William Thomas

Kusturica is sturdier on style than substance.

The script self-destructs, but the performances — including Daniel Stern as an expendable sidekick — are fun, and John Badham stages some super stunts with the insectile title machine.

The only romantic comedy out there which spans two lifetimes, Chances Are you'll wind up wishing it didn't.

An unsatisfying conclusion, but an inspirational story deftly handled by Freeman.

Not only do the pair have to prepare for the upcoming race, but, hey, they also have to deal with a hysterical mother, a dying father, and the knowledge that one brother is destined for the same fate as pops. Not quite as sickly as it sounds, with a fair few hints of the onscreen magnetism to come.

For fans of the Big Bug movies in the 60's this will come as a pleasant surprise with not only the first to made in a while but also the first good one for a long time. Ticks is enjoyably fluff which contains unexpectedly convincing effects and enough of the required screaming of innocent victims.

A dedicatory, sometimes sombre recreation of the career of 50s teen-throb Richie Valens, which feels like a personal project by director Luis Valdez.

Election Year maintains the nervy tension that made the first films entertaining, but doubles down on the political metaphors, overwhelming you with its soap-box rhetoric.

Another coming-of-age tale about three boys and their quest to become men, which invariably revolves around having sex and puerile behaviour but then changes tack completely by giving us lush scenery. If the director had remained with one idea then perhaps the end product wouldn't seem so varied.

Beyoncé proves her Dreamgirls turn was no fluke in this so-so Blues melodrama.

The film falls into the gap between the manifestly unique qualities of the musician in performance and the near complete mystery of an intensely withdrawn private life.

Well at least we get to see him in more leather in this one. Though one could quite possibly live without it.

Nowhere near as good as the first one but all the same ingredients.

A fun, action-packed reintroduction to Conan Doyle's classic characters. Part Two should provide more in the way of scope.

The script might have benefited from being directed by someone more daring, instead George Roy Hill settles for more mainstream territory.

A screwball comedy, with two well-cast leads, with a pre-Sex and the City Parker and a amusing Cage. The plot is ridiculous but enjoyably so, with enough jokes to carry it for an hour and a half and a relatively fast pace prevents you from seeing the holes in the story.

Like Driving Miss Daisy this deals with a white employer and a black servant in the times of revolution, not only that but in both films it's a jaded view with the servant being loyal and not a 'friend'. Besides that small problem, it's a moving film with a steady performance from Spacek, but by the end it has definitely become Goldberg's film.

While the backgrounds and animation are wonderful, the film suffers from an intensely depressing middle section, full of heart-stopping chases, damaged friendships and forgettable songs more likely to invoke fidgets than sniffles among the younger contingent in the audience.

A divisive film - too overwrought for some, perfectly emotionally pitched for others - how much it will appeal will depend on how romantically inclined the viewer is feeling.

Initially, the film works well as a tense, teasing suspense vehicle. But one of Dead Calm’s major problems is that it brings to mind ideas and plot similarities from so many other films that you are constantly being reminded of its own rather humble status.

Disney’s adaptation of the first book in T. W. White’s colourful Arthurian trilogy The Once And Future King (which also served as the source for the musical Camelot) is formulaic matinee fare, competent and sprightly but undistinguished.

Never brave enough to feel far-reaching (or, ironically, far-fetched, when time-travel and space flight are so popular at the movies), Navigator still fulfills its mission, distracting the family for bang-on an hour and a half.

Fun, but it mugs too hard.

An affectionate and entertaining tribute to the Western - but, Estevez aside, Young Guns II doesn't exactly add much to the old genre.

The likeable veneer of the film never threatens to evaporate, which is both a good and a bad thing; the comedy is plentiful but the dark laughs are never quite dark enough, given the subject matter.

A blockbuster that offers enough quirky pleasures to feel fresh and unpredictable.

Same old sequel squanderings.

If it doesn't make you at least giggle, then you clearly don't understand the true meaning of the festive season.

While Dudley's booze-sodden antics tire after a while, there's relief in the form of John Gielgud as the old-fashioned English butler with a nice line in four-letter words, and a return to the screen from Liza Minelli, who plays the waitress Arthur falls in love with.

Oldman and Seyfried prove to be the big attractions, but Hardwicke's Riding Hood legend still lacks bite.

