Angie Errigo

Streep and Eastwood's chemistry makes the film.

As a psychological drama, it's a sophisticated, gripping piece that unusually leaves you wanting to go on past its unsettling conclusion.

It’s sufficiently well done to qualify as cute, quite the thing for a girlie outing with grub after, but it’s utterly phoney baloney.

While this doesn't add up to much more than 'It's good to be rich and have friends', it's entertaining, with some choice performances and the laugh-out-loud quotient of a good sketch show.

Smart, intriguing, funny and sad, with some primo wisecracking dialogue.

Dramatic disappointment aside, there is a feel for the unglamorous, demanding lives of the real dancers.

Natalie Wood is stunning and the drama is full of passion but this suffers a little from 60s hollywood style.

The pace drags terribly, however, and the period detail is distractingly off in small ways that become annoying. Thankfully, though, things perk up with a bravura finale, when Merrill finally takes the witness stand before the dreaded inquisitors.

Poorly written nonsense, but lovers of beefcake action will be happy enough with the heroes gymnastically vaulting monsters and slicing and dicing their way around the ancient world. An extra star for Ralph Fiennes, who is a god.