David Stratton

A film with a terrifically engaging concept that overstays its welcome by quite a stretch.

Charismatic leads and a promising screwball-comedy premise are sadly frittered away by a weak second half in Antony J. Bowman's third feature, Paperback Hero.

Melds an insightful observational style with some rather clunky satire and the resulting mix is uneven at best.

A piecemeal collection of barely connected scenes and characters, stitched together with videotaped comments from a cross-section of Brooklyn residents.

Might spark controversy in mainland China, not only because it deals with a homosexual relationship between a member of the Chinese establishment and a peasant, but also because it touches on events such as the 1989 massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. However, pic is unlikely to raise eyebrows anywhere else.

For about the first half hour, Davies and his superb creative team weave a potent spell. But, starting with a poorly staged revival meeting sequence, things start to go wrong; Davies's grip slackens, and the artifice overwhelms the perilously slim storyline.

Bruce Willis’ one-note performance and the monotonous plotting doom this New Line venture, despite the director’s typically virile staging of the numerous gun battles.

Though Pieck is to be admired for the rigorousness in telling this chilling story (on what looks like a near zero budget), the film itself remains resolutely unlikable.

A sporadically amusing but ultimately very slight showbiz story about being married to a celebrity. Most of the jokes and situations are predictable, and the film is saddled with irritating supporting characters.

Fails on a number of counts, mostly because the individual stories aren't very gripping.

An intriguing but only partly successful co-mingling of film noir and sci-fi.

Thanks to amiable lead performances from Miranda Otto and Rhys Ifans, this not very original Aussie comedy about a man making a fresh start in life is a pleasant enough time-waster.

This potentially intriguing story winds up being dull and at times faintly silly.

Distinguished by generally good performances and smart camerawork.

Atkinson, who is in almost every scene, boasts a full-on comic personality that on the cinema screen is a bit daunting at times, and it's an open question as to whether the Carrey crowd will go for this seriously eccentric Brit.

Though Hotel has brilliant moments, and an energetic first half, it falls away badly in the later stages.

Filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky needs nothing more than the cold facts surrounding this awesome weapon to get across a message about the importance of peace.

It's too arty to cut it as a violent action pic and too gore-spattered to appeal to the arthouse crowd.

This dank, gloomy essay into the supernatural tries hard to create an intriguing mood in which fate guides the lives of its wounded protagonists, but few will be interested in the outcome.

Amiable rather than genuinely funny.

Precociously inventive horror pic that combines brain-eating zombies with outer space aliens.