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2009 seemed to be a bit of a block-buster year for SF movies. By my count I saw five big movies at the cinemas this year: Watchmen, Transformers 2, Star Trek, District 9 and Avatar.

I also saw Serenity this year, which was very good, but given that it's from 2005 must be excluded. The Twilight Series is more strictly fantasy and is not counted here - also quite good though.

Let's take the easy one first. Transformers 2 was execrable. Seriously, if there was a storyline, I couldn't see it. Very, very disappointing. Not that you expect much from such a franchise, but Transformers was a lot better.

Now it gets hard, the other three, all very different, were all quite good. Watchmen was a very unusual super-hero movie; dark, with very solid story. Star Trek was a re-boot of an old favourite; dependable, but not offering a lot that was new. District 9 was extraordinary - a very different alien movie. One criticism is that it was "gun porn", which is fair, but the story line was very good. Avatar, wasn't a bad story, but it was very derivative. It was a great technological achievement though. One thing they all had in common - they were all very long, ie. over two hours - but they all managed to maintain the suspension of disbelief and keep me watching/interested to the end - a good sign.

All up, it's a tough call between Watchmen and District 9 for me. I going to go for District 9, but only just. Let's hope we continue to see good quality movies next year.