Reviews

Hurrah. Here come the daleks. Again.

But don't be scared. They're in fine fettle this time and while this film is just as daft as its predecessor it's far better-paced and the good guys don't have stupid eye make-up, instead resembling good old London Council Workers, circa 1955. It's a slight anachronism, but I like the idea of a sci-fi setting where the heroes are all unshaven working class 'Uncle Fred, Friend of Your Dad' types who wear jackets and caps that make them look like bin men. I suppose actually, given that the Daleks do resemble (and are referred to as) motorised dustbins, there's probably some poetry in this. Anyway, forget the title, this might as well be set in 1950 AD - it certainly feels a bit Ealing at times.

So, how is this rather entertaining nonsense an improvement on the cinematic war-crime that was the first film? Well, just that, it's entertaining. The Daleks are still quite funky, despite their ongoing choice of fire-extinguisher weaponry. They're also much more enthusiastic these days - we even see one going for a swim at one point (I can't think of a better explanation! You'll see what I mean...).

Anyway - the plot? Well, I suspect the title might give it away. In fact, I'm not sure it even IS the title. Maybe they just wrote the plot-summary in the wrong box. Whatever, I don't feel I'll be spoiling anything if I give you the following outline: Daleks have invaded Earth because they felt like it, and are now constructing a large Roller Disco/Cinema Multiplex/Dodgem park in Bedfordshire.

Okay, they're not, but it's entirely as likely and sensible as what they ARE doing there (or as the swimming Dalek). There are some great British actors having fun in this - Philip Madoc from Wales, Andrew Keir from Scotland, Peter Cushing from England. A truly unified effort - all silly together.

People who smashed their television set in an effort to survive the first film will be pleased to see that Roy Castle is not reprising his role as Ian (for those who didn't see it, I rather suspect George Lucas got his idea for Jar Jar Binks from Castle's performance), and has been replaced in the light relief stakes by the altogether defter and more endearing Bernard Cribbins (for non-British readers, Cribbins is one of the most highly regarded and acclaimed English actors of the last forty years, and his profound performance in The Wombles is still remembered by many people of my generation today).

For that matter, even Peter Cushing's mad professor is rather good this time round, and provided one doesn't expect more than robot monsters, rubbish flying saucers, and huge armies of (toy miniature) Daleks, not to mention quite a few laughs, then this will pass 80-odd minutes in quite an agreeable manner. Not as effectively as becoming an alcoholic, but more so than banging your head against concrete. I suppose this is the bottom line really - watch this film too many times and it remains preferable to headbutting a concrete wall, which is painful. Watch the first film too many times and you'll find the experience of headbutting a wall strangely comfy on account of all the padding it will have acquired.

A friend of mine said I should give this film a bit of a critical kicking and I protested on the grounds that it would be rather like sawing the legs off a man who has lost the use of them in a bizarre yachting accident - adding insult to injury, as it were.

Then again, boy does this film deserve it. All of you young people who think Fantasy films are great because you've been spoiled by stuff like Fellowship of the Ring (and even minor players like Dragonheart) just haven't got a clue what it was like in the 80s. When I were a lad, pretty much all fantasy films were this horrible. The Beastmaster was about as rich, exotic and imaginative as it got because some of the baddies wore nasty armour, and there some flying carnivorous birdmen things in it. Oh, tell a lie... Krull was quite good with the Slayers and The Beast and Firemares and Robbie Coltrane. But this? You've got men in dirty leather. You've got Jack Palance being oooooh villainous, scareeeeee. You've got a man with a logically unfeasible crossbow, and a faintly magnificent seveny plot. If it is a 'plot'. Personally I think it's more of a 'splat'.

Strangely, the cast is almost good. They should be ashamed of themselves. Patricia Quinn from Rocky Horror's in it. And Annette Crosbie's in it - okay, British viewers will know her as Victor Meldrew's wife, but she was the voice of Galadriel in the dodgy old cartoon of Lord of the Rings. For that matter, Bernard Bresslaw's in this - he's sort of the thinking man's Brian Blessed only without the beard. He plays the cyclops in Krull, too! Quality stuff.

My favourite though has got to be the old bloke with the crossbow. This is none other than W. Morgan Shepherd, known to subsequent generations as G'Kar's uncle in Babylon 5, Blank Reg in Max Headroom, and - currently - Colonel Hargrave in the Medal of Honor computer games. He the man.

