IRON MAN 2 ****
Dir: Jon Favreau. Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke

It would be nice to report that Iron Man 2, like the second X-Men film, tops the flying tin can's initial outing with a bigger budget and greater scope. But it's not true. However, if you feel a slight sense of anti-climax after the immaculate origin story then rest assured there is still much to enjoy here.
And it could have all gone horribly wrong. There are moments that veer towards the Spiderman 3 train wreck of trying to shoehorn in ever more extraneous characters and plotlines. As it is, the basic cast is now minus Jeff Bridges but 'compensates” with the addition of Scartlett Johansson, evil industrialist Sam Rockwell, mean senator Garry Shandling and Samuel L Jackson, who seems to have wandered in from a whole different film, and indeed has, as he is present solely to set up some massed superhero offering in the future.
The big attraction though is Mickey Rourke as the new villain and he is in splendid form. In fact, the main problem with the film is that the early Monaco speedway confrontation is so good that the actual climax feels limp in comparison. Mainly because where the former features actors and actual tension, the latter assumes incorrectly that if two iron suits fighting is fun then thirty will be thirty times as much fun.
Elsewhere, Downey and Paltrow's dialogue sparkles, Rockwell gets to do his signature dance (as he does in every movie) and the only real mis-step (aside from forcing Jackson into the film) is Don Cheadle replacing Terence Howard in the best friend role. Normally excellent, here Cheadle just appears uncomfortable.

In Fish Tank (****) Mia (Katie Jarvis) is a stroppy violent 15 year old living on a rugged London council estate. Her combative sulky life is interrupted by the arrival of Connor (Michael Fassbender) her rather awful mother's new boyfriend. Complications naturally ensue as Mia's ambiguous relationship with the handsome new stranger develops. Andrea Arnold was marked as a director to watch for after her debut thriller, Red Road, and here delivers a complex and engrossing relationship drama with the characters and location expertly realised. Great performances from both the leads add to a film that slowly draws you into a slice of working class life that is laced with humour and touching reality and makes its slight story totally absorbing.

I quite enjoyed Zombies of Mass Destruction (***). The zombie comedy-horror genre has been done to death recently so expecting anything particularly original after Zombieland, Doghouse and so many others would be pointless. This at least has a slightly different spin on proceedings, adding a vaguely nuanced political subtext to proceedings since the three heroes are two gay guys and a half-Iranian girl. Jokes about people mistaking her for an Iraqi lighten things and amongst the carnage there are other pot-shots at Bush-era American intolerance and stupidity.

The Horseman (*) is an ultra-violent Australian revenge flick in which a grieving father whose daughter has died of a heroin overdose discovers that she acted in a porn movie so heads out to kill everyone involved. As you do. Coming as the latest in a string of such revenge outings (Taken, The Brave One, et al) this is undoubtedly the most unpleasant and, indeed, pointless. What distinguishes it (if that is the word) is the absence of guns. Instead everyone is killed by brutal hand to hand battering or stabbing, with more grunting than an entire series of the WWF. Add to that an ending that reveals nothing of interest and the total lack of character development and you have a film that will only appeal to those for whom watching violence is its own reward.