Barkin and Henriksen perform with relish, Whitaker and Freeman are pleasantly understated. Rourke tries harder than ever to minimise, nay obscure, his good looks, a process which merely serves to emphasise them.

Sweetie confirms Campion as a highly original movie talent.

But the virtue of Russell's writing is that, for all the cracks, occasional duff lines, and tendency to simplify and stereotype, few can match his ability to make us laugh, cry and ultimately care.

The plot is reasonably entertaining, and Davis handles the action sequences well, but where the film transcends a lingering sense of déjà vu is in its intelligent performances: Hackman and Cassidy make a strong, unsentimental couple, hints of romance and reconciliation lurking beneath their businesslike exchanges.

The film never really overcomes obvious budgetary constraints, with important moments drained of impact because the effects lack imagination. Kristofferson and Travanti (as a physicist) are effectively true to form, but Ladd is woefully inadequate.

All kinds of fraught encounters ensue before the pals are reunited - and I drifted off myself. A live-action feature, it scores high on the cute-ometer, what with narrator Dudley Moore working himself into a frolicsome frenzy, a singalong signature tune, and more animals than you'll find at Whipsnade.

De Palma is not a director one looks to for conscience, and his track record on the issue of rape has been innocent of moral debate. It's odd to find him dealing with both, and the non-sensationalist approach seems to have taken a toll on his energies: Casualties of War is dull.

A flimsily plotted but visually impressive addition to the endless Freddy Krueger saga, with an unsavoury gynaecological flavour.

A couple of vaguely amusing monologues apart, this lame, tame variation on the buddy-buddy comic cop thriller is flaccid, predictable, and as sickeningly anthropomorphic as one might fear.

For what it's worth (very little), probably the best in the series.

Grave of the Fireflies is not a film to be taken lightly. It is not even a film to be enjoyed. It is a film which demands – and deserves – total concentration and emotional surrender. The reward is an experience unlike any other: exhausting, tragic and utterly bleak, but also somehow monumental.

The adolescent antics may be familiar, but Barron directs with affection both for her characters and for back-combing and boned underskirts; her young professionals turn in appropriately corny performances; and the soundtrack is a corker.

By concentrating on the often frustrating, funny relationship between the three men, the film gains in humour but loses some of the momentum and panache which distinguished the original.

After suffering endless abuse, Daniel wins with just a few well placed whacks: those expecting standard wish-fulfilment fantasy will be disappointed that (in tune with the philosophy, of course) he didn't give the punk a pasting.

The trouble with this biopic is that it attempts to convey too many aspects of the Jerry Lee Lewis legend.

Effortlessly moving from comedy to serious social comment, eliciting excellent performances from a large and perfectly selected cast, and making superb use of music both to create mood and comment on the action, Lee contrives to see both sides of each conflict without falling prey to simplistic sentimentality.

Sholder's robust staging of the car chases, punch-ups and shootouts recalls the kinetic energy of his earlier The Hidden. His handling of the quieter familial and buddy-buddy relationships, on the other hand, is hopelessly leaden, serving only to stop the action-packed narrative in its tracks.

Things hot up in the last 20 minutes, when Peter Jackson stops chucking intestines around and gets some serious hardware under way - we're talking rocket launchers and big chainsaws, equipment essential to the success of any movie.

Cleverly written, authentically staged and sympathetically played, it's brave, uncompromising, and above all, frighteningly believable.

There's a resolutely untouching scene in which the pair discuss their relative philosophies for dealing with disability, but otherwise it's a long, painfully unfunny series of things being smashed up and fallen over.

Working from his own script, Harris shows no sense of detail; characters barely develop, London becomes a topographical mess, and each time the plot falters, we get long '60s-style interludes with no dialogue, cut to bland pop. The result is without dramatic or moral weight, despite Highway's contrived comeuppance, and it's impossible to care about the characters.

Apprenticed under Corman, Wynorski is well-versed in double-bluffing his audience, denying them the chance of balking at dreadful special effects by implying that the ineptitude is deliberate. He opts for cheap nostalgic laughs and camp '50s sci-fi scenery; depending on whether you find this funny, you'll either smile knowingly or gasp in disbelief.

The opening half-hour is outrageously brilliant, but descends into a pot-boiler of repetitive, if animated, soapbox preaching about the manipulation of punters by the denziens of Madison Avenue and their international brotherhood.

In her amazingly assured debut, Clare Denis draws out the implications of the action with great subtlety. She makes the most of the exotic location, and elicits strong performances from all her cast.

Family entertainment: cosy, intimate, a touch cloying.

Despite touches of enforced eccentricity, the story is redeemed by its observation of bittersweet relationships and self-deceptions.

Dragoti's dire, dishonest, seldom humorous social comedy has all the nauseating hallmarks of a big-budget sitcom. Can't wait for the John Waters remake.