Ratatouille [2007]

A sewer rat working undercover at a posh restaurant is a pretty icky premise, but in Pixar's latest and possibly greatest film, you'll be rooting for the rodent. Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat blessed with a burning desire to cook. With the help of a kitchen boy whom he literally puppets around the kitchen, Remy can produce dishes to astound the most jaded palate. But how will diners react when they discover the rat beneath the hat?

This is a glorious return to form for Pixar following last year's disappointing Cars. The brainchild of master animator Brad Bird (The Incredibles), Ratatouille is so much more than just another CGI critter caper. It's a thriller, a frenetic comedy, and a love story in the style of Cyrano De Bergerac, as Remy guides the hapless kitchen drudge Linguini through a treacherous romance with a fiery French chefette (Janeane Garofolo). But most of all, Ratatouille is a love letter to food and cooking. Bird goes all out to infect the audience with Remy's love of flavour, using mind-bending visuals to illustrate the aroma of a piece of cheese. Complex as this celluloid dish is, the plot is mere pasta to a rich ragù of slapstick setpieces. A kitchen, as Tom and Jerry proved, is a deadly adventure playground for rodents, and Remy is forever dodging hot plates and flying meat cleavers on his quest to impress cadaverous critic Anton Ego (fruitily voiced by Peter O'Toole.)

" BASICALLY, IT'S A MASTERPIECE"

We could go on for hours about the delights of Ratatouille. The animation is superb, the vocal work flawless, the script witty, the central conflict between family ties and the pursuit of excellence subtly handled. The tasting of the eponymous ratatouille is so expertly done that it's sure to find a spot on any cinemagoer's top twenty favourite scenes. Basically, this is a masterpiece. Don't miss it.

When Harry Met Sally [1989]

Meeting for the first time as they leave college, Harry and Sally share the long drive to New York and immediately fall in hatred. But they keep bumping into one another every few years and even become close friends - despite Harry asserting that it's impossible for men and women to be platonic.

As soon as you hear that, you know what will happen. Much of the movie is inevitable, it's even predictable because it sticks closely to the romantic comedy format and yet it does it so well that you don't care. There's even one long, repeating gag that if you took a moment to think about it you would realise what the pay off was going to be and yet it comes as a big surprise at the very end of the film.

The writing and direction plays with the form and your expectations alike throughout, and with such good performances the film makes for a deliciously prickly ride with laugh-out-loud moments and scenes that resonate through the story.

Meg Ryan looks astonishingly young but she is the better actor of the pair in this case, partly because unusually for a Hollywood film the women characters are better written than the men. She carries off an uptight, rigid character so well that when she does the famous fake orgasm scene she has really been building to it throughout the film.

Billy Crystal gets some great lines and does well with them but at times his reforming New Man character can grate. Only a little, and chiefly as you near the conclusion, by which time you are so anxious for Harry and Sally to get together that you'd accept anything.

"When Harry Met Sally" is on Channel 4 at 10.00pm, Monday 5th February 2001.

Mr & Mrs Smith [2005]

When marriage dampens the fireworks, the bullets start flying between Mr & Mrs Smith in Doug Liman's cracking comic thriller. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie make a sizzling double-act as the titular assassins who exploit a loophole in the clause "till death do us part". Echoing the black wit of the Jack Nicholson/Kathleen Turner classic Prizzi's Honor (1985) but with a screwball pace and doses of hi-tech action, it's not to be missed.

John and Jane Smith are living a lie. Between suburban soirees and picking new curtains, they are contract killers for rival agencies who wind up gunning for the same target (Adam Brody). Quibbling quickly leads to all-out warfare, but it's in the crossfire where they rediscover that missing spark. Sadly by this stage, it's not a marriage counsellor they need but the entire UN peacekeeping force.

"COAXES BIG LAUGHS"

Liman treads stealthily between lightness and dark, coaxing big laughs even while Pitt is cheerfully kicking his onscreen wife in the stomach. He undercuts the violence with a slapstick sensibility and employs rapid-fire editing to match the snappy dialogue. Throughout, screenwriter Simon Kinberg cleverly contrasts the petty frictions of married life with the ruthless hostility between rival killers and the leads carry it off in sophisticated style. Meanwhile Vince Vaughn is hilariously boorish as a hitman who still lives with mum, or as he puts it, "The only woman I can trust!" A busy plot makes for a rambling beginning and a drawn-out finale, but as a hip slice of kiss-kiss bang-bang, Mr & Mrs Smith definitely hits the mark.

Mission: Impossible III [2006]

Run, Tom, run! He might have gone a bit batty lately, but you can always rely on the Cruiser for first-class running action. That boy just loves to run. There's no shortage of sprinting in this, the third and most entertaining of the Mish Iposs franchise. First Tom runs around the Vatican, chasing Philip Seymour Hoffman. Then he runs across a bridge. Then he runs around Shanghai, searching for his kidnapped wife. Phew! It's Marathon Impossible.

