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The film adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary is sweet, honest, hilarious and has a great British cast (and Renee Zellweger, whose accent is thankfully utterly convincing). Bridget Jones makes a compelling heroine who's a real joy to spend time with, and you're carried along nicely with the highs and lows (mostly lows) of her life as a thirty-something singleton looking to improve her life on romantic, professional and emotional terms. The film doesn't make any major changes to the classic rom-com formula, but when a film is this emotionally engaging, well-written (by Andrew Davies and Richard Curtis), confidently directed (by Sharon Maguire) and so ably performed by the cast, it doesn't really need to stand out much from the crowd. You might find yourself shifting a bit uncomfortably towards the end as Bridget, like many rom-com protagonists takes a painfully long time to make the right decision, but a rewarding side story exploring the strained relationship of Bridget's parents (Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones) helps keep emotion levels high even if the main plot begins to tire. And Bridget really isn't fat, she's woman-shaped. Bridget Jones's Diary is still a great romantic comedy film that delivers everything it promises - laughter, tears and a comforting warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Christopher Nolan effectively grounded his Batman universe from the very start, making the titular Caped Crusader compelling for a new generation, but never sacrificed the fun factor that only superhero films allow for to achieve it. People talk about Nolan's much darker Batman, but really it's no more dark that Tim Burton's vision from two decades ago. What we're really seeing is the difference between styles of comic-to-film adaptations - contemporary and (relatively) realistic, or stylised and fantastical. For every fan who loves Nolan's straight-faced treatment of the source material and plausible gadgets, you've got someone else who is attracted to Burton's gothic noir designs for Gotham City. Batman Begins gives us a entertainingly diverse cast of characters, all tweaked in some way from their comic counterparts to fit the origin story - a well-meaning but rough-around-the-edges Bruce Wayne (a sincere Christian Bale), a stern mentor with questionable morals (Liam Neeson) a supportive, grounded surrogate father (Michael Caine), an idealistic good-cop (Gary Oldman), a slimy gangster (Tom Wilkinson) and an appropriately creepy costumed antagonist in The Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy). Nolan and David S. Goyer completely strip back Batman to its core elements and themes, which allows for great character moments and emotion aplenty in addition to all the high-concept heroics. As well-executed as the action is, it's the touching early scenes of young Bruce coming to terms with his parents' deaths and his imposing family legacy that are the most memorable, accompanied by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer's score which morphs from dramatic and booming to low-key and tear-inducing. Begins also gratifyingly doesn't fall into the traps that the sequels do - the plot is relatively direct, with flashbacks adding colour to the story and characters rather than an over-reliance on plot twists and melodrama. Batman Begins transcends genre - it's a great superhero film, a great coming-of-age film, a great road movie, and a great thematically-heavy character piece. I'll admit that I love Tim Burton's Batman, but I also love Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. They're both rewarding for different reasons, and I find it exceedingly difficult to rank one above the other.

Solomon Kane is a moody, violent and mostly entertaining quasi-historical action/horror movie experience. The influence of Hammer films and 2004's Van Helsing are obvious, though this film is more straight-faced and serious than either. James Purefoy makes a serviceable leading man, and his flawed titular hero has surprising depth to him, though the use of his natural West Country accent is oddly distracting after his many roles using neutral or American voices. All due respect to the veteran talent of Max von Sydow and Pete Postlethwaite for bringing a little gravitas to proceedings, and for giving far better performances than they actually have to, though the rest of the cast are uninspiring, particularly Rachel Hurd-Wood's rather bland and annoying damsel in distress. The visuals of the film are creepy and unusual enough to be interesting, the action is well-executed and bloody, but the big finale (on which director Michael J. Bassett clearly spent the vast majority of the film's budget) is oddly underwhelming and emotionally dead. The plot as a whole is also a bit too formulaic, with the big narrative twists signposted far too obviously. Solomon Kane delivers in terms of atmosphere, gothic visuals and unflinchingly brutal fight sequences, but still falls short because of its cut-and-paste story and underdeveloped characters. In truth, it's a better film than the aforementioned distant relative Van Helsing, though I do miss the tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation of that film, and the slightly camp thrills of Hammer - there is such a thing as taking yourself too seriously. With such a strong aesthetic and dark themes, Solomon Kane's failings could be ironed out in a sequel, which might become something more unique and rewarding for the viewer. Whether this sequel emerges at some point in the near future, or at all, remains to be seen.

The filmmaking powerhouse that is Christopher Nolan has delivered a pretty satisfying final chapter of his Dark Knight trilogy. The plot of The Dark Knight Rises is a slow-burner, but the stockpiled tension you accumulate over the film well and truly explodes in an epic finale. This Batman series also, gratifyingly, feels like a complete story that brings you full circle rather than a succession of tacked-on sequels thanks to an extraordinary joint writing effort by the Nolan brothers and David S. Goyer. This is one of the most enjoyable of the Caped Crusader's screen outings, being dark, provocative and relevant to the modern world (perhaps slightly heavy-handedly) but also never forgets to be fun, and to be a genuine superhero film. Is Tom Hardy's Bane a more memorable villain than Heath Ledger's Joker? No, but he's an entertaining, distinctive antagonist with a wonderfully odd voice and some of the best eye-acting ever committed to screen from Hardy. Bane's introduction scene is arguably on par with the Joker's from the previous film - both are creative, thrilling heist scenes that are served beautifully by Nolan's love of IMAX. The old faithfuls of the franchise - Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman are good as ever, and Christian Bale impresses as an older, creakier Batman. Series newcomer Anne Hathaway is mesmerising playing the manipulative and morally ambiguous Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman, who proves herself to be at least as formidable as her pointy-eared associate, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt manages to hold his own in a cast of big-hitters. The main crime The Dark Knight Rises commits is attempting to tackle too much. The plotting is a lot looser this time round, conveniently glossing over such narrative inconveniences as the passage of time and geography, and there are frequent references to things that supposedly happened between the last film and this one, often resulting in an information overload. A lot of narrative fat could have been cut at the beginning of the film, and a tweak in plotting in the first act would have certainly helped with the flow of the story. The Dark Knight Rises is still a hugely entertaining and handsome-looking film, but if the story had been stripped back a little, and been more focussed, then perhaps a more consistently enjoyable final product might have emerged.

Serenity is proof that Joss Whedon truly understands the key elements of great, involving filmmaking, that is to say, character, relationships and story. With the addition of impressive special effects and production design, a grand and moving score from David Newman and Whedon's usual flair for snappy almost poetic dialogue, and this sci-fi really stands out from the crowd. Serenity is a fittingly grand and rewarding send-off to Firefly, an exceptional TV series cruelly cancelled before it reached its full potential, and Whedon thankfully wasn't tempted to overcomplicate the plot, keeping it relatively stripped-back and linear, sticking to resolving a couple of dangling plot threads from the series, and always focussed on the characters and their relationships that steadily develop over the course of their journey. It feels like we've never left the space-faring rustbucket, as the technically impressive single-shot opening sequence that guides us through the entire vessel proves - the characters are exactly where we left them, and we as an audience feel ready to be re-acquainted with their various eccentricities. The cast all deliver, with Nathan Fillion upping his performance as a far darker Captain Mal Reynolds than we saw in the TV series, Adam Baldwin's towering but soft-at-heart Jayne still brings the laughs, and Summer Glau's psychic warrior angel River proves to be a real force of nature. The newcomers also impress - Chiwetel Ejiofor is terrifyingly calm and collected as a fanatical nameless assassin, and David Krumholtz's information dealer Mr Universe is a fun character and invaluable ally to the crew of the Serenity. Like the preceding series, Serenity is a film of striking contrasts - science-fiction/western, Eastern culture/Western culture, the darkness of human nature and the eternal optimism in the human heart. As a film it delivers not just in terms of spectacle, but in terms of intelligent ideas and emotional character-driven drama, particularly in the film's stunning final act. This universe of galactic frontiers, settlers, smuggling, adventure and mad space cannibals remains endlessly entertaining, and if this really is the final time we'll see Whedon's beloved creation on-screen, then it has been given a majestic final voyage.

