Film Clips: This weekend’s movie openings December 17 2010

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• BEARLY LEGAL: Yogi Bear

OPENING FRIDAY
THE FIGHTER 4 stars (R ) Three Kings director David O. Russell K.O.s boxing movie clichés in this docudrama about welterweight contender Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), who discovers that his half-brother/trainer Dickie (Christian Bale) and his mom/manager (Melissa Leo) may be causing him more damage the opponents who punch his lights out. Bale gives a game-changing performance as a fast-talking, eye-popping crack addict clinging to past glories, while Wahlberg proves wonderfully cast as a painfully conflict-adverse puppy dog of a bruiser. The Fighter hits the inspirational buttons, but also delivers some of the most raucously funny scenes of 2010. — Holman
HOW DO YOU KNOW (PG-13) In this romantic triangle from As Good As It Gets director James L. Brooks, Reese Witherspoon plays an aging athlete torn between a free-spirited baseball player (Owen Wilson) and a white-collar worker (Paul Rudd) taking the fall for the misdeeds of his father (Jack Nicholson).
I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS 3 stars (R ) Jim Carrey stars in this long-shelved comedy as Steven Jay Russell, a church-going police officer turned gay con man who finds the love of his life (Ewan McGregor) while incarcerated in prison. As an obsessive lover and inveterate imposter, Carrey finds a manic but meaty role suited to his acting talents. Like last year’s The Imposter!, the film’s farcical tone tends to make light of its protagonist’s personal problems, but Carrey and McGregor nevertheless deliver the year’s most weirdly touching love story. — Holman
TRON LEGACY HH (PG-13) Hacker/corporate heir Sam Flynn (bland hunk Garrett Hedlund) finds himself zapped into cyberspace realm called “The Grid,” populated by sentient programs that look like people. He reunites with his long-lost father Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges, reprising his role from the original) to stop Dad’s on-line doppleganger Clu (also played by Bridges) from extending his tyrannical reign. The sequel to 1982’s Tron presents a visual feast of cutting-edge visual effects, especially in the film’s first half. But director Joseph Kosinski punts his chance to comment on contemporary computer habits and opts for an incomprehensible story about an on-line genocide of angelic programs, until the film feels like the worst aspects of The Matrix sequels. — Holman
WHITE MATERIAL (NR) Isabelle Huppert stars in this drama that sounds like a harsher version of Out of Africa as the owner of a coffee plantation that faces a revolution in an African nation.
YOGI BEAR (PG) “Good things come in bears” proclaimed the short-live tag-line for this live-action adaptation of the classic cartoon, starring Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake as the voices of picnic addict Yogi and his sidekick Boo-Boo. At least it’s not an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.

DULY NOTED
THE BLACK CANDLE: A KWANZAA CELEBRATION (NR) Maya Angelou narrates this international documentary that illustrates the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Movies With a Mission. Sun., Dec. 19, 3 p.m. Atlanta-Fulton Central Library Auditorium, 1 Margaret Mitchell Square. Free. www.sankofaspirit.com/