This film falls down in it's attempts to do everything at once, so that a potentially horrific scenario is often played out to comic effect. It doesn't quite work and the film manages to undermine itself.

Sentimentality creeps in now and again, but Levinson's steady grasp of his city's unique atmosphere makes these moments genuinely moving rather than hokey.

An intriguing and absorbing movie, reeking of class and quite packed with powerhouse performances.

Director Dennis Hopper continues the fumbling manner of "Colors" and the forthcoming-but-disowned "Catchfire," drawing out what ought to be a 72 minute B-picture into two hours and ten minutes of sweaty silliness with three pretty stars who can't quite bring themselves to be camp enough for the material.

Borderline dreadful waste of potential.

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

A very clever, stylish story of friendship, loyalty and betrayal.

Marked For Death offers a very proficient range of bang-and-break antics ending with a neat twist.

An old-fashioned literary biopic with all cliches intact and some pseudo-steamy grapplings to keep interest, if you must, up.

Despite the usually dependable cast, this is a slow and ever-so-slightly dull affair. Try Bogart's 1955 original instead.

Campion's grasp of her material is intellectually and emotionally assured, while Fox's extraordinary performance demonstrates an honesty, courage and power that's rarely attempted, let alone achieved.

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.

Schlesinger, using slick camera angles and direction that bear a striking similarity to those of the old master himself, manages to pile on that tension in spades.

An amazing exercise in character development which successfully shows the character as they were in the first film and as they are now. It is flawed in the basics, but often delightful in detail.

What this sometimes witty time-filler never quite manages is a genuine sense of confined menace. For that, you'll have to get aboard the original when it next plays on TV.

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

Walking a fine line between being a masterpiece and a dogs dinner, this movie strays into the latter, though giving some historical illumination to the movie-making process as it was in the 1950s. A white elephant.

Re-prehensible, re-heated, and certainly not re-commended.

A little slow and vastly outdated now, but nonetheless very watchable.

Fine performances in this highly entertaining biopic confirm Mike Nichol's status as the director Hollywood wants to work with.

John Woo's trademark style reached its zenith in The Killer, with its ying-yang relationship between a good-hearted hit man and an anti-authority cop. But underneath the Miami Vice tailoring, it's as much a doomed romance as a shoot-'em-up.

Certainly not Raimi at his best, but some knowing genre nods and an array of great effects make up much of the deficit.

As the drama circles their inaction, this trio of excellent performances fills the screen with a form of spiritual exhaustion, and the film slumps into noir’s typically happy-clappy comeuppance of failure, betrayal and ruin. But the mood has caught on, and the film, stamped with a stunning visual emptiness, haunts the memory for long after its sour close.

Deliciously cruel to children, Roeg remains true to Dahl's underlying sense of real horror.

Surprising success with what could be a formulaic disgruntled teen movie. Fast paced with a satisfyingly unhappy ending.

It's plus points are few and far between - fantastic music, well worth buying the soundtrack for, and the occasional Moranis and Martin magic we would expect throughout - but such rare glimpses merely underline the sheer sogginess of the rest of the movie.

The major fault in Exorcist III is the house-of-cards plot that is constantly collapsing.

Misfit cameos, apparently random asides and an almost continuous onslaught of unsettling sex and violence mean there’s no mistaking David Lynch’s hand behind the camera -- but there’s enough of a narrative to make this work as a straightforward road movie, too.

While Gibson and Downey work well together, Air America does tend to be slightly overcooked in the cheap laugh department at the expense of a meandering storyline.

The Two Jakes is well-acted and looks fabulous, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond paints it eerily bright and shiny.

It’s tight, suspenseful, funny and packed with great music.

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

A dark domestic comedy that continuously shirks the courage of its convictions.

A well-rigged whodunit based on the bestseller by Scott Turrow, that pretends to investigate the various political manipulations that haunt your average district attorney’s office but is in truth about the wages of sin.

It’s drifty, dreamy quality that, contrary to the film’s indie-cool ingredients, makes it eminently watchable and modern.

Marvelous supporting performances from scene-stealing Kirby, Maximilian Schell, Paul Benedict as the nutty professor and Frank Whaley as Broderick's quiff-coiffed room mate pile on the pleasures, but the sight of Marlon Brando on ice skates is surely the absolute treat in a film well worth rooting for.

A very pompous version of the kind of nonsense Chuck Norris has been doing in far less embarrassing fashion for so many years.

An exciting and thoroughly enjoyable, experience.

It’s soppy and sentimental, and it’s no longer possible to take the famous pottery sequence seriously, but some neat special effects and a healthy dose of humour prevent it from becoming mawkish.

Enjoyable nonsense with a superb enemble cast. Pure entertainment.

Though Clay is unbearably watchable, the mis-cast director means this comedy would be better as an action flick - it isn't funny but the violence is well executed.

It's not nearly exciting enough and at an hour and twenty minutes is overlong for animation fans, yet by virtue of the fact it's a cartoon, it presents itself as too childish for older live action devotees.

More violent, more explosive and even bigger than the original - this ticks all the sequel boxes. But as long as Willis is in his vest and playing McClane, it's hard to care about its shortcomings.

Every motion, from the clamour of the racetrack to the sparring of teacher and pupil, has been worked out for audience satisfaction and grants none. This is not a real film, it is an automaton, a pod-movie, and, thankfully, proved the death nail for such high-concept filmmaking.

