crossroads (pg)

Dir: Tamra Davis. With: Britney Spears, Dan Aykroyd, Anson Mount.

ali g in da house (15)

Dir: Mark Mylod. With: Sacha Baron Cohen, Michael Gambon.

blade 2 (18)

Dir: Guillermo Del Torro. With: Welsey Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Luke Goss.

mystic masseuR (pg)

Dir: Ismail Merchant. With: Ayeshi Dharker, Omi Puri, James Fox.

warm water under a red bridge (pg)

Dir: Shohei Imamura. With: Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho.

dinner rush (15) Dir. Bob Giraldi.

With: Danny Aiello, Eduardo Ballerini, Kirk Acevedo, Sandra Bernhard.

ET (15) Dir. Steven Spielberg.

With: Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace-Stone

Brace yourselves. It might be time to dole out some grudging respect to pneumatic pop princess Britney Spears. Her acting debut in the teen drama Crossroads suggests that movie stardom might just elbow music out of her busy schedule one day. And before you snigger, don't forget that Cher has an Oscar and a Golden Globe on her mantlepiece, or that Jennifer Lopez was considered to be a fine actress, too, before megastardom claimed her.

Crossroads is a winsome, warm-hearted junior chick flick, reminiscent of the Judy Blume novels that saw so many of us through the traumas of adolescence.

Britney plays Lucy, a virginal, bookish nerd (none of the virginal, bookish nerds I knew at school had all-over tans and defined abs, but we'll let that pass). Upon graduation, Lucy tentatively re-establishes relations with her two closest childhood friends, who have since taken markedly different paths - Kit (Zoe Saldana) is the school's glamour girl, while Mimi (the excellent Taryn Manning) is a moody, scruffy rebel who's heavily pregnant.

Together they head off on a road trip, taking along a nearby hunk (Anson Mount) and the last vestiges of their girlish dreams. It's all sunsets, catfights, and tearful bonding, until everything is topsy-turvied in a sudden whirlwind of melodrama.

Screenwriter Shonda Rimes and director Tamra Davis know their market, and aren't afraid to exploit its turbulent hormonal state. But, broadly speaking, they rein in the sentimentality and draw fine work from their young performers; and although the Important Social Issues (parental neglect, pregnancy, date rape, virginity loss) come a little too thick and fast, they're handled with care.

And so to the big-screen debut of another youth icon: Sacha Baron Cohen's comic creation, Ali G, the foul-mouthed white homeboy from Staines, whose satirical edge has worn ever smoother as he's been adopted by the mainstream. This big screen outing - in which Ali is elected to parliament as part of a conspiracy to humiliate the government - feels like a swansong for a comic device at the end of its usefulness. Though sporadically amusing, the film is little more than a crude mix of US-style, gross-out humour, British social satire, and straightforward dirty jokes.

Many of the laughs are won simply by placing the language of childhood in the mouth of a grown man. Like countless other comedy heroes through history - from Charlie Chaplin to Mr Bean - Ali G takes on the adult world using playground tactics. For all his profanity and lasciviousness, he's still an innocent, who takes on high-level political corruption with all the naive logic of a child, and describes his enemy (played by Charles Dance) as ''more eviller than Skeletor''. This makes it pretty hard to get genuinely worked up about the film's morality. Certainly it's rude (indeed, considering some of its sexual content and language, it's surprising that it got a 15 certificate), but it isn't dark or cruel. The film's main problem isn't its puerility so much as its structure. Episodic and gag-led, it feels televisual, and fails to maintain plot momentum in between set-pieces.

Blade 2 could probably use a touch of Ali G's ironic self-awareness. This sequel comes armed with added arthouse kudos, thanks to the high profile of director Guillermo Del Toro; but it remains a flashy, brainless enterprise with all the narrative depth of a computer game. Wesley Snipes plays the hero, a hybrid of human and vampire who has made it his business to rid his dystopian futuristic society of bloodsuckers once and for all.

Here, however, he's forced to join forces with them, against a new and infinitely gorier breed of enemy (led, oddly, by former pop star Luke Goss).

The effects are ambitious, but variable in their impact. Free-flowing gore, acrobatic fights, and deafening sound effects don't compensate for a basic lack of plot development; and Snipes is too po-faced and self-important to be intriguing.

Equally mismanaged - if rather quieter - is Mystic Masseur, directed by Ismail Merchant and adapted by Caryl Phillips from a novel by V S Naipaul.

This is a clumsy, vague attempt at a dashing colonial epic. It tells the story of Ganesh, an Indian man living in Trinidad who becomes a writer, healer, and politician, despite being essentially talentless in all areas. The trouble is that Phillips and Merchant seem uncertain as to whether they're satirising or eulogising this silly character. Phillips's script is flat; and, despite Merchant's history of lavish costume dramas, the film is

surprisingly lacklustre.

Fans of oddly pointless arthouse faff could always opt for Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, a Japanese sex comedy-cum-drama directed by Shohei Imamura. Laid off from his job in an architect's office, Yosuke undertakes a whimsical trip to the country, in search of a treasure supposedly hidden under a red bridge by a deceased friend. Once there, he is aggressively seduced by Saeko, who has an unusual sexual quirk: her body periodically fills up with water, which can only be released through love-making. This daft, erotic conceit leaves the film awkwardly poised between sniggery, schoolboy prurience and solemn glorification of ''the feminine mystique''.

For people supposedly in the grip of uncontrollable passion, stars Koji Yakusho and Misa Shimizu generate little chemistry; and Imamura's habit of filming them from far-off and through windows dulls their supposed ardour even more.

There's much more dynamism to be found in Dinner Rush, a pleasing if conventional drama set amid Italian New Yorkers. Directed by real-life restaurateur Bob Giraldi, it's set in a classy eaterie owned by Louis (Danny Aiello), a former Mafioso. Though he's in the process of handing over control of the business to his son, Udo (Eduardo Ballerini), he's still beset by domestic and professional problems: Udo insists on replacing homespun Italian comfort food with pretentious nouvelle cuisine, while sous-chef Duncan has a gambling problem that has landed him in hot water with a new breed of flashy gangsters.

Giraldi over-eggs his pudding somewhat, throwing in countless romantic intrigues and peripheral characters; and the film's glossy surface is somewhat reminiscent of a classy TV drama. However, the cast work well together and the script is witty and well-crafted.

But if it's a safe bet you're after, revisit the most soft-hearted sci-fi classic of all time - Steven Spielberg's ET,

polished up and slightly rejigged in celebration of its twentieth anniversary. Personally, I have to approach this film with caution; it messes with my emotions so much I make Halle Berry look like Mr Spock. Those of firmer constitution might be able to glimpse digitally enhanced special effects through their tears. The changes are subtle - ET's range of facial expressions has been expanded; Spielberg has removed guns; Elliot's mother no longer accuses him of looking ''like a terrorist''. What appeals now is what appealed 20 years ago, and what Spielberg still does best: a sweet, well-executed, expertly performed, modern fairy tale that lays on the sentiment with a trowel.