Genghis Khan’s birthright was to captain a small, nomadic tribe across the grassy sea of Mongolia. He grew up and made a bid for the whole world. He conquered as far as his eyes could see: Central Asia, portions of China, Persia and Russia. His name became synonymous in the West with cruel tyranny, but his conquests were no bloodier than most campaigns of his era and his empire was more tolerant, more wisely governed, than many states in our time.

Would you believe they finally got around to making “Get Smart” into a movie? Would you believe they tried it once before? Well, scarcely anyone remembers The Nude Bomb (1980), starring Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, the bumbling spy struggling to make the world safe for democracy. Adams played Smart in the 1960s series, but no one was interested in seeing a remake of the spy spoof only 10 years after the show was canceled. Its creator, Mel Brooks, recently said that skipping a generation may help. He should know something about timing. A musical based on The Producers might not have flown in the ’80s, either.

For the child named Blake, as for many boys, dad was invincible and immortal. But like many fathers and sons, problems began to mount along the way, especially as the boy passed through the thorny path of adolescence. When Did You Last See Your Father? concerns the inevitable decline of dad as witnessed by the now adult son. Diagnosed with inoperable cancer, dad is sent home to die, giving Blake time to ponder the many memories that rush from the hidden parts of his consciousness. Based on the novel by British author Blake Morrison, the story unfolds in the unhurried, not especially . . .

At some point we’ve all felt as if we could explode in berserk rage and release the pent-up monster within. Maybe the moron on his cell phone who nearly ran you over at the intersection provoked the impulse? Or the numbskull boss dressing you down? How about the deceitful politician setting the world on fire to promote his own agenda? Most of us have been socialized to show restraint, whether from an ethic of behavior or fear of punishment. The person without restraint is called psychologically dysfunctional, when he’s not the superhero called the Incredible Hulk.

In his novel The Terror, Arthur Machen imagined that the animals, sickened by the carnage of World War I, turned on humankind with tooth and claw. Later, Daphne du Maurier in a story adapted by Alfred Hitchcock thought the birds might strike at people for reasons known only to themselves. In The Happening, director-writer M. Night Shyamalan explores the idea that plants, threatened by our poor stewardship of their environment, might launch a holocaust against humanity. It’s the right message at a moment when much of our world seems to be collapsing, except for water levels and prices, which are on the rise. Is Shyamalan the wrong messenger? For their own inane reasons, movie critics . . .

Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha are four years older than they were when their Emmy-winning series ended. As the movie version of Sex and the City begins, they are no wiser. By the conclusion, however, at least a few of life’s lessons have been learned. Running on HBO from 1998 through 2004, “Sex and the City” was a long series of comic vignettes on the lives of single young women in one of the world’s most glamorous places, Manhattan. The size of its success (millions still watch it on cable reruns) speaks to the chord . . .

Can close but Platonic friendship between man and woman grow into love and marriage? The romantic comedy Made of Honor explores the theme with humor and insight. One imagines the principal screenwriter, Adam Sztykiel, may have been close to the situation experienced by his protagonists, Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan). Made of Honor is effervescent as champagne but packs an eight-proof kick below the bubbles. The sharp edges of the script are felt in the opening scene, set at Cornell in 1998 during a student masquerade dance . . .

Sylvester Stallone’s grimacing killing machine, Rambo, became a symbol of jingoism in the Reagan era, applauded by many Americans and derided by others. Those with a queasy sense of irony even found him funny. In Son of Rambow (so spelled because of trademark difficulties), British writer-director Garth Jennings (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) would have us believe that the bulletproof avenger was capable of liberating the human imagination and inspiring a generation . . .