If you like to stagger away from a film feeling numb and slightly sick, this one's for you.

Most of the people who see this will own funnier home videos of wedding disasters.

It's fun spotting stars under cakes of make-up and the panache, great supporting cast and good-natured, old-fashioned feel make for a better movie than you remember.

You can really tell that the people making this film had a lot of fun doing it. The plot is thinner than a compressed wafer, but who cares? It's fun and cheap laughs all the way, and that ain't no crime.

Purposeless waste of director Walter Hill's energies.

Top-flight muscleman entertainment that is not afraid to have a brain or two in its head.

A clever and enjoyable wrapping-up of the time-travelling adventures.

Even worse than it sounds.

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

Almodovar consolidated his status as a challenging and bold filmmaker by forcing Americans to drop their zany preconceptions of him and see his world through his eyes.

Despite feeling narratively let off the leash, Last Exit retains the passion of the novel, as well as the switch-blade characterisation.

Nothing more than a romp in Rio, which is fair enough if that's how your get your kicks.

Predictable and flat, the sort of cop-out horror movie which relies on sending up long-outdated female stereotypes of the matron vs the siren. Nothing particularly refreshing or even frightening resides within.

More than an average thriller, but far from Lumet's finest hour.

Unashamedly rubbery fun.

This is brutal, gory, at times downright sickening stuff, and somewhat twisted types are likely to laugh like a drain.

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.

From the astonishing studio sets and (Gaultier-designed) costumes to Gambon’s performance (so ferociously wicked that it beggars description), Greenaway attacks his targets with a sadistic obsession that is, frankly, terrifying. Many people will be profoundly offended by this film — by the monstrous misanthropy that Greenaway lays bare through it, by the spiteful images of women in a vicious world — but some may appreciate it for what it certainly is: the most startling depiction of intellectual cruelty and evil for many years.

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

Peppered with fun-to-spot cameos (can you spot Williem Dafoe?), the parody-satire script works well with Depp's adept handling of the titular bad boy. A delinquent joy-ride, though without the Hard-core distaste of previous Waters flicks, which may or may not be a bad thing.

A well-rounded, unpretentious, very funny, knockabout adventure - subtly blended so that it's fun for all the family.

Braindead and done to death, this somehow remains a relatively fun ride.

A modern-day treatment of Pygmalion and Cinderella rolled into one, it is graced by first-class performances from two easy-on-the-eye stars and a sharp, funny script.

Boring and Silly, Ronin is a better example of Frankenheimer's direction.

Somewhat dated now but still occasionally gripping.

As an outing to complement study of the book the film is worthy enough but curiously less than the sum of its parts.

Despite magic moments, this is so lop-sided in conception it's really only worth seeking out as a folly.

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.

Comes across as a TV movie and overall, a disappointment - a high calibre cast and concept completely squandered.

Director John McTiernan rigorously avoids anything that might conceivably be exciting.

Every bit as enchanting as you remember. Molto, molto bene.

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

Exceptionally well-rendered and emotive war drama.

It's not just the saturated ultra-violence which make this film difficult to watch - there is something just not convincing about this vehicle for Costner's darker side. One thing is for sure though, driving a Jeep will never be the same again.

Gauged on a count of wit or originality this doesn't even register.

One for fans only.

Erman could have made a movie that left the Bette Midler stereotype in the eighties where it belonged, but he didn't. Great if you're a Bette fan, somewhat trying if you're not, though thankfully some of the sheer hamminess has been dulled with time.

The plot unravels in unwieldy dollops, and, despite some adequate special effects (for the time), the whole thing is really a bit of a bore.

It has grown a little thin with age, especially Gere’s yuppie baiting speeches, but there’s a hardness here, an aversion to the dumb action thrills of the genre, that keeps it respectably high up the scale.

A spare and authentic screenplay unfolds in an almost documentary-like enviroment, there are no histrionics and the acting is of the highest order, but the film shocks and disturbs as much for its morally questionable purpose as in its ugly subject.

As befits a distillation of 1,318 pages of the story so far, Akira the film is teeming with incident and detail.

Stallone and Russell play well off each other, and with Palance lurking in the background, this buddy-breakout never loses its way.

Some will find it overly long, but with such a pivotal performance by Cruise and a veritable platoon of Hollywood elite supporting, who can begrudge a bit more screen time?

An affecting, impressive debut from a filmmaker with an innate taste for modern America's clashes of conscience. An important document.

It gets to its hugely emotional destination without ever having to put the foot down; a poignant and provocative road movie.

Unexpectedly raucous comedy which trades off a few laughs for an interesting religious spin. Jordan can thank his lucky stars, but give himself a massive, stubborn pat on the back while he's at it.

The three lead characters end the film as isolated as they began it. As with the plot, there isn't quite enough in the throwaway humour to hold them together.

An all-star lineup with some kookie moments, but a bit limp overall.

Quite shocking, almost avant-garde in the way it constantly confounds expectations built up over years of formula pictures.

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

Directed and played with terrific verve, this moves so fast from one special effects set-piece to the next that there's no time at all to reflect on the basic ridiculousness of its Chinese box of a plot.

It may be unfair to compare a film with its stage source, but the fact remains that the film, while retaining a great deal of both humour and pathos, is a less persuasive work and more obviously a vehicle for a starry ensemble.