Check out what's showing at cinemas across the region this month...

THE BATMAN - CERT 15 (176 mins)
Released Fri 4 March
Starring Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Barry Keoghan, Peter Sarsgaard, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano 
Directed by Matt Reeves

Gotham’s vigilante detective here makes a welcome return to the city’s mean streets to battle against a sadistic killer - and suddenly finds himself in a criminal underworld inhabited by some familiar adversaries...

Robert Pattinson is the latest actor to don the cape & cowl, replacing Ben Affleck, who left the project in 2019 having previously made four film appearances as the Dark Knight (Affleck also plays the character in the upcoming Flash movie). 

By and large, Batman movies down the decades have pretty much held their own in the quality stakes -  although 1997’s Batman & Robin did get a super-severe slamming - so this latest offering is eagerly anticipated by critics and moviegoers alike. 

Planet Of The Apes director Matt Reeves is the man at the helm, with Paul Dano, Zoë Kravitz and Colin Farrell playing the Riddler, Catwoman and the Penguin respectively. 

THE ADAM PROJECT 
Released on Netflix Fri 11 March
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Zoe Saldana, Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Catherine Keener
Directed by Shawn Levy

The wounded pilot who 13-year-old Adam Reed finds hiding in the garage turns out to be the older version of himself. 

Adam Senior is visiting from the future - where time travel is in its infancy - to fulfill a secret mission and save the world. 

The two Adams then team up for an adventure into their past to find their father. Adding to the challenge of the mission, they discover that they really don’t like each other very much. It soon becomes apparent that if they’re going to save the world, they’ll first have to figure out how to get along...

The Adam Project is the second movie that Shawn Levy has directed with Ryan Reynolds in the lead role. The pair previously worked together on video-game spoof Free Guy, which was released in 2020.   

OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE - CERT tbc
Released Fri 18 March
Starring Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Hugh Grant, Cary Elwes, Eddie Marsan 
Directed by Guy Ritchie

Super-spy Orson Fortune must track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology wielded by billionaire arms broker Greg Simmonds. 
Reluctantly teamed with some of the world’s best operatives, Fortune recruits Hollywood’s biggest movie star, Danny Francesco, to help out with his globe-trotting undercover mission to save the world...

The alpha-male macho-movie ‘dream team’ of Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham come together for a fifth time in this action spy comedy thriller co-starring Hugh Grant. 

Just for the record, Ritchie and Statham previously worked together - to excellent effect, it should be added - on: Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch; Revolver; and last year’s Wrath Of Man.

ALICE - CERT tbc (100 mins)
Released Fri 18 March
Starring Keke Palmer, Common, Alicia Witt, Jonny Lee Miller, Gaius Charles, Katie Gill 
Directed by Krystin Ver Linden

Alice finds the titular character yearning for freedom from enslavement on a rural Georgia plantation run by a brutal and disturbed owner. After a violent clash with him, she flees through the neighbouring woods and discovers the world to be a very different place from the one that she’s known. It’s 1973, and plantation slavery is definitely not the order of the day. 

Rescued on the roadside by a disillusioned political activist - and quickly comprehending the lies that have kept her in bondage - Alice embarks on a journey that teaches her plenty about the promise of Black liberation...

Apparently inspired by true accounts and being promoted as a modern empowerment fable, the film stirred a considerable reaction at this year’s Sundance Festival. 

THE UNBREAKABLE BOY - CERT tbc 
Released Fri 18 March
Starring Jacob Laval, Zachary Levi, Amy Acker, Peter Facinelli, Patricia Heaton, Meghann Fahy 
Directed by Jon Gunn

With a rare brittle-bone disease and a one-of-a-kind brain, autistic Austin is no ordinary kid. But although life can be challenging in the extreme for him, he nevertheless meets every problem with a joyous, funny and refreshingly life-affirming worldview. 

His positive approach is positively contagious, uniting and transforming everybody around him - especially his dad, Scott, who comes to see his son not as a symbol of something broken but rather as the epitome of an indestructible spirit. 

Based on the 2014 book by Scott M LeRette with Susy Flory.

X - CERT tbc 
Released Fri 18 March
Starring Jenna Ortega, Mia Goth, Brittany Snow, Martin Henderson, Kid Cudi, Owen Campbell
Directed by Ti West

In rural Texas in 1979 a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult movie called The Farmer’s Daughter. But when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the young creatives suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives...

Inevitably, given its ‘slasher pic’ genre, this retro offering is not for the fainthearted. Expect bloody violence and gore, strong sexual content, graphic nudity, scenes of drug use, and the kind of language that would probably have seen Texan grannies of the era suggesting that the characters washed out their mouths with soap and water.

TURNING RED - CERT tbc 
Released on Disney+ on Fri 11 March
With the voices of Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, James Hong, Sasha Roiz, Jordan Fisher, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan
Directed by Domee Shin

Adolescence can be tricky at the best of times - but for confident and dorky Mei Lee, it’s got the potential to become an absolute nightmare. For starters, she’s got a protective and somewhat overbearing mother, whose close proximity is making being a teenager even tougher than it might otherwise be. And then there’s the fact that whenever Mei Lee gets too excited - which is practically always - she turns into a giant red panda!...
Killing Eve star Sandra Oh voices the character of Mei Lee’s mom, Ming, in a movie which Disney has decided to premiere via its streaming service. The company has cited the increase in Covid cases, due to the Omicron variant, and the sluggish recovery of the cinema box-office as its reasons for debuting the film on Disney Plus.