Don't watch this film, you'll regret it. It's like Monty Python and the Holy Grail without the jokes. Well, I tell a lie. There are worse films. Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, or that one with the stupid sword that can fire blades at people unconvincingly and that weedy man from Street Hawk in a loincloth.

Ah me. Those were the days. And that's why you should be grateful you're living in a time when 'fantasy' means 'Lord of the Rings', and 'spectacular cinematic achievement', and isn't a word one uses in hushed tones. In fact, consider this mind-blowing fact... in its day, Hawk the Slayer was considered not half bad as far as cinema fantasy films went. That's how desperate things were.

Anyway - Hawk the Slayer's not the worst fantasy film in the world, much as Pol-Pot, being responsible for the deaths of a mere 2 million civilians really isn't the worst mass-murderer in the world.#

Enjoy.

(The first observation is a compliment, the second a criticism)

Things to like about this film:

1. Joan is quite plausibly in a state of psychological distress throughout the story, and comes over as quite human as a result... she's not some simplistically-presented figurehead.

2. The Battle Scenes - if you like battle scenes, that is. I do, and the bit with the flail is lovely.

3. Dustin Hoffman's thorough deconstruction and destruction of Joan's advocacy of nationalist warfare in the name of God. I bet he didn't like Braveheart either.

Things to laugh at in this film:

1. "LOAD THE PORKY-PINE!!!" Historically accurate I'm sure - it doesn't make this particular war-cry any less silly. What next, 'Fetchez le Vache?'

2. That English warlord who sounds pretty Scottish to me. There's a guy who obviously didn't even watch Braveheart.

3. That bloke who played Weedy David in The Fifth Element. Standing him next to Jovovich for so much of the film's duration conjures inappropriate comparisons. Like if Braveheart had Max Von Sydow as Edward Longshanks and Sam J. Jones as Wallace... Which would probably have been fab, now I think about it.

4. Vincent Cassel as the smouldering Eurocrumpet Gilles de Rais. Also an alleged sadistic mass-murderer of children (de Rais, I mean!), but at least he wasn't English, eh?

5. John Malkovitch. Is 'Being John Malkovitch' a film at all? Is it not rather a very short review of his acting style?

During the primary literary phase of its development as an entertainment form, the gothic genre tended to involve a set of familiar ingredients - ruined buildings, virtuous heroines in distress, supernatural manifestations, heroic rescuers and loathsome villains, perhaps with a gang of bandits thrown in. Even though we call 'Gothic' simply 'Horror' these days, and even though most of us now visit this genre in its new home of the cinema more than on the pages of books, these ingredients have hardly changed over the years. Resident Evil is fascinating proof of this on two levels.

On the most obvious level, for Ruined Building read The Hive - the abandoned but not-so abandoned biowarfare lab which is the principal location of this film. For virtuous heroine read Milla Jovovich wearing a dress as short as her legs are long; for supernatural manifestations. well, it's a zombie film. You get the point.

On the second level, this film is a bit of an abandoned ruin itself, haunted by the wailing spirit of the film it might have been. You can see how the crumbling architecture might have formed a magnificent structure at one time - however, what separates this from every other romantic ruin you will ever visit, is simply that most ruins come to their tragic state of disrepair thanks to the gnawing of time's teeth, or violent misuse, and not simply because the owner got some cowboy in to build it in the first place.

More of a folly than a ruin, then. Sometimes this film looks beautiful - the cameraman certainly knows how to present the lead actress in a favourable manner - I'm not sure Jovovich has looked quite so luminous on screen before. A pity, then, that the film is so awful taken as a whole.

This is a film without sense, restraint, inspiration, or even excitement. It's not a good zombie film, not a good action film, and not a good science fiction film. It has an extraordinary trompe l'oeil quality that does, at times, deceive the viewer into thinking the film has some genuine quality - but it is deception only.

What's more, it strikes me as rather bizarre that a film about zombies, with such obvious possible influences and precedents, should come across as being more interested in aping James Cameron than George Romero. Indeed, it is somewhat pointless since it is neither the first Aliens-wannabe, nor anything like the best-equipped to carry out such imitation; and this supposes that imitating another (perfectly good) film is even a good idea in the first place.

