The 11th Hour
The film of Al Gore’s lecture tour about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, undeniably put the issue out there. The 11th Hour develops that theme, but instead of one lecturer it has several talking heads. Their comments are intercut with shots of what climate change is doing to the planet. The film is presented by Leonardo DiCaprio, which should at least spread the message to young women. Depending on how many pictures of dead fish you can stand, this is an informative but inevitably depressing update on the situation. Yet, as George Monbiot points out, we seem paralysed and unable to act. When do we ban air travel and beef-farming, or at least make them so expensive that they decline as industries? Or do we just wait patiently for our species to render itself extinct? — Shaun de Waal
The Heartbreak Kid
The Farrelly brothers are back with their most satisfying comedy in a long while. Breaking out the bad taste and the political incorrectness in generous measure, they keep the laughs coming. It’s a cheerfully immature reworking of the 1972 movie scripted by Neil Simon and directed by Elaine May: a regular guy (Ben Stiller) finds his soulmate (Michelle Monaghan) while on honeymoon — having married someone else. There are no awards here for profundity, and some of the bad-taste stuff is pretty stomach-turning. But you certainly get hosed down with a stream of gags — of, erm, varying sorts. This, as they say, is professional showbusiness comedy. — PB