“That’s a whole lotta art” says a number of people on separate occasions in George Clooney’s slightly delayed Monuments Men. His film is about a group of men of a certain age who band together to save Europe’s endangered art. It’s like Wild Hogs except that they’ve apparently ended up at the tail end of the Second World War.

The film concerns a true life plot, which was hatched in 1943, to send a crack team of Art experts to Europe in the hope of tracking down and “liberating” the Nazi’s cultural loot before it was either burnt to ash or fell in the hands of those pesky Russians. George Clooney plays a wily professor who rounds up a team of his art scene buddies to get the job done. It’s a crazy plan but it just might work. Yada yada yada. U-S-A...

The film is almost offensive in its light heartedness; with the sort of gags and score that you’d expect to find on a propaganda film of the 1950s. You get the feeling that if Total Recall truly did exist that The Monuments Men would be some sort of retirement special. Cate Blanchet's performance is graceful as ever but it’s lost amongst her colleagues' whims; stuck on autopilot; nothing more than grown men, having a laugh. But hey, good for them.

A journalist suffered a minor heart attack half way through the press screening.

You can make of that what you will.

Seven years on from Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaran delivers this ground-breaking, stomach turning spectacle. We’re in Earth’s orbit. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney get shipwrecked while working on the Hubble telescope after some rogue debris flies by and wrecks the place. They have to go space station hopping if they’re ever to make it home. So what's it all for? Cuaron is trying to tell us it’s a lonely business being a human being and while you might not have to go to space to get that across it certainly doesn't hurt. Solid enough you might think but alas, the script feels clunky in the hands of its A-list stars. We spin around in zero-gravity and look down on our stunning planet. It’s silent. Still. Beautiful. You almost believe you’re up there but then look, it’s Sandra Bullock. And there’s George Clooney playing- god bless him- George Clooney. Not to worry, this is a thrill-ride after all- and what a thrill ride. Bold and mesmerizing, it might be one of the most sophisticated ever made.