In theaters

ANGER MANAGEMENT, directed by Peter Segal, written by David Dorfman, 101 minutes, rated PG-13.

The release of Peter Segal’s “Anger Management” is certainly timely, in a bizarrely prescient sort of way. With the world on edge and the economy in the drink – and people upset over both – what better time than now for a movie about the merits of keeping one’s temper in check?

The film stars Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler, two actors who nailed two of last year’s better films – Nicholson in “About Schmidt,” which earned him an Academy Award nomination, and Sandler in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch Drunk Love,” a film that understood his passive-aggressive strengths and played to them beautifully.

On the surface, their pairing in “Anger Management” seems promising, if only because we know from the get-go that neither is a stranger to losing it on screen.

Still, while the movie occasionally comes through with what it promises – big, messy scenes in which each actor goes a little nuts – it’s ultimately a bust, a second-rate comedy more interested in dipping into the toilet bowl and pulling out its share of penis jokes than it is in becoming the smart satire on anger management gurus it could have been.

In the film, Sandler is Dave Buznik, a passive-aggressive, midlevel ad executive who designs clothing for overweight cats – which provides the film’s biggest laughs – while his boss happily takes the credit.

While away on business, Dave finds himself on a plane seated next to Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson), the very man who coincidentally becomes Dave’s shrink after he’s sentenced to anger management therapy for allegedly harassing a flight attendant.

The joke is that Dave couldn’t be less aggressive – he’s a kitten with the bite of a worm, a man so sensitive and timid he can barely bring himself to kiss his girlfriend, Linda (Marisa Tomei), in public. Still, after a second incident in which Dave accidentally breaks a waitress’s nose, he finds himself stuck with Rydell, who is ordered by a judge (Lynne Thigpen) to cure Dave of his toxic anger syndrome.

In therapy, Dave meets a whole host of caricatures, all of them lazily conceived – John Turturro as a venomous war vet, Luis Guzman as a lisping gay Hispanic, Woody Harrelson as a German transvestite hooker and John C. Reilly as a Buddhist monk with a mean head butt.

Scattered among the countless product placements are awkward cameos by Roger Clemens, John McEnroe, Bobby Knight and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani – all of whom have well-documented histories with anger-management issues but none of whom brings anything funny to this movie.

“Anger Management” likely will work best for Sandler fans, but at my screening there were signs that even they might be growing tired of his shtick. Indeed, throughout the film, the laughs were sporadic at best, suggesting that for Sandler, a little career management might be in order.

Grade: C-

On video and DVD

SPIRITED AWAY, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, 124 minutes, rated PG.

“Spirited Away,” the Academy Award-winning film from Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki (“Princess Mononoke,” “My Neighbor Totoro”), is an animated “Alice in Wonderland” and “Wizard of Oz” for a new generation.

As written by Miyazaki, the film is animation as art, living up to its title and spiriting audiences away with an imagination that never feels restricted by the pat limitations of the Hollywood machine because, frankly, Hollywood wasn’t allowed to touch it until it was ready to be dubbed into English.

Instead, the hands at work here are Miyazaki’s, whose beautifully detailed animation creates a quirky atmosphere and surreal mood that will remind some of the Brothers Grimm.

The film follows Chihiro (voice of Daveigh Chase), a sullen 10-year-old girl unhappily moving to a new house with her parents. When her father swings off the main thoroughfare to take a shortcut, he unwittingly leads them down a long, winding road, at the end of which is a dark tunnel protected by a stone god.

Naturally, curiosity pulls everyone out of the car and into that tunnel, which stretches into nothingness before opening to reveal a fantastic new world, one that initially seems deserted until the fall of nighttime, when tired spirits seeking a little relaxation and fun arrive en masse and Chihiro’s parents are inexplicably turned into two huge, grunting hogs.

Without giving too much away, the crux of Chihiro’s conundrum goes like this: If she’s to help her parents save face – quite literally, in this case – and return to human form so they all can go home, she must dig deep and find the key to her own individuality while also defeating the vicious Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), a crazed bathhouse queen determined to slaughter Chihiro’s parents if she doesn’t pass a series of tests.

What ensues is surprisingly complex, emotional and deceptive, saying more in its contemplative moments of silence than most of today’s predictable animated movies say in a song.

Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays and Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.