DIRECTED BY Andy and Larry Wachowski

STARRING Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving Opened May 23, Cert 15, 218 mins

The matrix reinvented sci-fi blockbusters for post-ironic, post-modern, non-linear future-kids. The best philosophical hip hop kung-fu cyber-noir mega-epic ever to namedrop hip cultural theorists, Greek mythology and Hong Kong action movies, it was our generation’s Blade Runner meets Alien meets The Terminator with a heady extra dash of underground sex’n’drugs kool. It may have been comic-book pulp at heart, but it was boundary-pushing, reality-warping pulp of the highest intensity

Perhaps inevitably, The Matrix Reloaded is a very different beast. Four years in the making, shot back to back with The Matrix Revolutions, the second in the trilogy is a jaw-dropping feast of mental acrobatics and cutting-edge technology. But it inevitably lacks some of the edgy freshness of the original, bowing instead to mainstream action thriller conventions. There are far too many minor new characters here whose sole purpose seems, Phantom Menace-style, to sell more action figures. There is also too little exploration of the infinite allegorical possibilities of the Matrix itself. Is it a political metaphor? Metaphysical puzzle? Mass hallucination? This time around, it feels like little more than a video game platform.

A lean and pale Keanu returns as Neo, the hacker-Messiah now wearing priestly robes to denote his quasi-spiritual Jedi-like status. Now officially partnered with Trinity (Moss) and supernatural sidekick to Morpheus (Fishburne), Neo is charged with saving the underground human enclave of Zion from a massive attack by Matrix machines?a showdown which, teasingly, the Wachowskis postpone until the next movie. He also appears to have acquired superheroic powers, which make him less vulnerable and less interesting. At one point, Neo saves the life of a dying friend after a fatal shoot-out inside the Matrix. But if he can rewrite the rules like that, surely the trilogy’s carefully constructed internal logic falls apart? Clumsy.

But no matter, because the good stuff here is state-of-the-art turbo-nutter shit par excellence. The action set-pieces especially make you want to stand up and cheer, beginning with a gravity-defying martial arts street battle between Neo and an ever-increasing army of Agent Smith replicants. The audacious and unnerving spectacle of several dozen Hugo Weavings moving in dynamic unison like a flock of birds is pure surrealist nightmare meets pop art collage, like Being John Malkovich crossed with Terminator 2. Attack of the clones indeed.

The other magnificent stunt sequence is a 15-minute road chase, which was staged on a loop highway on a disused US Navy base, taking 45 days and a staggering $40 million to complete. In this superbly orchestrated crescendo of heavy machinery and balletic violence, Trinity blasts the wrong way up a busy freeway on a supercharged motorbike while Morpheus fights off Agent Smith and other devious cyber-monsters from the roof of a speeding container truck. This hyper-intense orgy of destruction totalled 300 cars and almost justifies The Matrix Reloaded on its own. Which is just as well, because when the Wachowskis switch from mechanised carnage to human drama they quickly get bogged down in routine love triangles, family values and professional rivalries. Soap opera stuff, in other words. Even the erotic tension between Neo and Trinity has evolved into a boring Hollywood fantasy of gooey-eyed marital bliss. Sure, they get to shag each other, but in a tastefully lit missionary clinch with no hint of the S&M overtones which rippled through the first film. Shame.

In rock’n’roll terms, The Matrix Reloaded is far more heavy metal than techno. Sadly, the original film’s pop-savvy cyberpunk ethos has been trampled underfoot by stampeding nu-metal and stodgy geezer-techno bollocks like Paul Oakenfold. The much-praised “rave” scene in a vast subterranean cathedral looks like nothing more than a Club Megadog student-crusty white-rasta knees-up from 1992. Ugh. Most damningly, this lurch towards the mainstream appears to have diminished the film’s intellectual and literary horizons. The Matrix was ablaze with allusions to Alice In Wonderland, Jean Baudrillard, Guy D

OPENS MAY 23, CERT 15, 110 MINS

Highsmith’s sociopath playboy was last played by Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley. Here, John Malkovich is superb?urbane and malicious, manipulating those around him out of a mixture of spite and boredom. It’s a performance to rank alongside his best work.