The are landmarks in comic book publishing, and there are landmarks in superhero filmmaking. Watchmen is an example of both. Alan Moore's graphic novel changed comics forever, and proved to the world once and for all that they could be taken seriously as a medium. Perhaps the film version hasn't had the same impact, but it should be respected nonetheless. It's a real shame that Moore disowned the project after seeing sub-par film adaptations of From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as Zack Snyder's Watchmen is a very good film. It's a pessimistic view of an alternate universe with real superheroes, a world of heightened Cold War paranoia and near-constant awareness of human mortality. The heroes of this universe are all deeply flawed, and make for fascinating characters - Jackie Earle Haley's psychotic masked vagrant Rorschach, Patrick Wilson's idealistic but impotent and out-of-shape caped crusader Nite Owl and Billy Crudup's increasingly removed nuclear man-god Dr. Manhattan being particular highlights. Snyder's films are always visually stunning, but Watchmen sets a new standard, as often it looks like Dave Gibbon's artwork has stepped straight off the page and onto the big screen, and Snyder's good sense for over-the-top violence and dynamic cinematography serves this living comic for grown-ups well. The film's standout scenes are the interconnected flashbacks that flesh out the characters, their relationships with each other, and what drives them, and Dr. Manhattan's origin story is particularly emotionally engaging. Watchmen also has one of the most memorable opening credits sequences on film, presented as a striking and really quite beautiful extended montage that establishes just how much has changed in a world that has had masked vigilantes operating in it since the late 1930s, all with Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'" playing over the top. Watchmen isn't perfect - it's rather long, yet somehow the final act still feels rushed and a little clumsily put together, and there's the odd plot-hole to be found in the theatrical release (thankfully resolved in the director's cut), but Zack Snyder's vision of Alan Moore's universe is still one of the more faithful, respectful and coherent book-to-film adaptations. Snyder retains all of the "meat" of Moore's book and brings it to life with expert visual execution. They said Watchmen could never be filmed. They were wrong.

Superhero Movie is not a completely satisfying comedy film. It works to an extent as an accurate Spider-Man parody. It has serviceable comedy performances from Drake Bell, Christopher McDonald and Leslie Nielsen and has an amusing minor role for Jeffrey Tambor, and the whole cast make the very best they can of writer/director Craig Mazin's mostly uninspiring script. The film is far weaker when the story veers off on tangents and tries to spoof films other than Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films in obvious and embarrassingly unfunny ways, particularly criminal is the offensively bad X-Men parody featuring Tracy Morgan. Since it does make you laugh now and again (mostly from ZAZ-influenced jokes that likely resulted from David Zucker serving as one of the film's producers), Superhero Movie is definitely on the better side of bad films, and is far superior to the woeful Epic Movie and Disaster Movie. It's just a shame that it's not more consistently funny, as there is little left to hide Craig Mazin's pretty sloppy filmmaking technique when you're not laughing. At the end of the day, being "the best of the Scary Movie spin-offs" isn't really much of an accolade.

Considering the title, you'd expect the film to truly bloody awful. In fact, it's weird, wonderful, funny and surprisingly tender. Bubba Ho-tep is the best, and only film about an elderly Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) defending his retirement home from an Egyptian mummy wearing a stetson, with a little help from a black JFK (Ossie Davis). The first half of the film is well-paced, funny and rather deep and emotionally compelling for a film with such a seemingly lowbrow premise. Campbell is absolutely captivating as The King, who swapped lives with an impersonator (who was the one who eventually died on the toilet) to escape the increasingly suffocating attention of his fans. He lives out his twilight years in obscurity, regret and extreme depression in an isolated nursing home in Texas, until something odd begins to happen. The film explores mortality and memory in an unexpectedly intelligent and sensitive way (it's ultimately left to the viewer to decide whether Campbell's character is really Elvis or just some old codger with mental health problems), but at the same time it's not above the odd crude joke and some brilliantly trashy comic horror set pieces. The final few minutes of the film are admittedly a bit of a drag, and are appear to have been put together rather hastily, but you'll hardly care when you've had such a good time throughout. Bubba Ho-tep is a superb, surprisingly clever and heartfelt A-quality B-Movie, with Bruce Campbell's best performance outside his Sam Raimi collaborations.

The Amazing Spider-Man is a decent quality film and a pretty fun ride. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are excellent, with Garfield remembering to be a human first and a superhero second, and stone having great chemistry with the web-head as Peter Parker's highschool sweetheart Gwen Stacy. Denis Leary is also superb as Gwen's over-protective, condescending but well-meaning police captain dad. Rhys Ifans is less successful as The Lizard, the film's most prominent antagonist, his performance inconsistent, his character's motivations ill-defined and his CGI-transformed appearance looking a little off (an anthropomorphic face grafted onto a reptilian body turns out not to be the cleverest design decision in motion picture history). It's nice to see a new take on the titular hero that's more like Smallville than Sam Raimi's trilogy, but you do feel a little cheated at the film's conclusion with its many hanging plot threads that will doubtless be resolved in the sequel(s). Though The Amazing Spider-Man breaks new ground in terms of its slow-burning style of storytelling, the key beats in the plot are predictable and cliched, and the film as a whole is far too long, though I'm not sure which scenes could justifiably be cut to improve pacing without negatively impacting the story as a whole. It's oddly gratifying to see director Marc Webb finally attempt to address the (theoretical) physics involved in someone swinging from ****, and by executing many of the film's stunts in reality using sophisticated wire-work and harnesses, he manages to avoid the slightly rubbery Spidey of the Raimi era. The Amazing Spider-Man is a solid foundation for a new franchise that remains pleasingly grounded and promises to explore the lesser-known lore of the Spideyverse. The post-credits scene also suggests that the sequel could go to some really interesting places now all that lengthy exposition is out of the way again.

David Zucker's second stab at a Scary Movie is about as hit-and-miss as his first attempt. Leslie Nielsen is still great (when was he not?), and his not too subtle moronic presidential parody of George W. Bush has to deal with various threats to the planet from various Hollywood genres, with help from returning haphazard heroine Cindy (Anna Farris) and Craig Bierko, who's playing Tom Cruise from Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Easily the funniest scene in the film is the prologue, which finds Dr Phil and Shaquille O'Neal imprisoned in the infamous Saw bathroom. All the J-Horror spoofs (dominated by The Grudge) are also executed pretty well, but like always with this series, when the humour becomes lazily crude and body function-obsessed, the film achieves more in terms of sheer annoyance than anything that actually makes you laugh. I'm not saying Zucker is a dignified comedy genius lowering himself to depravity for the first time - Airplane and Naked gun were often very juvenile, but this kind of humour was well-timed and balanced with different kinds of jokes. When a film only uses gross-out comedy to promote childish snickers, then it comes across as incredibly shallow and unmemorable. Thankfully, Scary Movie 4, like its predecessor, has a couple of memorable and funny sequences, but the big laughs are few and far between.

With the third film in the Scary Movie franchise, David Zucker adds a certain level of competence to proceedings, the addition of Leslie Nielsen is always a positive, and Charlie Sheen playing Mel Gibson's character from Signs is a stroke of comedy genius. The film just about hits the good joke quota, and Anna Farris is still mildly amusing and gets the job done reprising her ditsy lead role. The best film parody is 8 Mile (which incorporates a certain egotistical British talent judge playing himself) which is a bit odd considering the film is a "Scary Movie". All the film spoofs are pretty well executed, probably slicker than they ever have been in this series, and in much of Zucker's own career, though it's a bit odd that so few of the parodies relate directly to the horror genre. The whole film still never quite comes together - some of the gags fall flat, and some of it is just plain embarrassing, and not in an intentionally hilarious way. While the vast majority of the jokes and parodies will at least raise a smile, Scary Movie 3's main achievement is unfortunately reminding you how good David Zucker used to be, but no longer is. His current work can still loosely be classed as comedy, so at least he's doing a bit better than his early writing partners, brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams, but David must still be pining for the good old days of Airplane!, Naked Gun and even BASEketball.

Iron Sky has one of the great all-time exploitation movie premises. There's no point beating about the bush, it's about space ****. Apparently, after they lost WWII, the Reich retreated to the moon, but feel the time is right for world domination 67 years later. For a film of its type, it works more often than not, though the setup is clunky even by B-movie standards, and the film as a whole is a bit too drawn out. There are a few satisfyingly surreal and tongue-in-cheek gags, the best of which mocks contemporary world politics (with a particularly cruel, but hilarious Sarah Palin caricature performed pitch-perfectly by Stephanie Paul) and another which involves two **** soldiers passionately disagreeing with the appeal of 21st century pornography. Despite these memorable moments and sporting some rather impressive visual effects for an independent Finnish film, Iron Sky often, sometimes fatefully, plays it far too straight-faced. The film's marketing campaign got it right by really embracing how ridiculous it is, and the film would probably have benefited from being similar in tone to the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse project from a few years ago - a parody, but a knowing, high-quality homage rather than an outright spoof that has the potential to quickly run out of steam. At the end of the day, though there's a lot to like in Iron Sky, and though you will probably laugh at some point, it needs to be far funnier to make the whole concept work.

