Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, the diminishing returns of Brideshead, Simon Pegg in How to Lose Friends and the truly bleak Import / Export. As the Guardian says in the review for Brideshead Revisited, “why revisit it?” We already have the iconic TV series and Evelyn Waugh’s original 1945 novel so what’s the point in attempting to distil it into a new film? Very little apparently......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week’s biggest release is also the biggest letdown; the De Niro / Pacino team up Righteous Kill. We also have the preposterous looking Death Race as well as Kristin Scott Thomas drowning in praise for her performance in I've Loved You So Long. The cloud of wasted opportunity hangs heavily over Righteous Kill. What should have been an epic clash of the......

This time of year is a cinematic no-mans land; we’re post summer blockbuster and pre-Oscar baiters. We’re left with the extremes of the ludicrously high concept Tropic Thunder and the very low key Unrelated. Tropic Thunder has got some mixed reviews, and you’ll probably know from the trailers if this is going to work for you. Written and directed by Ben Stiller it’s about a bunch of pampered narcissistic movie stars who end up......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week a nice young couple get brutally terrorised by hoodies in Eden Lake, a couple of stoners try and track down some Pineapple Express and holocaust film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Horror films are more effective when they’re close to home and full of British voices. 28 Days Later, The Descent and even The Cottage are much more chilling and......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, Sir Ben gets groovy in The Wackness, Will Ferrell continues to coast on his comic abilities in Step Brothers and the comeback no-one was waiting for with Vin Diesel in Babylon AD. Scarily for those of us that remember it very clearly, 1994 is now deemed long ago enough to warrant a period drama. The Wackness is set in that distant......

This week the London-set Somers Town (that’s Kings Cross to you and me), the spy ‘comedy’ Get Smart and some dirge from Disney called College Road Trip. With Somers Town, director Shane Meadows has left his traditional East Midlands stomping ground behind and headed to London where the streets are paved with Eurostar-funded gold. Like his last film, the phenomenal This is England, it stars Thomas Turgoose and is a black and white story......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, Hellboy takes on the Olympics (a shame he didn’t qualify as he’d have been phenomenal in the track and field) and a few other films bravely dare to test whether anyone is going to be prised away from their sofas and into the cinemas. The over-sized cigar-munching demon that is Hellboy returns in the well-reviewed sequel Hellboy 2: The Golden Army,......

Wall-E has arrived, and the genius of Pixar is declared once again. A simple yet multi-layered tale of a U certificate robot love on post-apocalyptic earth, it’s the silent first half hour that really has the critics rhapsodising. The Times (4-stars) calls the film a “magical animation” while the Guardian (4-stars) says it’s “an exquisitely rendered piece of work.” Over at Empire it’s 5-stars, describing the film as the “most ambitious undertaking since Toy......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... So along comes Mamma Mia, the ghastly looking film version of the apparently much loved West End Musical. If you didn’t run screaming when you saw the trailer featuring Meryl Streep and her ridiculous dungarees prancing around some Greek island then maybe, just maybe, you can handle this. For the rest of us, please listen to Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian who gives......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... No prize for guessing what Kung Fu Panda is about. DreamWorks’ latest animation has Jack Black as lazy fat panda, Po, embarking on a quest to be kung fu champ and escape his humdrum life of noodle-making. It’s making the critics smile. The Times (4-stars) calls it “a slight story, but it’s charmingly executed. This is the most handsome animation that DreamWorks has......

Another week and another set of under-whelming blockbusters. First up is James McAvoy going A-List in Wanted, as Angelina Jolie plucks him from a life of mediocrity to run around as a super-assassin firing bullets around corners and doing cool only-in-movies stuff . Overall the reviews have been OK but the UK broadsheets are having none of it. Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian loathes it with his customary eloquence (1-star), ‘you could gargle bitumen......

Getting the most press this week is The Edge of Love, an account of the women who surrounded legendary boozer (and occasional poet) Dylan Thomas during the Second World War. London lovers will cherish it for the “wonderful rendering of Blitz London” (Independent, 3-stars) but overall it’s got very average reviews. The Guardian (2-stars) calls it an “exasperatingly unfocused and underpowered movie.” The performances of Keira Knightly, Sienna Miller and particularly Mathew Rhys (as......

This week needs to be officially declared ‘Useless Blockbuster Week’ as our critics clobber the two big releases, The Incredible Hulk and The Happening. First up we have the rebooted Hulk trying to succeed where Ang Lee’s 2003 effort failed for not making enough money. The new approach is to cut to the core of Hulk’s appeal by focusing purely on the angry green Hulk-smashing action and not much else. Edward Norton reluctantly stars......

So, the smack-down that was Indy v SATC was officially won by Indy (presumably with one of his famed punches to the face). While those two films continue to soak up every last ton of box office cash we have a blockbuster free week of smaller scale films. The biggest release of the week is Gone, Baby Gone. It’s directed and co-written by Ben Affleck who’s looking for career salvation after being unforgivably rubbish......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan... The tsunami of hype has crested and the reviews are in. As if you hadn’t heard, four years after they bowed out on the small screen, the fading stars of Sex and The City have returned for their close-up. Yes, we know it’s an orgy of shameless consumerism or, as one blogger describes it, “a Taliban Recruitment video”, but are they still worth......

