Thomas Craven is a man of impulse and no consequence. Your daughter being shot to death would do that to you. Especially if she was standing beside you on the front porch. So begins Mel Gibson’s first acting appearance since 2002, as a father seeking revenge (or answers) for his daughter’s death. As the second adaptation of a BBC series this summer (following January’s In The Loop), Edge Of Darkness holds a mix of British and American filmmaking, but the merger fails to deliver.

It’s easy to get caught up praising The Princess and the Frog for what it does differently in the biz of children’s animation. First off, it’s the spirited revival — or attempted revival, depending on how well it does at the box office — of the classic hand-drawn 2D animation style that has gone the way of the VCR in the age of Pixar. More importantly, it’s the first Disney animation ever to feature an African-American princess, even if she does spend most of her screen time as a frog.

Directed by Australia’s own John Hillcoat, The Road is a brutally bleak, borderline misanthropic adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s brutally bleak, borderline misanthropic post-apocalyptic novel of the same name. Admittedly, the end of the world is quite a depressing scenario, and credit must be given to Hillcoat (The Proposition) and his team for audaciously choosing not to dilute McCarthy’s heavy words (to which I haven’t read). By comparison, The Road makes other post-apocalyptic movies like I am Legend and Terminator Salvation look like Disney movies. But without a glimmer of hope on the (burning) horizon, The Road inadvertently alienates itself from the audience it is so eager to milk emotion from, pandering primarily to McCarthy fans and those with suicidal tendencies.

Jane Campion’s ninth outing in a directing role conveys all the usual period blend of romance and refinery. Her screenplay for this film remains true to the words of John Keats himself, and ensures her constructed world is a believable portrait of Keats’ life and times.

Film critics are conceited by definition, but we’re not smug enough to think that the legions of Twilight fans could give two hoots about what we have to say about their beloved franchise. That much was clear when last year’s Twilight managed to pull an impressive $380 million at the global box office, despite the fact that a majority of critics (i.e. myself) considered it a droning, ineptly crafted teen-romance. It has therefore been in the best interest of this year’s sequel, New Moon, to change absolutely nothing. Once again, critics will mercilessly steak the film to death, but it will do little to stop box office records from crumbling.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll dance in your seat throughout This Is It…as long as you’re a Michael Jackson fan. If you’re like me – neither a lover nor hater of MJ– then you’ll be bored stiff within the hour. That’s because This is It is little more than what you’d see in the special features of a concert DVD; there’s MJ rehearsing, then there’s MJ rehearses a little bit more, and for the final climactic act, MJ rehearses one last time before the credits roll. Fan will be transfixed throughout, but if you’re looking for an insightful documentary on Jackson’s final concert, this isn’t it.

Film about robots is mechanical. Who’d have guessed?

Astro Boy — the big-screen adaptation of the beloved 60s Japanese manga-turn-anime series — has been welded together using the parts of other (better) films like Gladiator, The Incredibles, A.I, Pinocchio and, most notably, Frankenstein. It’s a hybrid creation only small children and the most die-hard fans could love, but even they might find this slapdash animated adventure is a middling diversion at best.

Those people over in Tinseltown have been running out of ideas since, well, forever – but with remakes coming ever sooner to the next generation of cinema-goers, how are audiences not expected to go with what’s offered to them? At the time of writing, kids in Australia on school holidays are being offered family-oriented features, as is the norm. While Fame may sit on the edge of this boundary because of a more mature theme, this ‘re-imagining’ of the 1980 cult hit still aims to appeal to a younger audience. It doesn’t have the ‘sex factor’ of Centre Stage, Step Up or even TV’s Glee, which from what we’ve seen is shaping up to be a more comedic (but still intense) look at the desires of performers. While those who’ve seen the original are sure to have different opinions and comparisons to those who haven’t, Fame in its 2009 form doesn’t appear as a remake – but it fails to make a significant mark.