Chronicle has what many lesser found footage films lack. The genre has a history of sacrificing character for style, of using hand-held filming to hide a lack of budget. This film has very strong performances from the three leads Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell and Michael B. Jordan (especially DeHaan) who all play interesting, well-developed characters that you enjoy spending time with, and the film's entertaining premise of the three highschool friends gaining superpowers after the discovery of a mysterious object provides some good laughs and fun spectacle, particularly in the scenes where the boys are learning to control their new gifts. The film also creatively gets round the chief weakness of the found footage genre - who's holding the camera? (the way they do this is a highlight which I won't spoil here). Like Cloverfield, Chronicle doesn't try to provide a concrete explanation for the odd goings on that we witness, but this mostly works for the film, and you should be able to fill in the gaps yourself (at least until an inevitable sequel surfaces which will doubtless expand on the film's universe). Disappointingly, the final act of Chronicle is pretty poor. The action becomes all-consuming and repetitive, the characters are reduced to conduits for the filmmakers to spend their remaining budget rather than anyone you can care about anymore, and the presence of one of the secondary characters is seemingly only to have someone else holding a camcorder. In other words, the film becomes just like all the films it has, up to the final act, been surpassing. Though the finale is an overblown, flaccid bore, the rest of Chronicle is a riot, and feels pleasingly original for a film that is part of a filmmaking craze that has long outstayed its welcome. Here's hoping the sequel builds on the considerable successes we find here, though without Josh Trank's sturdy direction (he's reportedly been headhunted to helm bigger superhero fare), it remains to be seen whether a second instalment will become too big and dumb.

Corpse Bride is sweet and sincere, dark and funny, and perhaps the most technically accomplished and beautiful example of stop-motion animation ever. A great British voice cast fronted by Johnny Depp (OK he's not British but plays the cripplingly shy young English gent Victor Van Dort well) and featuring Emily Watson, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Paul Whitehouse, Tracey Ullman, Jane Horrocks, Michael Gough, Christopher Lee and Richard E. Grant simply astounds - few directors other than Tim Burton would be able to command the respect of such an array of talent. Helena Bonham Carter blows all away however with her tender performance as Emily, the tragic character of the title. She's a compelling, rounded protagonist and Bonham Carter takes her characterisation in many directions, from child-like immaturity, to bitterness at her situation to eventual dignified acceptance of her untimely demise, and every emotion in-between. The contrast between the sombre, formal and grey world world of the living and the lively, colourful and free land of the dead is striking and effective - Burton has retained his go-to theme of not belonging in the world you are born in, and still has a unique view of death and a distinctive and individual use of cheerfully macabre imagery. In addition to the detail and expressiveness of the puppets and the energy of the animation (supervised by the film's incredibly talented co-director Mike Johnson), Danny Elfman's rich soundtrack and catchy songs, particularly the jazzy "Remains of the Day" and the rip-roaring "Wedding Song" breathe real life into the film. Though the film has much to say about life, death, class, family, love and loneliness, what makes it so memorable is that Tim Burton has provided us with such an entertainingly oddball piece of fantasy escapism. The world of Corpse Bride is a real pleasure to spend time in, and you really grow attached to the weird and wonderful cast of misfits, be they corpse or not. Burton's kookiness and abundance of unusual ideas can sometimes get in the way of telling a coherent, evenly paced story (most noticeably in his recent efforts Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows), but not so here - Corpse Bride is a pleasingly simple tale well-told, and characters and their performers are allowed to make a real emotional connection with the viewer. For a film manufactured using an archaic form of animation that seems to aim to actively reject reality, and which prominently features the reanimated dead, it's an oddly human, and miraculously heart-tugging experience, and is probably the most balanced and immaculate of all Tim Burton's films.

The Guard is a truly fine black comedy. It has a fantastic central comic performance from Brendan Gleeson, who plays Sergeant Boyle, a strange amalgamation of the classic good cop/bad cop partnership we're used to seeing in movies, with a twisted sense of humour and questionable morals, but with a heart that is ultimately made of gold, and manages to contain it all within his own imposing Irish frame. Don Cheadle also impresses as Agent Everett, an FBI consultant assisting in the search for a gang of ruthless smugglers (a sinister Liam Cunningham, a terrifying David Wilmot and Mark Strong doing what he does best), and makes a great straight man to Gleeson's less-than-serious Garda. There's numerous side-splitting moments of comedy in the blackest shade to be found in the film's beautifully penned script, by director John Michael McDonagh. Like his brother Martin, McDonagh seems to possess an uncanny ability to see the funny side of the bleakest of situations, and with the addition of a liberal sprinkling of Irish cultural eccentricities, The Guard becomes a real comic masterclass. Western iconography is also transferred surprisingly well from the American Old West to the film's rural Irish setting, with a particularly fine finale where Boyle and Everett go into battle against the bad guys, all guns blazing, a scene that could have been taken from any classic of the genre were it not for the presence of sea salt and copious Celtic-accented swearing. The Guard is a joy to watch - a sensational genre mash-up of cop films, buddy movies and Westerns with a cracking script, memorable performances and a healthy Irish pragmatic view on the world.

Day Watch seems far more comfortable with itself and confident in what it is trying to achieve than Night Watch was. A high-octane supernatural thriller in every sense, the film is action-packed, engaging and more than a little bit weird. Once again Konstantin Khabensky is great as Anton, an unusual yet layered and compelling protagonist, and the personal emotional journey he undergoes over the course of the film's narrative is affecting. Viktor Verzhbitsky is also fantastic as Zavulon, an understated, chilling villain. Other characters and performances in Day Watch make far less of an impact, though thankfully they don't make extended appearances as the story generally remains focused on Anton, his estranged son Yegor (played by the talented young Dmitriy Martynov) and Zavulon, who seeks to corrupt the boy and use his newly discovered destructive powers for evil. Like the first film, Day Watch still becomes incredibly confusing in the film's final act, but you'll have a pretty good (if a little narratively dense and drawn out) time regardless. Director Timur Bekmambetov has really stepped things up in terms of his artistic vision, and the film's visual splendour puts even some recent high-concept American features to shame. Russia might be a country to watch in terms of blockbuster filmmaking over the next few years, even if they can't quite compete with Hollywood yet.

Disney's John Carter seemly doesn't have many original ideas, but what you've got to remember is that the source material the film is based on pre-dates all the movies this film appears to be referencing - it's a bit of a paradox really. You feel like you've seen it all before, but everything is executed extremely well. Visually, John Carter is superb, with some of the best sci-fi action since the Star Wars prequels. Taylor Kitsch's star is on the rise, but perhaps he isn't the best actor to lead a film, as excepting one notable scene that makes very effective use of juxtaposition, he is rarely able to demonstrate much emotional depth to the titular Carter, but he can certainly handle the physical demands of the role. Lynn Collins manages to emotionally ground the whole film and Mark Strong makes another effectively creepy villain. Unfortunately the usually brilliant Ciaran Hinds and James Purefoy play pretty much exactly the same characters they did in HBO's Rome, and Dominic West's performance is pedestrian at best. The film makes use of some hugely convenient plot devices to avoid slowing the story, the script is so-so, and many of the key characters' motivations remain annoyingly unclear throughout. I'm also yet to decide whether the framing device for the main story on Mars works or not - is it clever and unusual, or just tonally misjudged? You end John Carter with a feeling that you've only just scratched the surface of this rich world, and I sincerely hope that the film makes enough money to justify a second installment, as a great sequel has been set up, a sequel which wouldn't require anywhere near as much clunky exposition, and in which we might be allowed to finally learn what on Earth (or Mars) Mark Strong's villain is trying to achieve.

There's no possibility that this film will be as effective and impactful in ten years or so, it's Everything Must Go's current relevance and immediate dramatic potential in the present economically uncertain world that makes it work so well. The plot structure has been seen many times before, and you can see the plot twists coming a mile off, but almost everything is done exceptionally. Performances are great across the board, with Will Ferrell proving he has the talent for comedy, tragedy and the in-between. Rebecca Hall is good as always, but everyone is put to shame by the young Christopher C.J. Wallace, who has great chemistry with Ferrell, and who is a real talent to watch in the future. Everything Must Go is expertly crafted, funny and engaging, wearing its old-fashionedness as a badge of honour and using it to its maximum potential as an archaic but symbolically effective modern take on a New Deal-era film. The way it promotes A Christmas Carol-worthy redemptive story arc and throws in some strong themes including depression, alcoholism and the evils of capitalism, it feels like a Frank Capra film for the modern era, and for that reason it's a joy to watch.

