WEDNESDAY NIGHT: There is no mystery about which film will win the weekend. It is more a question of how high the new Narnia saga Prince Caspian can fly.

Iron Man (Paramount) will almost certainly comfortably win a 2nd consecutive weekend at the box office as Speed Racer (Warner Bros) struggles to reach $30M. I have not been able to find a studio exec who believes that the Wachowski Brothers' adaptation of the late '60s anime cartoon classic will be able to outrun its bad industry tracking and generally negative reviews (only 29% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes as of Wednesday night).

Well it’s about time! After a few lackluster months at the movies, Iron Man started the summer blockbusting extravaganza with a $100.7 million opening at the North American box office, making it the second-best premiere ever for a non-sequel.

David Mamet takes his singular style into the rarefied world of jiu-jitsu, but the combination of his hard-bitten dialogue and the very UN Rocky-like milieu of this particular martial arts arena don’t really produce satisfying results.