Need For Speed (out Mar 13) is about a group of street racers who love to endanger the lives of others. The cinematography & stunts are terrific but the screenwriters have framed this as a “good versus bad” story when it should have been a “bad versus bad story”. It doesn't work. We're left with a film that has no moral compass. Grade: C.

Monuments Men (out Mar 13) is based on the true story of a group of soldiers who helped recover stolen art from the Germans near the end of World War II. It's an interesting tale... but it's not told particularly well. There are too many characters, too many subplots. The film's tone also feels overly light. Great cast though. Grade: B-.

300: Rise Of An Empire (out Mar 6) is hard to get excited about. After a messy opening half hour (where the story is introduced), it becomes a standard action film complete with obvious special effects, tiring slow-mo camerawork, and several kilolitres of fake blood. Grade: C+.

Vampire Academy (out Mar 6) has good vampires, bad vampires and some kind of college thingy. The opening is ridiculously rushed. It's as if the editor was given 3 hours of footage and asked to cut 50% from each individual scene. The film starts to hit its stride in the second half but the distance is too far to make up. Grade: C+.

Tracks (out Mar 6) is the interesting true story of Australian Robyn Davidson and her 1977 trek from Alice Springs to the west coast of Australia. It’s a touch sluggish and it’s not easy getting inside Robyn’s head but there are some key sequences (such as her interaction with an Indigenous elder) that will connect with audiences. Grade: B+.

The Wind Rises (out now) looks like being the last animated feature of acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki and centres on an aerospace engineering designing fighter planes for the Japanese prior to World War II. I was a little disappointed by this. The animation is delightful but the story is repetitive and the characters lack charm. Grade: B-.

3 Days To Kill (out now) is a sloppy thriller about a professional hit man trying to do one last job in Paris while spending quality time with his teenage daughter. When it tries to be a comedy, there aren't many laughs. When it tries to be a drama, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Grade: C.

All Is Lost (out Mar 6) stars Robert Redford and that’s it. You won’t see another person on screen throughout the entire movie. It's the tale of an experienced sailor who strikes trouble on his small yacht in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The lack of dialogue will be a turn-off for some but I think it's a terrific film both technically (sound, cinematography, music) and emotionally (thanks to Redford's great performance). Grade: A-.

Non-Stop (out Feb 27) follows an alcoholic air marshal on board a flight hijacked by an unknown passenger. The story is unrealistic trash… but it held my attention for longer than I expected. That's partly because of the intriguing set up (I like the idea) and partly because Liam Neeson has created another compelling, likeable protagonist. Grade: B.

Gloria (out Feb 27) doesn’t contain a lot of story but it makes up for it with an abundance of character. We observe a 50-something-year old divorced woman and follow her search for happiness. Paulina García won the best actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival and it's easy to see why. Grade: B+.