The utterly pointless directorial allusion to Psycho which opens the film is entirely typical of the direction; so, like a jackdaw's nest, this film may contain many shiny and interesting things but it is simply a mess. Unlike a jackdaw's nest it isn't constructed of old twigs or covered in guano, nor has it fallen down a chimney into a fire yet - but we can always hope.

I suppose utlimately what I find most objectionable about this exercise, and what makes me dislike it more than many other more obviously terrible films is that watching it you can actually see what a good film this could have been. This film earns contempt not so much for its mediocrity as for its wasted potential.

This film has three things to recommend it.

1. The sinking ship.

2. Nothing else.

3. Wonderful acting - no not really, but there's a minimum line count for reviews so I had to write something.

Wonderful, Superb and Peerless are just three of the words I won't be using to describe this film. In fact, if you can spot any superlatives at all you might just win a prize.

Which is not to say I think this film is bad - I haven't started to say that yet.

This film is something of a phenomenon. Those of you familiar with Dr. Who will know that the titular mad professor's Time Machine achieves the dimensional feat of being 'bigger on the inside'. Well, this film achieves the chronological reverse.

Viewed from the outside, this film appears to have a run-time of about 80 minutes or so. Yet, when viewed to the end it only feels like half an hour has passed. It is not as if you find it so riveting to watch that time zooms past, it's more as if there is so little within the film, so little subtance or quality to occupy the mind, that your consciousness slides straight through it. My theory is that it is in fact only 30 minutes long, but somebody managed to somehow 'stretch' it so although short on the inside, it looks much longer from outside. Not a very good theory, but it's got more chance of winning a science award than this film has of winning a film award. In fact, I'm not sure this film would deserve to win a prize for Best Film Called Dr. Who and the Daleks. This is made all the worse by the certainty that it doesn't even have the grace to be bad enough to win an award for its lack of quality.

While I'm at it... the Daleks look lovely, sure. I mean, even though resemble the result of Baron Frankenstein's obsession with Anne Summers shops. They sound pretty good too. However, not even Darth Vader would remain villainous if he was armed with a Fire Extinguisher as these guys are. As a result, they look less like the Alien Panzer Tank Nazi Stormtroopers of their original conception, and more like very dangerous kettles.

Avoid this like the plague. In fact, avoid this like a genetically engineered super-plague that's grown to supra-microscopic size and has big pincers and teeth and stuff and wants to eat you. Run Away!

It's funny how a film like this can provoke such aggressively political critiques; it isn't a particularly political film, after all. Yes, you could argue that it has propagandist tendencies, but that is just a hazard of the genre, even with the most well-meaning films. Yes, the emphasis on 19 American dead seems rather disproportionate to the 1000-odd Somali dead; but then, the film is the story of the US soldiers, not the Somalis. It is told from a Western perspective, and it is entirely natural that the story - which is in any case an adaptation of a book - should focus on the US forces. Critics with an anti-American agenda should perhaps note that not only did an Englishman direct this film, but it features two Scots, a Welshman and a couple of Kiwis in significant roles as US servicemen.

One of the primary intentions of this film appears to be to relate events as they happened. That is, the film is not about what is good, or what is bad, but simply what IS - was, I should say. In this the film appears to be reasonably succesful, conveying the chaos of modern battle in a way that I can imagine is very realistic. (Not that I'd know.)

This does not excuse the film's many flaws. I shuddered a little when I saw Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore and Ewen Bremner all together again - not that any of these three is an unwelcome presence on screen, far from it - but rather that I was immediately reminded of Pearl Harbour - a film which presents the viewer with an operatic mythologising of warfare and real events, comparisons with which Black Hawk Down would truly be best served by avoiding.

This was not helped by moments such as when a soldier rips a cast from his arm in hyper-macho fashion, or when a dying soldier actually says 'Tell my mom I done ma best', or words unbearably similar to that old cliche. These may well be real for all I know, but in the context of a film which has pretensions to seriousness, they simply feel crude and obvious.

I actually went into this film expecting to enjoy it - I enjoyed nonsense like Pearl Harbour, and my expectations of a Bruckheimer film had led me to believe that whatever its flaws I could enjoy BHD. Tragically, BHD commits the greatest sin for an action film - it isn't actually very exciting. This strikes me as a terrible shame as the story really is a gripping one, and a BBC documentary of a few years ago conveyed this very well. However, the battle scenes in this film are, if anything, almost too routine. As an exercise in verisimilitude it is a technical feat to behold; and yet, there is a feeling of detachment from the events. Perhaps it's the blandness of the characters, perhaps because they're TOO real, but there's a feeling of general anonymity about this bunch of bald guys that I haven't really felt in a cast since Alien 3. Only Eric Bana really is memorable as the quiet soldier who demonstrably knows his job.

