Troubled superheroes are as much a staple of cinema as femmes fatales and maverick cops. In
Hancock, Will Smith plays the daddy of all dark and dysfunctional
knights – a surly alcoholic who hates the company of others.
Jack Black was born to play a panda. The School of Rock
star has the figure and attitude
of a creature that considers munching on a bamboo shoot, never mind getting smoochy
with a lady panda, to be way too much like hard work.
Wanted: A terrifying sight opens Russian director Timur Bekmambetov’s retina-searing action thriller. Never fear: it’s not another glimpse of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin playing action man.
Four children go through a wormhole in time again in
this overwrought follow-up to
The Lion, The Witch and
the Wardrobe. Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan are transported back to Narnia from wartime
London to help with Prince Caspian’s struggle against an evil uncle.
A rip-roaring adventure and tribute to the women who served behind enemy lines during
the Second World War. It’s
1944 and Allied preparations
for D-Day are under way. Four French women, of all backgrounds and motivations, are sent on
a mission to keep the plans safe.
Tunisian-born director
Abdel Kechiche achieves the remarkable feat of making
the serving of dinner seem
gripping in this hugely satisfying French drama. Slimane (Habib Boufares) is running on
empty.
John Maybury’s wartime drama, which received its world premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival a week ago, now limps forth on general release. It’s a slight tale about the friendship between Dylan Thomas, his childhood friend Vera (Keira Knightley), and wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller)
Like many of the women who have come into contact with writer-director Chris Waitt, I couldn’t wait to be shot of him. It wasn’t so much the me-me-
me school of documentary he typifies.
Edinburgh International Film Festival: Two boys are left alone after the death of their mother in this moving if slightly rough around the edges British drama. Rising star Aaron Johnson plays the hedonistic Danny, who is 18 and in theory old enough to look after his younger brother Jack (Thomas Grant).
Edinburgh International Film Festival: James Marsh’s terrific
documentary looks at the daring traverse of the Twin Towers by French performance artist Philippe Petit in 1974. Petit already had a reputation for doing his high wire act on such “beautiful stages” as Notre Dame and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Edinburgh International Film Festival: A clunky black comedy that relies on the charms of Dylan Moran to see it through. The stand-up with the sleepy delivery plays a
wannabe screenwriter and pal to a similarly unemployed actor living
in a dump in Dublin.
Elegy (TBC): Film critics, seeing as they spend most of their time in the dark, are not best placed to give sartorial advice. Nevertheless, you may want to wear comfortable shoes to a screening of Isabel Coixet’s New York-set drama.