In theaters

BOBBY, written and directed by Emilio Estevez, 120

minutes, rated R.

One of the key problems with the new Robert Kennedy biopic, “Bobby,” is that it never is as compelling, necessary or as thought-provoking as RFK’s ideas, nor is it as interesting or as tumultuous as the time it depicts.

The movie doesn’t brim with the edge of political and social unrest you expect; instead, it creates a blizzard of tiny melodramas within Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel that fit snuggly together – too snugly, really – when Kennedy was shot in the hotel’s kitchen by Sirhan Sirhan and later died from those wounds.

The movie is a build-up to that event. It has good intentions to spare, but a motherlode of them, while admirable, hardly is enough to make a movie good.

Witness, for example, “Bobby,” which was written and directed by Emilio Estevez, a former Bratpacker whose last major film was, oh, let’s see, the 1996 children’s hockey fiasco “D3: The Mighty Ducks.”

In the ensuing 10 years, Estevez has been busy honing his directorial skills by working behind the lens on a number of television shows, “CSI: NY” and “The Guardian” among them.

“Bobby” is designed to be his break-out movie, though additional factors likely will prevent that from happening.

For one, the film was left wanting at the bank for a budget: Nobody would finance it until the Weinsteins came along. Second, since the Weinsteins weren’t exactly liberal with the cash, the movie had to be rushed in order to come in at or under budget. It was shot over the course of a mere 37 days by some well-known actors who weren’t allowed the time to rehearse. This shows, though it must be said that thanks to the strength of the cast, nobody does anything here that they will regret.

Further sinking the movie is that it tries to balance 22 personalities over the course of two hours, which some readers might understand is somewhat difficult to do, particularly coming off the recent Thanksgiving Day festivities. This certainly is true for the movie, which moves in and out of its characters’ lives with such casualness, their stories don’t linger. Instead, they become fleeting, meaningless vignettes amid the hagiography.

Jarring the movie out of reality is that the stars keep coming. Here is Demi Moore as an alcohol-soaked nightclub singer – lovely hair, but who is she, really? There is William H. Macy, Heather Graham, Christian Slater and Sharon Stone caught in some unexpected ugliness, while Ashton Kutcher, Shia LeBeouf and Brian Geraght drop acid in ways that might affect RFK’s numbers at the polls.

In the hotel lobby, look: There’s Anthony Hopkins and Harry Belafonte playing chess. Just upstairs are Martin Sheen and his insecure, freaked-out wife, played by Helen Hunt. Meanwhile, Laurence Fishburne becomes something of a black messiah to a group of angry Latino kitchen workers, Freddy Rodriguez chief among them. On their way to the chapel are Lindsay Lohan and Elijah Wood, who are about to be married so she can save him from a war that only skirts the periphery of this movie.

Other characters and subplots abound, with the movie only fully realizing itself when Estevez cuts away to actual footage of Kennedy speaking around the country. Here is the movie at its best – Kennedy delivering his own message, which is just as timely today as it was 38 years ago.

That he gives the best “performance” in a movie whose power comes from old newsreel footage doesn’t say much for all the many stories and characters tugging for attention in the movie in question.

Grade: C-

On DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray

THE ANT BULLY, written and directed by John A. Davis, 88 minutes, rated PG.

The computer-animated movie “The Ant Bully” knows a few things about bullies, most of which we already know – all of which bear repeating.

For instance, the movie understands that for the most part, the average bully is a weak little miscreant whose fists and tough talk, when pressed into action by real intimidation, pack the punch of a moth. It also knows that not all bullies are created equal and that some just need a little nudge to lift them to the higher level of human existence they resist. That can take some doing, though the work generally is worth it, even if the methods for promoting change can be somewhat extreme.

Take, for example, young Lucas (voice of Zach Tyler Eisen), a hapless 10-year-old boy so relentlessly bullied by a menacing group of neighborhood brats that he becomes something of a bully himself.

It isn’t just his family that feels the redirected weight of his rage and humiliation, but also the little ant colony nesting in his front yard. With zeal, Lucas attacks it with crushing streams of water, creating such havoc inside the colony that the ant wizard Zok (Nicolas Cage) decides what Lucas needs is a taste of his own medicine.

With the help of his ant girlfriend, Hova (Julia Roberts), Zok devises a potion that, when spilled into Lucas’ ear, will cause him to shrink to the size of an ant. Only then, when Lucas is brought down to size, can Zok and the rest of the colony truly have their way with him, though not in ways that you might expect.

By order of the Queen (Meryl Streep), a towering, serene presence who looks and speaks as if she just stepped off the utopian mother ship, Lucas is forced to walk in their shoes (all six of them), so he will come to appreciate all that he wanted to destroy.

Teamwork, understanding and tolerance all are laced through the beautiful animation. For some, those messages might seem overdone, but these days, when a certain Hollywood comedian crushes his reputation with some rather revealing racial slurs, an argument could be made that they can’t be done enough.

Grade: B+

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and weekends in Television as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.