"Fright Night"

Richard's Review: 4 stars

Think about it; Las Vegas is the perfect place for a vampire to hang out. There are no castles or creepy forests but there are lots of potential victims who don't go out until the sun goes down. It's a town that lives at night which makes it the perfect place for Jerry (Colin Farrell) the new vampire in town.

Based on Tom Holland's 1985 camp classic original of the same name, "Fright Night" sticks to the basic plot of its namesake but this isn't a traditional vampire thriller. It's more "True Blood" than "Dracula."

High school senior Charlie (Anton Yeltin) doesn't believe his childhood friend Ed's (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) claim that Jerry, the new guy on the block, is a vampire. Doesn't believe him, that is, until their friends start to go missing. With the help of his girlfriend Amy (Imogen Poots) and a swishy vampire expert named Peter Vincent (David Tennant in the role Roddy McDowell made famous) Charlie tries to put a stake through Jerry's reign of terror.

Even though "Fright Night" starts as a high school horror, this ain't "Twilight." It's more concerned with thrills and chills and laughs than romance or teen ennui. This is a horror film, and a pretty good one too once it gets past the set up.

The first hour threatens to get bogged down by deliberate pacing and a slowish unveiling of the plot points but is rescued by engaging performances by Yeltin and Poots, and an eerie turn by Farrell. At the sixty minute mark the horror hits, the pace picks up and the blood starts spurting.

"Fright Night" is popcorn horror with just enough bite to appeal to horror audiences and more casual vampire fans.

"Conan the Barbarian"

Richard's Review: 4 for barbarians, 2 for everyone else

These days the most famous Conan is a flame haired TV host with the last name O'Brien, but that may change this weekend when a new Conan hits screens. Instead of chatting up celebrity talking heads this Conan is beheading rival tribesmen.

The new "Conan the Barbarian" has all the earmarks of the infamous Arnold Schwarzenegger 80's cheese fests. There's a bare-chested hero (Jason Momoa), damsels in distress (Rachel Nichols), big swords and a character described as "a mysterious warrior of dark magic" (Rose McGowan).

It's a revenge story sparked by the murder of Conan's father (Ron Perlman) and the slaughter of everyone in his Cimmerian village by a power hungry bandit (Stephen Lang) and his henchmen. Young Conan witnessed the whole thing and though helpless to stop the carnage then, vows to use his giant muscles and even bigger sword to hunt down and destroy the men at the root of all his daddy issues.

With a name like "Conan the Barbarian" you know pretty much what you're in for. "Eat, Pray, Love" this ain't. Maybe "Eat, Slay, Love." There are several epic battle scenes, a cool fight with magical sand warriors and the "Clash of the Titan's" Kraken even makes an appearance. It's not for the faint of heart (also, horse lovers might want think twice about this as well) but what did you expect from a movie with the word Barbarian in the title?

It's a kind of take-it-or-leave-it proposition. If you're a fan of sword and sorcery movies then this will be for you. If the idea of blood spurting off the screen in glorious 3D appeals, then by all means have a look. If not, well the talking ape movie is still in theatres.

"One Day"

Richard's Review: 3 stars

The subtitle for "One Day," a new romance starring Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway, should be "Carpe Diem!" Seize the day, it seems to be telling us, particularly if you're in love.

Sturgess and Hathaway each affect English accents for their roles -- his is real, her's clearly isn't -- of people who meet on July 15, 1988 and play romantic cat and mouse for almost twenty years.

In the beginning Hathaway is an earnest poet who thinks she can change the world. How earnest is she? She plays Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" as seduction music. That's pretty earnest. He's a rich kid with a yin yang symbol, representing the perfect union of opposites, tattooed on his ankle and, as it turns out on his heart. This pair of opposites spend most of their lives trying not to fall in love until one day, July 15th, no less, they take the leap.

"One Day" is many things. It's a style parade of hair and clothes from the past 20 years and it's an interesting take on how to tell a story but it's also a little disconnected. I think the year-by-year format -- we drop in on Jim and Anne every July 15 for twenty years -- is the culprit. It begins to feel gimmicky by the early 90s and by the millennium almost feels as though it is playing out in real time.

Luckily the story is rescued by the chemistry between the leads. Sturgess brings an easy charm to the character, and his transformation from happy-go-lucky student to lounge lizard TV presenter is effective. Hathaway's charm lies in the intelligence she brings to her characters. Here she plays a smarty-pants young woman set adrift in life, someone who is slowly finding the self confidence to be who she really wants to be. In Hathaway's hands you never doubt that she'll get there.

The decades-long dance they do as they pretend not to be in love shows the chemistry between the two. The film has some serious structural flaws but the spark between the two of them forgives many of the film's sins.

We've seen the ‘can men and women be friends' thing a hundred times before but "One Day's" "whatever happens tomorrow… we've had today" theme is effective and may even wring a tear or two from the most hard hearted of viewers.