Cute mice in 'The Tale of Despereaux,' and what weighs 'Seven Pounds'?

By Sarah Sluis

The box-office goodies releasing this weekend include Jim Carrey, Will Smith, and animated mice. Schools will be closed next week, prompting the release of PG-13 and G-rated films targeted at drawing

in children and their extended families. While both Jim Carrey and Will Smith have considerable star power, the comedic draw of Carrey, who Doris Toumarkine called, "this century's Jerry Lewis", will definitely win over families searching for light-hearted fare. The teens who first embraced Carrey in The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective have aged up, so the drab, mid-life crisis premise of Yes Man (3,434 screens) bodes well for a good reception from suffering from that novel appellation, the "mid-twenties crisis."

Seven Pounds (2,758 screens),the secretively-premised story that involves Will Smith, suicide, and do-gooding, projects the same vibe as 2006's earnest offering and box-office success, The Pursuit of Happyness. Considering that atrocious Hancock has earned over $600 million at the worldwide box office, this film's recalcitrant reviews--critics in general tend to be a little Grinch-like when it comes to sentimentality--should have little effect on the box-office take. After all, suicide is a big part of one of the most beloved holiday classics, It's A Wonderful Life.

The Vermeer-inspired artwork in The Tale of Despereaux (3,104 screens) should make sitting through the film a palatable experience for adults and a magical one for children. It's certainly not the best animated film of the year, WALL-E having shushed all competition; our Frank Lovece finds the whiskered hero "as bland and undefined as the

voiceless robot WALL-E is rich and individualistic," and faults an over-reliance on tired tropes and territory trod by Dumbo and Ratatouille.

For unaccompanied adults, The Wrestler (4 screens) and The Class (6 screens), two of the most highly acclaimed indie releases this year, both open today. While I haven't seen The Class, the story of a

teacher and his multicultural students in the French suburbs, a chance to see a film speaking to France's xenophobic tendencies should not be missed (The Secret of the Grain, the story of a French-Arab family, opens on 12/24 at IFC.) Incorporating a hefty amount of nudity and violence, The Wrestler shocks with self-inflicted razor cuts, staged poundings, Marisa Tomei on a stripper pole, and steroid injections. Quite miraculously, given the subject material, director Darren Aronofsky manages to make this grittiness an extension of the familial and financial struggles of Mickey Rourke. Like the heroin- and amphetamine-addicted characters in Requiem for a Dream, he makes Rourke's "drugs, sex, and violence" experience a humiliating, grotesque series of events propelled by a murkily-understandable drive. Sure to gather up some Oscar nominations, both films should post high per-screens as audiences check out the awards buzz that has built for the two them.