And what does the film actually give us in its discussion of war (if discussion it is)? There is a good moment concerning an accidental shooting, another concerning the simple bad luck that can befall a soldier before he even sees battle, and an appropriately horrible scene with a wounded soldier... but these are perfunctory and even that last is undercut by the dialogue which is stilted and cliched.

I suppose ultimately this film provokes indifference in me. It's difficult to enjoy as an action movie because it's too serious. It's difficult to appreciate as a 'serious' war movie because it's not quite serious enough. If anything, it's like playing a computer game... and that's not the feeling I would like a film about armed conflict to provoke in me.

Position 1. This film is wretched on many, many levels. It's sub-cinema film-making in which machines get better dialogue than the people (yes, I'm thinking of stuff like 'beep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeep'). Actors turn up and do not act, and the aheh heh heh plot doubtless came free from a Cornflakes packet. It's gung ho in a worryingly Goodies v. Baddies kind of way and is little more than an MTV Military Recruitment Film.

Position 2. This film is absolutely storming, because of the great big beautiful machines. Okay, there's human beings and stuff, miming to the worn old record of Boy Meets Girl etc, but nobody buys that. This was made in the days before CGI came along and ruined everything, the days when the footage of huge F-14 Tomcats screeching from the deck of an aircraft carrier was achieved by going to an aircraft carrier and filming F-14 Tomcats screeching away from the deck.

It's the mother of Big Dumb Action Movies, but technically it's an extraordinary-looking (and sounding) piece of work. If watched with no attempt at engaging intellecturally with it, it's kind of magnificent at times.

All of which said, I do detect certain similarities in plot structure between this and Hamlet.

When I was about 5 years old this was the best film ever made. While I now disagree with the man I once was, I nonetheless find it difficult to completely dismiss my affection for this three-legged donkey of a movie. After all, stupidity and an eagerness to please are loveable features in a puppy, so why not a movie?

What's wrong with this movie? Sorry, there's a word limit. What's right with it? Nothing really springs to mind.

I'm being harsh. Max Von Sydow is clearly having a great time pretending to be in charge of the universe (and I dare to suggest his Ming might be considered definitive); Peter Wyngarde is likewise having fun as Klytus, a sort of Darth Vader-as-voiced-by-George Sanders, and Brian Blessed gives perhaps the deepest and most profound exploration you will ever see of the character 'Big Loud Man With Beard'.

Sam J. Jones looks kind of bewildered. And who indeed can blame him? There are still parts of this film which stand up today - the space rockets are still hilarious, the music still wonderfully ludicrous, and all the colours still optic nerve-fryingly scarlet. Topol is nuts (presumably he finally fell off that roof and landed on his head... well it's difficult to balance AND play a musical instrument I expect). Ornella Muti is... erm, quite striking.

The only real penguins in the nunnery are Timothy Dalton as Robin Hood, and Melody Anderson as Dale Arden, who's just too damn wet. Then again, I have a theory that big macho Flash has his masculinity so undermined by the aggressive women he encounters on Mongo that he only feels unthreatened in the company of a flaccid romantic foil like Dale (with whom he exchanges perhaps three conversations before proposing marriage). Frankly, I suspect that whole Flash/Dale thing is an attempt by Flash to cover up his real sexuality. Sadly we never got a sequel so we didn't find out. Alas.

Final Thought: If Barbarella and Flash Gordon got married, would their kid have been called Fifth Element?

This is probably a lesson about expectations. When this film first came out, I was expecting something every bit as gripping and gritty as Leon, but with aliens and big spaceships and stuff. Imagine my disappointment. Technically, and from what I suspect is the mainstream perspective, this film might be thought rather... I hesitate to use the word 'silly', but it seems the best one.

And indeed, my first encounters with this film led me to hold all sorts of viciously negative views of it. From the irritating proto-Binks Rubi Rhod, to the sleepwalking self-parody committed by Bruce Willis, to the hungry-looking lady in the unflattering band-aids and Ian Holm's dodgy comedy moments. There is much to revile in this movie.

