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It's a success Dr Watson
Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes is clued up for success.
THE jazzed-up new version of Baker Street's finest may annoy fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories, but at least SHERLOCK HOLMES (12: Warner) is not just another stuffy murder mystery.
Director Guy Ritchie approaches the film in the manner of Lethal Weapon, with Robert Downey Jr bringing his charisma to bear in his portrayal of the legendary detective.
The actor, who obviously spent many hours on the weights before the shoot, even ditches his shirt to show he has brawn as well as brains in a slow-mo bareknuckle fight.
Jude Law is surprisingly convincing as Holmes' sidekick Watson and gives as good as he gets in the ongoing verbal sparring match as the pair share a mischievous chemistry.
Mark Strong is impressively sinister as back-from-the-dead villain Lord Blackwood, a killer reputed to be in league with the devil.
If you have a moment to think between all the fights and explosions, and admiring the views of Victorian London, you will enjoy the aura of a troubled genius exuded by Downey Jr.
> As a big fan of the late, great Ian Dury's music, with a collection of just about everything he recorded, I found many reasons to be cheerful watching biopic SEX & DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL (15: Entertainment In Video).
Andy Serkis was the obvious choice to play the singer/songwriter, who was a Luton college art teacher in the late '60s, and he doesn't disappoint.
Director Mat Whitecross uses the framework of a live gig by Dury and the Blockheads and an engagingly abstract, if somewhat overly frenetic, portrait of the post-punk poet unfolds.
Along the way we see flashbacks to his polio-stricken childhood and the relationships with those he loved – his wife (Olivia Williams), girlfriend (Naomie Harris) and son (Bill Milner).
The film incorporates animation, newsreels, clips from classic movie Spartacus and music video-style fast-cutting as well as the usual price-of-fame cliches as friends and family become victims of Dury's selfish creative ambition.
Milner, who first made an impression in Son Of Rambow, is terrific and Serkis captures the charisma that made the complex Dury everyone's favourite punk rocker.
> Ray Winstone has teamed up again with the writers of the superb Sexy Beast for 44 INCH CHEST (18: Momentum), another yarn about a gangster whose tough shell disguises a soft centre.
Winstone plays Colin Diamond, a broken man after his wife (Joanne Whalley) reveals she's leaving him for a young waiter.
His criminal pals, including John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Ian McShane, kidnap 'Loverboy' (Melvil Poupaud) for bloody revenge, and although the gore is not overdone, there's enough foul language and vile behaviour to guarantee a wince per minute.
The dialogue has a great, lyrical flow, especially when delivered by Hurt, whose character is a dead ringer for Albert Steptoe.
With most of the action in one room, the tension is heightened in a film that packs a punch.
> Post apocalyptic tale THE ROAD (15: Icon) falls a little short of the greatness of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, but it's still offers an effective warning that we squander the planet's resources at our peril.
In an ashen landscape, a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) make a perilous journey across America in search of better prospects. After the breakdown of society, what's left except to scavenge the remaining food then turn to human prey? And what price morality when basic survival is at stake?
Hollywood often treats spectacular destruction as entertainment, but these weighty philosophical questions are soberingly serious. The plot is skeletal, but the multiple threats faced by father and son ensure constant tension and Smit-McPhee's performance as the vulnerable boy is deeply touching.
TOP TEN: 1.Avatar; 2. 2012; 3.Law Abiding Citizen; 4.The Box; 5.Twilight Saga: New Moon; 6.The Men Who Stare At Goats; 7.Harry Brown; 8.Paranormal Activity; 9.The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus; 10.The Invention Of Lying. Chart supplied by Blockbuster
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Weather for Leighton Buzzard
Tuesday 22 May 2012
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Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
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