At first, I wasn't quite sure what to make of The Royal Tenenbaums, but as you gradually get to know the titular weird and wonderful dysfunctional clan, and experience the same trials and tribulations that they do, you truly grow to care for them. As always with Wes Anderson's films it's beautifully written, and simple but striking in its visual style. A brilliantly talented ensemble cast perform for your pleasure, and Gene Hackman is simply mesmerising as the complex Tenenbaum patriarch who is far more than another distant father - he's a real puzzle-box of a character whose layers are gradually pealed back as the narrative progresses. Gwyneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson also stand out as the severely depressed adopted daughter and the youngest son who has drifted aimlessly through life since his career as a professional tennis player floundered. The title cards used between narrative segments of the film, presented like chapters of a novel are a little irritating, and tend to break up the flow of the story rather than link this tale to storytelling tropes of classic literature, as was likely the intention. This is a minor gripe though, and The Royal Tenenbaums remains an engrossing, darkly comic tale of short-lived successes and persistent failures, love and hate, joy and depression, and above all else, family.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a visually stunning film even by Terry Gilliam's incredibly high standards, and is packed full of oddball energy and interesting ideas about dreams, imagination and reality. Christopher Plummer and Lily Cole impress, as does Tom Waits' mischievous villain, but Heath Ledger under-performs in his final screen appearance, and his "apples and pears" accent is nearly as bad as **** Van **** in Mary Poppins (though not quite as awful as Don Cheadle's in the Ocean's films). The film hinges on a number of fantastical trips into the titular imaginarium, and these largely work, with Ledger's character Tony played by a different actor for each sequence (a clever last-minute story change to accommodate Ledger's tragic and untimely death). The best imaginarium sequence is the one with Jude Law as Tony because of its sheer surrealism and Law's utterly batty performance. The film never even comes close to coming together as a whole however, and occasionally the convoluted plot becomes incomprehensible. Somehow Gilliam's zaniness keeps the film watchable throughout, and while you may not always know what exactly is going on, you'll feel like you've been on the ride of your life. Parnassus will certainly bemuse some viewers, frustrate others and amaze yet more (divisiveness is what Gilliam does best), and I'm really not sure which of those camps I belong in, as I feel confused, annoyed and mesmerised at various points, often changing my opinion of the film from scene to scene. It's more an oddity, a strangely captivating collage of elements rather than a complete package, but The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is an undeniably unique and memorable viewing experience.

Rushmore is funny, individual and highly influential in its style, seemingly inspiring just about every quirky school-based comedy of the 2000s, from Napoleon Dynamite to Juno. It's definitely Jason Schwartzman's film, and Max Fischer is one of the most annoying egotistical brats ever committed to celluloid, but somehow he still remains a compelling protagonist thanks to Schwartzman's innate charm and undeniable skill as a character actor. Bill Murray and Olivia Williams are also great, with Murray giving one of his best performances in a role that is both comic and quite tragic, and Williams giving the film its real heart and humanity. The script, by director Wes Anderson and his permanent collaborator and longtime friend Owen Wilson, is brilliantly energetic, sharp and gag-laden, as well as being rather tender in places, and is far more successful than their screenplay for their debut film, Bottle Rocket. Occasionally the extreme kookiness of the characters and plot (often one of the film's greatest strengths) causes the film to lose a bit of focus and pace, but this rarely detracts from the fun of the whole experience - Rushmore is a really great film, with a top-notch cast, great writing, humour and poignancy aplenty.

Marley & Me is a lovely, inoffensive little film. The basic premise is pretty generic: a typical romantic comedy plot about a married couple who are considering settling down and having a family, but are reluctant to sacrifice their successful careers in journalism, so instead they get a dog. That dog is an energetic golden retriever that they name Marley, who turns out to be quite a handful, and that's where the fun begins. We get great performances from Owen Wilson, and particularly Jennifer Aniston, who gives the best in her career - natural, empathetic and with real emotional depth. They make an incredibly likable couple, and their relationship develops believably as their characters approach middle age. Alan Arkin also has a brilliant comic turn as the hilariously deadpan newspaper editor who employs Wilson's John Grogan. The film's story is surprisingly involving, Marley misbehaving and causing chaos is very funny, and there are a good number of affecting emotional beats. It's all grossly sentimental of course, which will put some people off, and it's rather long and a bit slow at some points, but if you're a dog-lover, and if your heart is, well, actually a heart, then you really can't help but be moved by the final act of the film. Marley & Me doesn't break any new ground at all, but it really doesn't need to - it's warm cuddly and comforting, like your favourite canine friend, and sometimes that's all you want from a film.

The Hurt Locker is no ordinary war film. In fact, setting aside the iconography and setting of the Iraq war, it's scarcely a war film at all. Rather than making an explicit judgement about the Iraq War, the film instead shifts focus to people and relationships, and how a single moment can change your life forever, or suddenly end it. The best, and most thought provoking scene in the film is one of relative calm, when EOD Seargeant Will James (Jeremy Renner) is on leave from active duty, and looks simply lost while wandering down the cereal isle of an American supermarket. Renner is excellent as James, who is essentially an adrenaline junkie, an addict to thrills and near death experiences, and who is obsessed with getting his next fix. Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty also impress as James' squad-mates, a by-the-book straight man to James' impulsive maverick leader and a jittery and inexperienced young specialist respectively. Guy Pierce and Ralph Fiennes are good as always in minor but quite pivotal roles. The characters are layered and interesting, the expertly paced, sweat-inducing bomb disposal scenes smartly replace the standard running-and-gunning battles found in almost all other war films (there's only one straight gunfight, and even that is drawn-out and minimalistic) and Mark Boal's script is believable and dramatically affecting. I'm quite ashamed to admit that this is the only one of Kathryn Bigelow's films I've seen, but she's undeniably talented behind the camera, grounded and naturalistic in her style (other than using a little well-executed slow-motion for the biggest set pieces) and most pleasingly, unlike her ex-husband Mr Moneybags Cameron, she doesn't yet appear to have been consumed by her own hype. The Hurt Locker is a masterful piece of dramatic storytelling, an excellent analysis of the driving forces of humanity, and one of the cleverest examinations of the impact of war to ever grace the silver screen. It's a crime that no woman before Bigelow has won the Best Picture Academy Award, but The Hurt Locker sets a fine example as the first film to break this trend, and it didn't need in excess of $200,000,000 to do it.

Jaws is a masterpiece of tension-building and pacing, and in addition to being one of the first true summer blockbusters (a film phenomenon that it practically wrote the book on), it is easily one of the most entertaining films of all time. Steven Spielberg was still only a young movie maverick with a few modest features to his name, but even at this stage in his career he demonstrates such a grasp of effective film language and good storytelling, and showcases just how much influence a certain Master of Suspense had on his directorial style. Roy Schieder is incredibly likable as chief protagonist Brody, a city cop newly moved to an island town with his family, and there is some great tension and class-based conflict between Richard Dreyfuss's wisecracking hippie marine biologist Hooper and Robert Shaw's condescending salty seadog Quint. The trio play beautifully off of each other, and are all engaging and interesting characters who grow as the film's narrative progresses. The "sinking of the Indianapolis" scene is one of the very best on film - a brilliantly emotion-fuelled character moment that shifts without warning from macho banter as the characters compare scars to the confrontation of a horrifying ghost from Quint's past. This sequence makes for a refreshing change of pace from the rest of the film, and there are few scenes in modern blockbusters that compare in terms of bringing a real sense of humanity to proceedings - we are really allowed to get under the skin of the three men, making us question every one of our preconceptions about them. One of the great blessings of Jaws was, strangely enough, that the huge mechanical shark dubbed "Bruce" by the crew very seldom worked the way it was meant to. Spielberg would have reportedly shown the creature much more if he were able, but it is the fact that we only glimpse the monster for much of the film that makes it so terrifying. That, and the masterful combination of "shark vision" POV shots accompanied by John Williams' chilling and iconic theme music. Jaws may have established much of the modern blockbuster formula, but it is far superior to the vast majority of films of that ilk through near-flawless craftsmanship, infinitely quotable dialogue, great performances and a tense, exciting story that delivers at every turn. It works as a character-driven suspense thriller, as a monster movie and at its most basic level, as pure entertainment. It's not only one of Steven Spielberg's best films, but one of the best films of the 1970s, and is deservedly beloved by audiences. Sadly, summer blockbusters will never be this good ever again.

I'm not denying that Frank Miller is extremely talented at telling a story on the page, but he has no talent whatsoever at telling any kind of story on film, especially when he can't lean on a talented filmmaker like Robert Rodriquez. Nearly every key cast member is either wooden (Gabriel Macht and Eva Mendes) or looks hugely embarrassed (Samuel L. Jackson), the script such as it is, is an appalling, indistinct mush of puns and cliches, and the action is laughably cartoony. It's also one of the campest films I've ever seen, not in a fun, self-aware kind of way, but in a clumsy, tone-deaf and unintentionally hilarious kind of way. For much of the film it feels like Miller is mercilessly parodying himself, but doesn't seem to have realised it. At least Scarlett Johansson and Stana Katic in their supporting roles seem to have realised that he film is utter garbage, so over-act their socks off as an evil secretary-from-hell and a stiff but passionate rookie cop respectively, which is kind of fun to watch. It may well be the worst comic book movie of all time - worse than Elektra, worse than The Fantastic Four and worse than Batman & Robin, in fact worse than an amalgamation of all three. If Frank Miller insists on stepping behind the camera again, then he should at least have the decency to ruin his own intellectual property rather than someone else's, as he did here with Will Eisner's comic from the 40s. I implore you, Mr Miller, step away from the camera before you do any real damage.

