By Debbie Schlussel
While there’s nothing offensive about the two new offerings at movie theaters, this weekend, they’re just kind of mediocre. The better of the two–by far–is “Inkheart.”

* “Inkheart“: A book doctor (Brendan Fraser) has a special power. Books speak to him from their pages. And when he reads from them, characters–some evil–appear in our world from the book, while members of his family are taken away from our world and trapped in the setting of the book. He and his daughter set out with their eccentric, wealthy aunt to track down his wife and set our world and the world of fairy tale novels straight before the villains destroy ours.
This was okay. Not a great movie, but entertaining enough. I liked the messages of good versus evil, the commitment to doing what’s right, and the importance of keeping your family together. It’s aimed at kids, and it’s not bad for that purpose. Some younger kids might be a little frightened by the behavior of some of the villains.
ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

* “Outlander“: This is a poor rip-off of the vastly superior “Beowulf” (read my review). And it’s one of those cases in which a movie is so bad, it’s good . . . for comedy value. Jim Caviezel plays a high-tech outer space alien sent to Norway in the age of the Vikings to save rival Nordic kingdoms from the evil alien monster, Moorwen. Parts of this movie were so ridiculous that I laughed endlessly. Those were scenes that were supposed to be scary.
Oh, and one other thing: I guess this movie was trying to be political. You see, the Moorwen were nice, but aliens from another took their land and their planet to develop into new neighborhoods, making the Moorwen angry, so angry that they terrorize the people of earth. Aha, a justification for terrorism against innocent civilians, even in a dumb alien/Viking movie. Maybe they shoulda called this, “The War on Moorwen Terror.”
Entertaining enough, if you’re bored and have nothing else to do and ten bucks to waste.
ONE REAGAN