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.

Despite the barrage of one-liners and almost farcial plot twists, Zieff's light touch and some unselfish ensemble acting make this team genuinely endearing.

Amid a plethora of 'garbage genre' movies which fail to fulfil the promise of their titles, this is something of a relief, aided by a genuinely funny script, a tip-top performance from Maher, and film trivia aplenty for those who want it.

Surely the nadir of the rehash genre, a string of unconnected party pieces by a cast whose world weariness would imply that they know exactly how cynical this whole venture has become.

As if the plot weren't perfunctory enough (bags of Yankee dollars, corruption in high places, CIA asassins), we take extended breaks from it to contemplate Quinn's gradual recovery of his roots, culminating in the grateful islanders serenading him with a reggae version of the title song.

This is extremely silly, good natured, superficial stuff; a lot depends on whether you take to Bill and Ted's unique lingo (which contorts surfers' expressions) and their gormless behaviour.

Martin zips from boyhood to manhood in a ridiculously short period, and in no time at all is getting it together with Beth Logan (Zuniga), who doesn't know about his dad being a creepy-crawly. But when Martin's skin starts falling off, she begins to suspect that it's more than just a case for Clearasil, and resolves to help her loved one sort out his confused chromosomes - too late to avoid the onslaught of latex and squishy special effects for which we've all been waiting, and which is indeed the movie's only interesting commodity. Other than that, it's standard directionless fare.

Things plod to their inevitable conclusion, helped along by the script's assortment of stereotypical underdogs and manipulators, and with Candy hamming up the oppourtunity to get into lots of tight spots while wearing funny disguises. At their silliest, such moments actually provide light relief from an otherwise unremarkable comedy caper.

Making excellent use of Nolte's controlled toughness and Short's hysterical freneticism, Weber plays the comic action hard and fast, grounding the humour in believable reality that has spiralled out of control.

If the film finally fails to shock or surprise, it's nevertheless both imaginatively shot and wittily scripted, and strikes a nice balance between gentle parody and a queasy unease associated with bona fide genre suspense. Superior performances by Quaid, Hurt and Madorsky.

With the screenplay dabbling with too many issues and stereotypes, the characters are largely one-dimensional and the relationships unconvincing.

Cunningham apes Ridley Scott and James Cameron competently enough, and there are scary moments, but he has not got the 'vision thing'. This simply rehashes the phony trappings of countless TV shows, to baldly go where we have been before.

John Patrick Shanley's screenplay, touching on themes of betrayal and corruption, honesty and trust, promises and teases but suffers from coitus interruptus.

A disappointing sequel to Clive Barker's innovatory body horror pic, which - while making some effort to flesh out the Cenobite mythology - simply performs cosmetic surgery on the original.