Rebecca Hill (RebeccaLJHill)

A giant crocodile has found its way to Maine and only a local sheriff, a fish and game guy (whatever that is), a palaeontologist (for some reason) and a crocodile expert (how did he even hear about it?) can find and catch it, if they can stop bitching for long enough.

I have seen this a fair few times now, and it has stopped being as disappointing as it was originally, because now I know not to expect much from it. I used to think that the crocodile had eaten the middle of the script and no one had noticed until they came to editing it together and realised they had only made a set up and a finale, with no actual plot or characters. Now I just see a very short film that doesn't have much to say, with interesting scenes cutting away before anything exciting can happen. It would certainly work better as a television programme, and certainly feels as if that is what it is going for, especially with the balmy notion that four leads is a good idea.

It opens with the standard monster movie scene as we watch the first victim, waiting for the strike and putting up with the inevitable bluffs until the gruesome feat is achieved. However, in a startling choice for a monster movie, only two people are killed in the entire film, and one bear and one cow and most of what is eaten is later spat out, begging the question of how this bulimic croc has grown so big. Obviously, being opposed to murder, this suits me fine, but it is a very weird choice for this genre of film, and it does make the whole thing far too, well, placid.

I do like the main character Hank the Sheriff (Brendan Gleeson, bafflingly fourth billed) and the running joke of everyone he meets being rude does please, although it is the only running theme that is actively funny and I didn't just 'mistake' for poor writing (is it really that tongue in cheek?). But it is lame that the Sheriff has to share the screen with three other characters, especially as at least one of them feels added at a later date (probably Jack (Bill Pullman, who just seems to be there because he is more attractive than Gleeson), although we could probably lose all three. It does look like some executive had a look at the cast and the plot and the monster and said, "Jeez, there is nothing here for women." So they added a woman. "No, no, no, men like women, we need something for women to like," so they added a tedious romantic plot as lifeless as that decapitated moose, only made worse by sentimental music and cliched dialogue that make you want to be sick far more than that bit where that man is bitten in half. Meanwhile, Hector (Oliver Platt) is so annoying and dislikeable that the most satisfying moment of the film comes when the Sheriff punches him in the face, but it is still a shame that Hector and that psycho old woman whose fault all of this is aren't tied up together and thrown into the lake for feeding time. How come they don't even arrest her?

Still, there has to be a problem with the character development if I spend the entire finale worrying about that poor cow. Where is it? Is it all right? Oh, I hope it lives. (Good news, it does).

And yet, as usual, despite my firm belief in the protection of animals, it only takes one horror film for me to be wholeheartedly and hatefully rooting for the murder of this endangered species and bafflement as they point out this is wrong. Crocodiles, sharks, birds, spiders; they're all bastards.

If you want to fill an hour with an inoffensive horror flick, then go ahead and watch this, just don't expect to be particularly entertained.

A film I like far more than it probably deserves because I watched it as a child and it brings a feeling of warmth with its familiarity.

Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) has new neighbours, the Klopeks. No one has seen them because they only come out at night to dig in the back garden as strange noises and lights emanate from their basement while the rest of the house is falling apart. When the resident grumpy old man goes missing, Ray and his other neighbours suspect the Klopeks.

The comic use of music and the style spoofing the horror/thriller genre mixed with a funny and atmospheric script really makes it a lot of fun. It eats its cake but still manages to keep it, by double bluffing us at the ending, enabling it to go for both solutions, satisfying its satirical point, without undermining all the effort the plot has built up.

However, it is just a piece of fluff with no substance, it is far too short even with two endings, and some of the characters (I'm looking at the aggressive Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) here) are just dislikeable. This is like the dessert that leaves you unfulfilled because you didn’t have any dinner, but it still tastes good.

An instant emotional connection is made with children, because they play with toys and wonder what happens when they leave the room - do the toys come to life? And an instant emotional connection is made with adults because we've all thrown toys away, and wondered, if the toy really is alive as we suspected as children, did we just break that toy's heart? If you're doing your Spring cleaning, give this film a miss, as it will give you guilt issues that could drown you. But otherwise, this film is a classic both for children and adults. I loved it when I was 11 and I love it even more now. It's full of clever details and magical ideas, it's very witty and utterly absorbing. The characters are funny even though they each have one personality trait. But then there's Woody (vo - Tom Hanks). This is a Disney children's film, and yet there's Woody, the flawed hero. And he's wonderful. Clever, disdainful, emotional, conniving, jealous, petty, fallible, irritable, sweet, caring, he's a fantastic lead, detailed and believable, and he's a toy. It's wonderful to have a lead who is both clever and brave, but also underhand and snide. Woody makes a great double act with Buzz the spaceman action figure (vo - Tim Allen), a deluded new toy who may replace Woody as Andy's favourite toy and bring Woody's tiny world crashing to the ground. Emotional, magical, thrilling, funny... Pretty much perfect.

A film that starts with a cartoon has got to be fun, but a film where the cartoon segues into the live action film as part of the plot is a whole new level. Filled with fun visuals and references, this will keep you glued to the screen in case you miss anything as cartoon characters walk past humans as if this is perfectly normal, instantly setting up this fictional world. Whoever thought that mixing a noiry detective story with cartoons would work is a genius. How could it possibly work? And yet here it is and every moment, noiry or cartoony, is wonderful as washed up detective Eddie (Bob Hoskins) has to prove that cartoon star Roger Rabbit (vo - Charles Fleischer) is innocent of murder. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is witty, full of clever details and based on a structure that sets everything up. There's a strong emotional anchor as alcoholic Eddie hasn't got over his brother's murder and Eddie and Dolores's relationship is believable and sweet, something not often seen well-developed in films. Which brings us to the characters - they're all brilliantly set up and completely rounded, although of course, toons are all slightly insane and mean spirited, and Toon Town is just freaky. Roger is incredibly annoying, but that works as he bounces off of straight man Eddie, often literally. Hoskins is fantastic as Eddie, conveying an entire emotional range with a glance, while Christopher Lloyd is perfectly psychotically evil as Judge Doom, the man who has found a way to kill toons, and does so without a trial. And yes, you do forget that over half the cast aren't really there. This film has everything going for it and I don't want to sound old, but they just don't make 'em like this any more.