Search: Starring Zac Efron

Clichés are comforting rather than irritating thanks to a likeable turn from the impossibly handsome lead.

Dennis Quaid plays Henry Whipple with so much tension in his face that you might expect a little alien to pop out of his temple at any given moment.

There's something unconvincing about Seth Rogen playing a responsible adult that undercuts much of the comic tension in Bad Neighbours.

Hollywood is full of tales of people like Moondog who discover the true meaning of life when they get sober. Korine isn't that naive.

The film is far too heavy-handed in places, especially towards the end, squandering the emotional impact provided by its early ambiguity.

With its thinly veiled homophobia and misogyny, you begin to long for the upfront approach of Benny Hill.

Rather than simply turn Tommy into a laughing stock, Franco teases out the tragicomedy of the man.

For all the 3D eyeball-poking efforts, barbershop-quartet singing fish and more colours than an explosion in a paintbox, the thin story never rises beyond merely okay.

By avoiding serial cliches, director Joe Berlinger touches on a different level of revelation.

The style is confused

Hairspray is a sincere, thoroughly entertaining romp; bursting with boundless energy, inventive choreography and performances that quite simply delight.

The writing is unanimously superfluous bubblegum dribble. Yet Zac Efron displays a startling magnetic star quality and rises above it.

Efron...brings patience and grace to a role which could have been played much more conventionally, and elevates the whole.

Josh Radnor is adept at creating flawed characters who nevertheless prove sweetly likeable.

It's as though Marshall gathered together all the subplots from films that never got made or were left on the cutting-room floor and sticky-taped them together end on end to create this horror of a holiday centipede.

The references are messy, the gestures grand.

Severe editing might have been a better solution for this hit-and-miss affair.

Everyone loves a bit of nostalgia, but you've got to put your heart into it.

Zac Efron portrays Cole as appealingly handsome, talented and gregarious and it’s safe to say that his performance rescues what could have been an irredeemably obnoxious film.