And yet... if viewed at precisely the right angle, or through precisely the right mental haze... it's actually rather wonderful - as much because of its flaws as in spite of them.

Chris Tucker IS annoying as Rubi Rhod. Seen as a joke at the expense of The Artist Formerly Known As Prince however, he's hilarious. Bruce Willis' performance does suggest that he's overcompensating for the ban on 'Bruce Willis-isms' Terry Gilliam imposed for his previous film, Twelve Monkeys. But then, he's playing a comic strip hero in a comic strip movie, and the character is certainly written as a parody of the action hero cliche, whether Willis knew to play him like that or not.

Milla Jovovich looks at times like she's entirely composed of straight lines, and does not therefore conform to my notion of physical perfection... but that's quickly forgotten because her ideosyncratic, charming performance is both interesting to watch and faintly bewitching (There can't be many actors who knowingly speak gibberish so beautifully).

It's true, as a science fiction adventure it's reminiscent of many other similar, sometimes better, films. The action scenes are merely run-of-the-mill; the action-heroine is underused in certain respects (I wish she didn't do quite so much wilting, and think she should have rescued Bruce Willis from danger just once rather than continually needing to be rescued herself); the comedy is often rather flat and obvious; the story progresses in a piecemeal and often illogical way.

What distinguishes this film, however, is its imagination. You really won't see many films quite like this. Even the familiar 'future city' panorama feels quite original, when it could have just resorted to directly aping Bladerunner's imagery (as the lazier Attack of the Clones does). If you've seen Leon or Nikita and want more of the same this film will disappoint; The Fifth Element is a far lighter exercise, with a more comedic mood to it - and while it won't slap you round the face and make you think it's the best film ever made, it may well charm a place into your affections, because (like its title character) at the end of the day it just wants to be loved.

I suspect that for most Western Europeans and Americans the name 'Bosnia' is now no longer simply the name of a country, but also carries a subliminal implication of atrocity and ethnic viciousness. I doubt, then, that many people would approach this film with any false expectations of what it will contain.

That said, viewers should not come to this film for a political explanation of why and how the war happened - for that, it's probably best to read a few books. This film does attempt to give a human explanation of how and why wars like this one happen and continue to happen, though.

Inevitably, some have accused Savior of bias; though an American film, the director is a Serb, and it was filmed on location in Montenegro; with such emotive subject matter partiality would hardly be surprising. Indeed, the film does not flinch from discussing atrocities committed by Bosnian Muslims. Those who accuse this film of being pro-Serb, however, should consider that one of the most hateful caracters in the whole film, whom we witness carrying out pointlessly vicious acts of cruelty and mysogyny, and who happily admits to being a serial rapist, is himself a Serb.

Viewers should instead look to the human heart of this film. Dennis Quaid gives us a superb performance, rendering a character of some complexity (look at his expression when one character tells him 'You are a good man'). He is ably matched by Natasja Nincovic's complicated, battered portrayal of a Serb woman - and not merely a 'rape victim' stereotype that we know from other films.

There is a religious subtext for those who like looking for such things - plenty of Christ imagery, chiming nicely with the title. There is a special irony in the cross Joshua carries; apparently a Catholic, he has come to Bosnia specifically to kill Muslims in revenge for the loss of his family in a terrorist bombing - yet by joining the Serbs he is also aligned against the Catholic Croats. Perhaps this says something about the self-destructive nature of his revenge, and about his own internal conflict. This is a film about a man divided against himself, in a country divided against itself.

It is particularly effective that the main character in this film is an American. We are tempted to comfortably see him as 'one of us', a decent man in the midst of a barbaric war - but we are not allowed such passive comforts. Eaten by revenge and pain, little seperates Joshua from his barbaric 'sidekick' Goran, whose mindless cruelty he meets with contempt but also inaction. His own conduct is difficult to stomach, but nonetheless presented as the actions of a human, not a monster.

What Antonijevic's film does, then, is look at the line between those who have, and those who have not, become indifferent to the suffering of others - it is in this way that the perpetuation of war is explored. There are no politics, no discussion of religion, or of 'age old ethnic hatreds'. The focus of this strong film is the simple human cost both in lives extinguished and lives mutilated by war. Indeed, for those not very familiar with the details of the war in Bosnia, the practical anonymity of the different soldiers throughout the film will heighten the sense of War as something soldiers do to Civilians.