After a lengthy development period that has seen innumerable actors and directors hired and fired, you might expect M:I III to be a bit of a dog's dinner. But director JJ Abrams (of Lost and Alias fame) brings an admirable clarity to this convoluted tale of evil arms dealer Hoffman's attempts to sell off a deadly weapon called Rabbit's Foot. The script manages to cram in brain-bombs, a breathless helicopter chase through a wind farm and a new twist on those delightful face-mask disguises, while remaining just on the right side of preposterous. Abrams' shooting, meanwhile, is witty and unobtrusive. It's a great relief after the operatic stupidity of John Woo's M:I II.

"LESS OF AN ACTION HERO"

The only real problem is Tom himself, who manifestly fails to convince as a human being. With his plasticised musculature and ten kilowatt grin, he's less of an action hero and more of an action figure. It's getting harder with each film to divorce the movie persona from the sofa-vaulting loon, and his onscreen marriage to an insipid Michelle Monaghan only invites the comparison. It's no surprise that Hoffman steals - and saves - the movie as a repellent, lizard-eyed villain.

Mission: Impossible 2 [2000]

Ruthless Impossible Mission Force agent Ambrose (Dougray Scott) steals an antidote to a new virus and offers it and the virus for sale to the highest bidder. IMF's Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is assigned to get it back - by using Ambrose's ex-girlfriend Nyah (Newton) to infiltrate Ambrose's group.

You will be excited, thrilled - and insulted. The story is good, if simple, but seemingly it can never be quite simple enough becausethe film continually halts the action to repeat the plot to us, sometimes word for word.

There are heart-stopping moments of excitement and there are plenty of good surprises. But there's also a painfully silly romance storyline straight out of a 1960s movie and always someone ready to explain that plot again.

Action is where this movie does shine. Unfortunately, the cleverest sequences are punctured by playground logic: 'Your barrage of gunfire can't hit me but my one bullet can kill you'.

The action looks gorgeous, though, and director John Woo and perhaps especially director of photography Jeffrey L. Kimball make the whole movie look fabulous. And Tom Cruise's performance, outside the romance, is first rate too, so this should have everything going for it. Yet we're treated as children and there's an annoying arrogance in that.

There is a reason for it: the dumbed-down plot is a kneejerk over-reaction to the idea that the first film had a complicated script. Hopefully if we can persuade the makers to treat us as adults, we'll get an M:I3 that's really good.

Mission: Impossible [1996]

There's a traitor in the heart of America's most secret spy network, the Impossible Mission Force. He or she is trying to steal IMF's critical agent list which would give America's enemies the names of every covert operative in the world. When a mission goes badly wrong, agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is suspected of being the turncoat and becomes a hunted man. With all the might of IMF now turned against him, Hunt must flush out the real traitor - even if that means stealing the secret list himself.

Did you follow that? The sole criticism levelled against "Mission: Impossible" on its cinema release was that the plot was difficult, even incomprehensible and it's a surprising, unfair and rather wounding criticism. It undoubtedly put many people off this very exciting thriller, but - much worse - this criticism also directly led to the extreme over-simplicity of "Mission: Impossible 2".

The plot isn't perfect and it has holes in it (Hunt could just forge that list, he needn't really steal it) but most things happen for a reason,better than it just being time for the next action sequence. It means that you appreciate the mounting pressures on Hunt and that's what makes the famous scene of him hanging from a roof in CIA headquarters so extraordinarily tense.

Four years on, and with a John Woo-directed sequel to compare it to, "Mission: Impossible" feels a little dated but it is a superior story and a genuinely more effective thriller.

"Mission: Impossible" is on BBC1 at 8.05pm, Thursday 1st February 2001.

About a Boy [2002]

Hugh Grant's latest sure-fire hit is a shrewd, ironically amusing adaptation of Nick Hornby's best-selling novel.

Written and directed by Chris and Paul Weitz - the American film-making duo responsible for "American Pie", it's the perfect star vehicle for Grant, allowing him to finally move away from his usual bumbling, tongue-tied screen persona.

Sporting a wardrobe of designer casual clothes and a stylishly short haircut, he plays Will, a wealthy, single thirtysomething in North London. He doesn't work as such - the royalties from his late father's novelty number one hit provide him with a handsome income - but he's not idle: he buys CDs, watches television, and goes out to lunch ("How do people manage to fit in a full-time job?", he wonders).

Claiming that he has a child in order to make himself more attractive to single mothers, Will meets the troubled 12-year-old Marcus (Hoult), whose own hippy mum Fiona (Collette) has tried to commit suicide...

"About a Boy" may chart its central character's emotional awakening through an unlikely friendship, yet much of its humour derives from Will's profound immaturity: he's a congenital liar who makes inappropriately childish comments in grave situations, with his eyes seemingly glazing over during any "serious" conversation with another adult.

He regards his own life as "the Will Show", not an "ensemble drama", although falling in love with beautiful illustrator Rachel (Weisz) causes him to reassess some of these deeply-held certainties.

Capturing Will's surface charm and inner hollowness, Grant gives an immaculate comic performance, and he's ably supported by Hoult, who resists the easy option of making Marcus overly likable.

