Geoff Andrew

The Bond films were bad enough even with the partially ironic performances of Connery. Here, featuring the stunning nonentity Lazenby, there are no redeeming features.

Bluth has rediscovered the ingredients of quality mainstream animation: depth and movement are more in evidence, and the action sequences are expertly staged, notably a harrowing train crash.

The near-incomprehensible plot (something about French and American agents trying to find out more about a Russian undercover group, directly involved with Cuba and working within the French security network) might appeal to devotees of Le Carré et al, but it certainly doesn't make for dramatically exciting cinema, especially given Hitchcock's flat, seemingly uninterested direction.

Slow, a mite predictable, and rather verbose, the film nevertheless has an elegance (thanks to long, sweeping takes) and a poignant romanticism that looks forward to Hitchcock's more pessimistic account of human relationships in Vertigo.

Though the writer/director is working abroad and telling a linear story, it's immediately apparent - from the measured pacing, the immaculate compositions and elegant camera movements, the audacious ellipses and the inspired use of music - that this is a hallmarked Davies film. As such, it is extraordinarily moving, notably in a simple, underplayed death scene. Gena Rowlands' performance is a marvel of subtle nuances.

Flemyng's direction is efficient if lacking in real flair, but Burnett Guffey's crisp camera-work, the taut plotting, and the generally high standard of the performances make for a pleasing, if undemanding modern noir thriller in the tradition of The Killing and The Asphalt Jungle.

Based on a true case history of a schizophrenic - here a woman with three personalities: a slatternly housewife, a seductive flirt, and a smart, articulate woman - this is worthy but somewhat turgid and facile, a typically Hollywoodian account of mental illness.

Despite some rather silly dialogue, scripted by the usually reliable Donald Ogden Stewart from a French play, Cukor's civilised handling of the actors and his often expressionist visuals lend credence to the tale, with atmosphere thick and juicy enough to cut with a knife.

The performances are solid, even if the age difference between the two female leads may strike some as a little disconcerting.

For all its audacity, a misguided folly.

The exquisitely framed images, the allusive script, the droll witticisms are counterbalanced by Dennehy's literally enormous performance, which threatens to tear the film's formal symmetries to vividly memorable shreds.

For the undemanding, it may seem a fair stand-off; but compared to Hill's best work, it's merely a jerk-off.

Unfortunately, Arnaud de Pallieres’s film succeeds neither as a decent adaptation of the book nor as a rewarding movie in its own right.

Both as a modern Western and as a Hill movie, this is efficient but middling - which still, finally, means that it's worth catching.

Eastwood at his least appealing in a poor sequel to the already disappointing redneck comedy of Every Which Way But Loose. The story is similarly thin - trucker Eastwood, accompanied by his orang-utan buddy Clyde, gets involved in repetitive brawls with sundry unsavoury brutes - while the humour is far too broad and the direction plodding.

The script is far from wonderful, and offers Siodmak little to get his teeth into, notwithstanding a beautifully atmospheric first entry for the Count (Chaney and coffin rising from the misty depths of a lake) and an effective finale.

The result, despite an uncertain start, is in the end a surprisingly intriguing and affecting movie.

The script – chronologically linear yet disjointed, averse to melodrama yet often clichéd in a ‘hello Monet, hello Rilke’ kind of way – is deeply inadequate.

Reiner is undecided just how fantastically he should treat this ludicrous plotline. Added to which there's a dire musical number, a silly thriller subplot, and much maudlin didacticism from narrator Willis in various guardian angel (dis)guises. Misery.

Besides the implausibilities, the direction has two fatal flaws: it's both tediously slow and hugely narcissistic as the camera focuses repeatedly on Depp's bandana'd head and rippling torso.