Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (12)

4/5

AN astute mixture of frights and laughs makes this Harry Potter offering the best so far.

David Yates returns to the director's chair after the disappointing Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix for this latest instalment in JK Rowling's magical series, as the boy wizard and his friends face their toughest test yet.

The sixth film rides some of the same dark undercurrents as Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban.

The gloomy tone is set from the opening sequence in the Muggle world, where three Death Eaters cause the collapse of the Millennium Bridge, in London.

Younger viewers may need to hide as Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) stamps on Harry's head, Katie Bell (Georgina Leonidas) comes under attack from a cursed necklace and Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) and her cronies launch a night-time attack on the Weasleys.

Harry, Ron and Hermione return to Hogwarts and the students fall victim to raging teenage hormones.

Ron (Rupert Grint) tries to extricate himself from a scarily passionate Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave), while Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) wrestles with his feelings for Ron's sister Ginnie (Bonnie Wright).

As for Hermione (Emma Watson), she tries to rouse the green-eyed monster in Ron by lavishing her affections on vain Cormac McLaggen (Freddie Stroma).

Professor Severus Snape, played by Alan Rickman, is announced as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, to the delight of Slytherin House.

While Ron and Hermione continue with their studies, Harry spends time with headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and a Pensieve, delving into Voldemort's past. The new Potions master, Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), may hold the key.

The film's getting on for two hours long, but you'd never guess. It flies by like the Golden Snitch in a game of Quidditch.

The central trio continue to improve as actors, showing deft comic timing as characters wrestle with their feelings, but the film's most important sequence doesn't deliver the emotional punch we're expecting – Radcliffe simply cannot cry convincingly on camera.

Inglourious Basterds (18)

3/5

"ONCE upon a time in Nazi-occupied France..." begins Quentin Tarantino's long-mooted war opus, a blood-soaked fairytale divided into five hefty chapters.

But for most of the vengeful characters in Inglourious Basterds, there is no happy ever after.

The body count is staggering and almost nobody reaches the end credits unscathed.

That said, Tarantino's distinctive vision does end on an upbeat note as it plays loose and fast with historical fact – and splices genres to dizzying effect.

The sharp mood swings, from the edge-of-seat nerves of the opening segment to the grisly humour which heralds the arrival of Brad Pitt's gung-ho avenger ("Each and every man under my command owes me 100 Nazi scalps... and I want my scalps!"), take time to get used to.

Tarantino certainly takes his time.

Thankfully, Inglourious Basterds is a return to form after Death Proof, and blessed with an Oscar-worthy supporting performance from Christoph Waltz as a sadistic German officer.

He ignites the opening chapter as Colonel Hans Landa, who interrogates a farmer suspected of harbouring Jewish families – as the families he seeks lurk beneath the floorboards, holding their breath. Much like us.

Meanwhile, British lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) goes undercover to assassinate Hitler (Martin Wuttke) during a film premiere.

Simultaneously, a gang of Jewish-American renegades, led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt), plots to kill the upper echelons of the Third Reich.

The Hangover (15)

2/5

"We lost Doug", mumbles a disheveled and bloodied man into his mobile phone, sweating profusely in the rippling heat of the Nevada desert.

"What are you saying? We're getting married in five hours!" shrieks Doug's bride-to-be.

"Yeah. That's not going to happen."

So begins The Hangover, a bawdy and sporadically amusing buddy comedy about three best men who "misplace" the groom during a stag weekend in Vegas.

Jon Lucas and Scott Moore's scattershot screenplay is peppered with bizarre interludes including a tangle with a tiger, the extraction of a tooth and Mike Tyson singing In The Air Tonight.

The easy-going rapport between the leads ensures at least one or two belly laughs.

Shorts (PG)

2/5

Following his foray into sci-fi horror with Planet Terror, writer-director Robert Rodriguez returns to more family-friendly fare with a fast-moving, colour-saturated adventure.

He unleashes a blitzkrieg of digital effects and slapstick in chronologically-fractured chapters.

Toe (Jimmy Bennett) is a regular kid who's bullied mercilessly at school by Helvetica Black (Jolie Vanier) and her older brother Cole (Devon Gearhart).

By chance, Toe discovers a rainbow-coloured rock and unleashes its hidden power to grant wishes.

Bandslam (PG)

3/5

Bandslam managed to woo the pre-teen High School Musical crowd when it hit the cinemas, charting the fortunes of a group of high-school misfits who seek glory in a battle of the bands.

HSM star Vanessa Hudgens is cast in a key role alongside Gaelan Connell, who reinvents himself as a cool loner.

A winning rites of passage story.