Dear Friend. In her first leading role outside the castle walls of Hogwarts (though strangely, still in the 90s), Emma Watson turns American adolescent as she welcomes you to the island of misfit toys. If you’re still reading and not too busy cringing your face inside out, you might find a lot to like in Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

A year on from the events of Taken, Bryan Mills (Neeson) had hoped to retire in peace but when he and his wife are kidnapped by a gang looking to exact revenge, he is forced to re-employ the very particular set of skills which saw Taken become such a a cult hit. Taken 2 is a pretty generic action film with none of the brutality or vibrancy of its predecessor but it has enough spectacle to ensure that cinemas will still get a significant number of bums on seats.

With his indie credentials firmly established by neo-noir debut Brick and talents further supported by 2008’s The Brothers Bloom, writer-director Rian Johnson returns with his take on the sci-fi genre. A time travel chase film injected with both an underlying sense of moral precariousness and welcome comic relief, the set-up isn’t new, but the delivery certainly is. With Johnson deftly combining influences alongside his own discernible flair, Looper may call-back to cinema’s past, but its own modernity is never in question.

Having escaped the horrors of Martha Marcy May Marlene and Silent House, The Good Olsen changes lanes for this, the latest film from festival darling Josh Radnor. A celebration of the encounters, life-lessons and serendipitous moments that comprise university life, the film will inevitably appeal to some more than others.

Hit and Run may not be the funniest comedy you’ll ever see – it’s probably not the funniest comedy you’ll see this year – but it has something that lots of similarly knock-about comic adventures seem to forget to include; it’s actually likable.

While critically condemned, the Resident Evil franchise has nevertheless achieved considerable commercial success and enjoyed a wide audience. That’s all likely to change after Resident Evil: Retribution, a film so laughably incapable, so shamelessly derivative and so woefully unengaging that it’ll likely succeed where its zombie antagonists have failed… in mortally wounding Milla Jovovich’s Alice.

Vogue‘s most intriguing editor-in-chief, Diana Vreeland, was the sort of person who said things like ‘never fear being vulgar; just boring’ and genuinely meant them. Exploding from the pages of vintage issues of Harper’s Bazaar onto the contemporary big screen in a cacophony of castanets and razor-sharp witticisms, one of fashion’s most inimitable superstars comes forward to take a bow in a sensitive, graceful and indeed, never boring documentary created by her granddaughter-in-law Lisa Immordino Vreeland.

Taking influences and inspiration from any number of different films, Tower Block manages to weave them together into a crafty, claustrophobic thriller that continues a recent resurgence in hugely successful British B-Movies.

A historical comedy telling of how the vibrator was originally invented for a perceived medical purpose, Hysteria’s story may find its roots in an era less advanced than our own, but with “haven’t we come far” serving essentially as both the film’s plot and its only joke, any sense of modern sophistication soon gets old fast. After all, if the prospect of an overweight Italian lady bursting into operatic song whilst climaxing on a doctor’s table can be billed as the peak of 21st Century hilarity, it seems society still has a long way to go.

Killing Them Softly is a strange cocktail of unusually thoughtful gangsters, stylized violence and unsubtle political satire. If you can get past the wanky title, viewers may be pleasantly surprised by its thoughtful approach to grizzly topics but it is by no means the film it has been marketed to be. Think The New World with more guns.