A high-profile action/exploitation thriller set in the late 20th century, The Siege is really a fantasy that extrapolates from major terrorist bombings, such as the one at the World Trade Centre. Denzel Washington is FBI special agent Hubbard, "Hub" to his friends, whose anti-terrorist task force must track down the terrorist cells responsible for a spate of bombings in New York. His partner is an FBI agent of Arabian extraction (played convincingly by Tony Shalhoub), proving not all Arabs are bad guys-a point the film should be lauded for making again and again. Thrown into the mix is a CIA spy (played almost kittenish at times by Annette Bening), whose ties to the terrorists appear to be at the centre of the conflicts. When the bombings escalate out of control, the President institutes martial law, sending in General Devereaux (played with impenetrable countenance by Bruce Willis) with tanks and troops to ferret out the terrorists. Echoes of Japanese-Americans in internment camps ring out as Arabs, including the son of the Arab-American FBI agent, are herded into a stadium. Periodic audio-montages of "man in the street" sentiments anchor the material in the present and show how serious and relevant the material is. But finally what we have is a taut and entertaining popcorn movie, giving itself the humanistic nod when it can. -Jim Gay, Amazon. com.

Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor; Cuba Gooding Jr is a talented guy with a lot of charm. Both have recently won Oscars (Best Actor for The Silence of the Lambs and Best Supporting Actor for Jerry Maguire, respectively); neither can make Instinct compelling. Hopkins plays a brilliant anthropologist studying gorillas who entered into their world, becoming part of their family, and who killed two park rangers in the gorillas' habitat. Gooding plays a brilliant young psychiatrist who is supposed to evaluate Hopkins and determine whether he's fit to stand trial. Hopkins, along with a number of other psychotics, is being held at a prison, which serves to illustrate the movie's themes about control and freedom. It's not so much that the ideas themselves are hokum-nature versus civilisation is always a rich topic-it's that Instinct boils them down to inane sound bites. Psychology is reduced to a game in which the psychiatrist's job is to trick the patient into believing the correct thing or revealing the key that will solve the puzzle. There's not a credible moment in the whole movie, despite the presence of a good cast, including Donald Sutherland and Maura Tierney. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

Judged entirely on its own merits, Jaws 2 isn't a bad film. It even has some passably scary moments (Brody discovering a charred body in the waves; the swimming boy racing the shark back to his dinghy). But it's absolutely impossible to judge this movie on its own merits. Despite being given a great big Panavision camera to play with director Jeannot Szwarc can't hide his TV-movie origins, nor can the script, both of which spend far too long landlocked with the bickering inhabitants of Amity Island. Where the original film boldly set out to sea with Robert Shaw's Ahab-like Quint, in a misplaced desire to attract a teenage audience this movie dwells at interminable length on the courting rituals of the local youth; where Spielberg's original is a masterpiece of pacing and carefully timed tension-building, Jaws 2 sags terribly whenever the plastic shark swims out of sight. Roy Scheider comes off best, reprising his role as Chief Brody, while Lorraine Gary's role as his wife is expanded (she must be a glutton for punishment: she also starred in Jaws 4: The Revenge). Taken as a sequel Jaws 2 is inferior in every way; taken as an unassuming TV movie it's a respectable, workmanlike effort; but looking forward at what was to follow, it begins to look like a minor masterpiece. -Mark Walker.

Critics and controversy aside, The Da Vinci Code is a verifiable blockbuster. Combine the film's huge worldwide box-office take with over 100 million copies of Dan Brown's book sold, and The Da Vinci Code has clearly made the leap from pop-culture hit to a certifiable franchise (games and action figures are sure to follow). The leap for any story making the move from book to big screen, however, is always more perilous. In the case of The Da Vinci Code, the story is concocted of such a preposterous formula of elements that you wouldn't envy Akiva Goldsman, the screenwriter who was handed a potentially unfilmable book and asked to make a filmable script out of it. Goldsman's solution was to have the screenplay follow the book as closely as possible, with a few needed changes, including a better ending. The result is a film that actually makes slightly better entertainment than the book. So if you're like most of the world, by now you've read the book and know that it starts out as a murder mystery. While lecturing in Paris, noted Harvard Professor of Symbology Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is summoned to the Louvre by French police help decipher a bizarre series of clues left at the scene of the murder of the chief curator, Jacques Sauniere. Enter Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), gifted cryptologist and Sauniere's granddaughter. Neveu and Langdon are forced to team up to solve the mystery, and from there the story is propelled across Europe as it balloons into a modern-day mini-quest for the Holy Grail, complete with alternative theories about the life of Christ, ancient secret societies headed by historical figures like Leonardo Da Vinci, secret codes, conniving bishops, daring escapes, car chases, and, of course, a murderous albino monk controlled by a secret master who calls himself "The Teacher. [+]

Dakota Fanning-the elfin star of Uptown Girls, The Cat in the Hat, and Man on Fire-trades in her blond locks for a semi-gothic brunette do in Hide and Seek. Fanning plays Emily, a young girl whose mother commits suicide. To help Emily through the trauma, her father David (Robert DeNiro), a psychologist, takes her to an isolated house in upstate New York. But instead of healing, Emily gets dark circles under her eyes, mutilates her favorite doll, and develops an imaginary friend named Charlie. In no time at all, things get spooky and David suspects this imaginary friend isn't so friendly. Hide and Seek owes a lot to The Shining, but whether the creepiness is borrowed or not, there's a decent dose of it (though the twist at the end is unlikely to surprise many viewers). DeNiro does his job with professional gloss, but Fanning carries the movie; she's got the kind of charisma that goes beyond acting ability-that ineffable glow that makes an audience want to watch her. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

After a career slump that plagued him through most of the 1980s, Al Pacino made a stellar comeback in this taut 1989 thriller, playing a weary New York police detective who falls in love with the woman (Ellen Barkin) who is the prime suspect in the murder case he's investigating. Expertly written by Richard Price and directed by Harold Becker, the story is designed to keep its central characters (and the viewer) in a state of constant suspicion and arousal-an emotional combination that sends dangerous sparks flying between Pacino and Barkin. Their chemistry is intense, and their love scenes are some of the hottest of any movie of its decade. But Sea of Love is not merely concerned with cheap titillation. It's a riveting whodunit with scenes of nail-biting suspense and memorable dialogue that make it as interesting to listen to as it is to watch. Barkin had made a similarly sexy impression in The Big Easy, and here she gives one of the best performances of her underrated career, matching Pacino's excellence scene for scene. The ending's a bit of a letdown because the murder solution comes somewhat out of the blue, but it's the acting and suspense that you'll remember most-qualities that make Sea of Love one of the best films of its kind. -Jeff Shannon.