IT’S good to know that the art of film criticism is not dead. “I couldn’t agree more. I want to kiss you on the forehead,” Claudia Winkleman told her fellow reviewer Danny Leigh on this week’s Film 2010.

Please pronounce that Twenty-Ten, not Two Thousand And Ten. The BBC’s flagship movie programme has got a new presenter, new format, new set and new way of saying the title. What it hasn’t got is any better.

The Film (insert appropriate year here) programme has been running on BBC1 since 1972, although it didn’t go nationwide at first.

Barry Norman was the man giving his opinions on the latest releases. He was replaced in 1999 by Jonathan Ross, a different sort of reviewer but someone else with an obvious liking for film.

The format hardly changed. They spoke to camera, relating their opinions on the latest cinema releases, in between showing clips from the films under discussion and set reports, with the odd studio interview with an actor or director thrown in for good measure.

With Ross’s departure, the producers opted to add ten minutes to the show’s running time, transmit live and employ Claudia Winkleman as the main front person.

She beat the hotly-tipped Mark Kermode for the role. He seemed, on the face of it, better qualified for the job, being a film critic who’s already established a cult partnership with Radio Five/Two presenter Simon Mayo.

Winkleman hosts a BBC Radio Two arts programme and Strictly Come Dancing – It Takes Two, the Strictly spin-off that airs Monday to Friday.

Such was the success of the odd couple partnership of Mayo and Kermode – the good cop, bad cop of the film reviewing world – that when Mayo switched to Radio 2, radio bosses let him guest on Radio 5 for a two-hour film show with Kermode every Friday.

Their podcast is one of the most popular produced by the BBC and they’ve sold out around the country broadcasting the show live in front of an audience at cinemas and film festivals.

But it was Winkleman who got the Film job. And in the interest of fairness, she got someone in to help her – Danny Leigh. He, some would say, is better at it than her. On Wednesday’s show, a third person was drafted in to give his opinion.

This fits in with her comments when cast in the leading role and explained about tweaks to the format.

“Just so people don’t panic, it’s not just me because that would be horrifying. So it will be brilliant critics and all kinds of people sharing their knowledge, because I’m rubbish on horror,” she said.

Turning Film 2010 into a discussion instead of a one-man view of a film seems as though the BBC wants to make it clear that “other opinions are available” and not let Winkleman have the final, authoritative word on the release.

The live element is for viewers to interact with the programme through emails and social networks, although there was scant evidence that anyone was reacting in the latest show.

Winkleman is fine interviewing the celebrity contestants and their professional partners in her haphazard, chummy way on Strictly Come Dancing – It Takes Two, but film criticism needs a firmer hand. Even if you didn’t agree with Barry Norman and Jonathan Ross, you had a certain respect for their opinions.

Someone suggested when the Film format was tinkered with that the BBC was trying to get rid of it, just as they did with another long-running show, Top Of The Pops. You change the format, alienate viewers, ratings dip and you have the perfect excuse for axing it. Could The End soon be flashing on screen at the close of Film 2010?