Cowboys & Aliens, The Trip, Project Nim, The Smurfs, Werner Herzog in a cave in 3D, and more

Nim was breastfed, smoked marijuana, shifted homes and families, was taken on by other teachers, appeared on magazine covers, on Sesame Street and in a David Suzuki TV segment. His language skills, though, seem to have developed not much more than your cat asking for food or to be let outside. And like a puppy that starts off cute, Nim grew big and found the wild animal within. When he took to attacking his teachers, the experiment was called off and his story took some even more dramatic turns. All this is told in remarkably detailed recollections by people who worked with him and in archival footage (plus a few re-creations) assembled by director James Marsh. His last documentary, Man on Wire, won the Academy Award. This film is not as tense and gripping, but, in exploring what exactly it means to be human, it is just as powerful.  (International Village) 4 out of 5

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS: Last time, Werner Herzog took us to the Antarctic to meet some eccentric people working there. Now he takes us back 32,000 years to ponder some ancient people through their artwork. “Do they dream? What are their hopes?” he asks with the philosophical curiosity he’s famous for. He’s looking at, as he says, “one of the greatest discoveries in the history of human culture”. They’re charcoal drawings of horses, lions, bears, even rhinos and many other animals perfectly preserved in the Chauvet Cave in southern France.

The site is strictly off-limits to all but a few researchers but Herzog managed to go in with a 3-D camera and a small crew.

The pictures he brought are not quite glorious as some have proclaimed, but certainly impressive and stir up our sense of wonder and imagination. Horses are running in a group, their outlines blending into each other. Eight legs simulate movement. A woman who may be half-bison is only partially visible. A reindeer was started by one artist and finished by another, 5,000 years later. Shadows play on the drawings and the shape of the rock walls. The camera brings us close but doesn’t stay in any one spot long enough. We really need more time to study the remarkably complex work of these artists. Herzog moves too, to visit experts on ice age art, including one who plays him The Star-Spangled Banner on a primitive flute. All in all an absorbing rumination on humanity, then and now. (International Village)  3 1/2 out of 5

THE SMURFS: To get a handle on this film you have to flash back to two cultural markers from your childhood. There’s the Smurfs TV cartoon show, of course, whimsical, gentle, humanistic. There’s not a great deal of that in this new movie version. You do get a lot of bashing and crashing comic violence as in the Home Alone films. The director worked on two of them and brings a lot of that sensibility to this project. Gargamel gets it repeatedly, and (caution to animal lovers) so does his cat. The writers, who have been involved with some of my least favorite movies, including The Zookeeper and even worse, Norbit, have puts in lots of cultural references for the parents and modern touches the kids will take to.

Surprisingly, despite the dollar-signs that drive this film, it works. It’s rousing, loud, hyper-active and quite funny. I don’t remember a life lesson, but they usually stick one in so there probably is one. The story has six Smurfs stranded in New York. They whooshed through a vortex from their village and are trying to find their way back. Neil Patrick Harris, who’s life, apartment and office they overrun, tries to help. Hank Azaria, having great fun as Gargamel, is in pursuit. Katy Perry is the voice of Smurfette, about whom there are some adolescent jokes, and Jonathan Winters is Papa Smurf. (He played Grandpa in the TV series and uses that same tone here). Joan Rivers has a cameo. Little kids won’t understand. The older ones will have fun. (The Dolphin and many suburban theatres)  2½ out of 5