NEW YEAR’S DAY
Surf’s Up 2
TVNZ 2, 7am
Voices Jeremy Shada, Melissa Sturm. This sequel 10 years on is a different kettle of fish, with new voice actors, including a clutch of WWE stars, as the penguin surfers seek out a 50-foot wave. ★★ Super Eruption Three, noon Starring Richard Burgi, Juliet Aubrey. Made-for-TV disaster movie set against the eruption of Yellowstone’s volcano. Not reviewed.
Aaliyah Princess Of R&B
TVNZ 2, noon
Starring Alexandra Shipp. Biopic about Aaliyah Houghton, the singer whose career was cut short when she died in a plane crash in the Bahamas in 2001. ★★
Veronica Mars
TVNZ 2, 1.40pm
Starring Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring. Set nine years after the finale of the excellent TV series, Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) goes back to her hometown to investigate a murder her ex-boyfriend has been accused of. ★★★★
Killer Reality Three, 2pm Starring Annie Ilonzeh. A reality show producer falls for the bachelor taking part in their marriage elimination competition. Then a contestant is found dead. Not reviewed.
The Croods Three, 4pm Voices Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone. This vividly coloured animated comedy about a caveman family in search of a new home is a warmly captivating tale
that throws up plenty of laughs – and tugs on a few heartstrings. ★★★★
Poi E M ori TV, 7pm Starring Dalvanius Prime, Stan Walker. A simple, catchy song by the Patea Maori Club helped heal the rift of the Springbok tour and catapulted them to international stardom. This is their story and that of Dalvanius Prime. ★★★★★
Miss Congeniality
TVNZ 2, 7.30pm
Starring Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine. Funny comedy featuring Sandra Bullock in one of her most likeable roles as a scruffy, decidedly un-feminine FBI agent who has a crash course in all things girlie to go undercover in a beauty pageant. ★★★
Pearl Harbor
TVNZ 1, 8pm
Starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett. Although the recreation of the attack that led to the US entering World War II is a feast of impressive special effects, they aren’t enough to hold most people’s attention. ★★
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
TVNZ Duke, 8.30pm
Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr. Steven Spielberg’s spectacular big-budget sci-fi thriller about a hard-hat worker who sees a UFO and has his life turned around, to the consternation of his wife and kids. ★★★★
Home Again Sky Premiere, 8.30pm Starring Reese Witherspoon, Nat Wolff. A separated mother agrees to let three aspiring film-writers move into her guest house, only for her ex-husband to turn up on the doorstep. All pretty fluffy stuff. ★★
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy Bravo, 8.30pm Starring Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate. For hilarious in-house TV production send-ups and laugh-out-loud set-pieces, this crudely satirical comedy simply can’t be beat. ★★★★
Mahana M ori TV, 8.40pm Starring Temuera Morrison, Akuhata Keefe. Mahana follows two rival sheep-shearing families in 1960s, East Coast New Zealand. It was Morrison’s first New Zealand movie in 20 years with a hint of Once Were Warriors about the performance. ★★★★
Dirty Grandpa Prime, 8.30pm Starring Robert De Niro, Zac Efron. De Niro is reduced from raging bull to the raging creepy old relative that everyone avoids at Christmas. Crass, crude and in bad taste. ★
The Lake House
TVNZ 2, 9.30pm
Starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock. Reuniting Speed stars Reeves and Bullock, this romantic drama is a sweet and nostalgic film based on Il Mare, a South Korean film about two lovers and their communication across time. ★★★
Man On Wire
TVNZ Duke, 10.55pm
Documentary about Philippe Petit, a tightrope walker who teetered along a wire between New York’s Twin Towers in 1974. ★★★
Brooklyn
TVNZ 1, 11.25pm
Starring Saoirse Ronan. A young Irish woman has to choose between two worlds – her hometown in rural County Wexford or the brighter lights of Brooklyn to where she has emigrated. Multi-layered and superbly acted. ★★★★★