Though my calendar insisted it was summer, each time I peered through my window all I saw was rain and white sky. These days you can't swing a cat without hitting someone who'll warn you of the dangers of global warming, but where was the warmth? Cold but humid doesn't count, and it should take more than hellishly high pollen levels to qualify a season as summer. The world may be going to hell, but apparently England is furthest from the flames. Not that the crummy weather really affected me personally as I spent most of my time at the movies. Obviously many of the films I saw were awful, but I still reckon it's safer to plan a trip to the cinema than a picnic.

RocknRolla (15)
Just so you know where I'm coming from regarding RocknRolla, I'll tell you right now, I don't like Guy Ritchie. Not him, his beliefs, his films or his wife. Incidentally, in the spirit of Bennifer, TomKat and Brangelina, I was thinking we should start calling this most annoying of all celeb pairings Maditchie (pronounced mad-itchy). Don't you think it suits them?

Anyway, back to Guy. Like everyone else, I thought Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels showed promise. Here was a British director who obviously borrowed too much from Scorsese and Tarantino, but it was a strong first film with lots of personality and seemed loaded with potential. How wrong we were. Rather than heralding a new talent, Lock Stock instead represented everything that Ritchie had inside, and with the single exception of the nightmarishly awful Swept Away, every movie he's made since has been little more than a dead-eyed, lame-brained carbon copy of the first. The same tone, plot, characters, dialogue, pace, soundtrack... all he appears capable of is remaking the same movie, over and over again. And if you take the time to go back and check out Lock Stock, the funny thing is, it's not even that good, as if it's been retroactively ruined by all the dross that came after.

That said, RocknRolla, a violent but light-hearted ensemble crime thriller, is probably his best movie to date, which is to say, it's the best version of Lock Stock he's made so far. Certainly, it's smug, pretentious and entirely predictable, but in spite of my feelings for Ritchie and his movies, I have to admit I didn't hate it. Actually, I quite liked it, and that's the hardest thing I've ever had to admit as a film critic.

Disaster Movie (12A)
From the writers of the Spy Hard and Scary Movie movies, and the writer/directors of Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans, none of which were very good, by which I mean they're among the worst spoofs ever made, by which I mean after seeing them I wished I'd clawed my eyes out and filled my ears with cement instead, comes Disaster Movie, a film that is every bit as cheap, lazy, lowbrow, desperate, uninspired and humour-free as all the others. Essentially, it's the movie equivalent of Rohypnol, because it sends you to sleep and later, when you stir from your slumber, you feel violated.

A filmmaking partnership dedicated to making fun of films that they don't have the talent to make themselves, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are laughing all the way to the bank, but surely they're the only ones laughing. I guess because their movies only cost about 50p each to produce, they can't help but make a profit and that's why they keep getting made. What I can't explain is why anyone continues to see them, unless they've started screening films in mental hospitals and I just haven't heard about that yet.

If you're one of the few considering going to see this, I'm begging you to stop encouraging Friedberg and Seltzer. If the world had an IQ, every time one of their movies came out it would drop a point. Their reign of terror must end. So when Disaster Movie escapes on September 5, please avoid, avoid, avoid, and not just like the plague, but like all the plagues put together with a topping of rotten eggs.

The Duchess (12A)
Calling all Keira Knightley fans: you both have a treat in store. Seriously though, I rather liked The Duchess, even though, like most period dramas, it's about people whose miseries would cease if they only had the courage to stop being so flipping polite. It's a frustrating genre, but a popular one with people who crave escape from summer blockbusters full of car chases, explosions and fun.

Knightley takes the lead as an 18th Century aristocrat and proto-celebrity trapped in a loveless triangle between her rotter of a husband (Ralph Fiennes) and his duplicitous mistress (the lovely Hayley Atwell). It's a leisurely affair but never dull, an efficient tear-jerker laced with doom and gloom, and very well played by all, even Knightley.

Check back with us when the movie meanders into the realms of home cinema for interviews with Dame Keira herself, co-stars Atwell and Dominic Cooper, and director Saul Dibb. "During the sex scene I was luckily fully clothed," reveals Knightley, "but he [Dominic] had to wear a skin-coloured nappy. I couldn't stop laughing."

Bangkok Dangerous (18)
Filmmaking twins Oxide and Danny Pang deliver a lacklustre, English-language remake of their earlier Thai hit of the same name, released in 1999 and don't worry if you missed it because it wasn't particularly good. The visuals were decent, as they are in the remake, but in terms of plot, pace, characterisation and performance, both are equally mundane.

Originally the tale of a deaf-mute hitman, this new and rather more action-packed version stars the increasingly cadaverous Nicolas Cage as an assassin who can see and hear just fine, but falls in love with a girl who can't. In cinemas from September 5, it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it, take-it-or-leave-it, best-viewed-on-booze sort of movie better suited to the small screen.

Eden Lake (18)
A moderately effective British horror thriller with a mile-wide nasty streak, September 12's Eden Lake comes from debut director James Watkins, best known previously for scripting My Little Eye. A couple on a romantic getaway are menaced by a gang of young toughs, and that's pretty much the entire plot of this gruelling little feature.

Though I wouldn't dismiss it as easily as the Hostel movies, there's an element of torture porn here that really put me off. Salacious and voyeuristic, it's a feelbad flick designed to exploit and magnify the public's growing fear of young offenders. Though it's not a bad film, and I'm far from a wimp when it comes to horror movies, really I didn't like it at all.

Pineapple Express (15)
I couldn't have been more excited to see Pineapple Express (released September 12) produced by the great Judd Apatow (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers.) with a screenplay by Superbad's Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg. The story of a stoner (Rogen) who goes on the run with his dealer (Spider-Man's James Franco) after witnessing a murder, it's a violent, bloody action movie and hilariously funny too, spiked to the gills with laid-back druggie humour and several solid gold comic performances, most notably from Franco, who steals the show, has never been better, and should only make comedies from this point on. As good as I hoped this movie would be, it's even better.

Come back and see me in a couple of weeks, when I'll be having my say about a fresh batch of films, including Ben Stiller action comedy Tropic Thunder, Jason Statham bloodfest Death Race, Liam Neeson's Taken and De Niro/Pacino crime drama Righteous Kill.

Until then, I'll see you at the movies!

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At the Cinema

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