There's so much potential with a superhero film like this - a tormented, religious vigilante cleaning up city streets by any means necessary, no spandex, no mercy. This potential is largely wasted with Punisher: War Zone thanks to a woefully underwhelming script, a pedestrian and cliched plot and a general lack of passion. Ray Stevenson can do so much better than this (the excellent TV series Rome for instance) but is limited to glowering and reducing goons to pulp. Even if he's brutally killing evil thugs, Frank Castle needs to be somewhat relatable to be a compelling protagonist, and it takes more than pulling a sad face whenever the film flashes back to the tragic deaths of his family. The rest of the cast are a mix of the good and the bad. Dominic West's performance as scarred mob boss Jigsaw is hammy, and often comes across as a really bad Robert De Niro impression, and Colin Salmon plays the same character he plays in every film, another cool authority figure. At least Wayne Knight's backstreet armourer and Dash Mihok's sympathetic bumbling cop provide the film with some much-needed comic relief, and Stephanie Janusauskas acts everyone else off the screen as a little girl who is brought into Frank Castle's life because of a tragic accident. The film does have a pleasingly over-the-top and bloody final set piece where The Punisher shoots, explodes and stabs his way through a hotel full of heavily-armed gangsters and mercenaries. It really takes something for a film to attempt to be this dark and broody, and to come across as camp, but this film somehow manages it at an alarmingly frequent rate, and the big over-arching theme of the film, the failures of the American Justice system has been handled much better in nearly every other film that has tried to tackle it, even Law Abiding citizen, which wasn't a good movie. Punisher: War Zone is a missed opportunity in short. It's not awful thanks to a few laughs, a few thrills, and young Stephanie Janusauskas, but it's pretty bad.

It's the big ideas behind its iconic visuals that really makes Blade Runner such a great science-fiction film. Covering wide-ranging themes including what it means to be human, free will, future off-world colonisation, the meaning of dreams and the nature of reality, it's certainly a cerebral viewing experience. Ridley Scott is a master of genre-crossing - Alien was a hybrid of science-fiction and several sub-genres of horror, and Blade Runner is a science-fiction-noir. You've got the iconography and narrative structure of dark detective fiction encased in a radical, industrialised future city that appears as a strangely organic fusion of Eastern and Western culture. Though he reportedly had a bad time shooting the film, Harrison Ford gives one of the standout performances of his career as Rick Deckard, a weary hard-boiled detective who looks as though he's stepped straight out of a pulp detective novel. Daryl Hannah's impish and sinister take on a female fugitive android impresses as well, as does Edward James Olmos's mysterious mostly-silent detective Gaff - he doesn't say much, but his actions speak louder than words ever could. However, it's Rutger Hauer who really steals the show as Roy, the unhinged leader of the renegade "replicants" who Deckard is hunting, his performance a pitch-perfect deliverance of creepy-cool, and he gives one of the best farewell monologues on film (Haur responsible for choosing the most affecting parts of a speech written by David Webb Peoples) where Roy professes his humanity in moving, poetic verse as rain cascades down his grieving face. Vangellis' eerie, layered electronic score also helps no end to add further richness and emotion to the film. I'm not quite sure why there's still a debate about the implications of the film's final scene - it's pretty obvious what Scott intended. Blade Runner is undeniably one of the most influential of science-fiction films, and is an interesting modern take on a film noir to boot. I can't really say that I think Blade Runner is better that Scott's previous foray into sci-fi - yes there's another shadowy, amoral super-corporation pulling strings behind the scenes, but beyond that, Alien is just too different to compare. I sincerely hope Scott stops plundering his back-catalogue of successes at some point and moves onto something new, what with Prometheus being such a mixed bag of a film. There's a Prometheus sequel and another film in the Blade Runner universe in the works, which is more than a little worrying, and makes me wonder whether we should forcibly remove Ridley Scott's science-fiction crown before he really embarrasses himself.

A film about the link between sport and mathematics really shouldn't be this entertaining. Through a combination of great acting, a clever script and sheer energy, Moneyball is certainly up there with the top sports movies. It questions the very foundations of, and morality behind big-money US sports, and how shallow and mercenary they have become over the years. Brad Pitt is simply spellbinding as the ambitious but troubled and volatile baseball team manager Billy Beane, and Jonah Hill leaves his Superbad days long behind him with a mature and effortlessly natural performance as Peter Brand, an economics graduate who impresses Beane with his knowledge of baseball statistics and is hired to be the brains behind the Oakland Athletics. As the most memorable sport films tend to be, Moneyball is a good old-fashioned underdog story based on a series of truly remarkable real events. The only thing I question about the film is the need to fall back on tried and tested sports movie cliches for the finale - slow-motion, muffled sound, you name it it's in there, and it somewhat undermines the whole show. Some aspects of the film's plot can also be difficult to follow if you're unfamiliar with baseball, but it would be unfair to mark a film down harshly for a lack of viewer knowledge. These are very minor gripes in the grand scheme of things, and Moneyball is still a compelling viewing experience, and for the most part, a refreshingly different take on a sports movie.

The only real praise I can give the fourth instalment in the Alien series is that after re-watching it, it's not quite as bad as I remembered it. It's not quite a bad film, but is incredibly mediocre, with lazy plotting, a sub-par script (from the usually immaculate Joss Whedon) and paper-thin characters. The aliens look better than they ever have, however, and Dominique Pinon and Ron Perlman give good performances, along with some first-class hamming from Brad Dourif. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's usual post-apocalyptic steampunk aesthetic style should be well-suited to the Alien universe, but though it's striking, it sometimes comes across as a poor imitation of the work of Terry Gilliam or series mastermind Ridley Scott. Tragically, for the first time in the series, Sigourney Weaver looks bored, the passion for the role as Ripley having completely left her eyes, likely due to the ridiculousness of the character's resurrection in this film. Winona Ryder is also pretty awful, woodenly delivering her dialogue and unable to convey any kind of emotion, and the predictable twist involving her character does not make up for this lacklustre performance. Resurrection commits its worst atrocities in the final ten minutes, which are truly moronic, and succeeds only in completely castrating the alien threat and removing all menace and jeopardy. While a couple of scenes work (the sequence where multiple aliens hunt down survivors underwater is thrilling, and Ripley's shocking discovery in an abandoned science lab is an effective moment of pathos), a criminal amount of the film's runtime feels like it has been copied from earlier Alien instalments, or pasted from other unfinished projects - a telltale sign of Resurrection's troubled production. With such talent behind a project like this, the final film should be much better, but at least it provided Whedon with inspiration for a far more satisfying future project - the uninspiring rag-tag crew of space pirates we follow in this film were developed into the wonderful cast of characters in Firefly, and that is something to be truly thankful for.

With Dark Shadows, Tim Burton reminds us just how good his films can be. It's not on par with Beetlejuice or Corpse Bride, but it's an extremely fun ride and almost makes up for the disappointment of Alice in Wonderland. It's visually sumptuous, with Burton's trademark gothic flair and some pleasing 70s period details, and has a solid atmospheric soundtrack from Danny Elfman, bolstered by an eclectic collection of cheesy rock, pop, soul and disco tunes. It's well-acted across the board, particularly by johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Jackie Earle Haley and Chloe Grace Moretz, and a gag-laden script by Seth Grahame-Smith and an abundance of camp energy helps to make the film thoroughly enjoyable. The best scenes are in the film's first half, with vampiric aristocrat Barnabas (Depp) adjusting to the 20th century and to his highly dysfunctional family after being forcibly entombed for 200 years. The film does, however have a big problem with maintaining a consistent tone. It's dark, but would probably benefit from being either even darker, and though the horror elements have been toned down because of its low age rating, I would suggest that it's a bit too raunchy to be suitable for some of its intended audience. This raunchiness does result in a very funny supernaturally-powered sex scene between Barnabas and manipulative witch Angelique (Eva Green), but the majority of the implied sexual goings on may result in some awkward questions posed to parents by their children after seeing the film. Also, the special-effects dependent, relatively big-budget finale of the film was presumably meant to be exciting, but comes across as stupid, overblown and belonging to an entirely different film. At other points, there are scenes that appear a bit disjointed and unconnected to those that came before, and Eva Green is guilty of some wooden delivery of her lines, and an accent that alarmingly frequently changes continents. I'm not sure if Dark Shadows says much about anything below its immaculate surface, but the film remains a memorable, funny and light-hearted romp which Burton fans will love, and it proves that there is still afterlife to the relationship between the goths' director and his favourite actor.

