This week's movie releases

Michael Fassbender's charismatic ambiguity, the charm that, in films such as Fish Tank and the recent A Dangerous Method, wins you over despite setting alarm bells ringing all around makes him a hard-to-argue-with choice for Jane Eyre's brooding hero-with-a-dark-secret, Mr Rochester. As plain Jane herself, the governess who arrives to look after Rochester's daughter and ends up bewitching him, rising star Mia Wasikowska (Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland) is a similarly astute pick. Meanwhile, the promise of young director Cary Fukunaga - who debuted with immigration drama Sin Nombre - to tease out "the darker sides" of Charlotte Brontë's Gothic-tinged novel anticipates a gripping modern take more about horror-film chills than period-drama frills. The sum total is a perfectly smart adaptation with strong imagery, decent supporting performances from Jamie Bell, Judi Dench, Sally Hawkins and Simon McBurney, and flashes of passion. But given the promise, you long for something gutsier, ripping open all that fastened-up emotion to let the madness reign and the flames of desire roar. This merely undoes the top button.

More Mia

Wasikowska also crops up in Restless, which finds director Gus Van Sant in more out-there Paranoid Park than mainstream Good Will Hunting mode. She stars as a terminally ill nature-lover who hooks up with an orphaned young man (Henry Hopper), whose best friend is the ghost of a kamikaze pilot.

Moving very swiftly on, Real Steel is set in a near future where boxing is practiced by robots and Hugh Jackman is a washed-up fight promoter who teams up with his estranged son to build a new mechanical title contender.

Another slice of sci-fi, In Time is the latest from Gattaca director Andrew Niccol, and finds Justin Timberlake falsely accused of murder in a world where the old "time is money" adage rules: the rich live forever, while the poor work, beg and rob the minutes to get through the day.

Directed by Robert Redford, The Conspirator delves into the Lincoln assassination as Civil War hero and lawyer James McAvoy defends the only woman charged in the conspiracy (Robin Wright), whom he believes is bait to reel in another suspect.

For the younger crowd, there's nothing but sequels this week with more CGI penguin fun in Happy Feet 2 and more adventure in Vicky and the Treasure of the Gods, the second flick based on Runer Jonsson's Vicky the Viking kids' books.

Finally, a more adult-targeted (if not adult-minded) follow-up is Fuga de Cerebros 2, which aims to recreate the magic of the 2009 Spanish comedy smash - by adding a David Hasselhoff cameo.