The global siege that is Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is in full swing. Right now, millions of people are sitting in the cinema waiting for the iconic theme music to kick in so they can hopefully bask in the nostalgic glow of their youth. It’s been a tough ride getting here, from the highs of the trailer to the lows of the early reviews. So while it may hoover......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week lead character Speed Racer stars in the film Speed Racer (see what they did there) and Morgan Spurlock bottles it like a shandy in Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? It’s difficult to forgive the Wachowski brothers for the lameness of the Matrix sequels and their bid for redemption, Speed Racer, isn’t going to win them any new fans.......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, Robert Downey Jr. gets suited and booted as Iron Man, more romantic comedy nonsense in Made Of Honour and Joy Division get the referential documentary treatment. Like the first lamb of spring, the first comic book film of the summer marks the changing of the seasons. With Hellboy, Batman and the Incredible Hulk all just around the corner Iron Man is,......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, London tube comedy Three and Out, the erotic thriller that is a Deception and Russell Brand tries to take America in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It’s baffling that as a nation we’re so consistently bad at comedy films. Despite having the home-grown talent, British comedy films, as a general rule, suck. So it is with Three and Out, the Tube suicide comedy......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week Irish hitmen are on the run In Bruges, Mike Leigh’s deliriously upbeat Happy-Go-Lucky and Daniel Craig remembers his hazy youth in Flashbacks of A Fool. Several years ago Hollywood fell hook, line and sinker for the plucky charm of Colin Farrell and he's been under-delivering in major films ever since. He turns the tables in his latest, In Bruges, by actually......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week The Rolling Stones get the concert film treatment in Shine A Light and George Clooney goes screwball in Leatherheads. If you’re the Rolling Stones, you get directors of the calibre of Martin Scorsese making your concert films. In Shine A Light they’re captured in all their craggy-faced glory playing a small NY benefit concert. The critics are split on this. Kevin......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week's two big releases are the Eighties nostalgic Son of Rambow and the terrifying-sounding Funny Games. British film Son of Rambow is the story of two suburban boys who make their own sequel to Rambo: First Blood after watching it on pirate video. Set in the early Eighties it's full of affection for the period (skill!), Peter Bradshaw notes in his 2-star......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… Unfortunately there’s not much to whet the cineaste’s appetite this week. Most of this week’s releases are comedies ranging from the mediocre to the terrifyingly bad. Let’s dive right in. First up is a film that comes to us deep-coated in vitriol and with the promise of being so spectacularly bad that you should rush to the cinema immediately to witness this once......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week we’ve got superior Spanish horror The Orphanage, Easter kids fantasy film The Spiderwick Chronicles and po-faced environmental documentary The Eleventh Hour. The Orphanage gets great reviews from The Guardian and The Independent with The Times differing its opinion. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian (4-stars) says that the: chiller, set in contemporary Spain, is involving and disturbing, and revives the genre's great......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week’s big releases are Brian DePalma’s multimedia Iraq film Redacted and prehistoric CGI romp 10,000 BC. Redacted, Brian DePalma’s controversial and supposedly anti-American film about the Iraq War might not have impressed many critics (or moviegoers) in the US but it’s getting good reviews this side of the Pond. James Christopher in The Times (4-stars): Redacted is not just a damning inside......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week, royal bodice-ripper The Other Boleyn Girl, zombies ahoy in Diary of the Dead, multiple viewpoint assassination thriller Vantage Point and The Rock doing one for the kids in The Game Plan. Don’t expect to learn much history in The Other Boleyn Girl, a film James Christopher in the Times describes as a “ravishing piece of trash” in his 2-star review. The......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week, Stallone takes us back to a simpler age in Rambo, Jack Black goes pretend low budget in Be Kind Rewind, Bono gets his ego blasted out in 3D in U2-3D and Norah Jones stops singing to make her acting debut in My Blueberry Nights. What option does a faded Eighties action hero really have other than one last trip to his......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… After the giddy heights of last week’s reviews and the orgy of stars that it resulted in, normal service is resumed this week. We have cancer comedy The Bucket List, global action franchise to be Jumper, and a few others all reminding you that you should really be seeing last week’s releases instead. The Bucket List stars Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson as......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… Ladies and Gentleman, this is a once in a lifetime event, a week of movies the like of which we may never see again with hardened critics graciously bestowing stars upon worthy films. Let’s not even introduce them; let’s go straight to the reviews. Feel the critical love wash over you. We have to start with There Will Be Blood, a new film......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… After its Statue of Liberty beheading sensation of a trailer, the internet-hyped Cloverfield finally arrives. For the uninitiated, the film follows a group of young hip New Yorkers whose loft party is rudely interrupted when a big scary monster decides to munch his (her?) way through Manhattan. The big idea is that it’s all shot as if captured on one of the characters......