Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

Whoever thought of the first Kung Fu Panda must have been a video store clerk who watched too many 1950s—60s Shaw Shaolin kungfu movies.

In a similar vein, the second Kung Fu Panda is a homage to 1980s Hong Kong chopsocky actioners, especially the Once Upon a Time in China series.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 28 May 2011.

London Boulevard (2010)

A gritty noir take on The Bodyguard, with Colin Farrell playing an ex-con who finds himself responsible for the security of a fragile star.

Good idea but London Boulevard struggles to keep both noir and romance genres up in the air. It's a far superior noir than it is a romance.

And no, Keira Knightley never sings "I will always love you".

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 25 May 2011.

Dylan Dog; Dead of night (2010)

Imagine Constantine on a shoe-string budget, written by an Italian determined to do to American horror fantasy what his countrymen did to the western.

It might be far better bet to start with the original comic book series because the film adaptation is so cookie cutter.

The only pleasure you'll derive from watching this is seeing New Orleans through Argento's giallo aesthetics.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 25 March 2011.

Pirate of the Caribbean: On stranger tides (2011)

The first POC trilogy grew from a silly, irreverent, surreal adventure possibly dreamt up by a Monty Python fanboy into a bloated, meandering, incomprehensible mess.

Rob Marshall takes rein in POC 4 and chops the series down to size.

The downside is Marshall has no cinematic sense and frames his shots too tightly all of the time, you feel you're watching the TV movie of POC and not a fine cinematic mess.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 23 May 2011.

Beastly (2011)

Beastly is a film adaptation of a YA book reworking of Beauty and the Beast as a high school drama...

Where the Beast is a hot high school jock who transforms into an equally ogle-able high school goth with artistic tattoos and facial scarring Seal would die for.

It's good for a few laughs, only because of a recurring Neil Patrick Harris cameo.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 11 May 2011.

Paul (2011)

A stranded alien enlists two sci-fi convention nerds to hitch a ride off this planet.

There is a huge amount of bawdy humour and alien anal probe jokes, which may or may not be up your alley.

The sidesplitting jokes come from the film's parody of alien invasion movies and the culture of sci-fi fandom.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 11 May 2011.

Biutiful (2010)

Javier Bardem finds himself in a film noir as a low life gangster in a crapsack city who can't make a profit out of crime. Woe is he.

Javier Bardem also finds in his gangster the ability to see dead people. Woe is he.

if you derive pleasure from from watching a tragedy where a hero just goes from one depth to another without any hope or chance of bettering his lot – this is for you.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 4 May 2011.

Red Dragonflies (2011)

An artist returns to Singapore to hold an exhibition; memories of teenage years and a vastly different Singapore landscape are evoked.

Red Dragonflies is more video installation than a film to be consumed.

It's also one of those films that examines the nature of nostalgia and sentimentality without resorting to either.

Read my full review on Fridae, first published on 4 May 2011.

The Lost Bladesman (关云长) (2011)

Donnie Yen is Asia's Steven Seagal, starring in B-films where he overpowers the opposition so handily, his dispensation of whoop-ass comes off as hardly heroic.

This historical revisionist take on the Three Kingdoms period employs sublime stunt casting, with Donnie Yen starring as general Guan Yu.

The historical revisionist gimmick: Guan Yu is a killing machine with a sense of integrity that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 4 May 2011.

Umizaru 3: The last message (－ザ・ラストメッセージー 海猿) (2010)

The Umizaru series are cut from the same old school disaster movie cloth like The Perfect Storm.

Science and engineering geeks will appreciate how the shipping disaster depicted here will stand up to the scrutiny of real-world science...

Even if the body count remains at absolutely zero.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 4 May 2011.

Five Fast (2011)

The Fast and Furious franchise finally goes somewhere once Justin Lin put his mind to it.

Fast Five is fashioned as a heist movie instead of an 90 minute excuse for car racing footage and hip hop music.

We like the result. Just like Ang Lee is an Asian who does quintessentially American films, Justin Lee's becoming an Asian who does great American action films.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 4 May 2011.