A sentimental drama that's 'good in the air' and something of a throwback to war films of old.

Enjoyable enough nonsense, even if it barely cracks a smile.

Road movies should be pleasurable and free-spirited, but Candy Mountain drags too much weight around.

A gaudy, flamboyant expose that asks a lot of its stars, and gets more than it deserves.

A fun night in with the tellybox, but then it never claimed to be anything more.

There is bound to be a large appreciative audience for this chick flick. But it might not be you.

Stagey filming aside, this is a sharp and controlled study of celebrity obsession.

While not quite on a par with Andrew Haigh's "Weekend," this is still an undeniably powerful piece of filmmaking.

Apart from a sprinkling of Wilde's legendary bons mots and a few fleeting visits to theatres where audiences cheer Lady Windemere's Fan, there is disappointingly little here to suggest the complexity of his mind, the range of his writing or, crucially, the importance of being Oscar.

Worth a look, if only for the surreal groupings of the gangs (The Wongs, the Del Bombers and the Fordham Baldies...that's right, they're bald).

Despite the extended running time jam packed with action scene after after scene it still feels a little short on content.

In another variation on a theme, this plodding drama may have its heart in the right place but, along side a gaggle of angst-ridden Hughes dramas of the period, fails to stand out amongst the crowd.

A satisfying come-down by the director, who stays safely within, rather than pushes against comedy conventions.

Appealing, emotional and with a strong enough performance by Rice-Edwards as the boy in his own little war-free world.

It wants to be a modern "Taxi Driver"; it manages to be the new Falling Down, with Foster as fierce as ever.

Connery was perhaps wise to call it quits the first time round.

While never as trailblazing as its subject, The Express is a worthy addition to the lengthy canon of sports biopics

It's solid Miyazaki, although he has reached greater heights both before and since.

Utterly mindless, but on its own snap, bang, and wallop terms, it works well enough.

Not one of Nicholson's best, but an enjoyable comedy nonetheless.

An otherwise fine sports fantasy is dragged down by an overindulgence in sentimentality.

Given such a cloying and utterly predictable plot, it's surprising that Three Fugitives works as well as it does. Nolte, all big shoulders and bashfulness shows a pleasant self-deprecating talent and copes very well with the array of humiliations ranged against him.

Despite a top-notch cast performing well, and bravely in the case of Knightley, this is an austere, somewhat repressed movie. It never really gets under the skin in the way Cronenberg does at his best.

A patchwork of a movie that ultimately knows where it's going, but doesn't really know how to get there.

Good performances, but If you're looking for an uplifting tale of hope against despair, look elsewhere.

Weird, but kind of cool.

Don't expect the puppet to wisecrack - there's more pain here than in "The Passion Of The Christ." It never quite comes together in a satisfying way, but it's still a brave, strange, brain-stirring piece of filmmaking.

Delightful, but bum-numbingly slow.

This is arguably although unfortunately Goldie Hawn's most memorable role. For while she embodies the character perfectly and when the jokes are funny they are hilarious, sadly there just isn't enough to keep the film going and it begins to run out of steam half way through, with an attempt at a deeper meaning ruining the film.

It all adds up to just another glossy Love Story.

The plotting - Kelly's struggling painter falls for Leslie Caron's French waif, engaged to nice but dull Georges Guétary - lacks the pace, exuberance and wit of, say, Singin' In The Rain, but compensates with fantastic Technicolor visuals..., George Gershwin's sublime music (pick of the tunes: I've Got Rhythm, S'Wonderful and Our Love Is Here To Stay), sublime art direction from the great Cedric Gibbons and astounding choreography and footwork from Kelly.

Interesting but flawed.

Although some say Wayne's Oscar was given out of sympathy instead of his performance, he still acts well as the sheriff who's past his peak. Proving he wasn't always a serious as he was made out to be, he plays the role with aplomb, even pastiching himself in other films.

An unusually thoughtful look (and a broad one) at powers on the wane, at America's shift from Vietnam polarisations to 80's apathy, and at one man teetering on the brink of a lonely old age.

The two stars are very good, doubtless enjoying their high fashion outfits, and the script has one clever plot reversal in the third act, but it really could have done with a few more thrills (the motives for the killings lead to necessarily slow plot development), either in the murder or the sexual perversity departments.

