Dreary jousting, production values that make Monty Python and the Holy Grail look lavish, and an excruciating synthesiser score make this a real trial.

Is this family movie just an excuse for the star to romp around wearing not an awful lot? Very probably.

Woo claims it started out as a zen movie about internalised conflicts, but it plays like a regular martial arts melodrama; only the tone is darker and more cynical than usual.

Menopausal male Wilder gets the frustrated hots for comely Ms Le Brock in this broad, unfunny Hollywood remake of the broad, only vaguely funny French original Pardon Mon Affaire (which at least had long-faced Jean Rochefort in its favour).

Paranoia can of course be an excellent dynamic for movie-makers, and within its own dream-like structure, Red Dawn is both compelling and witty (the town's drive-in becomes a 're-education camp'). But it also contains moments that are repulsive in the grand right wing tradition, all the more so since Milius, who once held the fascination of a rebel, is here voicing sentiments that the Reagan administration actually believes.

The humour couldn't be blacker, and the quality of invention is outrageously high.

A time-travel yarn of the past arrives in the present persuasion. The 'what the hell's happened?' passages are, as usual, more diverting than the 'what the hell can we do about it?' scenes, the latter involving merely flashing lights, showers of sparks and talk of imploding vortexes.

It's pleasant enough, as a view of small-town Americana, but played very straight.

A dismally unfunny shambles.

Photographically busy, though to no meaningful purpose, mildly amusing at best, the piece finally expires with what could be, but probably isn't, a parody of a feel-good ending.

There are nun jokes, mafia jokes, big breast jokes, karate jokes, Jaws jokes, more big breasts. It's a long ride.

A predictable quest plot is unwound with tremendous verve, and the only real disappointments are some ropey special effects. But Fleischer's zest for action carries it all along splendidly.

A sad re-run of the Mean Streets idea (awkwardly adapted by Vincent Patrick from his own admirable novel).

Not for the purists, maybe, but the last half-hour, as Firmin plunges ever deeper into his self-created hell, leaves one shell-shocked.

The message is that there is no message; if this isn't action cinema in its purest form, then it's pretty close.

An all-time low for the Enterprise and her crew, with Spock dead, the ship condemned, and everyone else looking about 104. Decent SFX, but a little more action wouldn't have gone amiss.

While Leone's vision still has a magnificent sweep, the film finally subsides to an emotional core that is sombre, even elegiac, and which centres on a man who is bent and broken by time, and finally left with nothing but an impotent sadness. 

A cinephile's film, stuffed with influences and allusions which, together with the precocious brilliance of every single image, can become numbing at times rather than stunning; but the absolute assurance and ingenuity make this a debut as startling as Eraserhead and every bit as spectacular.

It's all a brave try, though Gibson is perhaps not up to the demands of a Christian's progress from naive rating to self-loathing exile, and Donaldson's direction often verges on the stolid.

Soft porn from Columbia Pictures (let's name 'n shame 'em) without a single redeeming feature.

A justifiably angry film, fast and full of violent action, though there's plenty of humour too; and the lack of originality is amply compensated for by its manifest sincerity.

Hawn, atypically cast and supported by all-round excellent performances, proves that she can act. But still this bitter-sweet concoction is very much Demme's: not only in the warming celebration of friendship and community values (the unsentimental generosity extended towards the characters positively glows), but also in the assured handling of period, place, music and mood.

The first version played with moral dilemmas but reached only Bible-class conclusions. By '84 independent and liberated women can pay to see themselves represented as slutty, avaricious and brutal.

Rhetoric apart, the film offers some stirring entertainment, and a memorable ham sandwich from Richardson, allowed to steal the show as the grandfather in what proved to be his last film.

Very little seems to happen in this social vacuum, and none of it is memorable.

Part vigilante movie, part sitcom, part tearjerker, part cracker melodrama, it's redeemed by yet another of Garner's graceful, effortless performances.

Reiner's brilliantly inventive script and smart visuals avoid all the obvious pitfalls, making this one of the funniest ever films about the music business.

Cox's weird and wonderful first feature defies description, with a plot and characters at once grounded in the seedy reality of Reagan's America and effortlessly enhanced by flights of pure, imaginative fantasy. What distinguishes the movie is its offbeat, semi-satirical sense of humour, seamlessly woven into its wacky thriller plot. But there are endless things to enjoy, from Robby Müller's crisp camerawork to a superb set of performances, from witty movie parodies to a tremendous punk soundtrack.