Well worth a peak

The pity of war is shamelessly exposed in Cold Mountain, Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Charles Frazier's beautiful novel of beleaguered love.

Gently bred Ada (Nicole Kidman) and taciturn Inman (Jude Law) are beginning a romance in their North Carolina mountain town when the Civil War begins. Inman goes off to fight, but after two years he's embittered, disillusioned and wounded and - prompted by a heartfelt letter from Ada - sets off home.

As a deserter, he must avoid bounty hunters and trigger-happy home guardsmen as well as Yankees, but his literal journey is intercut with Ada's more metaphysical one: towards independence, with the help of drifter Ruby (Renèe Zellweger, surprisingly good). As North and South tear each other apart, these separated lovers struggle to reunite.

Although they're separated for most of the film, it never palls, thanks largely to an astute mix of brutality and sentiment, as well as the A-listers in minor roles. But Minghella has the crËme de la crËme on the other side of the camera, too, and that - along with meticulous attention to 1860s detail - ensures Cold Mountain looks tremendous, no matter what senseless destruction it depicts.

The title may shout 'generic cop action' but, in its few better moments, steamy thriller Out Of Time speaks a subtler lingo. Matt (Denzel Washington) is chief of police for Banyan Key, a patsy still in love with his former wife, absurdly sultry homicide detective Alex (Eva Mendes). All's going well - he's busting a major drugs ring and banging juicy neighbour Anne Marie (Sanaa Lathan) - until an apparent double homicide and a warren of plot twists (albeit signposted so clearly a drunk mole could predict them) send him spinning into a world where no one can be trusted.

A finely tuned vehicle for Washington, taking a jolly joyride away from his usual heavyweight roles, this is worth staggering to the multiplex to digest the excesses of Christmas over - and happily gives little more food for thought.

Peter Pan's legacy is dubious at best: inferior Disney, Spielberg's fully basted turkey Hook, wince-making pantomimes and, of course, Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch (hmm). But, by staying faithful to the spirit of JM Barrie's complex Edwardian original, director PJ (Muriel's Wedding) Hogan has created something marvellous and rather magical.

Twelve-year-old Wendy (a perfectly pitched performance by Rachel Hurd-Wood) wants to be a pirate princess; no wonder, then, that when Peter Pan (token American Jeremy Sumpter) and saucy fairy Tinkerbell (Ludivine Sagnier) knock on the window, she leaps at the chance to fly to Neverland. But is the real appeal locking swords with Captain Hook (Jason Isaacs) or locking lips with Peter?

It's all ripping adventure, with enough razzle-dazzle to keep tiny tots happy. Sadly, though, the ideal audience for this tale of childhood almost lost (those awkward age pubescents), will probably give such PG-rated stuff the V-sign.

Limping in years behind the film it wants to be (that'll be Lock, Stock... for a change), Triggermen sees bumbling crooks Andy (Neil Morrissey) and Pete (Adrian Dunbar) get mistaken for hitmen, then keep up the pretence to swindle money from their mystery employer. Claire Forlani is an engagingly enigmatic lovestruck dame, and Donnie Wahlberg's excellent, too, but despite cool noir-esque photography, this is pointless, unfunny stuff even Pete Postlethwaite's cameo can't save.