"Actor: Lawrence Anderson"

• Of Unknown Origin | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A low-rent horror flick from the early 1980s, Of Unknown Origin completely misses the mark in the scare stakes and instead comes across like a grisly, live-action version of Tom and Jerry. Our inept hero is the ambitious, house-proud executive Bart Hughes (Peter Weller), who is left alone by his wife and son to complete a business proposal only to discover that he is sharing his apartment with a mischievous giant rat. Unable to trap or poison his foe, Hughes quickly descends into nightmare-haunted madness and thus the stage is set for a suspenseless battle of wits that is less cat-and-mouse and more idiot-versus-rat. Finding an angry rodent swimming in your toilet might be a pretty unpleasant prospect, but cinematically speaking it's far from terrifying. Created using jerky point-of-view shots and creature effects that range from incongruous real-life footage to button-eyed glove puppets, the rat is an unthreatening villain, despite Weller's best efforts to react in abject horror when he finds the corners of his mail nibbled or his dry groceries spoiled. There are some unsuccessful attempts to make Hughes' plight more immediate to the audience by references to real-life rat problems--he visits a library to research his enemy and finds some disturbing photographs of rat-attack victims and subsequently ruins a dinner party with a genuinely unsettling rant about infestation and plagues--but it's difficult to feel sorry for him when he can't even muster the tenacity to track down a professional exterminator. By the time Weller gets caught in one of his own traps, you will probably be rooting for the rat anyway, and might take some pleasure from a ridiculous denouement in which, dressed in full battle-gear, he completely destroys his beloved apartment by clumsily chasing the elusive vermin with a nail-studded baseball bat. Gore Verbinski's genuinely hilarious Mousehunt did it with a lot more charm. On the DVD: Of Unknown Origin comes to DVD with a basic selection of extras. An entertaining commentary from Peter Weller and the likeable George P Cosmatos III does the film a lot of favours, even if their efforts to talk up its importance as an allegory for man's struggle against nature using comparisons with The Old Man and the Sea, Moby Dick, Alien and Jaws fail to convince. Added to this is the theatrical trailer ("If it doesn't scare you to death, it WILL find another way!"), a choice of languages and scene selection. --Paul Philpott

• Black Knight / Big Momma's House | DVD | (10/03/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A predictable vehicle for the resistable Martin Lawrence, Black Knight is yet another rerun of Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur concept which here plays like a horror-free, considerably less funny take on Army of Darkness. Jamal (Lawrence), minion in a mediaeval theme park, reaches into a moat for a magic amulet and is transported to the 14th century, where he is appalled by the toilet facilities, pals around with a disgraced knight (an equally disgraced Tom Wilkinson), romances a feminist lady-in-waiting (Marsha Thomason), introduces soul music to the court in a bit done better in A Knight's Tale, and becomes the legendary black knight to help the rebels overthrow the wicked king. It has a bigger, more lavish feel than most of Lawrence's makeshift knockabouts, but that may also be why it is even less funny, since his rants are rather reined-in and his screen character comes across as just overly pleased with himself rather than a comic foul-up who turns heroic. --Kim Newman No-one tries very hard in Big Momma's House so your enjoyment of this Martin Lawrence vehicle pretty much depends on how much amusement you are able to derive from a guy dressed up as a very ample woman. The setup is of the eye-rolling, only-in-Hollywood nature: Lawrence, as detective Malcolm Turner, is after a killer, and apparently the only way to capture him is to pose as the bad guy's ex-girlfriend's grandmother, who--the film cannot stress this point too much--is quite large. Apparently, Sherry (Nia Long), the young woman in question--she's as attractive as Big Momma is, well, you know--is none too bright, for she falls for Malcolm's ruse, which of course ostensibly amuses mainly because it's so transparent. Paul Giamatti is wasted as Malcolm's partner, while director Raja Gosnell's clunky sense of comic rhythm is bewildering, because he used to be an editor (he brought a similar lack of magic to Home Alone 3). Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps is far more accomplished, versatile and funny. --David Kronke

• In Till You Die | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Once yopu're in.... You can't get out.... Joney's a low level hired gun going nowhere fast. So when a smooth-talking criminal named Cowboy tells him that he wants to use him for a heist the eager theif jumps at the chance. There's only one problem the mark is the most viscious of all mobsters Sam the owner of Sam's Club.....