Even when you ignore the astounding fact that The Artist is a silent film that has made a real impact on audiences in the modern world, the film is a good old-fashioned, incredibly sweet love story, and also an insightful comment on a key point in film history - the point where the modern idea of filmmaking was born, where the industry and the art form changed forever with the invention of synchronised sound. The casting is great - Jean Dujardin's Best Actor Oscar was undeniably well-deserved, and he fits the part of George Valentin, a washed-up silent film star perfectly, and embodies the showmanship-dependent acting style of the period. Berenice Bejo is captivating as Peppy Miller, an actress whose star is rapidly on the rise, and has the classical poise and beauty of a 30s film actress. James Cromwell also leaves his mark, playing the most pivotal and sympathetic of the film's supporting roles, that of Valentin's loyal valet Clifton. It is true what you've heard, however, Uggie the dog threatens to steal the show from his bipedal fellow cast members - he is an obscenely talented and transfixing little canine. The film is a breath of fresh air not only in the way it appropriates a long out-dated aesthetic and musical style and lack of synchronised sound, but also in the way in which writer/director Michel Hazanavicius experiments with mainstream film conventions and keeps the divide between the film world and the real world playfully permeable (most amusingly in one scene, Valentin discovers his studio has pledged to only produce talkies from then on, he has a nightmare which is accompanied by synchronised sound, though he himself remains mute - a clever comment on silent film actors failing to make the transition to talkies). It's a film that warmly pays tribute to silent cinema, but which also uses modern moviemaking techniques and has a definite sense of post-modern self-awareness, resulting in an incredibly satisfying, layered viewing experience. The Artist is creatively refreshing, engaging and well-performed, funny and endearing, a real feel-good movie, and will hopefully drive filmmakers to take more risks with their projects in the next few years.

If you just had one word to describe Prometheus, it would be inconsistent. Ridley Scott's return to the genre that made his name is far from the triumphant one we all hoped for. It's undeniably visually spectacular, and there are occasional glimmers of Scott's past glory, but for the most part it's an uninspired piece of filmmaking. Michael Fassbender is excellent as the android David, and entertainingly channels Peter O'Toole in his performance, but his character's motivations are never really made clear. Noomi Rapace is decent as the film's primary protagonist, the God-fearing archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw, and thankfully doesn't try to imitate Ripley. The rest of the cast are unfortunately made up of under-performing A-listers (Theron, Elba, Pierce) and TV actors who were doubtlessly hired because they were cheap. You do get a few good sci-fi horror moments, though they pale in comparison to, and lack the expert use of tension in Alien, despite the fact that these scenes are essentially paying homage to Scott's original work. In the end, the most disappointing aspect of Prometheus is its story. After an excellent setup, it meanders and plods between set-pieces, and provokes more new questions about the origins of the Alien film franchise than it answers. Aside from Fassbender and Rapace, the odd moment of wonder and beauty (Prometheus' stunning initial descent onto the planet, David admiring the colossal glistening holographic star map that surrounds him) and a few knowing winks in reference to Scott's original sci-fi undertaking, Prometheus leaves a lot to be desired. The big ideas are there, but are not handled with enough insight, intelligence or creativity, which results in a diverting, but not particularly satisfying film. A sequel might be on the way, so let's hope that next time Ridley Scott endeavours to be braver, more original and more exciting in his creative vision.

Lost in Translation is thoroughly disappointing. It appears to be pretty much universally praised, yet it's a flawed film. I'll concede that it's beautifully filmed, that Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson give great performances and that the relationship between their two characters is sweet and endearing, as a tale of two lost souls finding a connection is always compelling. Despite these positives, the film puts forward an extremely patronising, stereotypical and borderline racist view of Japanese culture. By depicting a steady procession of carefully cherry-picked Japanese "oddities", it's almost like the film's main objective is to say "hey, come laugh at the silly Japanese, they're not like Americans at all". A recurring joke in the film is the mockery of Japanese speech pattern of the replacement of the letter r with the letter l. This gag is barely funny the first time it is used, but it is reprised four or five times throughout the film. In one of the key "comedy" scenes, Murray's character struggles to understand a heavily accented Japanese director during a photo shoot, and his mimicry of the poor man's voice to decipher each instruction isn't funny, just embarrassing, akin to the lack of logic behind an English-speaking tourist abroad raising his voice to make themselves understood to non-English speakers. To make matters even worse, the film is all-too-often slow or just plain boring. Beyond great chemistry between Murray and Johansson and striking aesthetics, the appeal of Lost in Translation is, well, lost in translation chiefly thanks to some criminal cultural insensitivity that really shouldn't be applauded in the modern world.

I was pleasantly surprised at Real Steel. I was expecting a Rocky carbon copy at best, and another Transformers instalment at worst. Yes, it does owe a lot to earlier boxing movies, the Rocky series in particular, from which it "borrows" entire story arcs, but it still manages to present enough new ideas to leave its own mark. At its very heart, Real Steel is a very human story about an estranged father and son growing to love each other through a shared passion, and through shared struggles. The film also has exhilarating action, interesting visuals which blend the futuristic with the retro, and an unexpected amount of decent laughs. Hugh Jackman does what he does best - playing another gruff streetwise smart-ass hiding a kind heart, and Kevin Durand makes a good villain, a rich and brutal Deep South scumbag. Everyone in the cast is acted off the screen however by the young Dakota Goyo, who looks a bit like The Phantom Menace's Jake Lloyd but has bucket loads of attitude and considerably more talent. Despite the film getting so many fundamentals right, you have to ask what the character of Evangeline Lilly's boxing club owner Bailey brings to film beyond bubbling romantic implications with Jackman's Charlie, you have to ask why the film needs to be over two hours long, and you also have to ask why Real Steel needs fighting robots at all. My guess is that the decision was purely mercenary, as the story would have worked just as well as a contemporary tale about a damaged father-son relationship that is healed through their shared experience with boxing. But hey, robots beating each other to rust is cool, and you really can't complain much when the resulting film is this fun.

An ensemble cast of such comedy talent as this should really be funnier. The two biggest hitters woefully under-perform - Rowan Atkinson relies on his tried-and-tested Mr Bean facial expressions along with an awful Italian accent, and John Cleese just has goofy false teeth and his Basil Fawlty laugh. The premise of the film should be comedy gold - eccentric millionaires betting on a rag-tag group of misfits racing towards a bag of money in New Mexico, but the only character relationship in the film that is even remotely rewarding to watch is between Brecklin Meyer's chilled-out attorney and Amy Smart's helicopter pilot with "issues". Their scenes are are sweet and funny, but far too infrequent. You've unfortunately got to spend time with all the other characters, who are all annoying and 2-dimensional. The funniest thing in the whole film is an unexpected cameo by Kathy Bates as a lady selling squirrels to passing motorists. Who is this film for? It's presented like a kid's cartoon show, but also has swearing, sex and childbirth jokes, and even a sequence featuring ****. So it's not for intelligent adults, nor for children who don't know any better. We can only conclude that Jerry Zucker is catering for idiots. Rat Race has a couple of smile-worthy jokes, Smash Mouth generously perform at the film's finale, and I suppose you could say that it trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to comment on the greed of human nature, but beyond that it's a childish, insultingly dumb and unfunny affair.

In Secretary, Maggie Gyllenhaal gives the performance of her career as Lee Holloway, a meek and introverted young woman who gets a job as a secretary for an oddball small-time lawyer (James Spader), which leads to a less-than-conventional sexual relationship. It's a sweet and engaging tale of two cripplingly shy people, who are unable to communicate with each other at all other than though BDSM. The film insightfully discusses intimacy, desire, sexual fetishism and depression, and manages to strike just the right balance between darkness and light-heartedness in writer/director Steven Shainberg's brilliant screenplay and complex characterisation. Both Lee and E. Edward Grey are interesting, layered and fully-rounded characters with real (if unusual) chemistry, and it's genuinely involving to see how their relationship progresses and how they conquer their fears and evolve as people throughout the film. It is only the last few minutes of the film that the narrative begins to wobble, delivering an ending that is a little too slushy and formulaic for this otherwise pleasantly original film. Even with this jarring change in tone in the final act, Secretary is a quirky, well-written and entertaining comedy-drama that bravely tackles a taboo subject in a way that only independent cinema can.

Immortals has some fantastic visuals, with stylishly brutal Ancient Greek action that out-300s 300 (if that makes sense). It also has some striking and creative visual effects, particularly in the way the gods of Olympus transform from their mortal to divine forms. Henry Cavill and Mickey Rourke make a convincing action hero and entertaining hammy villain respectively, and John Hurt and Stephen Dorff's gravelly tones add a little interest to the film's less than inspiring dialogue. The film's story, however, is all over the place both in terms of pacing and original ideas - stop-start-stop-start, hit-miss-hit-miss, until it finally strikes the right balance in an entertaining final act. Frida Pinto is left with very little to do as the only feminine presence in a world fuelled by testosterone, and it's a little insulting to the viewer's intelligence to believe that a celibate oracle would abandon her vow of chastity for the first handsome man she meets. The costumes and CGI-extended sets are striking, but also a little jarring - a little like watching Ancient Greece via the Star Wars prequels. Like his previous feature The Fall, director Tarsem Singh demonstrates that he has some interesting ideas, and a good eye for colourful, unusual visuals, but is not as skilled at bringing the whole package together as a full, workable film. Immortals has a lot to like, but it's too flawed and incomplete to make any real mark.

