Funded in full by George Harrison after the original funders got cold feet, Monty Python’s freeform biblical satire was attacked on its 1979 release by Catholic, Protestant and Jewish organizations. Though, in time-honored tradition, none of the protesters had seen the film, they were (accidentally) onto something. Though it most obviously stabs at Christianity with the story of Brian (Graham Chapman), a Jerusalem nobody whose life uncannily parallels that of a certain J.C., the movie’s target is not any one religion, but religions in general, even secular ones. Whether it’s Brian’s unwanted disciples arguing over whether to follow the shoe or the gourd he’s left behind as he runs away, or the anti-Roman factions who do more damage to each other than the empire, Brian stabs at the heart of comedy’s favorite target, conformity. If the jokes don’t double you over with the same force the 400th time through, Life of Brian’s spirit comes through with ever-greater force. Apart from a few dead spots, this is Python’s most sustained peak. --Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16.)

Much like the Olsen twins’ many straight-to-video outings, Dennie Gordon’s theatrical release delivers Mary-Kate and Ashley into a haphazard sequence of episodes. This time, Mary-Kate plays the rebel (high school truant and drummer with a Metallica t-shirt), and Ashley plays Ms. Perfect (fond of pink suits and competing for an Oxford scholarship). After Dr. Drew Pinsky appears briefly as their kindly, clueless, widowed dad, the girls head to NYC, where Mary-Kate is hunted by truant officer Eugene Levy and Ashley by Andy Richter, playing some sort of wacko "adopted son" of a Chinatown matron (running a DVD/CD pirating operation), complete with offensive "Chinese" accent. (Fortuitously, Ashley speaks Chinese and M-K knows something resembling tae kwon do.) The liveliest of several dull montages takes place in a beauty shop, where the irrepressible Mary Bond Davis treats the twins to big-hair, bright-costume makeovers, and are named honorary "sistas." Each is also assigned a beau, a bicycle messenger (Riley Smith) for Ashley and a Senator’s son (Jared Padalecki) for M-K. Each gets her own onscreen kiss, but the moral is all about reconciling the feuding twins. --Cindy Fuchs (AMC Orleans; Narberth; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

The second "spring" in the title of Kim Ki-Duk’s elegant fable also serves as the heading for its first chapter, an appropriate beginning for a story that ends where it began. Tipping his hat to Ozu (just in time for the centenary), Kim sets his tale of spiritual struggle on a floating monastery, where an old monk raises his young disciple only to watch him betray his teachings, secure in the knowledge that his behavior is part of the lesson. Kim, whose usual fare (like the fishhook-swallowing The Isle) is distinctly higher-wattage, doesn’t always trust his story; invasive music swamps more than one lesson. But the early shots are perfectly composed as a Zen painting, and Kim constantly finds surprises in a zone often clouded with fuzzy mysticism. --S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

Under the auspices of The Order (a mysterious cabal associated with the Vatican and supported by a basement full of monks committed to research and gadget-making), Dr. Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) hunts monsters. Introduced as he takes down an oversized-and-CGIed Mr. Hyde, he reveals his discomfort with his gift for violence and his ongoing mission. Vanquishing evil usually leads to the discovery of a vulnerable human just beneath the surface. Not so with his new target, Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh), who’s just plain bad. In Transylvania, he hooks up with Anna (Kate Beckinsale), trying to save her brother (Will Kemp) from eternal wolfmanhood, even while battling the Count’s trio of bloodlusty wives; they swoop down on Anna’s village like Oz’s Wicked Witch demanding "Surrender Dorothy." (In fact, the batty little "progeny" produced by his Dracula’s mating look a lot like the Flying Monkeys.) Van Helsing has a sidekick (David Wenham), a dark past he can’t remember (rather like Wolverine) and a new friend in Frankenstein’s not-so-evil Monster (Shuler Hensley). Anna has a very tight bodice. And the film can’t get out of its own way: it’s too long, the effects are shaky and the bad fathers-irrelevant mothers legacy needs updating. -- C.F. (AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St., UA Cheltenham, UA Grant; UA Main St. ; UA Riverview)