The Guard (2011)

Brendan Gleeson's comic timing is nothing new, but in The Guard he truly shows his abilities to deliver a deadpan line and make the audience roar with laughter. There were plenty of laughters yesterday at the cinema as Gleeson's smart-or-dumb Garda delivers one racist joke after another. The characters that crowd his small world try too hard to keep up with him, but he takes the film away and carries it on his broad shoulders.

Yet, something is amiss ... and that's the story. Despite the jokes, Gleeson's performance and the idyllic (and rainy) Irish setting doesn't make this more than a TV movie that is a little above average.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Tony Stark - the trillionaire suave genius who came up with the Iron Man suit in the first instalment of this unikely franchise. He continues in the same vein with the second film, directed with great maturity by Jon Favreau. All the major (and some minor) characters return from the first film and we have added bits and pieces that are quite meaty. Is it any good, though? Well ...