As for the action, Red Cliff shows once again that when he’s working at the top of his game there is no better maestro of this sort of thing than John Woo.

This is the real deal in action theatrics, Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker a pulse-pounding dynamo that puts all of Hollywood’s meager Summer 2009 offerings to immediate shame.

This new Hulk might have its moments and the character might still have his angry superpowers, but that doesn’t make the film anything close to incredible.

Not to say that this inaugural adventure of Iron Man soars very high, but it does get off the ground, and as far as first chapters in what is sure to be an ongoing story is concerned, at least for right now that’s going to have to be enough.

Aliens versus Predator: Requiem is a bad movie.

Resident Evil: Extinction is an old-fashioned, soda-slurping, popcorn-munching, R-rated good time and, the last time I checked, the laws against that sort of thing happily registered between zero and none.

In what has become known as the “Summer of Sequels,” Universal Pictures, director Greengrass and star Damon have thankfully saved the very best for last, The Bourne Ultimatum a knock-out stunner I’ve been waiting since May to see.

300 is a bruising, battering, visually resplendent caterwaul of an action-adventure, and I imagine the fighting men and women it celebrates probably wouldn’t have had their story told any other way.

V for Vendetta is a bold, unflinching portrait of a world viewers might not want to look at too closely. It is a place where the sights and sounds are so harsh and hard they make some cringe and weep for all they’ve suffered and lost.