As we work our way back to that cliff-hanger of an opening, it becomes clear that the movie is no acid critique, but a hollow endorsement of high living. Guess every generation gets its "Boiler Room."

A certain Hollywood self-absorption is on display here, but the family’s depressing story merits Mariel’s vigilant defensiveness.

While slickly enjoyable in parts, the biggest misstep here comes by puncturing Spielberg’s grandeur.

More than a moral dilemma is needed to make up for the uneven performances, slack pacing and wonky dialogue, and while MacLean certainly has a keen eye, the rest of his storytelling facilities haven't quite caught up with it yet.

The juxtaposition of head-spinning break dancing and mild martial arts (in which the fighters glow to show their level of mental attainment and nobody gets badly hurt) provides lots of whirling limbs, but the working into the storyline of a crook who wants to take over the nightclub to provide valuable exposure for his aspirant rock-goddess girlfriend seems lame indeed.

To the movie's small credit, there's very little grasping for larger significance: It's a dumb horror film, complete with a sexy female lust object (Kaboom's Mesquida) undraping for a shower scene.

A one-joke movie, but at least it's a good joke.

A completely unnecessary sequel, plays a lot like "The Godfather, Part III"-lush, self-parodic and cut adrift from urgency.

It winningly pays homage to the apparently nationwide fraternity of Arab-American mini-mart owners, while letting the Motor City setting provide the economic commentary.

Our heroine plods doggedly through her frequently stymied investigation, and The Whistleblower follows suit, trudging forward one encumbered step at a time.

Ultimately Miss You Already feels like chick lit for the big screen: a frothy, contrived confection with careful doses of sexy, silly and sad. But those sad bits will get you in the end.

What the film lacks, however, is the epic vision to match its epic pretensions, something to bind together the action and the ideas.

With the film heavily favoring extensive on-court footage at the expense of in-depth individual portraits, the “more” offered here is merely skin-deep, basketball-is-a-brotherhood uplift.

The elements are all in place – superb acting (lead actor Konstantin Lavronenko won the best actor prize at Cannes in 2007), masterly camerawork, an ethereal score, ghostly locations – but the problem is that the story never really connects.

Over-extended and sloppily characterised Agatha Christie whodunit, with Ustinov's Poirot investigating the murder of an heiress aboard a steamer in the 30s.

Inspired by real-life events covered in Wyler's WWII documentary The Memphis Belle, this David Puttnam production may not be the most original movie around, but at least Caton-Jones steers through the stock situations with verve and panache.

Until someone delivers the definitive 360-degree chronicle on the populist uprising, this collection of dispatches from the front is the best primer you could hope for.

Zeroing in (with much of Mulligan's usual quiet sympathy) on adolescence and the moment of sexual awakening with the added weight of The Way We Were type of nostalgia, this is a mess of contradictions.

Ridden with flashbacks and with a punchy orchestral score, it’s a thoroughly improbable story of her internal redemption. And it’s largely pretty great.

The movie’s greatest accomplishment, though, is the way it brings some honest heart to Mike and Marcus’s partnership in the first half, before the traditional mayhem and profane banter take over.

For all the footage of glistening flesh - most of the film takes place in a darkened room where the two explore the realm of the senses - this is basically a melancholic piece about the remembrance of times, places and passions lost (with voice-over narration by Jeanne Moreau).

Happily, it emerges at last with enough inventive action to stand alongside its murderous predecessors, and makes Ana de Armas into a likeable assassin hero – a phrase that makes more sense in her killer-filled world than our own.

Like its predecessors, Paranormal Activity 3 demands to be seen with a crowd: Being able to hear outbursts of nervous laughter and irrepressible panic ripple through a packed house is the reason movies like this exist.

Credit goes to Creadon for venturing beyond the classroom to look at how the teachers and students manage small victories despite limited resources.

It’s likely that only Herzog would dare to, and succeed at, resolving this singular cinematic object by contemplating the fate of an abandoned basketball.

Joaquin Phoenix is devastating as the villain-in-the-making in this incendiary tale of psychological escape and psychopathy.

Suspecting that all this plus the cheerleaders might fail to excite, the film-makers also pack in twenty songs.

Kramer's 'comedy to end all comedy' stretches its material to snapping point but offers happy hours of star-spotting.