While it might not have been what Arthur Conan Doyle had in mind when he first put pen to page, 2009s Sherlock Holmes was a rip-snorting action picture that was hugely popular with audiences and critics alike. Two years later and to the surprise of no one, Hollywood has decided it’s time for a sequel, reuniting director Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) with stars Robert Downey [...]

Todd Phillips’ Due Date is more like an actual hangover than last year’s blockbuster comedy The Hangover: it’s unpleasant, unfunny and the sooner it comes to an end, the better.

Phillips, a hit-and-miss comedy director responsible for the likes of The Hangover (hit) and the remake of Starsky & Hutch (miss), was clearly hoping lightning would strike twice by reteaming with Zach Galifianakis, [...]

Let’s start off with the good news: Iron Man 2 is just as good as Iron Man. But don’t celebrate just yet, as I haven’t told you the bad news: I never thought much of the original.

Most will be quick to disagree, but I found the first to be a middling superhero film, lightly entertaining for sure, but unforgivably formulaic and extremely anticlimactic. Arriving in the same year as the ground-breaking The Dark Knight, it also didn’t take long for Iron Man to feel like an out-dated model. However, the one thing the film certainly had going for it was, of course, Robert Downy Jr. His charming and wry personification of billionaire Tony Stark oozed a unique and entertaining quality the rest of the film simply couldn’t match.

Robert Downey Jr is a very busy man. He has a lot to uphold amongst his Hollywood comeback, first donning the Iron Man suit and now almost certainly entering a second franchise with one of fiction’s most beloved characters. It’s funny then that the character of Sherlock Holmes hasn’t been a favourite in cinema; the bumbling detective now has one of the most known falsely quoted lines in history. Sadly but rightly so, said line fails to actually be mentioned – but the 1800’s London setting gives Guy Ritchie the perfect opportunity to do what Guy Ritchie does best – show the gritty side of town with a bit of humour thrown in. More than a bit – this is his most family-friendly film to date. After all, it is a ‘blockbuster’.

It’s odd that The Soloist is playing quietly into cinemas during the early days of September, as if deliberately out of earshot of the upcoming awards season. It looked set to be a sure-fire Oscar contender; not only does it star two of Hollywood’s finest actors, Robert Downy Jr. And Jamie Foxx, it’s also based on a true story that deals with mental illness, poverty and the human spirit. How could the Academy resist?