Ninja Assassin is an abysmal car crash of a movie, not even redeemed by its semi-slick and overly-repetitious fight scenes. Jeong Ji-hoon, AKA Rain, gurns and grunts his way through this daft revenge fantasy as Raizo, a trained-from-childhood ninja who becomes disillusioned with his taskmasters’ shady dealings and harsh discipline. The Wachowski brothers once more prove themselves as a laughing stock, a one-trick-pony whose sell by date expired at the precise moment the first Matrix film ended. With any luck, this dreck will be the last we see of ’em, and good riddance.

Captain America is coming to our screens! Joe Johnston, the man responsible (and we use the world “responsible” in the same sense as when we say “Stalin was responsible for some pretty awful stuff”) for films such as Jurassic Park III, The Rocketeer and Hidalgo reveals he’ll be helming 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger and the upcoming Jurassic Park IV.

After the stunner that was Spider-Man 2 (in our humble opinion one of the best superhero films ever made), Spidey 3 certainly had a weight of expectation against it. And unfortunately, it’s not really the send-off the franchise – not the mention the considerable talents of Maguire, Dunst, Raimi et al – deserved.

It’s not good news for fans of the webhead. After rumblings around the net seemed to suggest that trouble was brewing for the fourth instalment of the ever-popular Spider-Man franchise, it’s now been revelead that the whole project is in danger of collapsing totally and – perhaps – irrevocably.

After the surprising success of the first St. Trinian’s reboot in 2007, a sequel was always a risky proposition: will it surpass the original and cement the franchise as a bona fide modern classic or sully the occasional chuckles of the original and sink the whole thing.

The buzz around Avatar has been almost unprecedented – James Cameron’s long-awaited return to sci-fi has been panned, praised and everything in between even before it was released. Approaching Avatar with an open mind, we discovered one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful and immersive films of recent years.

No – scratch that. One of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful and immersive films ever released.

Hollywood screenwriter Dan O’Bannon has died in an LA hospital following a short illness. He was 63.

You can always judge a film (well, nominally, at any rate) by the quality of its source material. Cherishing our cynicism as we do at BestForFilm, a film based on a line of chunky, over-muscled action figures doesn’t exactly have us pre-booking our tickets. As it turns out, our cynicism is – once again – justified.

At least, not always. Films that studios allocate ridiculously bloated publicity budgets to are not always likely to be showered in glowing reviews and critical acclaim. Here we chronicle 2009’s most hyped films, some of which delivered and some that blew up in the studios’ faces big time.

If someone offered you a million dollars with the knowledge that if you took it, someone you don’t know would die, would you accept? This is the interesting central question..