Robbins is amiable enough as a Gary Cooper type, and Meg Ryan does her own sweet thing, but the equation is overbalanced by Matthau's matey old man.

Shelton's film is about the nature of truth and popular myth, about the single-minded pursuit of glory, and the horrors within. It's also very funny. Jones gives a grandstand performance - this is his Patton, or even perhaps his Macbeth - as the pistol-packin', pill-poppin' Cobb, a monster who daren't look himself in the face, and refuses to apologise.

An unsettling if not entirely successful social-cum-psychological drama. As a study in the complex relationship between violence and cinema, it's an unsensational alternative to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Man Bites Dog.

Expect this straightforward, compelling adaptation to provoke just the same level of domestic debate. As ever, the writing is rich, flexible, masterly.

Perez has a field day as Muriel, injecting a welcome note of good old-fashioned greed into what is otherwise a relentlessly edifying story.

The spoof-policier series is about non-stop gags, pure and simple, and this third instalment, for all its lax plotting and ludicrous characterisation, remains infinitely more pleasurable than sticking you face in a fan. Indeed, the five minutes of the pre-credits sequence are quite possibly the funniest since the talkies came in. Thereafter, it's hit and miss, but the hits are so frequent and spot-on, you'd have to be dead (and buried) not to find the film painfully hilarious. Inspired, inspirational, gloriously inane.

Hallström's finally struck a chord with the Americans, though it's much the same cocktail of whimsy and worry, the eccentric and the banal, that he's been mixing all along.

As sequels go, this is passable: no more coherent than the episodic first installment, but with enough sick humour to satisfy the mildly depraved.

In his prime, co-writer Michael Ritchie might have turned this into a caustic Downhill Racer or Bad News Bears-style critique of professional sporting values. Director Turteltaub, on the other hand, patronises both characters and audience with daft knockabout humour, tear-jerking sentiment and racial stereotyping which skates on very thin ice.

Better than most Stephen King adaptations, mainly because an exceptionally strong cast adds substance to the facile storyline about a mysterious stranger, Leland Gaunt (von Sydow), who opens the antique shop of the title in Castle Rock, Maine, and, by tapping into the inhabitants' acquisitive desires, sets them at one another's throats.

Connery lectures at length on his favourite subject, which wouldn't be so dull if the suspense was more adroitly handled, but Kaufman, regrettably, gets the pacing all wrong. Blowup-style video detection scenes provide a modicum of interest.

A standard, camp, unapologetic Mel Brooks parody, with digs at Kevin Costner's Prince of Thieves and its multi-racial Merry Men, and an arsenal of throw-away gags. An impressive cast - Stewart, Hayes, Ullman - cannot unfortunately save the day.

It’s infuriatingly irresistible.

Another one flies over the cuckoo's nest in this soft-hearted romantic three-hander. It's acted out in the secondary emotional register of the glass menagerie: whimsical, delicate, idiosyncratic, barmy.

CB4 is not in the Spinal Tap league, lacking that film's merciless detail and consistency. But in parts it is hugely, monstrously funny.

The film comes over as a tour de force version of the disease-of-the-week TV movie: half scientific detective story, half domestic drama, replete with scenes of suffering. Throughout, Miller points up every least thing: religious symbolism, snow-dusted Christmas windows for pathos, spinning news headlines, and swirling, diving camera movements. Finally, it begins to seem a little dishonest and self-conscious, as if Miller were trying to make an AIDS movie with hope and a positive ending.

Jackson's showy technique does little to lighten the over-earnest heroics and ponderous references to samurai, which are punctuated by assorted numbers and costume changes for Houston. Lawrence Kasdan, it seems, mulled over the first draft of his screenplay twenty years ago; it should have been left to languish in development purgatory.

Davis handles the pacy action sequences confidently, with dark, claustrophobic interiors enhancing the suspense; so it's all the more disappointing when corny dialogue and barely-sketched characters let things down.

In attempting to explore the man, Roselyne Bosch's script also embraces the myth, most obviously in some initial exchanges laden with significance. Vangelis' thunderous, intrusive score doesn't help; even more tedious is foppish villain Wincott, fashion victim and confirmed sadist.

Very lame ice-hockey flick. Estevez is arrogant hot-shot lawyer Gordon Bombay, condemned to community service for drink-driving. He reckons he can go one-on-one with his troubled past and get back at his boss by coaching a team of little league no-hopers (cast from a cupboard marked 'brats, assorted').

More notable perhaps for a roster of future stars and Oscar winners than for its unexceptional plot, this well executed film nevertheless has its charms.

Would-be seadog Short inherits old boat and sets sail for adventure in the Caribbean only to have sozzled captain Russell land the whole crew in deep trouble. Queasy ocean-going comedy, not helped by Kurt's Robert Newton impersonation.

A magnificent movie that transcends its familiar tale of a reformed gunman forced by circumstance to resume his violent ways.

Can the trio use their ninja secrets to escape? Will granddad defeat the gun-runner in hand-to-hand combat? If you can't guess the answers to these questions you are under 11 and will absolutely love this film, with its amazing fight scenes, bungling Home Alone kidnappers and thoroughly nasty bad guys. Send mum and dad shopping.

Pesci's variation on New Jersey machismo (vulnerable in this case) isn't enough to fill a comedy; but Dale Launer's script luckily provides some fine routines for the supporting cast, notably the scene-stealing Marisa Tomei as Mona Lisa Vito, Pesci's sharp-tongued girlfriend. It's a small, surprisingly gentle affair, prone to fits and starts, but fun.

Despite the hackneyed sub-Frankenstein plot, the dazzling computer-generated special effects almost carry the film.

When played for laughs, this works well, while the action scenes generate an atmosphere of paranoia and menace; but failing to explore the pathos of Nick's predicament, the film becomes an inflated lightweight comedy whose shortcomings are all too visible.

While the book deftly juggles separate narratives, the device proves clumsy on screen. More dizzying than the jumps between past and present is the speed with which consciousness-raised Evelyn swaps caricatures, evolving from Frump to Fighter. Essentially, the film is about fine performances - with Tandy securing an Oscar nomination - but it wins no prizes for subtlety.