THE latest computer-animated masterpiece from the wizards at Pixar (WALL-E, Ratatouille) is an airborne adventure in the company of a cranky old man and an excitable young boy.
Both hysterical and heartbreaking, this rumbustious romp – the Disney studio’s first release in Digital 3D – is guaranteed to have even the hardiest and most cynical soul choking back tears long after the lights go up. The opening 10 minutes of Up are among the finest Pixar has ever crafted.
Rating: lllll
ZOMBIELAND (15)
STRIKING an irreverent tone that echoes Shaun Of The Dead, Zombieland is a bloody – and bloody hilarious – jaunt through a futuristic America ravaged by a contagion that has metamorphosed all but the lucky few into flesh-chomping predators. Jesse Eisenberg stars as the scaredy-cat anti-hero helped by gun-toting hardman Woody Harrelson as they join forces with two young survivors (Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin).
Rating: llll
LOVE HAPPENS (12A)
LOVE comes knocking when a widower least expects it in Brandon Camp’s poignant drama, with Aaron Eckhart starring as the grief-stricken protagonist who falls for Jennifer Aniston while promoting the best-selling self-help book he wrote to get over his loss.
Thematically muddled, but with its heart in the right place, Love Happens struggles to gel the central character’s inner conflict with rom-com conventions.
Rating: lll
DRIVING APHRODITE
ORIGINALLY titled My Life In Ruins, Donald Petrie’s bumbling romantic comedy marks the long-awaited return of Nia Vardalos to the big screen, seven years after her self-penned, Oscar-nominated smash, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Driving Aphrodite returns Vardalos to her beloved Greece in the guise of an unhappily single tour guide, who is oblivious to Mr Right sitting at the front of her malfunctioning bus. The screenplay by Mike Reiss, whose credits include The Simpsons, should guarantee big laughs, but its cringeworthy gags would be rejected by a second-rate TV sitcom.
Rating: ll
THE INVENTION OF LYING (12A)
THE truth about Ricky Gervais’s new comedy, co-written and co-directed by Matthew Robinson, is that it is mean-spirited, misconceived and starved of big laughs.
Set in an alternate reality in which everyone instinctively tells the truth and the concept of a fib doesn’t yet exist, The Invention Of Lying is ripe with comic potential.
Rating: lll
PANDORUM (15)
THE nightmare is as much for the two-dimensional characters as for us, because Pandorum is a headache-inducing game of cat and mouse in a labyrinth of dimly- lit tunnels that pales next to Alien and its sequel.
The film might be tolerable if the action sequences were well orchestrated. Travis Milloy’s screenplay clumsily attempts to blur reality and fantasy but the truth about the amnesia-plagued protagonists is blindingly obvious from the start.
Rating: ll
FAME (PG)
THE update of the 1980 smash hit, remade by young choreographer-turned-director Kevin Tancharoen, begins with Debbie Allen’s classic line: “Fame costs. And right here is where you start paying . . . in sweat.”
Allen is back in a new role as principal at the NYC High School of Performing Arts, where 10 young students seek to fulfil their dreams. It’s like a gritty version of High School Musical, without the basketball. Naturi Naughton is the stand-out performer – remember her name!
Rating: lll
THE SOLOIST (12A)
THE Soloist is an inspirational true story about a musical prodigy crippled by schizophrenia (Jamie Foxx), who unexpectedly gets a second chance at his dreams thanks to an influential journalist (Robert Downey Jr).
The fractious relationship between the two men is at the heart of Joe Wright’s third feature, which trades in the frocks of Pride & Prejudice and Atonement for the grime of 21st-century Los Angeles. However, everything feels contrived despite the powerful lead performances.
Rating: lll
CREATION (PG)
IN THE year that marks the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work On The Origin Of Species, Hollywood gets in on the act.
Casting real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as the pre-eminent scientist and his wife, Jon Amiel’s beautifully-crafted biopic focuses on the turbulent period before Darwin committed his radical theories to parchment and changed the course of science. Creation is meticulously crafted, yet somewhat uninvolving.
Rating: lll
