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Review: 24: Redemption, Sky One - Jack's back with a worthy villain in Voight

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:56:15 GMT

Whoops! They got that wrong. I'm talking about "US President-Elect, Allison Taylor, America's first female head of state", according to 24: Redemption, last night's long-awaited television movie version of 24 (a couple of hectic hours from one afternoon, instead of the whole day – 2 would have been a more accurate title).

Waltz With Bashir (18)

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:28:08 GMT

Few film critics are war veterans – I count it a personal blessing – but we are nearly all war movie veterans, so many of them do we sit through.

Blindness (18)

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:27:07 GMT

Dystopian Breakdown, Part I. An epidemic of blindness grips a city population, and its first victims are herded into a ramshackle facility under guard.

Body of Lies (15)

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:25:46 GMT

Ridley Scott's latest is a very different kind of war movie. Where Waltz With Bashir is honourably self-questioning, Body of Lies is dimly self-important.

The Baader Meinhof Complex (18)

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:06:03 GMT

Before a school exam, do you remember how teachers would impress on you the importance of answering the specific question that was set?

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Pornos have better plots than this

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:58:42 GMT

In the new comedy from writer-director Kevin Smith, the Zack of the title is Seth Rogen, playing much the same cheery, out-of-shape slacker as he did in Knocked Up, only without the pot-smoking. The Miri of the title is Elizabeth Banks, who's considerably less out of shape, but no less cheery.

Queens Film Theatre - I’ve Loved You So Long (12A, 115 mins)

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:08:02 GMT

Quantum of Solace: Macho Bond is fun-free

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:33:29 GMT

We all know what it is to be bored to death, but have you ever been entertained to death?

Ghost Town (12A)

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:46:48 GMT

Four years after he established a beachhead with his Golden Globe for The Office, Ricky Gervais's invasion of America finally seems to be gathering some momentum, with his first Hollywood starring role: the lead in, of all things, a romantic comedy. As if that isn't surprising enough, he comes out of it pretty well.

Quarantine (18, 89 mins)

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:00:28 GMT

Only horror aficionados should take a risk on this ... based on the Spanish cult horror flick REC, it’s directed by John Erick Dowdle and contains so much shaky camerawork it makes Blair Witch Project look like a still-life.

The Wave (15, 107 mins)

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:00:12 GMT

Based on real-life events (as the corny voiceover would have it), this is a disturbing fable about how easily fascism can take root.

Laugh at screwball comedy? I nearly died of boredom

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:00:06 GMT

Ricky Gervais graduates to Hollywood leading man in David Koepp’s supernatural comedy about a curmudgeon who discovers that he can see dead people on the streets of Manhattan.

Fame beckoning as High School wannabes prepare to take leave

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:00:02 GMT

Already breaking box-office records in the UK for advance ticket sales, the third instalment of High School Musical takes a bow on the big screen for the first time, bidding a tearful farewell to most of the actors who have made the series a toe-tapping success.

Latest Bond shakes and stirs, but where’s the old humour?

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:29:12 GMT

James Bond is back for the 22nd time. The story carries on where Casino Royale left off. Bond (Daniel Craig) is still smarting over the death of Vesper Lynd and desperate to exact revenge. Frenetic, full of chase sequences and sudden switches in location, the film has a demented energy about it, as if it’s taking his feverish tempo from Bond himself. He – we learn early on – is “running wild”.

Burn after reading (15)

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:36:47 GMT

You will not see a more determinedly misanthropic picture this year than the Coen brothers' latest. Coming down from their all-time darkest (and Oscar-winning) effort No Country for Old Men, they have reverted to the satiric, sidelong, caperish comedy of misadventure they perfected about ten years ago with Fargo and The Big Lebowski.

Gomorrah: Matteo Garrone 137 mins, 15

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:06:02 GMT

There's only one moment in the new Italian film Gomorrah that resembles the gangster movie as we know it. In a tanning parlour, assorted fleshy men stand gleaming in the blue light of their cubicles. Backs are slapped, grins grinned, jokes cracked. Then suddenly, bada bing! – or however that translates in Neapolitan dialect, the main language of Matteo Garrone's extraordinary drama.

Nights in Rodanthe, George C Wolfe, 97 mins, PG Mirrors, Alexandre Aja, 110 mins, 15 Mutant Chronicles, Simon Hunter, 111 mins, 18

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:05:10 GMT

Richard Gere and Diane Lane first co-starred together in 1984, in Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club.

I was prepared not to like City of Ember, but the movie just blew my mind

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:12:10 GMT

The City of Ember is, says its producer, “like a family movie and action movie at the same time”.

How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (15)

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:49:46 GMT

This Brit-on-the-make comedy would be insufferable without the leavening presence of Simon Pegg.

Brideshead Revisited (12A)

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:47:02 GMT

It is almost impossible to watch this new version of Brideshead Revisited without the double distraction of what has come before.

Good Dick (15)

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:45:14 GMT

When a director declares in her press notes that she "went through a metamorphosis from an inactive observer and opinionated commentator to an active, courageous participant in my own artistic journey", I tend to think: I'm going to hate this movie.

Fear(s) of the Dark (12A)

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:43:06 GMT

An animated portmanteau film that blends various graphic artists' most vivid representations of nightmare.

Fly Me To The Moon (U)

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:41:26 GMT

This 3D animation about a trio of pesky houseflies hitching a ride on Apollo 11 will give you a buzz only if you've missed the last 15 years of superior animations, such as A Bug's Life, Antz and The Simpsons, all of which it rips off.

Taken (15)

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:10:15 GMT

The only puzzle of this toxically stupid Europhobe thriller is that its director (Pierre Morel) and producer (Luc Besson) are both French.

Swing Vote (12A)

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:07:33 GMT

Well, it's timely at least. Kevin Costner stars as a shiftless, divorced dad in smalltown New Mexico who wins overnight celebrity when his vote becomes the decider in the US presidential election.