Fast & Furious posterAt last I get some time to pre­view this week’s new releases and, frankly, it hardly seems worth it. I’ve just got in from two of the most dis­pir­it­ing exper­i­ences I’ve had in a cinema in some time. Full reviews will come when I’ve had a chance to find the right kind of lan­guage to describe pre­cisely how unam­bi­tious Fast & Furi­ous and 17 Again are, a chal­lenge I must rise to before Cap­it­al Times dead­line on Monday night. Fast & Furi­ous is the fourth in the series of pet­rol-head thrillers and ori­gin­al stars Vin Dies­el and Paul Walk­er are both back. That fact might mean some­thing to someone, some­where.

Mean­while, High School Music­al star Zac Efron gets a vehicle of his own as the young ver­sion of depressed 37 year old fail­ure Mat­thew Perry. Some not quite explained magic gives him his young body back and the chance to put things right. Both Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate.

[The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump]

If you really must go to the cinema to see some­thing new this week­end, maybe the two Asi­an con­tenders will be more your style: Hong Kong thrill­er Sniper is a Read­ings exclus­ive and Ong bak 2 means mar­tial arts nut-job Tony Jaa is back – he also dir­ects this time around. That’s an Embassy exclus­ive. Finally, I’m try­ing to keep my sched­ule clear for Monday night’s Film Soci­ety screen­ing of the art­house clas­sic Diva (in 35mm at the Para­mount).

The com­mer­cial releases will be reviewed in next week’s Cap­it­al Times (and online at Funer­als & Snakes soon after). If you’ve seen any of these (or just want to talk about how deep the piles of rub­bish get after a Fast & Furi­ous screen­ing), add your thoughts to the com­ments.