People who respect and appreciate this film should steer clear of the recent Behind Enemy Lines however - it reuses fragments of the Lake scene in Savior to simplistically anti-Serb effect, completely bastardising the intent of the people who originally created those images.

Nonetheless, despite what has been done to it Savior remains beautifully acted, tragic, mature film-making.

(Please excuse my French, it's probably wrong) Roll up, roll up! See the cinematic spectacle of 2001! See the horrible deaths of 2500 or so people commemorated by a film about two guys who fly fast planes really fast. See them go ZOOOOOOOOM, see them go WHIIIIZZZZ! See them reprise the 'flypast and debriefing' scenes from Top Gun. Watch the beautiful love story unfold. See the true love two people have for one another tested and broken when Kate Beckinsale comes between them. See a fine young actor reduced to playing Token Black Guy. Watch as he fights to prove he's more than a Token Black Guy, even though he's given so little to do that he ends up as nothing more than a Token Black Guy (even though, unlike the two guys in the planes, Token Black Guy actually existed). Watch the awful bombing of a military target. Watch the heroic bombing of a city. Watch Jon Voigt recreate Peter Sellars' unforgettable character Dr. Strangelove. Watch the whole reality of war, and the lives and deaths therein trivialised to make a Big Dumb Action Movie that thinks it's some kind of ghastly tribute to the American dead of December the 7th. Or better still... don't! On the other hand, if you want an unrealistic film with ponderously paced romance, fighter planes zooming all over the place and nice explosions, check this out. It's a lot of fun. Just don't take it seriously - you'll only encourage them!

As with many things in life, what you make of this depends on what you want from it. Do you want an action film? Well, this is reasonably entertaining. Some nice explosions, a couple of effective set-pieces (the bit with the mines is pretty good). Usual rock music over the plane-taking-off sequence. Y'know. Yawn.

It's virtues? Well, it's fun. Not sure that's necessarily a good thing in a war film with a subplot about mass-murder of civilians. Hackman is Hackman, hurrah. It's quite stirring, probably.

It's faults? Hm. There are many, but here are my two favourites.

1. It appears to propound the questionable and dangerous philosophy that it's important to rescue a pilot, even if it restarts a war in which thousands of civilians will die - and worse, that anybody who says different is a coward or a bureaucrat.

2. And this is a biggy. When Wilson finds the huge stack of bodies (which is quite a good scene in action-movie terms, even if we've seen it before), we see a flashback to a bunch of 'Evil Serbs' massacring civilians. This ought hardly be controversial - after all, it's a matter of record that such crimes were committed by Serb soldiers.

However, the film shows us Croat Paramilitaries doing the killing and appears to assume that we will just see them as Serbs because they're committing a crime. This 'flashback' footage is ripped out of Peter Antonijevic's conspicuously superior film, 'Savior', and I find this kind of 'shorthand' rather worrying. True, most people who have not seen Savior will not see this, but in a way that's the problem. The expectation appears to be that if we see murderers, we will therefore see Serbs - whatever the uniform. I find that a little disturbing.

Yes indeed ladies and gentlemen, I believe it not wildly unfair to say that this film is a distinct species unto itself. This is 90 minutes of brain-numbing, soul-crushing, hideously unfunny tepid 1980s drivel, made bearable - nay watchable... nay enjoyable... purely by the presence of Kim Cattrall. It's sad that a film of such dismal quality should simultaneously be the finest testament to this woman's status as the paragon that she is, but there we are. I've watched this film more times than I should care to confess in a public place, and even despite coming to loath it, Ms. Cattrall always makes it seem worth watching. I've even just bought the damn thing on DVD.

It's probably sadder still that this film appears to have been derived from the Ava Gardner-starrer 'One Touch of Venus', itself a film of the wonderful Weill & Nash musical, in which a statue of Venus comes to life in a department store. If you want quality that doesn't kill your brain cells, check out the musical. If you want Kim Cattrall, check out this film. It probably deserves to have a Government Health Warning on it, but the leading lady is lovely. Oh, and I suppose if you like that sort of thing there's shorty Andrew McCarthy too, striking a sort of post-pubescent Elijah Wood note with his performance, and towered over by Cattrall when she wears high heels.