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Bangkok Dangerous

* ( 1 STAR)

$7.8

million

$7.8 million

1 week

Rated: R

Running time: 99 minutes

What it's about: Nicolas Cage (above) plays a stoic assassin who could use some Zoloft but instead sullenly drifts from murder to murder.

Our take: It's a watered-down remake. What's left is a standard tired-warrior-finds-meaning-of-life, wants-out-of-the-killing-biz yarn.

Tropic Thunder

*** ( 3 STARS)

$7.2

million

$96.5 million

4 weeks

Rated: R

Running time: 107 minutes

What it's about: A failing action star (Ben Stiller, above), a drug-addicted comic (Jack Black) and a celebrated Australian actor (Robert Downey Jr.) stumble onto real guerrillas while making a war film.

Our take: Downey is daringly funny as a white man from Down Under playing an African-American soldier. At its best, this movie wrings divine madness from wretched excess.

The Dark Knight

** ( 2 STARS)

$5.5

million

$512.0 million

8 weeks

Rated: PG-13

Running time: 152 minutes

What it's about: Citizens, lawmen and criminals - and an anarchistic freak called the Joker - respond to the emergence of the Caped Crusader.

Our take: As the Joker, Heath Ledger (above) detonates a savage sick joke or two, but the whole movie is set up for him to be the jiving put-on artist of destruction, outwitting the squares.

The House Bunny

** 1/2 ( 2 1/2 STARS)

$5.5

million

$36.6 million

3 weeks

Rated: PG-13

Running time: 97 minutes

What it's about: The members of a struggling sorority have a thing or two to learn from a banished Playboy bunny (Anna Faris, above), and vice versa.

Our take: The underdog plot isn't anything new. Faris, as the ditzy but good-hearted ex-bunny, delivers a flat-out hilarious performance.

Traitor

** 1/2 ( 2 1/2 STARS)

$4.3

million

$17.3 million

2 weeks

Rated: PG-13

Running time: 114 minutes

What it's about: Don Cheadle (above) plays a righteous Muslim connected to Islamic extremists who are plotting to blow up scores of buses across America simultaneously.

Our take: Cheadle's ability to suggest hidden pockets of thought has never been stronger, but his rich emotionality and sense of humor have gone seriously missing in Traitor.

Babylon A.D.

* 1/2 ( 1 1/2 STARS)

$4.2

million