SEX AND THE CITY 2 **
Dir: Michael Patrick King (15, 111mins)
The girls are back! Great, isn’t it? This time, however, the long-faced Sarah Jessica Parker is married to Mr Big and married ennui has set in. What shall the girls do then? Go to Abu Dhabi! Yes, it’s Sex And The City go abroad, a fairly lame concept for a sequel, but no doubt popular. Kim Cattrall is still doing the sex loads, Cynthia Nixon has ginger children, Kristin Davis also has kids and they just want a break from their humdrum, handbag-buying lives. Off they go for a week of even more decadence and riding on camels, but – OMG – Carrie runs into old flame Aidan, and likes how it feels. Is her marriage in jeopardy? Is anybody actually worried? High-class glossy fluff with a smattering of celebrity cameos from the likes of Liza Minnelli, Miley Cyrus and Penelope Cruz, Sex And The City 2 is more of the same for those who like that sort of thing. The first film felt as if it was an unnecessary add-on to the TV series, and this is the same. The sparkle is fading, but check out those shoes! Opens May 27
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ***
Dir: Samuel Bayer (18, 102mins)
Freddy Krueger, the stripy-sweatered, razor-fingered hideously burned serial killer is back in another re-imagining from Michael Bay’s horror remake division. This slice of genre laziness could actually reap more rewards than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre revamp, however. Admittedly, there are a cross-section of good looking teens to be offed, but Freddy himself is now played by the excellent Jackie Earle (Haley Rorschach from Watchmen). In the original 1984 film, Wes Craven created a horror icon that unfortunately became increasingly diluted and less scary with every subsequent celluloid Nightmare. The empty campness of Robert Englund’s 90s Freddy has been banished for something rawer and scarier. The premise remains horrific: Freddy invades people’s dreams and kills them, making the teens desperate not to snooze. The cast includes Katie Cassidy, the TV Terminator’s Thomas Dekker and Twilight’s Kellan Lutz. Director Bayer, a veteran of music videos, will provide the sheen, and the scares should come courtesy of the creepy Haley. One, two, Freddy is coming for you… Opens May 7
THE BACK UP PLAN **
Dir: Alan Poul (12A, 90 mins)
Jennifer Lopez returns to the celluloid block, with, yes, a predictable romantic comedy! Did she learn nothing from Maid In Manhattan? Here Jen is desperate to be a Mum, but she has no man in her life, so, she resorts to her back-up plan: artificial insemination. After her appointment, however, she meets the man of her dreams, the sixpacked Alex O’Loughlin. He’s the one, but now she’s pregnant – with twins! How will her new beau react? Will Jen be able to tell him and keep him? Will there be another joke with a small dog on wheels? Yes, in answer to all of these questions. Blandly amusing and feelgood, this has birthing pool jokes, morning sickness jokes and lots of stuff you’ve seen before, with the occasional sassy line breaking through courtesy of Will And Grace scriptwriter Karen Angelo. Lopez is fine, but this Back Up Plan is humdrum rather than hilarious. Opens May 7
BAD LIEUTENANT ****
Dir: Werner Herzog (18, 122 mins)
Nicolas Cage is back on barking form in this manic, luna- tic thriller that unites him with equally unhinged director Werner Herzog. Set in a hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, Cage plays good cop Terence McDonagh, suffering from back pain thanks to a rare act of charity, and spiral- ling very quickly into a crack habit. Eva Mendes is his prostitute girlfriend, sucking him deeper into the seedy underworld. He owes money to bookie Brad Dourif and is hoovering up drugs, hallucinating iguanas and bashing grannies. It is blisteringly extreme, and often preposter- ous, with Herzog gleefully skewing cop film expectations. The operatic excesses work, however, thanks to Cage’s fantastic performance. Val Kilmer and Fairuza Balk provide support but this is Cage’s eye-bulging show, and Herzog allows him full rein. He hasn’t been this manic since Face/Off, and the film is ludicrously entertaining because of him. Opens May 21
HOT TUB TIME MACHINE ***
Dir: Steve Pink (15, 101mins)
John Cusack dips his toes in the jacuzzi of lowbrow comedy for the first time since the 80s, playing a washed-up forty-something transported back to the, er, 80s, by a wormhole-enhanced whirlpool. A Hangover- esque combo of likeable if crude mates, Cusack, Rob Corddry’s disturbed hedonist and put-upon weak-willed Craig Robinson escape their lives for a weekend at a ski resort, together with Cusack’s dweeby nephew, played by Clark Duke. They find themselves back in 1986, when all their midlife problems first started, and attempt to alter the fabric of time with projectile vomit and 80s heavy retro laughs. Fantastically, Chevy Chase also turns up – remember him? Director Pink and various screenwriters keep things loud and unsubtle, but thankfully Cusack, Corddry and Robinson rise above some of the more risible material. Brash, crude, but nevertheless sporadically very amusing, Hot Tub Time Machine provides plenty of
bubbles. Opens May 7
in this dance-a-thon with that bloke off Britain’s Got Talent George Sampson – oh, and that other lot from Britain’s Got Talent, Diversity. Dancing like it’s comin’ atcha! REC 2 (18) More Spanish zombies in the sequel to the very scary original. SPACE CHIMPS 2 (PG) Another sequel you might find yourself not having time for. But for fans of CGI primates in astronaut suits, quids in! THE TOOTH FAIRY (PG) The Rock is a Tooth Fairy. That’s all you need to know. Oh, and Stephen Merchant is in it..
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