Bond bombshell

The world, it seems, really is not enough for the latest Bond villain, sardonically ghastly Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), whose de rigeur plans for world domination in Die Another Day include a gigantic satellite capable of pulverising anything - ice floes, minefields, nuclear missiles - in its range. Nothing our man James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) can't handle, of course - just a great excuse for carnage that ranges from Korea to Iceland.

Under Lee (Once Were Warriors) Tamahori's direction, the combination of whizzbang antics and ineffable cool that makes up the Bond franchise darkens: Bond loses his licence to kill (which doesn't stop him, naturally) and goes on the run, gadgetless, to find the mole who betrayed him. On the way, he encounters Jinx (Halle Berry) - a more challenging Bond girl than we've seen in a long time.

It's a pleasant surprise to find an interesting story wrapped up in the Bond film gloss and it makes up for deficiencies in the action sequence: the fights and chases are as spectacular as ever, but not always judiciously shot. Still, it's nice to see that for his 20th outing, Bond has truly entered the modern age: the Cold War is replaced by north-south tensions in Korea, there's DNA replacement therapy, virtual reality training and, belatedly, top gadgets from Q's bottomless stores. John Cleese makes a fine fist of replacing the late Desmond Llewelyn as Q, turning Bond's usual kitting-up session into the funniest scene in the film. He may be out of favour with his superiors and crossing swords with a girl who's every bit his match, but for the rest of the cinema-going world, Bond is still on top.

The me of Anita & Me, the latest story of English-born immigrants coming of age in the Enoch Powell era, is Meena (Chandeep Uppal), 12-year-old daughter of Tollington village's only Punjabi residents.

For Meena, neighbour Anita (Anna Brewster) combines the virtues of idol and best friend: 14, blonde and poutingly indifferent to the rules. This bittersweet story, based on Meera Syal's novel, doesn't flinch from pulling racism, inadequate parenting and malice aforethought into its orbit, but under Metin Huseyin's direction it's less potent as a social document than Bend It Like Beckham, and far less enjoyable. There are plenty of entertaining peripheral characters, but Meena's family creaks, the accents sound fake and the girls both lack charisma. It's a pity, especially with sterling back-up from Kathy Burke, Lynn Redgrave and Ayesha Dharker, but the dithering screenplay combined with shockingly unbeautiful imagery makes this a trial.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not is that rarity: an irredeemably bad French film. Amelie's Audrey Tautou is Angelique, seemingly driven mad by her married lover, Lo'c (Samuel Le Bihan), but our sympathy for this waif wilts as she's a petulant, manipulative brat. Just when the story gets too annoying for words, it rewinds and starts again - for reasons that aren't able to make the second round, from Lo'c's perspective, more enjoyable. Despite young writer-director Laetitia Colombani's lively preoccupation with the workings of madness, this falls flat, probably because the characters are cartoon representations of good and evil. By the time we work out what's really going on, it's too late: Angelique has earned our hatred and Lo'c has shown himself too passive to hold our interest.

Bundy is a deliberately shocking romp through the life of serial killer Ted Bundy that'll have you retching in the aisles. Wannabe yuppie Ted (Michael Reilly Burke) tortured and raped around 150 women, but director Matthew Bright has a gung ho disregard for psychological insight, instead focusing as graphically as censorship allows on Ted's frenzied 1970s sprees. Sick.

Rich as Abouna is, at its centre lies a vacuum: the fathershaped hole that 15-year-old Tahir (Ahidjo Mahamat Moussa) and his eight-year-old brother Amine (Hamza Moctar Aguid), waking to find their parent inexplicably gone, try to fill using every resource they possess. When searching doesn't work, their imagination kicks in to fill the gap, leading to trouble with the authorities and a second abandonment: their overstretched-mother puts them in a distant Koran school where, she believes, they will be safe.

The contrast between the domineering but ineffective command structure and the much-loved parents who renounce their rightful control forms the major tension in a luminous film that manages to stay warmly watchable, despite constituting a despairing wail for crumbling natural hierarchies. The two boys are wonderfully watchable, and Haroun's gift for colour means there are items of cheap clothing in this film that will resonate in the mind's eye long after the contents of this season's fashion pages have faded.