The movie is about an elite top-secret commando unit assembled by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) to battle evil at every corner of the world. Evil comes in the shape of Destro, a corrupt arms dealer (Christopher Eccleston) whose aim is the overused cliché of ‘taking over the world’. The baddies intend doing this by using a nanotechnology-based weapon missile system to level choice locations all over the world to ground zero.

The story follows Duke (Channing Tatum) and his pal Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) who join the unit in a bid to help pursue Destro and his team of baddies from Egyptian deserts to ice-infested areas to scupper their plans for world domination.

Though it is action all the way, the movie makes a lame attempt to inject a romantic sub-plot into the story between Duke and Ana (Sienna Miller), who is on the payroll of the baddies. In better moments, one of the high points of the movie is when the Eiffel Tower is levelled to the ground by one of the missiles, something that would surely delight Irish soccer fans.

If meaningless storyline and all-out action gets you excited, then GI Joe is your baby. Though we’d recommend leaving your girlfriend at home – unless she gets kicks watching sexy males in tight costumes.

It might have caused a bit of controversy when Charlie’s Angels’ McG was announced as the director, but after the universally panned Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, a fresh take was seen to be needed – particularly since the plot has reached a place where the film can act as both a sequel and prequel. Another significant point is the fact that Connor is now battling cyborgs in real-time – 2018, which is 14 years since Skynet became self-aware and turned on mankind. Amongst the post-apocalyptic carnage that followed, we have Connor, his wife (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard) and a slowly building human resistance army helped along by a decommissioned Terminator (Sam Worthington).

A fifth instalment is already in the works, which might say something about the outcome, but we won’t know whether we’ll be saying hasta la vista to McG and Bale until the box office takings have been counted.

Penned by the writer before The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons acts as a prequel to famed mega hit novel – and so this time round we see Tom Hanks fighting off the years to play an ever so slightly younger Dr Robert Langdon. The intrepid Harvard symbologist still has the same kind of things to deal with though – mainly the small matters of murder, science and religion. Somebody’s gotta see to it.Ron Howard again takes directing duties but new additions include Scot-man Ewan McGregor, who stars as Langdon’s sidekick Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca, and Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer, who landed the coveted role of Vittoria Vetra and plays this installment’s eye candy.

The cinematography is bound to be epic as it was in the first film, but one thing you shouldn’t expect is any holy Rome locations; the Vatican banned the crew from filming in its grounds or any church in the Italian city, describing the work as ‘an offence against God’. Is it an offence against the great screen gods though? Seeing as Columbia aren’t showing any advance screenings, you will just have to watch this space.

Much of the action takes place aboard the ominous interstellar cruiser, where the future captain of the starship Enterprise is still a young cadet. He’s not the only thing fresh and new though… Gone are the boxy stun guns and spray-painted toys. The $150 million budget has instead bought sleeker weaponry and costumes, not to mention the effects, which make the old ‘beam me up’ sequences seem like the work of kindergarten.

After a succession of disappointing TV spin-offs and features, this reboot might not only make fans proud to call themselves ‘Trekkies’ once more, but also bring a whole new audience.