Requiem for a Dream has impact for the most part due to the utterly captivating performances of the cast, particularly Ellen Burstyn who received a well-earned Academy Award nomination, and from Jared Leto who is also very strong. The film also has simple but effectively disturbing visuals, a striking editing style courtesy of Jay Rabinowitz, a moody and epic score from Clint Mansell and a truly terrifying and heartbreaking finale. Being a Darren Aronofsky film, it's flexible and creative with the concept of reality, and becomes more off-the-wall and dreamlike (well, nightmarish) as the characters steadily lose control of their lives, their minds and their free will as a result of their terrible addictions. It's certainly one of the most uncompromising and provocative films about drug addiction ever made, and should probably be mandatory viewing for teenagers to scare them off the life-destroying substances for life. It one of those films that really leaves a lasting effect, an almost crippling feeling of melancholia as a result of its pessimism. Mercilessly downbeat though it may be, Requiem for a Dream is a prime example of meticulously crafted, undeniably powerful filmmaking.

With far better jokes than the original film, and with far more competent spoofing, Scary Movie 2 is worthy of a cursory glance at least. The excellent opening sequence which parodies The Excorcist, and the Charlie's Angels-style fight scene later in the film in particular are worth seeing. Anna Farris returns and makes you smile once more, but the addition of some formidable comedy muscle in the form of the always brilliant Tim Curry as a purvey college professor and Chris Elliot playing the deformed caretaker every haunted house has to have helps to elevate the sequel far above the other films in this often disappointing series. Yes, it's still very crude and often trashy, with obscene amounts of simulated bodily fluids and over-sized rubber rude bits making an appearance, and far too many jokes miss the mark or come across as crass or insulting to some group in society. At least the Wayans look like they've put some effort into making a decent comedy film this time round, though they reportedly felt that this sequel was rushed and lacking in quality. It may not have the wit of Mel Brooks in his heyday, or indeed much evidence of a brain at all, but Scary Movie 2 does have a little Brooks-style anarchic energy, and thankfully this one actually makes you laugh on a pretty regular basis, unlike its predecessor.

I resisted seeing this film for a long time, and to be honest I've no idea why. 10 Things I Hate About You is relatively self-aware for a highschool rom-com, and affectionately pokes fun at some of the genre's most annoying cliches. It also has a wacky comic energy and some hilarious dialogue which is the perfect mix of the bright and verbally dexterous and the very, very crude. There are decent performances across the cast, particularly from the effortlessly natural Julia Stiles and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Heath Ledger as a borderline sociopathic rebel-turned-lover-boy. Allison Janney is also brilliant as the entertainingly filthy school counsellor and aspiring erotica writer. It makes a refreshing change for a teenage comedy film to have a believably-aged cast, though the key players were aged 18-20 when the film was made, at least they weren't in their late twenties or early thirties as they sometimes are in Hollywood highschool films. Where the film pleasingly has its own identity for most its run-time, it does disappointingly sink to the level of every other teenage romantic comedy in its final act. At this point it feels a little like screenwriting pair Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith ran out of interesting ideas and just delivered all the soppy stuff you come to expect from this kind of film. And though Ledger is delivers a good performance, his accent is all over the place, and this is accounted for with some clumsy exposition about his character spending his early life in Australia. It might have been a little less jarring if Ledger stuck to one dialect or the other. Despite a generic ending and a couple of story elements that don't quite work, 10 Things I Hate About You is a smart, fun, heart-warming and hilarious romantic comedy, and this is coming from someone who doesn't really like romantic comedies.

Panic Room is a taught, clever thriller with a strong human core. The main body of the film is extremely enthralling - a battle of wits and endurance plays out between a caring, protective mother (Jodie Foster) and the good-natured "brains" behind a trio of home-invading criminals (Forest Whitaker). It's among director David Fincher's most fun and unpretentious films (though he quite unfairly seems to dismiss it in interviews), and his technical ability as a director marries well with an electric script by David Koepp. Foster and Whitaker both impress, giving layered and engaging performances as contrasting characters who in fact have a lot in common in their shared intelligence, determination and resilience. A young Kristen Stewart is also very good, with her now famous moody, deadpan acting style lending itself well to playing an insecure, diabetic pre-teen. Panic Room's finale is admittedly a bit scrappy, and the arrival of one of the characters seems to serve the sole discernible purpose of bringing proceedings to an end, which is a welcome reprieve to an extent, as by this point the film is just beginning to tire. As a whole, Panic Room is well-crafted, entertaining and tense, and it actually leaves a lasting impression on the viewer, no matter what its helmsman Mr Fincher may think of it.

Daybreakers has an interesting sci-fi/fantasy premise - as the result of a virus, vampires become the dominant species on the planet, and struggle to survive once the remaining human population, and their life-giving blood supply begins to dwindle. The film has satisfying and effectively moody visuals and good direction from the Australian Spierig Brothers. In the lead role as a vampire scientist searching for a human blood substitute to feed the starving vampire population, Ethan Hawke us just how consistent his performances are, and Sam Neill keeps your attention, with a quiet menace about his character, who's basically a vampiric bureaucrat. And of course, it goes without saying that Willem Dafoe looks cool with a goatee on his face and a crossbow slung over his shoulder. The film, as a new take on the vampire myth with a satirical edge that comments on world energy crises is, for the most part, far better than it has to be. It does have a disappointing finale, issues with pacing, particularly when we spend any amount of time away from the cool vampire world and with the dull, depressing humans, and there's the odd bit of clunky dialogue. The explanation of one of the key plot points is also incredibly unsatisfying. For what it is though, Daybreakers is a decent example - it doesn't bring many new ideas to the table, sure, but just about everything is done well, and I enjoyed it far more than another recent modern take on a vampire film - 30 Days of Night. There's potential for expansion of this intriguing world in a sequel too, but whether this will manifest at all, or as anything beyond a direct-to-DVD feature remains to be seen.

Even spoof movies deserve a few good jokes. For the most part the humour in Scary Movie is obvious, inept and crude. We get it Wayans Brothers and co. you've seen Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Blair Witch Project and scores of other films - so why do you fail so completely in writing clever gags referencing them? There are a couple of moments I must admit that I laughed at, and the Usual Suspects homage and some of the Scream nods raise the odd smile, and Anna Farris works rather well as a goofy comedy performer. Beyond providing some mild amusement, however, Scary Movie is pretty awful. Clumsy direction, lazy performances, uneven story pacing, in addition to a quite grating overall feel of buffoonery drive the film into the ground. A Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker parody film this is not - it's simply not smart enough. It's merely a poor imitation, both of the aforementioned comedy trio's landmark spoof films, but of the films that Scary Movie itself chooses to spoof.

The Raid, or: the fine art of ultraviolence, as it really should be subtitled, is the finest martial arts film since Warrior King. Never before has human brutality looked so beautiful, presented in a way which would resemble an intricate dance if it weren't for the copious blood and bone-snapping. It's a joy to see a relatively unknown martial art being practiced on the big screen, and the Indonesian Pencak Silat allows for the choreographing of action unlike any you've ever seen before. The plot, which involves a SWAT team fighting their way through an apartment block controlled by a malicious drug lord flies along, and the film is tense, gritty and pulse-pounding throughout. Iko Uwais plays Rama, the film's primary protagonist, who is a young new addition to the SWAT team, and his almost supernatural skill with Silat is in unquestionable as Rama is forced to undertake the majority of the film's fights against hordes of drug cartel henchmen single-handedly. Uwais is far more than a blunt instrument however, and in the long tradition of strong silent types with a good heart throughout film history, it is established early on in the film that Rama is only committing the acts of brutality he does to provide a safe and financially secure life for his wife and soon-to-be-born child. The drug lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy) is also shown to be the most diabolical of evil-doers, a representation of everything wrong with contemporary Indonesia, and thoroughly deserving of everything that comes to him. Uwais, along with Yayan Ruhian, who plays the terrifying and volatile bodyguard Mad Dog choreographed the film and made the numerous action sequences so explosive and memorable. Though the film in a sense de-sensitises you to violence, such is the extent and frequency of it on screen, you are brought crashing back down to reality by Writer/Director Gareth Evans' human characters and subtextual comments on social problems prevalent in modern Indonesia (poverty, the break-down of family units and the dominance of the illegal drugs trade are all referenced within the film's narrative). Evans is not just incredibly talented as an action director, guiding cinematographer Matt Flannery's stylish camera work, and undertaking the striking, expert film editing himself, but he's also an effective and intelligent, though minimalistic screenwriter, and as a passionate promoter of Indonesian culture, which he clearly has a great love of. He's certainly a real talent to watch, and I am incredibly excited to see how else he can elevate the action genre, and perhaps other areas of cinema in the future.