The brothers Weitz take few risks in their aesthetic choices: more importantly, they smoothly oversee a procession of humorous scenes, culminating in the improbable sight of Grant rocking out with his electric guitar at the school concert.

I am Sam [2002]

Jessie Nelson's "I Am Sam" deals with important and emotional issues such as mental disability, single parenthood, and foster care. Unfortunately, precious little of the movie grants them any potential critique. Instead, Nelson plumbs the enormous sentiment quota with the relentless persistence of an oil well drill until it erupts in a syrupy geyser.

Not that this mattered to the Oscar voters who granted Sean Penn's performance a Best Actor nomination. For regular audiences, though,the less cynical may be happy to be ensconced in its overwhelming feel good factor. But even still, it's hard to ignore the film's clumsiness and blatant manipulation.

Penn plays Sam, a Beatles-obsessed Starbucks cleaner with the mental age of seven. Managing to get a homeless woman pregnant, her disappearance leaves him to bring up young Lucy. Their relationship is an endless stream of beautiful moments, until she hits seven, exceeding Dad's mental capabilities and attracting the meddling attentions of Social Services. To win her back, Sam wangles the free services of Pfeiffer's bitchy lawyer.

To be fair on Penn, he is the strongest element. His performance of Sam is a product of his enormous character skills and while the sentiment is heavy, it's positively controlled compared to what surrounds him. Pfeiffer plies mediocre callousness, but succumbs all to easily to Sam's simple-minded 'Love is all you need' notions.

However, Dakota Fanning's turn as Sam's precocious daughter winningly recalls Kirsten Dunst's and Anna Paquin's early success and the soundtrack of Beatles covers are the more enjoyable elements of this blatant emotional wrangling.

A Beautiful Mind [2002]

"Hey everybody, let's go see a film about maths!" As Saturday night propositions go, the pitch for "A Beautiful Mind" is about as enticing as playing Happy Families with Fred West.

But put Russell Crowe in the cinematic equation and Ron Howard's latest portion of Academy-friendly fare becomes a good deal more appetising. Just as the brusque Antipodean's intensity and screen charisma blinded audiences to the flaws in "Gladiator", so he delivers another astonishing performance that more than compensates for this film's weaker facets.

A (highly) fictionalised biopic of real-life maths whizz John Forbes Nash Jr, it follows the socially stunted prodigy from his professional beginnings as a nervous freshman at Princeton, through Cold War spy machinations, and his struggle to hold together his marriage to fellow mathematician Alicia (Connelly).

Crowe is totally convincing - from 19-year-old student to OAP - giving a truth to Akiva Goldsman's occasionally twee dialogue and bringing fear and excitement to the most off-putting of subjects. Facing off with such a formidable, scene-stealing star would terrify a lesser actor than Jennifer Connelly, but she matches Crowe scene for scene. With a glamour and grace reminiscent of a 40s film star, and unafraid to suffer some unflattering close-ups of her angst-contorted face, the Golden Globe-winner delivers a performance that should see her secure a place on the A-list.

Another supporting player who signals his Hollywood arrival is Brit Paul Bettany, as Nash's enigmatic best friend - fulfilling the promise he showed in both "Gangster No.1" and "A Knight's Tale".

In truth it's the acting that makes the movie, for while Howard does a good job of actually making sums exciting - and pulls off a masterful narrative shift halfway through - he can't sidestep the pacing problems of biopics that try to cram in their subjects' entire life - perfunctorily whizzing through decades in the final half hour.

Still, such problems are forgivable as the tear-stained finale crowns a moving love story.

Who'd have thought algebra could be so exciting?

The Prestige [2006]

Set in a world of top hats, cravats and disappearing bunnies, The Prestige is a superb puzzle-box thriller. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman star as magicians in turn-of-the-century London, locked in a bitter feud after the death of an assistant in an illusion gone wrong. Directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento), this adaptation of Christopher Priest's slippery novel has more than a few tricks up its sleeve. You'll leave thrilled but perplexed, asking: how did they do that?

It's a film that's deliberately designed to pull the wool over your eyes. The fragmented story is full of flashbacks, often told via diary entries that prove distinctly untrustworthy (think Memento for the Victorian era). You know you're being misdirected by cinematic sleight of hand, but you can't avoid being sucked in. The two leads excel as the rival conjurors: Jackman aristocratic, Bale with a cheeky, borderline-panto cockney patois. It's an epic tale of professional rivalry that ends with some fantastically impossible hocus-pocus that I can't spoil here.

"HYPNOTIC PERFORMANCES"

Supporting turns from Michael Caine (excellent) Scarlett Johnasson (wasted as Debbie McGee eye-candy) and David Bowie (just plain weird) add a touch of class; yet in the end the real magician here is Nolan. Caine's retired conjuror tells us that "the prestige" is the third and final part of a magician's act, the moment when the crowd (confused, amazed and thrilled) applaud in disbelief. Nolan's now you see it, now you don't magic trick delivers prestige by the bucket-load. In fact, it brings the house down.