Perhaps Hollywood has finally grown as wary of the pathetic crop of modern action heroes as audiences have; this year’s action film trend seems to be resurrecting the badasses of decades past.

Slipping easily back into the loafers of hard-nosed British crime, Michael Caine revisits the kind of hit-and-miss films that made his working-class swagger so prevalent in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Jeff Bridges’ broad and appealing career has earned him a fair amount of credit with a variety of audiences, but for many this indulgent country warbler will smack of the veteran curmudgeon pushing his tab too far.

Following last year’s vicious thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, act two of the Swedish Millennium trilogy fails to ignite with the same intensity.

One expects a project with Ricky Gervais attached to feature the jowly comic front and centre, for better or worse. Not so his first so-called serious film, Cemetery Junction, in which both he and producer-in-crime Stephen Merchant take a back seat to some earnest young British talent.

One of the founding fathers of modern American cinema, Orson Welles has always held a certain fascination to the filmmakers that followed in his path. This latest period look at the intriguing auteur’s life is helmed by career maverick Richard Linklater, and while it doesn’t pulse with the director’s signature energy it does bear all the hallmark polish of veteran whose earned every right to take a swing at Welles.

Sega’s latest exuberant action title seems to have divide critics in a very particular way; in the same breath commentators have hyperbolically praised the game’s achievements and decried it as an embarrassing shambles. Only sex could complicate something as nerdy-dry as video game reviewing like this.

You might recall a competition a few months back requesting weird and wonderful weapon designs for Ratchet and Clank’s arsenal.

It’s roughly that time again, to hesitantly cast a squinting eye to the shining future and stab randomly at what might by chance be worth looking forward to.

I thought I would buck the trend and wait for the year to actually finish before putting together my ’09 retrospective.