Summer box office offerings
Our reviewers look at the cinema hits of the season

Aragorn leads his forces into battle in The Return of the King.

The Lord of the Rings,
The Return of the King
Stars Elijah Wood, Sean Austin, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Miranda Otto, Liv Tyler and David Wenham. Rated M


If you haven't seen it by now, you're obviously not a fan.

The last instalment of the series is as moving as you'd expect. The lesser hobbits have bigger roles, though unfortunately the elf Legolas says about 20 words in the whole film.

We see that Elijah Wood still has two facial expressions: pure delight and just-about-to-keel-over. Sean Astin proves himself again and outshines Wood's performance as the brave Samwise.

The story line is that Frodo, Samwise and Gollum must get the ring to Mordor, meanwhile the humans rally to save Gondor from the dark forces. Gandalf didn't use his magic nearly enough for my liking, allowing the hordes to all but take Gondor.

The bad critters are even more realistic and there are a few nasty additions. Can't wait for the extended edition DVD!

5 out of 5 - Lt Simone Heyer

The Last Samurai
Stars Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connolly, Koyuki and Tony Goldwyn. Rated MA.

Tom Cruise's usual flat performance comes as no surprise in this otherwise intriguing film written, directed and produced by Edward Zwick (Glory, Legends of the Fall, Courage Under Fire).

There's definitely a similarity between The Last Samurai and many of Zwick's previous films - there's certainly no shortage of heroic charges - but not so much as to make it feel redundant.

Cruise plays US Captain Nathan Algren, a haunted veteran of the Indian wars who goes to Japan in the 1870s to train the new Japanese military, which is battling the Samurai. After a disastrous first contact he is captured and spends some time with the Samurai in the mountains, ultimately falling for the romantic warrior code and adopting their ways.

There's an interesting stretch in the middle with very little action and while anyone who watches this purely for the samurai-sword-swishing might get a bit bored, there's plenty of action to make up for it later. The Last Samurai is worth seeing; the other actors and Zwick's good directing cover up Cruise's blandness.

3 and a half out of 5 - Pte John Wellfare

Love Actually
Stars Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson and Colin Firth. Rated M.

Love actually is all around us, or apparently so, in one form or another.

The love of your life is right in front of you. Sure, you've been delightfully single for nearly two years - clearly your love is for your cat, or flash car, as the case may be.

This movie is warming, but saddening. It shows love in the lives of 10 different people, all connected in some way.

A man who has lost his wife to cancer finds a love he had tried to kindle with his stepson. A man who is in love with his best friend's wife gathers the confidence to tell her, knowing she will do nothing about it. A woman finds a necklace in her husband's pocket but at Christmas receives a CD - she knows his secretary received the necklace. The woman realises the importance of her children. An ageing rocker finds the love of a new audience and realises his manager who has stuck by him through thick and thin is the only person with whom he wants to spend Christmas.

And that's it really. People who have love then lose it and how they get it again, or find a different love.

Hugh Grant is the perfect, but surprising prime minister. Liam Neeson is very special, and it's great to see a greying Rowan Atkinson playing another painfully annoying character.

It is a chick-flick but should appeal to the softer side of the male folk as well.

4 out of 5 - Lt Simone Heyer

Something's Gotta Give
Stars Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton and Keanu Reeves. Rated M.

You don't want to think about it, but you know it happens. People your parents' age like a bit of spice in their life.

Playwright Erica (Keaton) walks into her beach house to find a strange man, Harry (Nicholson), in her kitchen in his undies.

Harry is her age. Her daughter Marin, is upstairs - she's with Harry.

Erica is put out and annoyed her daughter can't see Harry for what he really is - a 60-year-old man with a commitment problem and a need for trophy girlfriends. She's also annoyed at Harry for playing these girls for fools and not having the guts to go for women his age.

After a heart attack, Harry is laid up at Erica's house for a week, being tended by the good doctor Julian (Reeves). The doctor has an eye for the much-older Erica and the two begin a half-hearted contest for her affections. I'd put my money on the lovely Keanu, but Erica's got other ideas.

3 out of 5 - Lt Simone Heyer