Kim Newman

Son Of A Gun has the gritty, rough feel of 1970s heist/hit picture

Fonda and Danner — who looked then exactly like her daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, does now — are likable leads in ’70s futurist leisurewear (why didn’t those tailored jumpsuits catch on?), and some creepy corporate robot action helps (Danner’s gunfight with her robot duplicate), but it’s a lot less exciting than the original and replaces satire with TV-style plotting.

After several successful films where he plays the tough-as-nails cowboy, Wayne wasn't about to break the pattern now. Playing the only character he knows, he gives several inspiring speeches to an unlikely group of kids who turn from boys to men.

Blair Witch with moon rock. Paranormal Activity in space. Contrived, but if you can take one more variant on the formula, it's got its moments.

The filmmakers try to solve the problem of turning an experience which merely consists of a series of fights into a story by... ignoring it, presenting a film which merely consists of a series of fights.

The film has a real sense of a situation slipping out of control, with marvellous displays of hysteria matched by movie trickery that spreads the edginess to the audience.

Quality acting and writing and appropriately understated direction, but a touch too polite for its own good.

If you don’t like Saw, this isn’t going to change your mind – but it’s skilful, satisfying schlock and respectful of its fanbase. And the final death is a show-stopping coup de grace.

At times a subversive, sub-Marvel thrill, it might be best to come back to this after the glut of goody-goody heroes due to bombard our screens have passed.

A family comedy lacking the double level of humour that make the modern ones so successful. The jokes are obvious but never very far away. Russell puts in a worthy performance as the irrepressible Ron and Martin Short is typically neurotic as the father.

As horribly funny as it is depressing, it gets pretty hard to take after a while, especially for anyone who is a committed cat-lover. A melancholy edge of deliberate poetry mutes the ugly realism but also serves to make bearable what might otherwise be an hour-and-a-half of hell.

The look, created by Hooper’s cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and expert art direction is persuasively nasty… but somehow that buzzing saw doesn’t sound as scary as it used to.

A certain percentage of the audience will instantly sieze on this as their favorite movie of all time, and a small, but not insignificant demographic will have nightmares. Verbinski and Depp probably like it that way.

In the filmography of liberal-skewing, Bush-era true stories, this is a measured, persuasive item.

Although patched together from loose ends, this works surprisingly well, with interesting and well-integrated visual effects, some nice humour and a few genuinely visionary touches.

Derrickson bounces back from his insipid redo of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" with an effective chiller that's got a skeleton or two in its closet.

Landis occasionally plays wonderful licks on the cliches, as in an original take on the familiar vampire-burning-up-at-dawn shtick, but like his earlier movies (An American Werewolf In London, The Blues Brothers) this keeps self-destructing on a story level. Of all entries in the recent vampire cycle, this is at once the most hung-up on horror history and the most revisionary in its rewriting of the mythology.

See-saws between straight superhero movie and parody, with layers of soap-opera fudge in between. A lot of solid scenes - but Hancock lacks the power of super-coherence.

Smart, fun, mid-list horror with Scream overtones

Millar's warmth for literary influences continues to buoy his filmmaking, whilst a sturdy British cast and faultless period settings do Dahl proud.

Compared to similar genre offerings, this ain't much cop. But standing alone, it's an entertaining and amiable film.

This subject demands a Godfather Part II, but Stone and collaborators have turned in a Godfather Part III. There is a lot of good material, but LaBeouf nearly sinks it and we could use much more of the old Gekko brimstone.

An entertaining, provocative biopic with good performances and many strong scenes — but it still doesn’t feel like the full Lovelace story.

It’s quite an entertaining little effort, combining the craziest aspects of classic Hollywood screwball comedy with the kind of fresh insanity found in the great cartoons.

It feels a little like ‘a very special episode of The Walking Dead’ and might be a tad low-key for its field, but Schwarzenegger and Breslin are good and the payoff is affecting.

While not exactly reaching Ring-levels of terror, it's certainly one for connoisseurs of the weird.

No masterpiece, but a decent rental prospect. Twohy works the Sci-fi genre well yet again.

Paying attention to religious impulses which are all but incomprehensible in the 20th Century, Bresson conjures up a God-bothered middle ages that is harrowing but not, it must be said, terribly exciting.