Quarantine is mostly a shot-for-shot, slightly glossier American remake of Spannish horror stunner

Night Watch has a strong central performance from Konstantin Khabensky playing Anton, a troubled soul tasked with protecting the world from the forces of evil. The film has a strong central theme, not only of good vs. evil, but of the complex relationship between these moral extremes. The story also incorporates some interesting ideas in terms of representations of the supernatural on film. Vampires in Night Watch, for instance, have the ability to appear invisible and are only forced to reveal themselves in the reflection of a mirrored surface, and the practice of black magic is shown through the miraculous appearance of swarms of mosquitoes and swirling clouds of ravens. The film is notable for being one of the first true Russian blockbusters, and its relatively glossy appearance shows this. There are some impressive effects, particularly those incorporating sorcerers shape-shifting from human to animal form, though extended CGI-reliant sequences tend to look a bit jarring and unrealistic due to the film's limited resources. The narrative of Night Watch is incredibly unevenly paced, the story is convoluted to say the least, and it becomes utterly incomprehensible at an alarming rate. The film for the most part feels incredibly disjointed, with many scenes seemingly having no relation to anything we've seen previously. You do have to acknowledge that at least writer/director Timur Bekmambetov has some definite talent in terms of artistic vision, and he appears to be trying to produce a supernatural/vampire thriller that is just a little bit different from the norm, though the end result doesn't quite work.

I'll make it clear from the start, I regrettably haven't read Suzanne Collins' book series this film (and its inevitable sequels) are based on. I'm still quite able to judge it in cinematic terms, and besides, I would rather not become one of those over-protective readers who take it as a personal insult whenever the slightest change is made to the story for the sake of on-screen narrative flow. As all good sci-fi does, the film comments on an issue hugely relevant to contemporary society, in this case it's the rapidly increasing extremity and dominance of reality TV. The world of The Hunger Games is a dystopian future ruled by an oppressive, authoritarian government, where every district of Panem (formally North America) are annually forced to submit a teenage boy and girl to compete in a brutal blood sport for the dual purpose of keeping the formally rebellious lower-classes downtrodden, and to keep the rich citizens of the Capitol entertained as the ultimate form of twisted reality TV. The cast of the film are quite superb. Jennifer Lawrence is utterly captivating as the film's heroine Katniss Everdeen, District 12's female competitor, and Josh Hartnett continues to prove himself a fast-rising star as the District's male competitor Peeta Mellark, though both are acted off the screen by newcomer Amandla Stenberg playing an intelligent but younger-than-average games competitor, Rue. The veteran actors playing the adult characters all seem to be having a great deal of fun, from Woody Harrelson's cynical and alcoholic, but good-natured Hunger Games survivor Haymitch, the porcelain-doll-like games promoter Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), eccentric stylist Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) and especially Stanly Tucci's batty blue-haired TV host Caesar Flickerman. The only one who doesn't appear to be having a good time is Donald Sutherland, playing President Snow, though to be fair he's only a very minor character in this installment. and the filmmakers probably just wanted to get a big name in early to play a character who becomes (so I'm told) far more essential in the sequels. The games themselves are extremely well-realised - after the back-story to this particularly pessimistic vision of the future is established and the characters introduced, we are plunged into a something that is a cross between Battle Royale and Deliverance. When I first heard about the film and its teen-friendly certificate, I thought it would be limiting to the film tackling its exceptionally dark subject matter. Quite the contrary - a lower certification forces director Gary Ross and cinematographer Tom Stern to get creative. The action is thrilling, and what happens to the young competitors is in many ways more horrifying and visceral when it is slightly obscured by clever editing or if it happens just off-screen - your own imagination fills in the gaps and these fights don't lose any impact. I do however question why you're not allowed to show blood on weapons in a 12A certificated film, yet you can show a young boy's neck being broken and the two lead characters covered in blood at the film's finale. The story **** you in and keeps you engaged throughout, though the run-time is a little gruelling, and the final act is pretty generic. The film cleverly addresses powerful and timeless themes of freedom and morality, coming of age and loss of innocence, and serves as a warning against technological dependence. While all these themes are all effectively discussed in the film, I still see potential to expand on them in the sequels, where these thematic seeds will really have the opportunity to bloom. I really was pleasantly surprised by The Hunger Games - I expected little more than a sub-par Battle Royale, but through a combination of stunning visuals, great performances, and mature discussion of complex thematic material, it stands on its own terms, and can be enjoyed by the teen audience it was marketed at and adults alike. I look forward to seeing the uncut version of the film, that is yet to be released in the UK, once it is released on DVD, and see just how much the film is changed. Whether the next instalment of the series has the same impact without the artistic talent and energy of director Gary Ross, who has now dropped out, remains to be seen...

What really stands out in The Matrix Revolutions? The lavish and complex Zion dock fight, where a small group of human-controlled heavily armed mech suits desperately attempt to defend the last human city from a seemingly endless horde of merciless "squiddy" machine sentinels. That's really about it. The beginning of the film is OK, but the vast majority of it is so annoyingly mediocre, and some moments are so embarrassingly awful that Revolutions makes for a disappointing final chapter in the Wachowski's sci-fi blockbuster trilogy. All the cast's performances underwhelm, apart from Hugo Weaving whose performance as the increasingly power-mad Agent Smith becomes so gloriously camp and over-the-top that it's kind of funny to watch. He also has the only memorable line in the film - once Neo (Keanu Reeves) returns to an apocalyptic, stormy Matrix for his final showdown with his adversary, Smith asks him sardonically "Like what I've done with the place?". This final battle is, disappointingly a bit silly and repetitive, resembling a knockoff fight from Dragonball Z rather than the epic clash of titans the series has been building towards. About the only thing this final, underwhelming set-piece offers apart from intense tedium is some pretty slow-motion water effects. None of the film's characters really develop any further in this film, and most of the cast have very little to do apart from Reeves, who is basically playing Jesus in a big flappy coat. And don't even get me started on the clunky bit of exposition the Wachowskis crowbar in to explain why The Oracle is now played by someone else (Gloria Foster died between the second and third films). The final part of this formidable franchise is incredibly sub-par, and apart from providing the viewer with a couple of good thrills and some form of closure to the story it offers very little except disappointment.

The Matrix Reloaded is much bigger and brasher than its predecessor. It has a very good first act, which is engaging and develops the concepts of the first film in style. Reloaded becomes far less focused and borders on being incoherent as the film progresses. One of the main plot points is the return of Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) and his newfound ability to clone himself since Neo "freed" him. As a plot device, this is as stupid as they come, but Weaving has fun with the concept by valiantly attempting a comic back-and-forth with himself. The rest of the returning cast again turn in good performances, though the development of the romantic relationship between Neo and Trininty (Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss) is unconvincing and surprisingly immature. The action sequences are even more stunning than in the first film, particularly the hugely destructive extended freeway chase that will go down in history as one of the best film set-pieces purely in terms of gloss, complexity and scale. Though this massive visual extravaganza is impressive, my favourite scene in the film is far more understated - early on in the story, upon his arrival to the final surviving human city, Neo and Councillor Hamann (Anthony Zerbe) debate purpose, destiny and free will as the rest of the city sleeps, a simple scene, but an immensely human and emotionally grounded one. An increased reliance on not-so-subtle religious symbolism becomes a little annoying, especially in the film's final act, which in addition to being a bit pretentious is also lazy and dull. The Matrix Reloaded is decent in part, offering thrills and visual amazement, and the odd decent character moment, but an over-long, sometimes boring and often confusing plot, in addition to a lack of effective character development makes this sequel pale in comparison to the first film. It offers just enough new ideas to stand out from the crowd, and is certainly more entertaining and of higher quality than the vast majority of film sequels, but the Matrix Reloaded is certainly not as profound and clever as it thinks it is. It's a good blockbuster then, but not much more, and it unfortunately lead to the shudder-inducing final instalment of the series six months later...

The Wachowski Brothers' sci-fi actioner is primarily remembered for its distinctive aesthetic style and physics-defying action, but what makes The Matrix really stand out is its exceedingly creative exploration of some big philosophical themes, most notably concepts of reality and free will. These ideas are discussed through the film's dark and layered story premise that supposes humanity's research into artificial intelligence technology resulted in a machine rebellion and the near-total extinction of the human race, and the construction of an elaborate computer simulation dubbed "The Matrix" in order to keep the survivors enslaved. The plot leaves ample opportunity for flaunting plenty of eye-popping and complex action sequences, groundbreaking special effects, and for some quotes from the Wachowski's simple but effective script to become iconic. All the cast are strong, particularly Reeves, Weaving and the quite brilliant Joe Pantoliano, whose performance is complex, entertaining and full of subtle nuances. The best scenes in the film are Neo's training for survival within The Matrix, where essential skills are uploaded directly to his noggin, and his climactic fight with the film's primary antagonist, Agent Smith. As effective a blockbuster as The Matrix is, the strong religious overtones of certain elements of the plot can be a little hard to swallow when they become too blatant, and some of the supposedly intellectual concepts Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) attempts to explain to Neo, and by extension the viewer, sometimes sound like they have been lifted from a high school philosophy essay. Despite these little gripes, The Matrix is always fun, visually stunning and considerably more intelligent than the vast majority of modern big-budget science fiction **** sequels never surpassed this first instalment on any terms, even with the mountains of cash that was piled onto the franchise, so remember this one with fondness, and perhaps forget the others, particularly Revolutions.