In theaters

BLOOD WORK, directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Brian Helgeland. 115 minutes. Rated R.

Over the last decade, Clint Eastwood has kept his film career going by shrewdly embracing his age – now 72 – and by selecting films that don’t just capitalize on those years, but also thrive on them.

The actor’s latest movie, “Blood Work,” his 24th in the director’s chair, continues that trend with an exclamation point. The film, from a script Brian Helgeland based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling novel, stars Eastwood as Terry McCaleb, an FBI profiler who drops from a heart attack in the opening chase scene and then, two years later, undergoes a heart transplant.

This isn’t exactly the Magnum-wielding, butt-kicking Dirty Harry we remember from the 1970s – and Eastwood seems liberated by it.

He’s aware of his age and his physical limitations in ways that other maturing action stars aren’t. When he courts comparisons to the cinematic icon he created three decades ago, he does so with a wink and a sense of humor, which steers him clear of the self-delusion recently afflicting Robert De Niro’s career and, for the past five years, nearly sunk Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.

Living on a boat in an L.A. marina, Terry is recuperating under the advisement of his doctor, Bonnie Fox (Anjelica Huston), when Graciella Rivers (Wanda De Jesus) enters his life with a compelling reason he should come out of retirement: The heart beating in his chest belonged to Graciella’s sister, who was murdered by a serial killer in a convenience-store robbery.

Would Terry be willing to help her find the murderer? Of course he would – and before you can say, “the plot just flatlined,” Terry is tracking down a serial killer, Graciella is licking the scar on Terry’s chest, and Terry is making love to her with the considerable help of her sister’s heart, a bizarre twist that redefines what it means to be incestuous.

What’s great about “Blood Work” isn’t what it becomes – a preposterous television movie made by an A-list star – but its small touches, such as the scene in which Terry quietly shares a box of doughnuts with two detectives (Paul Rodriguez and Dylan Walsh), the way the film suggests Terry once had a fling with the cop (Tina Lifford) who comes to help him in the investigation, and the moment Terry raises a shotgun to raise hell on a city street.

Eastwood doesn’t deny his audience the pleasure of watching him lock and load, but in this uneven movie, his weakest since “True Crime,” he also doesn’t try to convince us that it’s as easy as it used to be.

Grade: B-

On video and DVD

QUEEN OF THE DAMNED, directed by Michael Rymer, written by Scott Abbott and Michael Petroni, based on “The Vampire Chronicles” by Anne Rice. 101 minutes. Rated R.

When Michael Rymer’s “Queen of the Damned” was released last February, so much was written about the late R&B singer Aaliyah’s performance, it likely came as a surprise and a disappointment to her fans to learn that she’s barely in the film.

As Akasha, queen of all vampires, Aaliyah doesn’t show up until the film’s final third, which isn’t exactly the royal treatment one expects given the sheer buildup of hype her posthumous appearance generated.

Based on two Anne Rice novels, “The Vampire Lestat” and “Queen of the Damned,” “Queen of the Damned” isn’t really about a queen at all, though with all of its sullen, bitchy vampires undulating within the film’s gathering shadows, one could certainly accuse its soulless crew of bloodsuckers of having the brooding temperament of a queen.

Following 1994’s “Interview with the Vampire,” the film is actually a continuation of the story of the vampire Lestat (Stuart Townsend), who, as the film opens is awakened in his crypt by the music of a world that suddenly intrigues him.

What ensues is a jumbled series of plots and subplots, flashforwards and flashbacks, none of which particularly work but all of which divert attention from what should have been the primary focus here – the relationship between Lestat and Akasha, which is treated with all the rushed awkwardness of a first kiss.

The sets are good and so is the cast, particularly Lena Olin as Maharet, Vincent Perez as Marius and Marguerite Moreau as the living Jesse, but the dialogue, which too often favors the colorful euphemisms of Southern fried camp, suggests that Rymer and his screenwriters didn’t take the story or the characters as seriously as Rice does in her books.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith’s reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, occasionally on E! Entertainment’s “E! News Weekend,” Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.