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DelIVER US FROM EVA

Get past the sophomoric title and you'll find more second-year stuff. LL Cool J (keeping his abs under wraps for once) plays the player hired to take Eva (Gabrielle Union) off the hands of three very harried fellows, each dating one of three sisters and menaced by Eva, the fourth. The premise is pure beer-commercial misogyny -- the guys would all be happy if Eva would stop warping the sisters' priorities, which she only does because she's a frigid bitch -- despite buppie craftsman Gary Hardwick's attempt to take the edge off with a completely extraneous opening number where the cast dances to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "You're All I Need to Get By." (That and a totally extraneous LL voiceover make it pretty clear Deliver Us has been through the reshoot wringer.) LL's supposed to seduce Eva, get her to move away with him, and then dump her (oh, the chuckles), but wouldn't you know it, they end up falling for each other -- which might be a cliché, but the moments when the pair are on screen together are the only moments the movie comes even close to being tolerable. --Sam Adams (AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham)

HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS

You may think it unlikely that women's mag columnist Andie (Kate Hudson) has decided to write a what-not-to-do article, using her own experience with an actual Guy to be named later and an actual span of 10 Days in which to make said Guy first fall for her and then drop her like a spoonful of black hole. You may think it somewhat more unlikely that at the same time, ad copywriter Ben (Matthew McConaughey) is betting his boss that he can make a girl -- again, chosen at random -- fall in love with him in the same 10-day span. And yes, it's pretty darn unlikely that they would choose each other as unwitting test subjects, plus not be able to immediately see behind the other's ruse. What really strains the old credulity, though, is that much of the action depends on the Knicks being in the NBA Finals; is this a romantic comedy or science fiction? Still, if you can manage to accept all that, and don't mind rooting for liars, and the sight of ex post fratboy mating rituals and inexplicable female behavior and one enormous Adam's apple isn't too off-putting, there is some fun to be had here. What else are you going to watch after Joe Millionaire is over? --Ryan Godfrey

(AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Main St.; UA Grant)

SHANGHAI GHETTO

What's most informative about the ongoing cinematic fascination with the Holocaust is the larger point it makes about history: no matter how long you imagine any series of events, you can never exhaust all the angles of approach. Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann's explores what might be considered a historical footnote: the story of European Jews who escaped the Nazis by taking refuge in Shanghai, then a disorganized international city where entry was illegal but passport control was nonexistent. By Holocaust standards, the numbers involved are minimal -- an estimated 20,000 Jews found refuge -- but of course, their stories are no less fascinating for their unusualness. Their impact is blunted, though, by the film's haphazard use of stock footage, and a slow opening which offers a grade-school primer on the rise of the Nazis. (There's nothing wrong with explaining Kristallnacht, but it's a safe bet that most people coming to the film know why Jews were fleeing Germany, and in any case the focus ought to be on the survivor's words and not the narrator's, even if he is Martin Landau.) Shanghai Ghetto's use as a teaching tool is never in doubt, but it could use some dramatic honing. --S.A.(Ritz at the Bourse)

SHANGHAI KNIGHTS

The best thing that might be said about this sequel to Shanghai Noon is that it gives Jackie Chan a chance to dance, sort of. Translating the famous Gene Kelly number from Singin' in the Rain, he uses a street vendor's stash of umbrellas to outwit and outstep a throng of thugs. They're chasing him for a reason, though it hardly matters. He and partner Owen Wilson are tracking Chan's father's assassin in London, which grants them excuses to visit the wax museum, commit homoerotic slapstick on the hands of Big Ben and pillow-fight with prostitutes (granted, this might have occurred in the wild West too), and for Wilson to make fun of British wussiness, Scotland Yard and the Queen's guards. Chan has a sister this time, too, played by Fann Wong, and her martial arts are faster and more wire-worky than Chan's own (though he also submits to wires and a couple of stunt double moments, too). It all goes to show that the first film's "chemistry" had a lot to do with a semi-clever script, which this one sorely lacks.--Cindy Fuchs (AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Main St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant)

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