The background is more intriguing than the stumbling up-front story, and monster watchers will get full use of the freeze-frame facility.

Humerous, but doesn't gel as well as Levinson's previous efforts.

Both leading ladies display great willingness to send up themselves and Hollywood, and Willis' quiet nervous breakdown showcases his previously unguessed-at comic skills. But it's the pitch-black comedy and celebrity satire that make this so enjoyable.

Whatever his intentions, the finished product is about as deep and meaningful as you’d expect from a work starring the Man Who Is Clark Griswold. Which is a good thing really, as, uncomplicated, genuinely funny comedy players are thin on the ground at the moment, and it means Memoirs can carry off the semi-slapstick, borderline-cretinous gags with pace and panache.

An insipid '80s nostalgia piece really, held together by Fox's performance and several neat turns from his support.

Kids will love it but adults may find it just too silly to sit through.

Sheen thrives in the guise of the idiosyncratic Clough in a brilliantly candid, if bitty, football parable.

Cronenberg's sleaziest, funniest film, jammed with juicy gore and infectious shocks.

Sex and swearing from David Mamet: the family guy. Fun for grown-ups only.

As a fish-out-of-water comedy-drama, it works well.

Knowingly kitsch, Liquid Sky uses the most basic effects and featuring music and fashion that were cutting edge at the time, it now looks fashionably retro. With lots of sex and violence, it sounds a lot more promising than it is, let down by its poor acting, script and a cast we feel little sympathy for.

This uneven but well-researched film takes a much more sober and realistic view than the Rambo-esque capers, of the hardships endured by shot-down Americans in conditions that were anything but Hilton-like.

Sweet but predictible angst-ridden Brat Pack outing.

Both leads are likeable and have the cutting neuroses that Brooks delivers so well. They can’t really carry the film until the dramatic plot twist but from then on its all good fun.

If you are immune to the charms of Carrie and co., this will do little to convert you. Still, it has more than enough sass, style and sentiment to keep the faithful satisfied. Add a star if you're a fan.

Vice Versa knows its place and, rather than attempting anything oddball, sticks close to the body swap formula in order to gain a decent smattering of laughs. No classic, but a watchable comedy that will find an audience.

Despite the luminous Lombard and the venomous March, this is perhaps better for its idea than its execution.

A comic take on Rear Window, Badham's latest has the acting talent to carry it over the sizeable gulfs in plot to an end product that brings laughs aplenty.

A bizarre, intriguing combination of political allegory and old-fashioned paranoid horror.

Has cult status now but the plot is fiendishly complicated.

As Lowe systematically dismantles Spader's antiseptic existence, Hanson and writer David Koepp handle the thriller plot well, with Lowe effective as the plastically beautiful but deeply dangerous bad influence of the title.

Typically paper thin, the plot and the morality are blown away by the charms of the leading man and a soundtrack that has been hand-picked to get an audience on side. Unadulterated silliness, but harmless fun.

It's safe, it's mainstream and it's silly, but Guttenberg and Hannah strike up enough chemistry to give this big budget apparition at least a little depth.

A fair-to-middling auto-noir with a hole in the middle roughly the size of its leading man’s head.

Impressive visual invention by Nimoy and the reliability of his cast mean that Trek III does more good than harm to a franchise still competing with it's younger, more tehnologically advanced adversaries.

For Freeman's first feature as director, the end result is enjoyable but given his strong roles over the years, somehow more was expected. The equally powerful Glover gives a memorable performance in an interesting film that will inspire and educate.

Directed by Tony Bill and written by Mitch Markowitz, there are far worse comedies than Crazy People out there on the market and Dudley Moore's adverts are, at times, pretty darn hilarious.

Unashamedly sentimental, but all the better for it.

A Jamaican classic with an awesome OST.

Despite some good moments, Agents J, O and K are missing an E.

Cowering in the shadow of the Picture Show, this sequel of sorts builds on none of the risks take by its predecessor.

Too glossy to evoke real sexual tension or, more crucially in this genre, fear, Laura Mars suffers from the over complication of something so simple as serial killing.

Almost palatable, with some fast-moving stunts but dreadful dialogue.