Now married and living in Italy, Ripley is something of a mystery to the local residents. He soon discovers what they think of him when he overhears picture-frame maker Jonathan Trevanny (Dougray Scott) make a disparaging comment about his lack of taste. Soon enough, Trevanny is drawn into a particularly sadistic and murderous game engineered by Ripley and his former associate Reeves (Ray Winstone).

Shot with a sophisticated sheen by Liliana Cavani, the film begins on shaky ground?Winstone falls back on his usual cocky Cockney routine, while a beret-wearing Malkovich seems content to impersonate Frank Spencer. But, as Highsmith’s well-crafted plot unfolds, Ripley’s Game becomes a fascinating study in innocence, guilt and revenge.

OPENS JUNE 6, CERT 15, 101 MINS

Ring, the first collaboration between horror novelist K

OPENS JUNE 16, CERT 15, 87 MINS

Nir Bergman’s first feature is a delicately observed, morbidly comic study of a grieving family. Dafna Ulman has been struggling to cope since the death of her husband. She’s skint. Her teenage son has quit school and taken a dead-end job distributing flyers, dressed as a gigantic mouse. Her teenage daughter, who dreams of becoming a pop star, is furious that she’s always the one left to baby-sit for her doe-eyed five-year-old sister and traumatised 10-year-old brother, whose petty hobby is diving into empty swimming pools. There’s something paradoxical about the Ulmans. Mother and kids are intelligent and resourceful, but so wrapped up in their grief that common sense has left them. Teetering on the verge of mawkishness, with a lachrymose soundtrack, the film is lifted by Bergman’s eye for psychological details, his line in deadpan humour and his constant willingness to show both the hostility and the tenderness the family clearly feel for one another. An auspicious start.

DIRECTED BY Menno Meyjes

STARRING John Cusack, Noah Taylor, Leelee Sobieski, Molly Parker

Opens June 13, Cert 15, 109 mins

It’s 1918 in Munich, and in the aftermath of World War I those crazy rock’n’roll guys called ‘artists’ are excited: all bets are off, the future’s what they make it. Tomorrow, they feel, belongs to them. They’re having so many fresh ideas, in the wake of the changes and horrors they’ve witnessed, that everybody’s arguing, heatedly, about which road modern creativity should take.

Max Rothman (Cusack) lost an arm in the war, which means he can no longer paint. He channels his energy into opening and promoting a cutting-edge art gallery. In his downtime, he flits between elegant wife (Parker) and unconventional mistress (Sobieski). Life’s challenging, but good. Max is always discovering new artists?a drunken George Grosz (Kevin McKidd) throws up in scene one, and when a shy, neurotic loner (Taylor) begs for a chance, he’s generous, as the young man’s a fellow war Vet. But this guy’s ideas get increasingly out there. His name? Adolf Hitler.

Max is a fable, blurring fact and fiction to catch the fire of a rich but catastrophic turning point in history. Meyjes, who wrote it, brews a vibrant movie that emphasises its ‘modernism’ in every sense. It’s not a dull, faithful period piece. Liberties are taken, yet its colours and ideas develop real emotional pull. A one-armed Cusack?in serious rather than larking-about mode here?is splendid as the smooth extrovert hiding inner frustration, an amalgam of several legendary art figures. Sobieski’s muse is based on Meret Oppenheim, and the Jewish ‘issue’ simmers subtly till it spills. Taylor, however, steals the film. His young Adolf is a creepy, fidgety act of revenge waiting to happen. We’re brought to believe his ‘talents’ could’ve been misdirected in such a tragic way. “I think it’s good,” says Max, dismissing Hitler’s early drawings (“harmless” flirtations with Nazi “kitsch”), “but you can go even deeper.”

Films where people talk a lot about the meaning of art don’t often work. This one does. “I reckon he’s a nothing,” suggests Max of Hitler. “Perhaps that’s his secret?perhaps it’s the age of the nothing.” A masterpiece of poetic license, Max gets everything right. Superb.

