Emma Smith: My Story

Info: Opens today at area theaters; rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief violence; 93 minutes.

This melodramatic biography depicts Emma Hale Smith (Katherine Nelson) as a dutiful wife and helpmate to her husband, Joseph Smith Jr. (Nathan Mitchell), during the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It also depicts her struggles - four of her 11 children died in childbirth, and two more died as babies - and credits her influence on such LDS staples as the Word of Wisdom and the Relief Society. The movie, co-directed by Gary H. Cook (who wrote it) and T.C. Christensen (who was the cinematographer) and produced under the auspices of the Joseph Smith Jr. and Emma Hale Smith Historical Society, is handsomely mounted and boasts gorgeous images and rich historical detail. But the movie is so stiflingly reverential that it would fit better in an LDS visitor center (alongside "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration," also directed by Cook and Christensen, with Mitchell and Nelson portraying the Smiths) than in a place that sells popcorn.

Blindsight

Info: Opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; rated PG for some thematic elements and mild language; 104 minutes.

Beautifully photographed and sensitively told, director Lucy Walker's documentary tells of six blind teens in Lhasa, Tibet - where blindness is considered a sign of sinfulness or demons or bad karma. These teens, students at a school founded by a blind German woman who's a force of nature in herself, take part in an expedition to climb Lhakpa Ri, a 23,000-foot mountain that would seem taller if it weren't just to the left of Mount Everest. Walker carefully depicts the struggles these kids have in daily life, and the work of their guides, led by American Erik Weihenmeyer (the first blind person to climb Everest), to help them to reach this lofty goal. Walker (who profiled Amish teens in "Devil's Playground") tells a gentle but riveting story of perseverance and inspiration.

Smart People

Info: Opens today at area theaters; rated R for language, brief teen drug and alcohol use, and some sexuality; 95 minutes.

If Janet, the character played by Sarah Jessica Parker, had asked the question I was asking - "Why would you want to spend any time with these insufferable people?" - this strained comedy wouldn't have lasted 20 minutes. Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a morose English professor who lands in the hospital and meets Janet, an ER doctor who likes him even though he doesn't remember she was once one of his students. Further dysfunction arrives with Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), Lawrence's adopted brother, who seems to be referred to as "adopted" only so seeing him hanging out with Lawrence's overachieving daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page) would be marginally less creepy. Rookie director Noam Murro squeezes the script (the first by novelist Mark Poirier) for all the awkwardness it can give, as if that's the same thing as finding the funny. It's not, though Page's performance as the uptight daughter, a female Alex P. Keaton, elicits enough smiles to tell you "Juno" was no fluke.

Street Kings

Info: Opens today in theaters everywhere; rated R for strong violence and pervasive language; 109 minutes.

Director David Ayer ("Harsh Times") continues to milk his street cred for writing "Training Day," this time adapting a James Ellroy story into a grimy copy of Ellroy's L.A. Confidential. Keanu Reeves plays LAPD detective Tom Ludlow, a bulldog who'll shoot first and conceal evidence later in the service of his captain, Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker). But when Ludlow's reformed ex-partner (Terry Crews) is gunned down, Ludlow has a sudden attack of conscience and starts hunting the killers, with a fresh-faced detective (Chris Evans) along for the ride and Internal Affairs (in the form of Hugh Laurie) on his tail. The trail of colorful hoodlums is as laughable as the testosterone-heavy talk of Wander and his men - but nothing beats Reeves' dead-eyed compilation of all the bad-cop clichés (wracked with guilt, drinking hard, stitching his own bullet wounds) you ever saw.