Some belated capsule reviews

In "The Book of Eli", Denzel Washington journeys it up in post-apocalyptic America, but this is no “The Road”. “Eli” is all spectacle and suffers from a weak villain in the form of Gary Oldman (who does what he can with an underwritten character) and an unnecessary lead female in Mila Kunis. Add some shoddy green-screen backgrounds and you have yourself an entertaining but overall unsatisfying futuristic adventure.

"How to Drain Your Dragon" is a surprisingly good Dreamworks CGI adventure about a young Viking boy named Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) who befriends a dragon instead of slaying it. The animation is jaw-droppingly good, so much so that its finale has been compared to the destruction of the Death Star in terms of excitement.

(Concept art from IGN)

Nicolas Cage is great when he's demented, and his Lt. Terence McDonagh is a memorable character even in the film "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" isn't one of director Werner Herzog's best. For brave viewers.

(Source: IGN)

What a mistake "The Lovely Bones" was for its whole creative team. As a murder victim and her murderer, Saoirse Ronan and Stanley Tucci own the film, but overblown visuals leave the film without nuance.

Speaking of mistakes, "Where the Wild Things Are" is a tedious overlong film about the perils of childhood. There's a fight scene that's more "Saving Private Ryan" than anything else, indicative of the film struggles to find its voice. I got heavy lidded long before the end.

Jim Sheridan's "Brothers" ended up being a bit of a lame-duck adaptation of the Danish favourite "Brodre". Despite a game cast which includes a luminous Natalie Portman, the film says nothing about war and the effect it has on people that hasn't been said better before.

The Oscar nominated "Gomorrah", a film so controversial it invited death threats for its director, Matteo Garrone, tells a handful of stories set in Mafia-ruled Naples. It's a slow moving film, lacking the visual kinesis of "Goodfellas" and "City of God", but its final half hour is riveting as the various characters we've been following make decisions that seal their fates.

Ji-woon Kim shows Michael Bay how to orchestrate compelling and sensible action scenes in the ridiculously fun Oriental Western "The Good, the Bad, the Weird". The film ostensibly takes its cue from the archetypal "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and takes that film's treausre hunt to set up a period action adventure the likes of I haven't seen in ages.