Angie Errigo

Eat well beforehand or you’ll be in tummy-rumbling, tongue-hanging-out agony as the merry band cook their way across America. Good fun and happy, filling fare.

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.

It's a tale told with considerable warmth and humour, some spiffing explosions and a multiple-hanky act of self-sacrifice to round things off.

A richer plot, life lessons and loving Chinese cultural references rendered by turns sweet, scary and charming, with yet more fantastical kung fu, make this an engaging winner. Stunning visuals make it real art as well.

Despite Lumet's home-spun pincer movement on the espionage/conspiracy genres, cliché still sneaks up and nips the film into submission.

Two absolutely riveting performances and a smart reversal of the usual male-female stalker scenario leave behind a nasty taste and an unforgettable cinema experience.

Measured performances from the seasoned cast balance out a script that errs towards the melodramatic. Hours sweating over those instruments pay dividends too.

Entertaining while you're watching it but, as deceptive as a party's election promises, there's less to it than meets the eye.

A surprisingly sweet romantic comedy debut from Ben Stiller.

Funny peculiar and funny ha ha, with a spontaneity and energy that gather up a powerful emotional head of steam as it chugs along.

Despite some smart, brittle dialogue and the classy cast, this seldom rises above the routine and is basically a bittired and terribly 60's.

Harry Palmer, charismatic but grounded in reality, is the perfect popular bridge between the spectacular escapades of Bond and the cold, harsh milieu of Deighton's embittered, betrayed spies.

Coming from a novice director, the film is not as impressive as "Sense And Sensibility", but as a light-hearted and energetic comedy of who-loves-who? and small upsets, this works well - and it boasts Paltrow's star-making turn.

An, at-times, marvellous muddle of high farce and low-brow chuckles.

Compelling performances and some stand-out scenes but this lacks the cohesive language of "Elephant," for example.

The ambitious, initially intriguing Dead Again fails so spectacularly it may well become the fetish of a camp cult.

In some quarters this will doubtless be hailed as "gritty" and "realistic". Movies about junkies just aren't much fun, however, and to be really powerful or tragic they need to be a lot less hack­neyed and directed with more inspira­tion than this.

A superior directorial debut for a smart, literate screenwriter delivers both first-class character drama and edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Relatively speaking it's nonsense, but very cute.

While the supporting actors are engaging, the turgid screenplay lets the whole thing down.

Those who found, say, Internal Affairs, a "stylish" affair will be able to say the same of this, only it's more so. The more squeamish will prefer to take Manhattan Woody Allen style.

For all its weaker aspects, it is to be recommended as a denunciation of intolerence made with understanding, compassion, and some humour.

Very funny, it's also penetrating on the ravages of time on love and marriage and sweetly touching, but with abundantly incongruous randy content to heartily amuse.

It delivers in fits and starts but mostly baffles.

The jokes start wearing thin, and most of the noisy characters become rather tedious well before the rag-bag of thesps finally pitch up on Broadway.

A very neatly plotted blend of elaborate heist and twisting thriller, peppered with amusing gags and smart one-liners for its top class ensemble.

Cringe-making fun for survivors of the '70s. For the younger majority: a familiar rise and fall of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll enlivened by the gender reversal and performances.

At moments hilarious and others touching, it's a sweet, slight affair, more pretty pageant than pithy biographical drama. Expect awards nominations to stack up for Williams and Branagh.