Very clever about being very clever, Adaptation stars Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman – the real-life screenwriter who wrote Adaptation, in which ‘Kaufman’ struggles to adapt a novel into a movie and eventually writes himself into his screenplay. It’s all a hoot for struggling scribes and Hollywood insiders, if ultimately less insightful than Kaufman’s previous

Live actors and animated characters combine to bring Jay Ward’s cute and corny 1960s television series to the big screen. Natasha, Boris and Fearless Leader – played by Rene Russo, Jason Alexander and Robert De Niro – once again face off against ‘moose and squirrel’ (playing themselves). This has some charm and it’s certainly wittier

Another farce involving skittish dentist Nicholas “Oz” Oseransky (Matthew Perry, desperately flailing) and goofy hit man Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski (Bruce Willis, not nearly embarrassed enough), The Whole Ten Yards is like a morgue for laughs. Dead jokes are lined up across the screen.

Starring Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy as mismatched cops forced to pair up for a television reality series, Showtime means to spoof the big-gun cop blockbusters of the ’80s while still shooting off a few guns of its own. The gimmick works, thanks mostly to the easy camaraderie of the leads – they’re an

Ben Stiller is far better than this limp satire of the fashion industry, which he starred in, co-wrote and directed. If he had made Zoolander as his first film, we’d politely dismiss him as a comedian with promise. With occasional moments of amusement thanks to the likes of Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell and, bizarrely enough,

Writer-director Christopher Guest reteams with much of his Waiting for Guffman cast for another mock documentary, this time about a series of dog lovers whose reasons for being revolve around a canine competition. Top to bottom a master class in structured improvisation on the parts of Guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey, Michael Hitchcock,

If you have a high tolerance for wisecracks about condoms or crucifixes (there’s actually more of the latter), then this slight sex comedy might grow on you. Josh Hartnett plays a ladies man who makes a vow of chastity for Lent. If he and Shannyn Sossamon, as his potential soul mate, have an ingratiating chemistry,