Hilary Duff stars in a dreary fairy-tale update that casts Cinderella as a modern Valley Girl who leaves behind a cell phone rather than a glass slipper for her Prince Charming to find. Tediously directed by Mark Rosman from Leigh Dunlap’s noodle-headed script, the inanely predictable movie clearly was made under the assumption that female teens and tweeners will turn out for anything under the Duff brand. Duff and her cast mates are as shallow and affected as the characters in her TV series “Lizzie McGuire.” Jennifer Coolidge as Duff’s wicked stepmother is the movie’s only highlight. Coolidge’s narcissism is so absurd, she wrings some scant laughs out of Dunlap’s atrocious dialogue. Rated: PG for mild language and innuendo. Running time: 95 min. Rating: 1 1/2 out of 4 stars.

– David Germain, AP Movie Writer
‘I, Robot’

The most informative words don’t come until the end. They’re in the closing credits – “Suggested by Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot”‘ – and they encapsulate exactly what this movie is, and isn’t. It is indeed set in the future: Chicago, 2035. And it is based on the Three Laws of Robotics, a sort of checks-and-balances system Asimov set forth in his sci-fi short story collection. But “I, Robot” is primarily another summer blockbuster starring Will Smith – a slick, shiny video game of a movie bursting with computer-generated chase scenes and cool gadgets. It’s spectacular entertainment, though under the direction of Alex Proyas (“The Crow”) it also has a darkly apocalyptic visual scheme. Smith plays a detective investigating the suicide of the reclusive scientist behind the robots that have become integral parts of everyday life. He thinks it was a murder, and that a robot is responsible. Bridget Moynahan and Bruce Greenwood co-star. Rated: PG-13 for intense stylized action, and some brief partial nudity. Running time: 115 min. Rating: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars.

– Christy Lemire, AP Entertainment Writer

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“Maria Full of Grace” – With her effortless beauty, boundless confidence – and, yes – grace, Catalina Sandino Moreno should become a rising star with the release of this, her first film. Moreno stars in the title role as a headstrong 17-year-old from a rural Colombian town who becomes a drug mule in hopes of creating a better life for herself and the baby she only recently realized she’s carrying. (The scene in which she swallows 62 pellets of rubber-wrapped heroin before boarding a plane for New York is truly agonizing to watch.) That we feel sympathy for a young, pregnant woman who’s bringing drugs into the United States without an ounce of remorse is a credit both to the actress and to writer-director Joshua Marston for creating such a complex character in his assured feature debut. It’s a side of the drug trade we don’t usually get to see, and with its hand-held camerawork and natural lighting, it has a powerful immediacy. R for drug content and language. 101 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. Three and a half stars out of four.

– Christy Lemire, AP Entertainment Writer

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“Seducing Doctor Lewis” – A run-down Quebec fishing village in need of a doctor tries to lure a hotshot plastic surgeon from Montreal (David Boutin) in order to secure a desperately needed new factory. During a one-month trial period, the people of St. Marie-La-Mauderne, led by the mayor (Raymond Bouchard), surround him with everything he likes: cricket, beef stroganoff, even women in open-toed shoes. (They think he has a foot fetish after tapping his phone.) Yes, it’s a bit self-conscious in its ruff-hewn quirkiness – imagine “Northern Exposure” in French, or “Doc Hollywood” in Canada – and the fishing metaphor is too obvious. But there’s something charming about the enthusiasm the locals exude, a determination to make their village better that’s utterly lacking in inhibition or vanity. And for all the film’s contrivances, it offers many genuinely funny moments. Not rated but contains some sexual references. 108 min. In French with English subtitles. Two and a half stars our of four.

– Christy Lemire, AP Entertainment Writer

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“Touch of Pink” – The spirit of Cary Grant coaches a gay Muslim man (Jimi Mistry) through crises with his partner (Kristen Holden-Ried) and his inflexible mother (Suleka Mathew) who’s unaware her son is gay and wants him to find a nice Muslim girl. The makers of this romantic fantasy probably could not have found a more suitable actor to play Grant than Kyle MacLachlan, who deftly captures the Hollywood legend’s suave comportment and vocal inflections. What “Touch of Pink” lacks is anything resembling the witty, waggish banter Grant’s characters were known for. Writer-director Ian Iqbal Rashid lets the grimmer drama of his story outweigh the merrier moments, a questionable approach for a movie with such a screwball premise. R for sexual content and brief language. 92 min. Two stars out of four.

– David Germain, AP Movie Writer