Fantasy adventure following young Alice who, for a second time, finds herself falling down the rabbit hole into a strange world. Based on Lewis Carroll’s trippy fantasy tale and brought to life by Tim Burton.

The Times, Kate Muir: “ … a 3-D epic for the next generation. Traditionalists may quibble with Burton’s Gothic ride … but his hallucinogenic humour is true to the originals … Unfortunately, Johnny Depp has too much of Willy Wonka lingering about him … The creepy fantasy landscapes and kooky costumes have gestated brilliantly … but 3-D effects superimposed after filming seem unnecessary … Carroll probably never saw Alice as an action-adventure movie … Commercial considerations have also made Alice 19 years-old … Burton lets her break the Victorian mould and become an empowering, feminist figure as she puts on some Joan of Arc armour … In all, a fantastic film that gets curiouser and curiouser.” ****

IGN AU, Patrick Kolan: “Allow your fears to be alleviated … Alice in Wonderland is a lovingly filmed …tale, rife with fantasy, coated in Gothic iconography and presented by a superb cast who nail their characters’ portraits utterly ... At heart a tale of empowerment … Mia Wasikowska’s … an intensely watchable Alice … Depp manages to keep from overplaying a role that easily could’ve toppled into cheap exaggeration … Depp’s wild eyes and manic, often accent-shifting, delivery consistently hits the right notes … Screened in 3-D, Alice in Wonderland also treats you to some clever depth integration … there are still a few thorns that stuck out … the most incongruous was the inclusion of a baffling (and mercifully short-lived) dance sequence at the end of the film … a thoroughly entertaining adventure that treads carefully through the beloved text … a dark, delicate and balanced family fantasy.” ****

The Age (Melbourne), Jake Wilson: “ ... despite touches of brilliance, this Alice in Wonderland is more a corporate product than a personal statement. Burton has to colour within the lines of a schematic script by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast) that transforms a take-no-prisoners satire on the adult world into a schmaltzy fable about believing in your dreams … Though the rote fantasy plot holds little interest, visually Burton remains at the top of his game … a near-perfect cast … Wasikowska captures the essence of Alice’s prim, determined innocence as well as any adult actress could … it would be hard to improve on Bonham Carter as the Queen of Hearts… Depp’s interpretation of the Mad Hatter as a camp rag doll is strained … The pseudo-feminist tactic of transforming Wasikowska into a warrior princess is an outright betrayal of Carroll, who missed no opportunity to portray armed conflict as futile and absurd.” ***

Thriller-drama about Clyde Shelton, whose family is killed by criminals. But after a bargain is made and the killers are set free this everyday man takes justice into his own hands, spending 10 years planning an elaborate revenge against the system.

The Rolling Stone, Peter Travers: “Many of you won’t see any reason to bitch about a savage revenge drama that keeps the bodies piling up. As a DVD rental to watch while scarfing pizza and beer, there’s not much to complain about either. But Law Abiding Citizen is out there charging top dollar at the multiplex. And for what? An exercise in illogic and Death Wish cribbing that lets a bunch of good actors collect big pay cheques for playing way less than their A game … Director F. Gary Gray (Friday, The Italian Job) keeps splashing the screen with gore so the out-for-blood crowd will lap it up. But, jeez, did the ‘surprise’ climax have to be this eye-rollingly stupid.” **

Screen Rant, Vic Holtreman: “ ... a satisfying (and at times funny) revenge movie that unfortunately loses its way in the last 20 minutes … Gerard Butler as Clyde Shelton, loving father and husband (established quite effectively in just the first couple of minutes of the film) up against Jamie Foxx as prosecutor Nick Rice in a game of psychological cat and mouse … The movie is very violent, at times quite funny (Gerard gets some great lines that had the audience laughing out loud) and has at least one scene that comes at you out of nowhere with a hell of a punch … The ending seals the deal and really left me pretty cold (unfortunately). So while the ending is pretty unsatisfying, I had a lot of fun for most of the movie. So overall if you’re into this sort of film and you’re a fan of Gerard Butler and/or Jamie Foxx I recommend Law Abiding Citizen.” ***

The Daily Telegraph, Sukhdev Sandhu: “ … gutted of any semblance of drama, wit, sense or originality … It is full of banal, ponderous utterances … that signal its desire to be seen as some kind of morality tale. But this is pure hypocrisy. F Gary Gray … wants us to think of Shelton as a righteous figure, an embodiment of human decency in a world of cant and dishonour. Yet the man is clearly a psychopath … Fans of Gerard Butler will no doubt appreciate a shot of him standing naked … Everyone else will likely be incredulous at his ability here to turn in an even worse performance than he did in Gamer. Presented as … someone whose combination of brainpower and technological savvy is meant to make him smarter than the FBI and Homeland Security combined, he comes across as a man who would struggle to read without moving his lips … Throughout, he exudes the charisma of a corrugated shed.” *

Epic historical Russian war romance telling the story of Aleksandr Kolchak, one of the White Army’s most controversial commanders and his Dr Zhivago-type romance.

Eye For Film, Amber Wilkinson: “Never pre-judge a DVD by its cover … this is a sweeping epic, which is more concerned with the battleground of the heart … Although none of the film is shot in soft focus, it feels as though it is … The use of CGI … is patently fake … Meanwhile the swelling score is frequently overpowering, meaning those moments when the music subsides hold the best of the drama. The film stirred up something of a controversy in Russia because of what some see as the ‘rehabilitation’ of Kolchak, whom many historians view in a much less sympathetic light than that shown here … If you like epic romances such as Dr Zhivago, this provides a decent story of will they/won’t they love, although it’s all rather U certificate. Heaving bosoms, hand-kissing and not even the merest suggestion of nookie, make it all distinctly conservative.” ***

The Independent, Toby Green: “This lavish historical romance is based on the life of the Russian officer Aleksandr Kolchak, the ‘Admiral’ of the title, a man who has not gone down in the history books with a fantastic reputation. The film attempts to change this, turning him into a war hero who fights a noble but doomed battle against the forces of Communism. In-between battling the Germans and then the Red Army, he falls in love with the wife of another officer. With a reported budget of $20m, it is the most expensive Russian film ever made, and the investment shows. The period costumes are impressive, as are the special-effects. Unfortunately, the love story seems rather bland considering the mass historical shifts occurring at the time, drifting into melodrama.”

Variety, Leslie Felprin: “ ... war-film-cum-love-story The Admiral reps a staunchly old-fashioned epic, conservative in every sense … Given the current belligerent, nationalistic climate in Russia, it’s no surprise the pic’s been a boffo hit domestically, but export potential looks negligible … Strictly as a film, however, Admiral is entertaining enough in a retro Doctor Zhivago/War and Peace sort of way, with its big set-pieces, lavish costumes and string-laden orchestral score. For all intents and purposes, [the] pic reps a virtual mirror-image of those old patriotic Soviet-era movies wherein the Reds were the heroes and the White Army the baddies.”