Herbie: Fully Loaded

Although the prospect of sitting through a G-rated Disney retread about a down-on-his-luck Volkswagen looking for a second chance is about as seductive as driver's license renewal, Herbie Fully Loaded is a family film that actually is fun for everyone. (Unlike, say, Are We There Yet?, which will make you want to add Drano to your kids' lunchables.) With Lindsay Lohan (fully loaded herself) taking over the lead and a tie-in with NASCAR—including some surprisingly exciting track action—there's more than enough to keep dads happy. Disney pits the teen queen bumper-to-bumper against NASCAR’s top drivers, including Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Jarrett. Less a remake than a continuation, the basic plot finds the aging, unwanted VW thrown on the junk heap and rescued by Lohan, who soon finds herself in a serious relationship with an ambitious used car that leads her into the biggest race of her life. Filmmakers resist the urge to soup the Beetle up with too much CGI, keeping it conventional and adding human touches of personality that will have you rooting for Herbie like he was Rocky with a rear spoiler. (Or at least rooting for Lohan to unzip her racing suit a wee bit more.) It helps to take a kid to this thing, so if you don’t have one, find one in the Yellow Pages—this revved-up Herbie is one of the summer’s hard-driving guilty pleasures.