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Superbad

'Producer Judd Apatow is gently saying something new about the American male. And that's what saves the flick from being a predictable gross-out movie: all the anatomical references, cussing and bravado, seem naively explicit rather than bleurgh.'
Laura Barton is charmed by this high school geek movie from the Knocked Up team
15, 144 mins

Run Fatboy Run

Standing at the altar five years ago, Dennis (Simon Pegg) suddenly bottled it and ran, leaving behind a pregnant fiancee, Libby (Thandie Newton), and much kerfuffle. When he discovers that Libby has been wooed by the rather swishy Whit (Hank Azaria), he pledges to demonstrate his love for her by running a marathon. Directed by David Schwimmer, Run Fatboy Run has something of a small-town feel to it, but is blessed with acting talent and is decidedly charming.

12A, 100 mins

Run Fatboy Run

Hallam Foe

This is a truly powerful punch of pure talent - the tale of a teenage boy named Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell) struggling with the death of his mother and the arrival of his new stepmother, who skedaddles to Edinburgh and grows ever-more infatuated with the golden Kate (Sophia Myles). At times muddy thriller, at others sweet-natured romance, Hallam Foe is essentially a story of teenage obsession and confusion, magnificently written, shot and acted. Exceptionally fine soundtrack, too.

18, 95 mins

Hallam Foe

The Bourne Ultimatum

Striking that balance between midsummer actionfest and something mentally captivating can be difficult. Paul Greengrass, however, knew just how to pitch this final outing for Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) - the CIA drone with a bit of a memory problem - keeping the action just as taut as in The Bourne Supremacy, but adding in some of the jitteriness he brought to United 93. There's much here to quench conspiracy-thirsty minds, and for the less cerebral among us, there are fight scenes too - the scuffle with the assassin, Desh, is pure violent poetry. But one of Greengrass's defining characteristics is that his films show how every action has a reaction, and one of Damon's greatest skills is demonstrating those reactions: pain, unease, confusion. Together they bring the Bourne trilogy to a spectacular finale.

12A, 115 mins

Disturbia

Sugarhouse

The quiet suburban existence of Kale (Shia LaBoeuf) and his mother (Carrie-Ann Moss) is disrupted when he punches his Spanish teacher and finds himself under house arrest, tagged so he cannot stray beyond his garden. Thoroughly bored, he uses a pair of binoculars to spy on his neighbours, from the sunbathing of local hotcakes Ashley (Sarah Roemer) to the increasingly dubious activities of the lawn-obsessed man up the street (David Morse). Though the plot is hardly innovative, Disturbia showcases some real talent - not least LaBoeuf.
15, 105 mins

Reprise

There's something rather giddy about this debut by Norwegian director Joachim Trier. The story is one of two friends, both wannabe authors, called Erik (Espen Klouman Hoiner) and Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and the angsts of their twentysomething years. First, Phillip's novel is not only published but widely celebrated, propelling him into a kind of mania in which he obsesses over his girlfriend and eventually is incarcerated; Erik, meantime, uniformly fails to get published and continues in his equally unexceptional relationship. Reprise is not without flaw, but it does bubble with flair.
15, 106 mins

Shoot 'Em Up

Will someone please rescue Clive Owen? One of our finest actors is currently trapped in a world of Hollywood stinkers — first Derailed, and now this muddy action flick about a hitman (Paul Giametti) who must assassinate a pregnant woman, only for Smith (Owen) to leap to her baby's defence. Left holding the baby (after he shoots it free of its umbilical cord, of course) Smith turns to an obliging hooker (Monica Bellucci) to keep the child safe while he does a spot of digging - apparently, it's all part of a complicated plot involving babies' bone marrow. There is probably a message here about guns or the right to life or something; alas, it's buried beneath a weary hail of bullets.
15, 93 mins

3:10 to Yuma

In which Christian Bale is pitched up against Russell Crowe in a timely remake of a classic Western. The boys done good: this is the dusty, surly old west, in which tensions run high. Dan Evans (Bale) is a rancher on the brink of ruin; Ben Wade (Crowe) is a cocky thief sentenced to hang, who will be escorted to his final destination by Evans. The journey that ensues is as grizzled as one might expect, and offers a chance for not only Crowe and Bale to shine, but also for Ben Foster as Wade's fellow gang-member - a pinched, bloodless figure on their trail.
15, 117 mins

No Reservations

How Hollywood loves that weary old cart-horse, 'the story of a difficult woman softened by a child and the love of a good man'. Here, Catherine Zeta-Jones is Kate, a New York chef of bewitching froideur whose sister is killed, leaving Kate the guardian of her young niece Zoe. After a little time off, she returns to work to find handsome new sous-chef Nick (Aaron Eckhart), who lives his life with a red-blooded passion and bonds with young Zoe. Need I go on?
PG, 105 mins

Small Engine Repair

Writer-director Niall Heery's debut keeps its horizons low with this tale of a chewed-up man named Doug (Iain Glen) in a somewhat nondescript town in Northern Ireland, who dreams of performing his country and western compositions on stage, but who lacks the self-belief to do much about it. It falls to his mechanic friend Bill (Steven Mackintosh) to root for him, convincing his buddy to send off a tape to the local radio station and play live. Small Engine Repair doesn't feel like a film with big ambitions, but its story of a man who finds the fire to pursue his dream later in life certainly warms the cockles.

15, 102 mins

Knocked Up

Time was that blokeish date movies meant the Farrelly Brothers. Now, though, Judd Apatow (The Forty Year Old Virgin, Superbad) is stealing the monopoly on the genre and producing a slew of films that are funny, occasionally gross, but also display a certain sweetness and moral fibre. Knocked Up is splendid: it presents the unlikely romance between Ben (Seth Rogen) a pallid stoner-type, and Alison (Katherine Heigl) a beautiful, super-focussed TV presenter, who meet at a nightclub and fall drunkenly into bed. What happens after Alison discovers she's pregnant is an amusing and engagingly honest account of dealing with unplanned parenthood.

12A, 115 mins

Atonement

It's not for nothing that Atonement has been compared to The English Patient - and to the world of Merchant Ivory. It too embraces the themes of war, Englishness and love, all the while acting as a showcase for some of the finest British talent around. The story begins in a sun-drenched England, 1935. Briony (Saoirse Ronan), a 13-year-old girl amply blessed with imagination, is watching both her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and the candle she holds for Robbie (James McAvoy). What she sees, half-sees or makes herself believe leads Briony to falsely suggest Robbie's involvement in a crime. Briony (later played by Romola Garai) is left wrestling with guilt in her long struggle to atone. Grand and sentimental without ever getting sticky, Atonement falls in line with the great thwarted love affairs of cinema. The performances are excellent, but at its heart sits McAvoy, surely one of the finest actors of his generation.
15, 122 mins

Two Days in Paris

On-screen chemistry is a rare beast, but it's here in spades with Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg as Marion, a New York-based, French-born photographer, and Jack, her American interior designer beau of two years, who find their relationship thrown into the air by a brief sojourn in Paris with her parents (this is a bit of a Delpy spectacular: not only does she direct, but her own parents star as Marion's parents). What follows is a revelation for the pair: all their habits and hiccoughs, ex-lovers, fears and suspicions come tumbling out. Not since Woody Allen's heyday has there been such an immaculate and hilarious examination of relationships.
12, 96 mins