DIRECTED BY Park Chan-wook

STARRING Shin Ha-jyung, Bae Du-na

Opened May 30, Cert 18, 121 mins

The amazing international success of South Korean cinema’s new wave continues with this psychologically and physically punishing thriller from director Park Chan-wook. Moving implacably forward through a world of really bad shit, this uncompromising crime movie is as hard-boiled as it gets.

The morally complex, ruthlessly focused narrative begins with deaf-mute anti-hero Ryu (Shin Ha-jyung, from Park’s previous movie, Joint Security Area) being laid off from a job he needs in order to pay for his sister’s kidney transplant. Encouraged by his anarchist girlfriend (Bae Du-na), he initiates an ill-conceived plan to raise the money by kidnapping the daughter of his former boss (Song Kang-ho).

Inevitably, the whole enterprise takes a considerable turn for the worse, and the body count begins to rise. But despite the unremitting savagery Park orchestrates, the film has an impressive empathy for victims and perpetrators alike?the characters’ motives are clear, the repercussions inevitable and the resulting tragedy deeply felt by all involved (including the viewer). The deliberate pacing of the film’s early stages more than pays off; having moved all of his pieces into position, Park unleashes a series of gut-churning set-pieces that forces us ever deeper into the hellish world his characters have created for themselves. Bodies are destroyed at a formidable rate, with Ryu swinging his baseball bat in a manner that would make Barry Bonds proud, and a ‘knife in the neck’gag that deserves to become a classic moment in cinematic violence. You may be repulsed, but the film’s grip is so strong that you won’t be able to look away for long. The grim fare is put across with great flair by Park; elegant, deep-focus compositions allow the degenerate action to play out on various levels in single shots, while crucial twists and shifts in perspective are integrated organically rather than used as an excuse for a smart-arsed complex structure.

Matching the impact of what’s on screen is a sound-design that ranges from unsettling, over-amplified noise to the muffled churning in Ryu’s tortured head, allowing the viewer to experience events on an uncomfortably intimate, near-subliminal level. The intensity continues even beyond the end credits; you’ll be unsteady on your feet long after you’ve finally left your seat.

Some piece of work.

OPENS JUNE 13, CERT PG, 116 MINS

Film and politics are so inextricably linked in China that Tian Zhuangzhuang’s decision to remake the 1948 classic Spring In A Small Town is itself a political act. The original’s director, Fei Mu, was dismissed as right wing by the communists after his death. In adding to Mu’s posthumous rehabilitation, Zhuangzhuang thumbs his nose at the authorities under the cloak of homage.

A shame the result couldn’t be more compelling. For while there’s much to admire in this elegant tale of a m

OPENED MAY 30, CERT 15, 103 MINS

Adapted from British writer Joseph Connolly’s novel, legendary French actor Michel Blanc’s fourth film as director is a subtle comedy of manners. In less sedate hands it could’ve been a breathless farce. But, riddled as it is with absurdly striking cheekbones (the women aren’t bad, either), it’s a very stylish, middlebrow soap.

A group of friends holiday together in Normandy. Some can’t afford the hotel, and jolly larks are had as they try to hide their poverty. Jerome is suicidal, Jean-Pierre’s a jealous maniac, and Julie deserts her baby to frolic with Maxime. Elizabeth (Charlotte Rampling) looks broody a lot and then woos a lovestruck teenager.

Blanc adeptly uses the photogenic qualities of the iconic Rampling and Carole Bouquet, the grumpiness of Jacques Dutronc, and the beauty of Clotilde Courau, who all help render a so-so story highly seductive.

DIRECTED BY Peter Segal

STARRING Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler, Marisa Tomei

Opens June 6, Cert 15, 106 mins

People who like Jack Nicholson can’t like Adam Sandler. That’s like having Lou Reed and the Cheeky Girls on your car CD changer: the switch from one to another could plunge you off the road with an involuntary jerk. Which is basically what Anger Management does.

