder. Like many horror peepers, it is complicit with what it depicts. Jeff's tortured squirming and Hayley's foxy cruelty (somehow, always ahead of surprises) invoke fear and sadistic response from viewers, a nasty deal by any measure. A Lions Gate Films release. Director: David Slade. Writer: Brian Nelson. Cast: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh, Jennifer Holmes. Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes. Rated R. 1 1/2 stars.

- Writer-director Paul Weitz spoofs "American Idol," allowing Hugh Grant impeccably jaded preening as Martin "Tweedy" Tweed, a merger of show host Ryan Seacrest and tough judge Simon Cowell. Tweedy, a bored cynic married only to fame, is so attracted by finalist Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore), a blond singer and bargirl from Padookie, Ohio, that he flies there to meet her. Moore and Grant carry on a sustained, amusing duet as canny egotists deciphering how to best exploit each other. Weitz signals bold intent in the opening credits, when little cartoon bombs fall on the name of Shohreh Aghdashloo, the Iranian actress cast as Omer's flighty aunt and Orange County hostess. The Bush administration is now considering bombing Iran, and here is Quaid lampooning Bush as an amiable imbecile controlled by Vice President Sutter (Willem Dafoe) and the first lady (Marcia Gay Harden, spot-on as a savvy, down-home Laura Bush). Of course, we endure dismal contestants and Omer has a gay, show-crazed cousin (Tony Yalda) to camp the corn. True to "Idol," everything is ersatz and pushy, and freakishly "sincere" except for the rake's gleam in Grant's eye. The show anthem is a horror of inane, barnstorming patriotism. Mostly by crack casting and snap timing, Weitz deals comically the dark cards of suicidal martyrdom and terror anxiety. The topics of "American Dreamz" are very broad, but the targeting is often lasered. A Universal Pictures release. Director, writer: Paul Weitz. Cast: Hugh Grant, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, Marcia Gay Harden, Chris Klein, Jennifer Coolidge, Willem Dafoe, Shohreh Aghdashloo. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes. Rated PG-13. 3 stars.

Capsules compiled from movie reviews written by David Elliott, film critic for The San Diego Union-Tribune, other staff writers and contributors.

This is cache, read story here