'Kevin Smith makes homage to 80s buddy cop flicks': It’s an idea that works on paper – like a weekend holiday – but carries with it the expectation that things won’t ever turn out to be anything more than terribly average.

Still, if there’s one man who should have at least an understanding of what’s he up against, it’s Smith. The man is a walking encyclopaedia of film genre and pop culture, so reinventing Lethal Weapon or 48 Hrs. should be a piece of cake for the writer-director.

Only he didn’t write Cop Out, some guys named the Cullen brothers did – they were dense enough to leave their names in the credits – and as soon as he bypassed the typewriter, Smith should have also bypassed this film.

Jimmy, a grizzled, divorced NYPD detective who looks and acts remarkably like Bruce Willis, is in a pickle. He and his partner Paul (Tracy Morgan) have been suspended after a botched interrogation and subsequent stake-out, and Jimmy can hardly take the financial hit: his daughter is set to be married in a few weeks, demanding the dream wedding – all $48,000 worth – like any caring daughter would.

Jimmy is not about to let his paterfamilias be headed off at the pass by the ex-wife’s smarmy new husband (Jason Lee), who is angling to fund the extravagant wedding himself, and so to raise the necessary funds the detective attempts to sell an exceptionally rare baseball card. Only Jimmy and Paul are robbed, and soon the two suspended detectives are facing off against baseball-mad Mexican drug smuggler, Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz), in an attempt to reclaim the card and thus reinstate Jimmy’s liquidity.

And so you have the cinematic equivalent of a quick-bake hash cake – a frequently offensive and infrequently funny buddy cop caper that goes out of its way to tell you it’s a homage to the 80s classics, only to come off as one of those films’ mouldy, weekly-hire knock-offs.

The action scenes are by-the-numbers shoot-outs that never engage, but at least they’re much better than the comedy pieces that surround them. Tracy Morgan can be very funny, but here the 30 Rock star is struggling to push dodgy material uphill whilst saddled with a version of Bruce Willis who’s just there to collect the paycheck (perhaps Rumer has a dream wedding coming up). Sean William Scott shows up as some sort of stoned robber and, once again, would have had a chance if the script gave him any room to move.

Apparently the comedians who worked on this film were encouraged to improv their scenes, but you wouldn’t know it. These were the best takes? Really? You almost hope Smith – who edited the film himself – simply stumbled into the worst cuts, because if he didn’t it doesn’t bare thinking about the material left on the floor.

This is b-grade filmmaking top to bottom, featuring a pathetic script, pancake gags and some daft technical credits – witness, for example, Harold Faltermeyer’s referential but bizarrely awful electronic score. The Cullen brothers did their best to imitate Shane Black, but really they would have been better off asking the seasoned action film scribe to write their film for them. It might be trying to pay homage to the classics, but Cop Out is simply a crappy imitation of the films it so aimlessly honours.

Like to learn how to train your giant reptile? Paramount Pictures Australia have you covered with both a brand new trailer and a competition for their upcoming film, How to Train Your Dragon.

This is the second preview we’ve seen, and the story of the reluctant Viking Hiccup’s (Jay Baruchel) furtive friendship with a supposedly man-frying dragon is starting to look quite sharp indeed. Released in late March (25th in Australia, 26th in the US and the 30th in the UK), just in time for the Easter holidays, this should be a favourite for rugrats everywhere. And if you need something to occupy the kids in the meantime, perhaps pop down to the library and pick up a copy of Cressida Cowell’s well-regarded book, on which the film is based.

As for the competition, Australian readers should get on over to Paramount Pictures Australia’s local website for the film. There’s a whole host of prizes on offer, but if anybody wins a Viking helmet it would be appreciated if you could post it on – we have a few fancy dress parties coming up.

It’s mid-March and the seasons are changing. In the film world, the Academy Awards have finally been and gone and it’s time to look ahead to the big releases of what will be the northern summer. One of the first will be Iron Man 2 in late April-early May – almost exactly two years after the original – and it’s shaping up to be much of the same, only bigger, brasher and more outrageous. Always keen to keep the fires of anticipation burning in our bellies, Paramount Pictures Australia last week released a new trailer for Iron Man 2 and it’s hard not to get swept up in the excitement. True, we may have chosen to ignore the fact that Scarlet Johansson apparently has a supporting role, but Mickey Rourke is looking better and better as Whiplash, and Sam Rockwell and Samuel L. Jackson will be appearing as a (a very young) Justin Hammer and Nick Fury, respectively. It’s easy to be cynical about this sort of thing, particularly when the first film was a touch flabby and a reel too long, but for now Iron Man 2 certainly has our attention.