Sandler plays a desk-bound pushover too shy to propose to his girl, Tomei. A misunderstanding on an airplane sees him sentenced to an anger management course run by Nicholson, who diagnoses him as an urgent case and moves in with him. The film shapes up nicely here, especially given great supporting roles from Luis Guzm

OPENS JUNE 13, CERT 18, 77 MINS

Japanese career-woman Rinko and her obsessive-compulsive husband are in a neatly ordered but sexually repressed marriage. Their relationship is thrown off kilter when she receives an envelope containing photos of herself masturbating. Terrified her husband will find out, Rinko is caught squirming in a kinky trap. And the ‘fun’ really starts when she decides she has no option but to follow the instructions from a mystery blackmailer to undertake repeat performances in a series of public arenas.

Filmed in monochrome, this erotic drama from director Shinya Tsukamoto features a striking performance by Asuka Kurosawa as Rinko, who undergoes a voyage of humiliation and self-discovery. There are moments of odd beauty, but the sub-Cronenberg theme itself is laboured, and the introduction of breast cancer as a metaphor for spiritual decay in a stagnating consumer society is cumbersome. Not half as challenging as Tsukamoto seems to think it is.

OPENS JUNE 6, CERT 15, 116 MINS

Veteran South Korean master Im Kwon-taek shared the best director award at Cannes last year with Paul Thomas Anderson for this opulent and often bawdy biopic of an artist unlikely to be familiar to Western audiences. Jang Seung-ub (known as Ohwon) was a lowly commoner and artistic prodigy who, having been adopted by aristocratic patrons, became a cherished national figure in the latter half of the 19th century. But he proved tough to control; his vagabond lifestyle, talent for pissing off authority and appetite for drink and women make him a prototype rock star. Ohwon veers between being entertaining company and a bit of a pain, although Choi Min-sik’s full-bodied performance ensures that he remains compelling and unpredictable. Im covers a lot of ground quickly, and keeping up with the political turmoil in the background isn’t easy. Still, any clarity lost in the broad sweep is made up for by the film-making, which brings Ohwon’s art to life in stunning fashion.

OPENS JUNE 27, CERT 15, 92 MINS

This debut feature from former ad director Christine Jeffs is a slim and stultifying affair that occupies territory better staked out by the likes of Ratcatcher, Le Ci

OPENS JUNE 6, CERT 18, 97 MINS

A frenetic Aussie Lock, Stock… from David Caesar, who made Idiot Box and Mullet, this would’ve benefited greatly from pausing for breath once or twice. He’s trying to do too much, cram too many characters and twists in, so we don’t get to give a four-X about any of them. Like AC/DC’s title song, it’s highly invigorating for a minute or two, then just wearisome.

Sydney, 1969, and top local crook Barry (Bryan Brown) has it all?clubs, casinos, wife Toni Collette, mistress, subservient crooked cop Sam Neill. The Chicago Mafia send two envoys (John Goodman, Felix Williamson) to either buy him out or take him out. They assume it’ll be a cakewalk, but Barry’s a tough nut to crack. Even when his pizza-loving Vietnam Vet nephew’s muscling in on his mistress, and the missus is giving him grief.

If ever you’re putting together a space capsule and need to send up a nugget of stereotypical (obsolete) Aussie bloke-ishness, look no further. Caesar tries a few tricks?tracing the bullet’s-eye-view, for example?but they’re incongruous and flip. Lively, but boorish.

Trembling Before G_d tells the story of orthodox Jews who have the misfortune to be gay in a faith that adheres rigidly to the homophobic line taken by Leviticus in the Old Testament, which describes the practice as an “abomination”.

We meet Devorah who, married for years with numerous children, can no longer repress her lifelong lesbian urges. Then there’s the diligently orthodox yet flamboyantly gay Mark, who, despite being HIV positive, adds a defiant note of joie de vivre to this remarkable, moving film.

All of which begs the question: why don’t they abandon such a cruel Old Testament faith? Yet we see how their religion is as ingrained in their sense of self as their sexuality?they can deny neither, and must reconcile them. But, as David?who was told as a child to flick a rubber band on his wrist whenever he felt gay urges?discovers his rabbi has nothing helpful to say to him.

Director Sandi Simcha Dubowski’s unique film is a seething indictment of ultra-religious dogma in all its life-denying forms. Powerful stuff.

