Oh. Dear.

There are some films that are so bad, they’re good…. This isn’t one of them. The writing team should be ashamed of themselves. You can almost see Nicolas Cage and Sean Bean cringing with embarrassment as they chew through their interminably dull, and impossibly contrived lines in the first half hour. Does “show, don’t tell” mean nothing to screenwriters these days? Gaahh. At least there’s less talking and more action in the rest of the film.

Plot-wise, the parallels between National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code are obvious. The heroes follow a trail of clues to an ancient treasure, all the while pursued by rival treasure-hunters, and the FBI, who think that the heroes are the bad guys. The big difference between The Da Vinci Code and this film is equally clear: Dan Brown’s book is an entertaining thriller, whereas National Treasure is just a stupid piece of crap.

Australian comedies often display a certain sense of humour that, to the unaccustomed eye, can come across as plain silliness. Most modern Hollywood and British (romantic) comedies try to be quite serious about their humour; filmmakers want you to appreciate their jokes as well as just laugh at them. So it usually takes me a few minutes to change gears whenever I watch an Australian comedy. At first, the lack of pretentiousness strikes me as somewhat immature. It’s only after the first few scenes that I start appreciating it for what it is: plain, honest, and easygoing.

Danny Deckchair is just like this. It starts off a bit silly, with eternal daydreamer Danny Morgan becoming so frustrated with his life and his girlfriend that he implements one of his hare-brained ideas: to see how many helium ballons it takes to lift him and his lawn chair into the sky. And he really does get carried away.

But once the opening act is over, the film gives way to a sweet love story, and a heart-warming tale about finding yourself and following your dreams. I had never really pictured Rhys Ifans as a romantic lead, but opposite Miranda Otto he really shines with an innocent, playful quality that is totally endearing. It’s definitely worth a look.

Ah, forget it. I was going to write about the quality of the animation, how the story cleverly draws on and extends themes from the superhero genre, the sharpness of the script, the utterly masterful direction, and voice work that probably deserves an Oscar all of its own… but it’s just too much. There are few films this year that can touch The Incredibles for its blockbuster combination of energy, emotion, action, and sheer fun. And diving beneath the surface splendour, it shows the kind of filmmaking skill, depth, and maturity that few films ever attain. It’s simply a great film.

Alfred Kinsey is the man who almost single-handedly revolutionised sexual research in the late 1940s and early 50s. With his exhaustive studies of human sexual behaviour, not only did he bring some hard data to a field previously dominated by anecdote and prudish superstition, but his reports also became mainstream bestsellers, and are given credit for kick-starting the sexual openness and freedom of the latter half of the 20th century.

Kinsey is a look at the life of this unusual, shy, and highly driven man. Liam Neeson takes the title role, with Laura Linney playing his wife Clara. Their relationship, and Kinsey’s research form the core of the story, with Kinsey’s close friend and research associate Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgaard) weaving the two threads tightly together. The screenplay takes great delight in juxtaposing sweet romantic innocence and 1940s attitudes with unflinching sexual frankness, to both humorous and sympathetic effect. It’s a warm, informative, and above all joyful film.

Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck) is a reverse engineer. He takes pieces of intricate technology, figures out how they work, and rebuilds them from the ground up. Companies pay him highly for this skill, but they also require him to erase his memory of the time he was working for them. For his latest job, he commits to a three-year contract in return for a paycheck that would make him rich. But when he comes out of the contract, he finds that his reward consists of an nothing more than envelope full of cheap trinkets that he apparently mailed to himself a few weeks earlier–a time he no longer remembers. And the FBI are hunting him on suspicion of treason…

A worthy Philip K. Dick movie should be both playful and paranoid. Paycheck uses traditional Dickian themes of memory and identity to weave an exciting story about Jennings’ race to figure out why he sent himself that envelope, and what the objects inside mean. The overall plot may be predictable, but it is tremendous fun to watch all the little details slide neatly into place.

I’ve struggled to decide whether to give Collateral five stars or just four and a half. On the one hand, it’s a nearly flawless thriller. On the other hand, would I really describe it as an all-time great? Michael Mann is clearly at the top of his game, directing the action with cool grace when the mood requires it, and with clinical precision in the action sequences. Some of the intense close-up camera work brings new new meaning to the term “in your face”, while other scenes act as a moving poetic tribute to loneliness in the heart of the City. Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx both shine in their roles, and none of the supporting cast put a foot wrong. It’s one of the very best films I’ve seen this year…but I think it stops just short of being seminal–the kind of film that will stand out as a landmark in years to come. So, four and a half it is.