MOVIES

Fast & Furious

Original stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster return for the fourth installment of this car racing franchise. The opening sequence, in which Diesel and Rodriguez attempt to hijack a moving gasoline tanker truck, acknowledges the dim future of the eternal combustion engine by showing how much money you can make selling stolen automobile fuel. "Liquid gold!" Rodriguez yells during the heist.

The rest of the movie is clueless in comparison, as Diesel, the criminal fugitive whose scruples are as rock-hard as his biceps, and Walker, the undercover FBI agent with a thing for hot cars, compete to earn a position as a driver for a drug lord they both want to bring down for different reasons.

The car chases are skillfully directed by Justin Lin, but the contrivances that tie the chases to the story are weak, especially with Diesel barely acting and Walker acting all over the place. Whereas the previous two sequels were just dumb fun, this one also tries for melodrama and as a result is just dumb.

Directed by Justin Lin, starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker

Starting today at theaters nationwide

My Sister's Keeper

Cameron Diaz may deserve an Oscar for making her character seem at all human since Sara Fitzgerald is a dramatic construct first and a person second. Sara has badgered her relatively weak-willed husband (Jason Patric) into helping her produce another child so that they can have a bone marrow and blood donor for first daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who suffers from leukemia.

Anna (Abigail Breslin) grows up as a loving sister to Kate, but when Kate's kidneys start to fail and Anna is expected to give up one of hers, she hires a lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to sue her parents for "medical emancipation."

Though "My Sister's Keeper" is an effective hospital weepie that doesn't look away from the disturbing realities of Kate's illness and the impossible decisions Sara has to make, too much of the plot takes place in the realm of the theoretical. It's impossible not to be moved, but it's just as difficult to believe that this could ever happen.

Directed by Nick Cassavetes, starring Abigail Breslin, Sofia Vassilieva and Cameron Diaz

Starting today at theaters nationwide

Orphan

Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) is a mother of two and recovering alcoholic who has a miscarriage that threatens to upset her delicate emotional equilibrium. To make up for the loss, she and her husband (Peter Sarsgaard) decide to adopt, which, given her mental state, hardly makes her a good candidate. Nevertheless, they have no trouble taking in 9-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a poised and articulate Russian orphan who likes to wear ribbons and old-fashioned dresses.

Esther is bullied at school, and at first her new brother (Jimmy Bennett) isn't shy about expressing how much he doesn't trust her. Eventually, Kate also starts to wonder if Esther isn't exerting a malevolent influence over her other daughter, who was left deaf in an accident Kate was responsible for.

Except for the wacky climax, this evil-child thriller contains little that's original, but the actors infuse some hot blood into the anemic script. Sarsgaard and Farmiga produce a powerful dynamic as the dangerously credulous husband and the wife whose accusations nobody believes because of her history of instability.

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, starring Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard and Isabelle Fuhrman

Starting Saturday at theaters nationwide(IHT/Asahi: October 9,2009)