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(MGM). Director: Harald Zwart. Frankie Muniz, Hilary Duff, Angie Harmon. (PG)

Take One: The Spy Kids formula hits adolescence in this strongly 007-influenced, family-targeted action-comedy starring Muniz as a junior James Bond who gets nervous with girls.

Take Two: Another PG-13 movie in PG clothing, Banks issues its 15-year-old hero his very own adult Bond Girl (Harmon) and lets 15-year-old Duff condemn the villain to a gruesome death.

Final Take: Last spring's kid-power Muniz vehicle, Big Fat Liar, had trouble with the eighth commandment. This time it's the ninth. Problematic and only fitfully amusing, it's no Spy Kids.

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE (Touchstone). Director: Adam Shankman. Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy. (PG-13)

Take One: Martin plays a divorced workaholic lawyer whose staid suburban life is turned upside down by ghetto homegirl Latifah, who wants him to help her with legal trouble.

Take Two: In this movie, all whites are racists and all blacks are anarchic. We also get an incredibly violent black vs. white fight and Latifah letting Martin practice sexual aggression on her.

Final Take: A step backward for race relations in America and for black characters in Hollywood films.

TEARS OF THE SUN (Columbia). Director: Antoine Fuqua. Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser. (R)

Take One: Willis leads valiant Navy SEALs in defending helpless refugees against ethnic-cleansing guerrillas in a heroic war picture set in a Nigerian civil war.

Take Two: Complex moral issues are raised but not explored. The movie simply extols intervention and deplores inaction.

Final Take: Tears celebrates the fortitude, compassion and competence of heroic figures, but its pictures of heroes helping victims are never more than two-dimensional.

THE HUNTED (Paramount). Director: William Friedkin. Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio Del Toro, Connie Nielsen. (R)

Take One: Tense manhunt picture stars Jones and Del Toro as larger-than-life special-ops super-heroes who clash when Del Toro goes rogue and Jones, who trained him, goes after him.

Take Two: The story's got some holes, and some questions never get answered. Intense violence includes a graphic opening combat sequence.

Final Take: Keeps the audience members on the edge of their seats, but that's as far as it goes; the violence may be too intense for some.

WILLARD (Touchstone). Director: Glen Morgan. Crispin Glover, R. Lee Ermey, Laura Elena Harring. (PG-13)

Take One: Grisly horror-comedy remake of 1971 original stars oddball Glover as an oppressed misfit whose only friends are the rats in his basement.

Take Two: Increasingly dreadful developments will leave even jaded viewers seriously skeeved, though characters merely reap what they sow. (There is one innocent victim, a cat.)

Final Take: Emphatically not for all tastes, Willard works on the audience's nerves rather than relying on easy horror-movie grossn -outs; Glover's over-the-top performance is sure to be a big draw.

Steven D. Greydanus, editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com, writes from Bloomfield, New Jersey.