This coming-of-age story from the South Pacific Islands depicts a woman’s struggle for freedom and justice. A mythical warrior woman serves as inspiration against the oppression of females.

“Prime”
(out of four)
Universal Pictures
Rated PG-13

Note to Bryan Greenberg: Try not to be a lead actor in a film in which your story is cross-cut between scenes with Meryl Streep. “Prime” is about a 37-year-old photographer (Uma Thurman) and a 23-year-old painter (Greenberg) whose mom (Streep) turns out to be the photographer’s therapist. The therapist finds out before the other two, and continues to have sessions with Thurman’s character. Streep’s delivery and man-nerisms are laugh-out-loud funny. She makes the film worth-while, yet her absence makes other scenes drag.

The rest of the movie concentrates on the relationship’s age gap. The plot is a bit overloaded and the film sometimes feels like an “Annie Hall” wannabe, but it does deal with the serious issues encountered in relationships, rather than simply creat-ing conflict with plot contrivances.

“The Weather Man”
½ (out of four)
Paramount Pictures
Rated R

The weather man knows why everybody hates him. He hardly does anything, makes a good living and gets to be on TV. People at home watch him and talk about whether he’s handsome or has a stu-pid asshole face. People who see him on the street throw fast food at him from their cars.

The title character of “The Weather Man” (Nicolas Cage) is in bad shape. His ex-wife (Hope Davis) is going to marry another man. His 15-year-old son (Nicholas Hoult of “About a Boy”) just got out of rehab and his counselor is show-ing an alarming amount of interest in him. His younger daughter (Gemmenne de la Peña) is overweight and the boys at junior high call her “camel toe.” And his critical dad (Michael Caine), a suc-cessful author who made a real difference instead of standing in front of a green screen, is having health prob-lems. So he deals with it by being generally unpleasant when he’s not smiling on the air.

In his best work, director Gore Verbinksi’s (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) stylish direction perfectly matches Nicolas Cage’s hilariously deadpan performance. The film captures the awkwardly droll moments in life, when eloquence disappears and all you can do is call a man you don’t like a dildo.

“Saw II”
½ (out of four)
Lions Gate Films
Rated R
Reviewed by Chris Bellamy

It’s as bad as the first one.