ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS (U)
MANNY the woolly mammoth and his friends continue to entertain kids with their colourful third installment.
Fearsome predators roam a vast, subterranean kingdom under the ice as well as a daredevil weasel, whose gung-ho antics will coax a chuckle from younger viewers.
Ice Age 3 is certainly bright and breezy, but it is the creatures’ weakest adventure so far, lacking inventive visuals or a clever screenplay to appeal simultaneously to adults and children.
Ice Age 3 screens in 3D at Vue, Cheshire Oaks but – unusually – the eye-popping technology doesn’t enhance the viewing experience. Visuals look flat for almost the entire 94 minutes, apart from the adrenaline-pumping thrill of a couple of first-person-perspective chase sequences.
STAR RATING: **
STAR TREK (12A)
THE 40-year-old franchise is given a kick-start and sent back into warp drive by Lost creator JJ Abrams who has directed the best-reviewed Star Trek movie yet.
STAR RATING: ***
BRUNO (18)
SACHA Baron Cohen’s eponymous fashionista from Klagenfurt, Austria, does not stray from the successful template of predecessor Borat.
Bruno is a crass, insolent media whore who will inevitably offend some audiences. He is a gay, flamboyant stereotype, loud and crude who frequently disgusts, such as trying to contact the ghost of Milli from disgraced 80s pop group Milli Vanilli through a medium.
An abortive seduction of 2008 Presidential candidate Ron Paul leaves a bad taste in the mouth purely because of the pity we feel for Paul.
Occasionally Cohen hits the mark – see his ham-fisted attempt to bring peace to the Middle East.
STAR RATING: **
PUBLIC ENEMIES (15)
DIRECTOR Michael Mann (Heat, The Insider) surveys a volatile period in his country’s history in a slow-burning crime thriller based on Bryan Burrough’s book Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave And The Birth Of The FBI, 1933-34.
The film centres on the exploits of charismatic bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), who becomes a major Depression-era celebrity and a folk hero to the public, outwitting J Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) and his fledgling Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Hoover labels Dillinger America’s first ‘Public Enemy Number One’ and pledges to capture the robber as a demonstration of his department’s ability, enlisting tenacious agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to lead the nationwide hunt.
While Dillinger’s gang continues to hit the headlines, especially when the sociopath Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) joins its ranks, the leader makes the fatal mistake of falling in love with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), providing the FBI with an Achilles heel to aim at.
STAR RATING: ***
THE HANGOVER (15)
A STAG night goes hilariously awry in The Hangover, the new comedy from Todd Phillips, writer-director of Road Trip and Old School.
STAR RATING: **
TERMINATOR SALVATION (12A)
MAN battles the machines once again in an all-guns-blazing reboot of the Terminator series.
STAR RATING: **
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (12A)
THE robots in disguise clash again in the eagerly-awaited sequel, pictured. Director Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) returns to the helm to destroy large swathes of planet Earth via computer-generated imagery. Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox again try to add a touch of human drama.
STAR RATING: **
YEAR ONE (12A)
HAROLD Ramis’s ramshackle road movie, set in the Paleolithic era, is headlined by Jack Black and Michael Cera, two of the most gifted comic actors of their generations. But put the actors side-by-side in Year One as hunter-gatherers with a nose for adventure, and the results are painful.
STAR RATING: **
FIRED UP (12A)
SHAWN Colfax (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Nick Brady (Eric Christian Olsen), the stars of the Gerald R Ford High School football team, are dreading the prospect of another summer at football camp.
When Nick hatches a scheme for the two to join their school’s cheerleaders at cheer camp instead, they find themselves awash in a sea of gorgeous young women.
It all goes great until Shawn falls for Carly (Sarah Roemer), the beautiful head cheerleader who sees right through them.
STAR RATING: **
MY SISTER’S KEEPER (12A)
ADAPTED from Jodi Picoult’s heartbreaking bestseller, this is an emotionally wrought and morally complex story of one family’s extraordinary fight to save their own flesh and blood from terrible suffering. Brian Fitzgerald (Jason Patric) and his wife Sara (Cameron Diaz) are blissfully happy with their son Jesse (Evan Ellingson) and two-year-old daughter Kate. Their lives change forever when they discover that Kate has leukaemia, and they make a controversial decision: to conceive another child, a genetic match, in order to save Kate’s life. But when that child reaches the age of 11, she announces that she no longer wants to be a guinea pig.
STAR RATING: ***
ANGELS & DEMONS (12A)
TOM Hanks returns to the role of Dan Brown’s hero Robert Langdon for this Da Vinci Code sequel, set in Vatican City, where a series of brutal killings puts the Pope in danger.
STAR RATING: ***
AM I BLACK ENOUGH FOR YOU (12A)
DIRECTED by Goran Olsson, this fascinating documentary pays tribute to legendary Philadelphia soul artist Billy Paul, who rose to fame in the 1970s with his song Me And Mrs Jones, which stormed the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
However, the follow-up song Am I Black Enough For You faded without trace, almost ending Paul's career.
Goran Olsson's film interviews Paul and his wife, Blanche, as they recall this volatile period in their lives, the relationship with record executive Kenny Gamble, and racial tensions within America of that era.
STAR RATING: ***
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (18)
LAME remake of Wes Craven’s landmark 1972 horror film, a grisly rape revenge thriller which has been rendered essentially harmless by this inept retread.