DIRECTED BY James Mangold

STARRING John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Jake Busey, Rebecca De Mornay, Amanda Peet

Opens June 27, Cert 15, 110 mins

The set-up is somewhere between classic noir, slasher flick and Agatha Christie. Ten disparate characters are forced to hole up in a ramshackle and isolated motel to escape a torrential rainstorm, only to get picked off one by one in James Mangold and screenwriter Michael Cooney’s crisply-paced and entertaining B-movie thriller.

Cusack’s a former cop working as a limo driver, and his passenger, De Mornay, is the archetypal, egocentric Hollywood starlet who’s seen better days. Liotta is a gruff corrections officer ferrying convict Busey to a pre-trial hearing and?speeding towards her dream life in Florida?Peet’s hooker out to escape her violent past. Also at the motel are a family who’ve been involved in a road accident, a young couple with a dark secret and the motel owner himself, nicknamed?get this?”Bates” by some of the guests who appears to have the darkest secret of all. As their numbers dwindle through a series of grisly murders, and the search for the killer and a motive becomes more urgent, Identity seems uncannily like a superior update of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians. But Mangold’s unerring attention to detail and the clammy atmosphere engulf both viewer and characters, taking the premise somewhere else entirely, while the layers of deceit, coincidence and suspense lead to an ingenious pay-off that riffs on that jaw-dropping climax to The Usual Suspects. It seems that after the overrated Girl, Interrupted Mangold is back on fine form.

The claustrophobic setting helps bring out the best in Cusack and Liotta, who compete to be the dominant Alpha Male in the group, while Peet and De Mornay give smart, nifty performances. There’s a midway point where the film almost topples into farce but thanks to a neat change of tone Mangold pulls Identity back from the edge. The psyche under siege has been a recurring theme in Mangold movies, but it’s never been as easily deployed than in this smarter than average psychological thriller.

DIRECTED BY Burr Steers

STARRING Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Susan Sarandon

Opens June 13, Cert 15, 97 mins

Igby (Culkin)?depressed, narcissistic, fatalistic and snide?is this generation’s Holden Caulfield, a slacker prince. Kicked out of most schools on the East Coast, he drops out, much to the fury of his domineering mom (Sarandon). She allows “godfather” DH (Goldblum) to look after him in New York for the summer, but Igby runs loose, enjoying carnal relations with DH’s drug-addled mistress (Amanda Peet), then with ‘nice’ Jewish girl Sookie (Danes). “What kind of name is Igby?” she asks. “It’s the kind of name that someone called Sookie isn’t in a position to patronise,” he retorts. Igby Goes Down is jam-packed with crisp, cynical one-liners, but our young existentialist doesn’t see the light. He loathes his pompous brother (Ryan Phillippe), who’s moving in on Sookie; his godfather’s about to beat him up, and he wishes his mom was dead. Even an atheist misanthropist like Igby has to be careful what he wishes for.

Written and directed by Gore Vidal’s nephew, this is a teen-angst classic. Not as in John Hughes, but as in Dostoevsky-meets-Cobain. Igby hates almost everyone and everything, chiefly the phoneys who constitute his family circle. His wealthy folks make the Royal Tenenbaums seem perfectly functional. As a lover, he’s implausibly successful, and you may find his relentless tone of carping negativity tiresome. “If Ghandi had to hang out with you for any period of time,” sighs his brother, “he’d end up kicking the shit out of you.” But cussing Culkin’s very convincing in the kind of role that’s made Jake Gyllenhaal’s name.

There are ripe performances from the entire ensemble, none better than a slick, smug Goldblum, while Danes reveals hidden depths. Everyone is on medication. Money can’t buy you squat. It’s a very literary piece, where Rilke is ridiculed and pillow talk consists of “You’re a real fucking upper.” You admire the put-downs and quips, while wishing the pace was a fraction less morbid. Nevertheless, this is honed, icy black comedy, with an uncompromising anti-hero. Let Igby take you down.

OPENS JUNE 20, CERT 15, 98 MINS

Hated drill instructor Samuel Jackson and most of his squad disappear on a basic training mission in the jungle and disgraced DEA agent John Travolta is the only man qualified to winkle the truth out of the two remaining soldiers. In the tradition of Rash