HDTV Movie Premieres: April 30-May 6

William & Kate: TV One, 8.30pm Saturday

If you missed the Royal Wedding, catch up with how they met – if you dare: “So bad it’s awful, toe-curlingly, teeth-furringly, pillow-bitingly ghastly” (The Guardian); “a shoddily cast, poorly executed, badly edited and surprisingly boring account” (The Daily Mail); “it succeeds simply by not giving anyone a single reason to believe W&K won’t live happily ever after” (New York Daily News); “a royally forgettable bit of banality” (Boston Globe); “a paint-by-the-numbers biopic with the dramatic vitality of a tree stump” (Newsday). (2011)

27 Dresses: TV3, 8.30pm Saturday.

In this frock-shock schlock, Katherine Heigl’s wedding arranger is always, always the bridesmaid. She’s been one 27 times and it looks like the wedding of her younger, gold-digging sister (Malin Akerman) will be the 28th – and to the man she’s long coveted, her boss (Edward Burns). Complicating the preparations are the unwanted attentions of a wedding-beat reporter (James Marsden) whose cynicism about romance couldn’t be more at odds with her fairytale take on true love. (2008)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Saturday.

Hmmm … chocolate. Homer Simpson’s favourite movie of 2005 — if not the millennium – concerns how five junior all-sorts learn life isn’t candy-coated when they visit a chocoholic’s paradise created by a dentist’s son (Johnny Depp) who’s not exactly a chocolate chip off the old block. Director Tim Burton’s vision of Roald Dahl’s classic is as freaky as it is fabulous while Depp’s nutty chocolatier was inspired as much by Dahl as a bad, children’s game show host. (2005)

The Secret Life of Bees: TV3, 10.50pm Saturday.

Syrupy chick-lit tearjerker with a civil rights twist, about a 14-year-old runaway who’s taken in by a family of black bee-keepers in 1964 South Carolina. TV vet Gina Prince-Bythewood directs her own adaptation of the Sue Monk Kidd novel with a cast that includes Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Sophia Okonedo and Paul Bettany. The Los Angeles Times dubbed it “the movie equivalent of the honey-drenched sweet potato biscuits that are forever being passed around on-screen”. (2008)

Edge of Darkness: Sky Movies, 8.30pm Sunday.

In this Hollywood re-make of an iconic British miniseries, grief-stricken cop Mel Gibson investigates a nuclear weapons conspiracy after his daughter, who works for a shadowy corporation, is murdered. Although directed by the 1985 original’s Martin Campbell, this Darkness doesn’t have the same sinister or enigmatic edge, but has been cleverly updated and boasts a terrific, tough-guy dinosaur turn from Gibson that almost makes up for the gratuitous violence and execrable ending. (2010)

Mr Bean’s Holiday: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Sunday.

Rowan Atkinson’s gormless clown goes abroad. If you think he’s Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati rolled into one, you’ll love it. Otherwise, you’ll concur with the US TV Guide (“an excruciating series of gags aimed at kids old enough to think it’s funny when a grown-up acts like a small child”) and USA Today (“if you’ve been lobotomised or have the mental age of a kindergartener, Mr Bean’s Holiday is viable comic entertainment”). Little Britain’s Steve Bendelack directs. (2007)

The Hurt Locker: Sky Movies, 8.30pm Wednesday.

The winner of six Oscars dramatises the hair-trigger tensions within a US Army bomb disposal squad in Iraq when an adrenalin junkie recklessly undertakes spectacularly heroic feats that jeopardise the lives of fellow soldiers. The first half is a heart-stopping tour-de-force of action, suspense and dread that captures the contradictions and paranoia of being an occupying force in a territory that’s booby-trapped to the hilt; the second half loses momentum but is still a riveting showcase of filmmaking skill. (2009)