This Means War (12A)

HHH

Dir: McG

With: Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon

Running time: 97 minutes

THIS spy caper-cum-rom-com (inset below) is supremely daft and half as funny as it should be. That said, there's no denying the screen appeal of the three cute-as-puppies leads. Reese Witherspoon is Lauren, the product tester dating two men (Tom Hardy and Chris Pine).

The guys are secret agents, naturally, and both use the full resources of the agency they work for to spy on each other's dating progress. Bubblegum for the brain.

Michael (18)

HH

Dir: Markus Schleinzer

With: Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger

Running time: 96 minutes

ACTOR and casting director Markus Schleinzer makes his directorial debut with a tale few others would go near. The Michael of the title is a paedophile holding a boy captive in a basement room. Michael, we see, is the outwardly civilised kind of paedophile, one who takes his young victim on day trips and buys him Christmas presents, but he's a paedophile all the same.

Though Schleinzer approaches the subject in as sensitive and intelligent manner as possible, one is left wondering why anyone would want to sit through this.

Tomorrow-March 8, Glasgow Film Theatre

Project X (18)

H

Dir: Nima Nourizadeh

With: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper

THE found footage approach extends to the coming-of-age party genre in distasteful fashion for Project X, a film that's as much a rip off of Superbad and John Hughes-style movies as it is loosely based on true events that took place in Australia in 2008. Directed by Nima Nourizadeh and produced by Todd (The Hangover) Phillips, the film follows three friends as they look to emerge from high school anonymity to legend status by throwing the most epic house party ever and inevitably losing control. Nourizadeh's film fails on just about every level, whether it's in its half-hearted use of the found footage format, its offensive humour, or its poorly defined and largely unlikeable characters. Sickening on every level.

(Reviewed by Rob Carnevale)

One for the Money (12A)

HH

Dir: Julie Anne Robinson

With: Katherine Heigl, Jason O'Mara

Running time: 91 minutes

JULIE Anne Robinson's adaptation of the first of the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter novels is a case of careful what you wish for.

Some of it works well, particularly the casting of Sherri Shepherd as Lula the hooker and Daniel Sunjata as mystery man Ranger. But Katherine Heigl is too pretty to be the poodle- permed New Jersey gal and Jason O'Mara is not pretty enough to be Morelli.

Add Debbie Reynolds chewing the scenery as kooky grandma Mazur, TV movie production values, and a script that ditches too many gags in favour of too much plot, and you have one for the curious Evanovich fan only.