FILM REVIEWS

• 'Dinner for Schmucks' leaves a bitter taste

  Adapted from a much better French film this turns into a mean-spirited farce in which rising business executive Rudd gets a coveted invite to the firm’s monthly dinner … only he has to bring along an idiot the others can make fun of.

• Another disappointing turn from Aniston in 'The Switch'

  Aniston once again appears in a light as air, fluffy as a cloud romcom that gives her no boundaries to explore other than to be Aniston, in yet another inoffensive little film that trickles along a plotline so silly it’s hardly worth getting worked up about.

• 'Black Dynamite' a real gem

  Sanders and his cast have, to perfection, captured all that was brilliant, and bad, about the blaxploitation flicks of the 1970s … all the sharp, colourful suits and wide lapels, all the swagger, all the jive dialogue and all the action.

• 'Jonah Hex' a mindless clunker

  Aimed at the more mindless of the teen male market – who go for violence, explosions aplenty, scowling loners and totty in tight corsets – and taken from a DC Comics series this is as inept a film as you could waste your money on.

• Binoche gives excellent performance in 'Certified Copy'

  A complex tale shrouded in reality-unreality, relationship or no and the age-old male-female dialogue … all against a background of beautiful Tuscany.

• 'The Last Exorcism' not to be missed

  Unless you’re a dedicated fan of exorcism films, with all their familiar clichés, you might decide to give this one a miss … wrong decision: it’s a cut above what you might expect.

• 'Soul Boy' gives authentic view of local soul movement

  A sweet tale set around the Wigan soul scene of the 1970s, with several well-realised and acted characters and a storyline, rich in period authenticity, that, alas, runs out of steam towards its disappointing end … but the journey is still worth the effort.

• 'Scott Pilgrim v The World' doesn’t quite deliver

  Video and computer games geeks will certainly love Edgar ‘Shaun of the Dead’ Wright’s screen version of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s cult graphic novels, but if you’re not into that strange world this might be disappointing since at best it’s a curate’s egg: good in parts.

• 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' clever and gripping

  The grim and darkly atmospheric thrillers based on Swedish writer Stieg Larsson’s trilogy move onward with the quirky, and somewhat sinister, computer hacker Lisbeth (the mesmerising Rapace) returning home after a year away to work again with magazine editor Mikael (Nyqvist) on a sex scandal story that reaches the top of local society.

• No humour or character development in 'Grown Ups'

  Only for those who like Sandler’s clapped-out brand of gross-out humour pitched at the flatulence/obese/dumb kids/sexy women level – he co-wrote the tired script – and the obvious look of a film in which the cast, all pals in real life, are having a better time than the audience.