The ensemble acting is so strong the characters are likeable without being annoying, and aside from the odd corny line which serves as a reminder of the movie's stupidity, if taken at face value it becomes a fair enough yarn with bundles of energy.

A carefully evoked and unhurried number that won't bring the house down, this nonetheless ends up being more absorbing than you'd think.

It's a million miles from MTV chic; instead a timeless record of a timeless band, now fifty-somethings uniting an everyman/woman/child audience. Feel the power.

Writer/director Jim Kouf certainly knows his police procedures, packing the movie with sharp dialogue and authentic set pieces. Unfortunately, the final half-hour, with its told-you-so conclusion, takes the knife-edge away from what clearly could have been a masterly thriller. Then again, just watching Tupac ponder death on the big screen is probably all the knife-edge you need.

But for the most part, what you have here is a topnotch filmmaker getting back to basics and really delivering the goods.

The dazzling ensemble perfectly captures every nuance in one of the finest acting showcases you could hope for.

Echoes of "Waiting To Exhale" are obvious, but this is a more smiley affair altogether, with perhaps a spoonful too much sugar stirred in at times, and emotional development often mixed from the most basic of recipes.

Bart, the bear used in the dramatic attack sequences, gets top billing in the end credit crawl. Which is fair enough, but hardly inspiring.

Far too light and reliant on the Hollywood romantic clich_ to explore its topic intelligently, and - appropriately enough - leaves Kline looking like a Muppet.

However, it is probably the screenplay that is most at fault, and while "Demolition Man" director Brambilla again makes things look okay, his hands are tied with flat dialogue, zero comedy and not much caper, either.

In spite of a catalogue of downsides, including clunky dialogue, fuzzy morals and preposterous story lines, G.I. Jane does offer a perverse level of enjoyment.

Audacious, yet sensitive, Fire may shock traditionalists but is the sort of film that ought to win Indian cinema a whole new audience.

An honourable attempt to return the mainstream thriller to a more serious, intelligent vein, yet ultimately lacks the complexity of characterisation, dense subterfuge and overall feeling of weightiness that separates the great from the good.

Superbly styled in techno-Gothic space-grunge chic, this sci-fi/horror cross-breed is a directorial triumph of reference and homage.

Though it tries to be different, with hair's-breadth escapes that don't depend on implausible stunts or Bondian-scale explosions, Conspiracy Theory is an uneasy mix of laughs and thrills; suspense and soap.

As is the norm with the best of Leigh, Career Girls is a masterly observation of the foibles of the human condition, rendered with an incisive bite and delivered with boisterous wit.

Aniston deports herself competently, here showing us nothing she hasn't on Friends, and Bacon is pretty much on autopilot as the company stud but it is Mohr who actually shines, skilfully giving an underwritten role a genuinely deft sense of nobility and charm.

Fulfils all its early promise, delivering a well oiled, no-nonsense, supremely entertaining crowd pleaser.

Whatever it is they do so successfully on TV clearly fails to translate to the big screen, particularly when saddled with a script that does no one any favours. Sinbad, as an Afro-heavy 70s throwback, does his best to elevate things, but this stodge is beyond help.

Before you know it, you're caught up in a difficult but touching friendship, and enjoying a history lesson more than you ever thought possible.

Very amusing fun.

Contact delivers on more than a pure visual level, reiterating the idea that greatest progress is made taking "small steps" towards enlightenment.

Sure there are niggles, the most obvious being the length, which could have been reduced by trimming the prison sequences, but in the end this may be his finest moment so far which, by default, puts it in as having a strong claim on the title "best action movie ever made". Really.

Kusturica is sturdier on style than substance.

Speed 2 is a well-above-average armrest-gripper with little in it to upset the children excepting, perhaps, Dafoe's lengthy white teeth, and the fact that UB40 provide onboard cabaret.

Yes, disbelief is required not so much to be suspended as removed altogether, but it barely matters as this is an adrenaline blast of the highest order.

Here both Greenaway's strengths and weaknesses are on show as he toys with the viewers' capacity to ingest blurring metaphors and convoluted content.