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There used to be more movies as peculiar as “Last Chance Harvey,” where comedy and drama aren’t especially well written or directed but which allows actors to completely inhabit their characters. Writer-director Joel Hopkins’ film suggests a late-life romance between Harvey (Dustin Hoffman), a just-fired jingle writer (with seemingly more talent than his similarly unemployed character in “Ishtar”) played by an actor who’s a twinkly 71, and Emma Thompson, who’s not yet 50. Call in “Just Past Sunset, Approaching Dusk.” But as the pair perambulate the plot complications along the streets of cinematographer John de Borman’s lovingly captured London, charm takes the day. Their airport meet-cute’s pretty special, too. A familiar valentine, but some hearts are tender. With Liane Balaban, James Brolin, Eileen Atkins, Kathy Baker. 99m. (Ray Pride)

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A tiny mouse with unusual tastes is the star of this children’s tale made with uncommon craft. Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick) has an un-mouse-like love of light, music, reading and Princess Pea (voiced by Emma Watson). He undertakes a quest that will remake the kingdom for rodents and royals alike. The painterly style of this lovely animated feature refers to Old World parchment, thread, and fairy tales, not state-of-the-industry software, tie-ins and fart jokes. It’s also an anomaly for articulating humanist values, a reading enhanced by the choice of Sigourney Weaver as the narrator. (Who better to map a land cursed with fear upheld by tribunals?) In a let-me-tell-you-a-story manner, she makes knowing asides to viewers, just like the original narrator of “The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread.” Author Kate DiCamillo asked “dear readers” to pause on key words in her 2003 book: “quest,” “chiaroscuro,” “perfidy” and “empathetic.” (DiCamillo’s “Because of Winn-Dixie” was earlier adapted to the screen.) “Despereaux” director Sam Fell displayed a knack for handling caste-conflict in the realm of rodents in his “Flushed Away” (2006), and here relates the distinctive cultures of meek mice and nasty rats. Co-director Rob Stevenhagen is an animator making his directing debut. Writer Gary Ross lends a lighter touch than felt in his more pedantic “Pleasantville,” another allegory of outcasts, esthetes and liberators. With uplifting whiffs of savory soup, “The Tale of Despereaux” champions storytelling as the light of the world, from torture-racked dungeons to castle spires, a land where a mouse scampers across the words “Once upon a time…” all the way to “… happily ever after.” And Despereaux makes it just so. With the voices of Dustin Hoffman, Tracey Ullman, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Stanley Tucci, Ciaran Hinds, Frances Conroy, Frank Langella, Richard Jenkins and Christopher Lloyd. 94m. Widescreen. (Bill Stamets)

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(Ne Le Dis À Personne, 2006) The world of grown-ups, those not beleaguered by the pressures of fate-versus-choice in life-challenging, life-affirming journeys of superheroic stature, has almost vanished in U.S. movies. Lives that have been lived a little are relegated to cable, it seems, with David Simon’s “The Wire” being the most notable example of adult stuff that once would have been part of the challenging fare on movie screens. Guillaume Canet’s haunting chiller “Tell No One,” based on a novel by American writer Harlan Coben, is a whip-smart, neck-snapping thriller where the faces of actors like Francois Cluzet (with expressive features strikingly like Dustin Hoffman’s), as Alex, a pediatrician whose wife (Marie-Josee Croze) was murdered eight years earlier, and Kristin Scott-Thomas (in fluent French), as his closest confidant, look like real people: or at least like fine, fine-featured actors who bear age with grace and whose characters are plausibly challenged by the heightening obstacles of the canny plotting. He’s almost put his life together when hints come, from the police and via successive emails, that all is not resolved. A remarkable thriller the virtues of which include terrific foot-chase, “Tell No One” is jam-packed with surprise and satisfying frissons, and its look into dark nights of the soul are easily the equal of those in the newest Batman saga, and it moves with the verve of a 1970s thriller like “Marathon Man.” More, please. 125m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Ray Pride)

This well-made animated kid pic opens with a clever kick-ass dream sequence where obese fanboy Po (voiced by Black) fantasizes his kung-fu destiny. Mocking verve is shelved for blander fare when he wakes up to his chores at the noodle stand run by his single parent. Why Po is a panda and his pop is a goose is anyone’s guess. Rigging fireworks to a chair, Po makes an aerial entrance to the big rite for anointing the next kung-fu defender of the kingdom. Can scripture err in making this underachiever and overeater the savior? Po will learn a secret whose secret is that there is no secret. Believe in yourself and you’ll become who you wish to be—a morsel of wisdom ingested by our erstwhile ursine hero. The daddy issues in the screenplay by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger (co-writers of eleven episodes of the dad-fixated “King of the Hill”) are in sync with a Father’s Day opening. Co-directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson deliver likeable characters, with Jack Black especially in character reprising with the act that pays off time and again. With the voices of Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Seth Rogen. 88m. (Bill Stamets)