Pitch Perfect 2

The guy gets the girl, that kid sees dead people, Darth Vader is Luke's father...the Bellas win the International A Cappella Championships?

Ah, collegiate a cappella - apparently a "thing" over in America. Colleges around the country form (sometimes multiple) teams to fight their way to the top of the instrument-free music world. Pitch Perfect saw the debut of Anna Kendrick as the "alt girl" who can sing, joining the Barden University Bellas and taking them on to win at the National Championships.

Now, the second time round, having lost Anna Kemp but gained Hailee Steinfeld as a young Legacy, Kendrick is joined again by Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Adam DeVine and Skylar Astin to out-voice the competition.

With an opening performance by the Bellas for Obama's birthday, things don't quite go according to the arrangement, and the Bellas find themselves disqualified from competing at the collegiate level. That would have been it for the film had podcasters Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins not offered to reinstate them, should they win the international Championships. The rest of the film follows the Bellas as they journey to "find their sound" again, having seemingly fallen into the trap of being showy rather than, well, pitch perfect.

I've seen Pitch Perfect more times than John Higgin's character has been misogynistic. I adored it. The mash-ups and humour never really got old, and I could watch it again and again and still laugh at Judd Nelson jokes.

The best part about the sequel is it doesn't try to be anything else. Yes, it's full of lame jokes at the expense of the black lesbian. Yes, Fat Amy is always the one making the jokes. Yes, Bumper is still awkward. But it works. Throw in some international competition and a cameo from Snoop Dogg and I'm more out of breath than Rebel Wilson vertical running.

Pitch Perfect 2 is a perfect sequel. It's still upbeat, it's still unique, and it's still itself.

Tomorrowland

When you are the director of one of Pixar's greatest achievements in The Incredibles, the pressure to deliver another box office smash is well and truly on.

With this, his second live-action feature, writer-director Brad Bird pulls out all the old-school 'kid's own adventure' stops and thankfully delivers an action romp with far more bravado than a mere feel-good family sci-fi.

George Clooney plays Frank Walker, a former child-genius with a heart full of dreams whom we witness in the intro of the film being lured by a mysterious young girl into a Twilight Zone-style alternate future through the 'It's A Small World After All' ride at the 1964 World Fair (well, this is a Disney film!)

This utopian paradise is eons ahead of our current reality, and young Frank, complete with his very own self-designed jetpack, eventually fits right in.

Flash forward to present day and teen rebel Casey (Britt Robertson), hellbent on sabotaging the demolition of her father's place of work (an abandoned NASA launch station), is soon in possession of pin similar to the one Frank acquired 50 years ago.

A chain of events leads Casey to realize this acquisition has not only put her life in danger, but when introduced to Frank today, his conspiratorial paranoia (that has seen him reclusive and holed up in a techno fortress) is well founded and the danger is very, very real.

Packed with in-jokes, action aplenty (at times extremely violent for a kids flick) and a wicked sense of humour that dances between Back to the Future escapism and Goonies meets Da Vinci Code outlandish disbelief, Tomorrowland is a perfectly formed adventure romp for ages 10 and above.

Smart, fun and full of naive wonder, this plays to the smarter end of town at that delicate age between packing up the Lego and moving into role-playing games.