Stephen Cole

Piranha 3DD is overcrowded and pointlessly mean. The stunt casting of David Hasselhoff playing himself, riffing off his infamous 2007 drunken home video, gets in the way of the storyline.

Dark Shadows only meaningful relationship is between Depp and his audience. He's a persona now, no longer an actor. And the kick here, as always, is watching him try on funny accents and hairdos.

Adolescent boys will savour My Way's bombast and solemnity. Cringing adult audiences will more likely beat a retreat before final call.

The mistake filmmakers Tucker and Epperlein (Gunner Palace) make here is assuming that fighters reveal their true characters in discussing their craft, when in fact just the opposite occurs.

Halfway through, everyone starts drinking heavily and the film turns into agreeably sloppy fun. (Isn't that always the way – class reunions often perk up when someone spikes the punch.)

What a disappointment.

What the film needs more than anything is Perry's alter ego, Medea – a rampaging bowling ball who might knock all these stiff, upright characters spinning.

The Viral Factor is deliriously far-fetched. And one wishes director Dante Lam (The Beast Stalker) could have at least had some giddy fun smashing all his toys around. But his new film is tediously overwrought and drably made, with scenes punctuated by synthesized drums out of eighties American TV drama.

Though beautiful to look at and graced with moments of ticklish camp, The Skin I Live In is also sluggish, arbitrarily conceived and, especially in its sagging middle, unaccountably dull.

If 1911 doesn't impress as historical spectacle, neither does it rank high as a Jackie Chan film.

All outrageous stuff. Gatien's story is worth telling. Which makes it all the more unfortunate that director Billy Corben presents it in such a methodical fashion.

3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy fails to live up to either its promise or title.

There just isn't the same zingy rapport. Seth Rogen's praying mantis and Jackie Chan's monkey have no more than a dozen lines between them. Even Jack Black's Po is more subdued.

The 131-minute, car-racing film is adolescent guy date histrionics – screaming tires, snappy putdowns and, because we're in Rio, an occasional influx of bodies beautiful in Band-Aid bikinis.

A big, bloated, though frequently engaging gangster movie, Kill the Irishman should properly be viewed late night on TV, flipping back and forth between the film, David Letterman and a west-coast ball game.

Has a provocative, ticklish premise – five North England Muslims become suicide bombers, but can't decide who or what to take with them.

They're not much company, our Marcus and Esca. But there we are, mucking through crazy Scotland with them.

The Super Bowl MVP is awarded a trip to Disneyland. Maybe in the future, he should be awarded a part in an Adam Sandler movie. There is no bigger male fantasy land.

Anyone interested in a no-seatbelts, out-of-control action flick will find much to enjoy in Faster; although even they may prefer seeing it in Blu-Ray at home, which would allow for trips to the fridge for fuel when the film begins to idle in the last reel.

Max Manus (the title role is played by Aksel Hennie) feels so familiar that audiences watching it are likely to experience a numbing sense of déjà vu. Nothing seems particularly fresh or involving.

An inferior "Napoleon Dynamite." Call it Napoleon Firecracker. The film steals one of the best laughs of Jon Heder's surprise 2004 hit, the scene where Napoleon nosedives over a bicycle jump, and stretches the gag into an 86-minute movie.

Cold Souls begins to lose its comic focus, however, when Giamatti comes to realize that he needs his soul back.

Doesn't work because it isn't much of a ride. The action scenes are strictly by rote. The incidental characters are all incidental.

It should be a better, more authentic movie, considering that screenwriters Maupin and his ex-partner, Terry Anderson, are retelling parts of their own story here.

As for Vaughn, he seems exhausted by his strenuous efforts to bring a few sparks of spontaneity to such an overcalculated Christmas product.

A bad-cop, worse-cop movie.

It's a bright, busy imitation of independent moviemaking. But it's hardly an independent film. Hopefully, next time out, director Crowley, a promising storyteller, will find his own story to tell.

Leaves us with is sporadic showers of laughs for kids under 10. That's a shame, because the film could have been a delight for everyone, if only it hadn't learned to behave.