GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS

Directed by Dominic Sena. Starring Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Duvall

Deafeningly loud, in-your-face, overheated, overlong, bereft of braincells and not half as much fun as the trailer might lead you to expect, Gone In Sixty Seconds is the latest plague to be visited upon the planet by Jerry Bruckheimer, the uber-producer behind such cerebral classics as Armageddon, Con Air and The Rock.

Extremely similar in style and execution to its predecessors, only slower and without even the faintest trace of comic value, it's a vacuous and densely over-populated car-chase speedball-flick that desperately tries to be a visceral thrill-ride, but allows itself to be bogged down time and again in a swamp of sickly sentiment, thus neutralising the film's potential action appeal.

Plot: world's greatest living car thief Memphis Raines (Cage), is coaxed out of retirement and assigned to steal fifty cars in one night - all in order to save his brother (Ribisi) who has incurred the wrath of sneering English psychopath Raymond Calitri (Eccleston).

In steps our reluctant hero, re-assembling his erstwhile gang of reprobates (including a hulking, silent Vinny Jones) and embarking on an endless mission to liberate as many autos as he can lay his mitts on. Meanwhile, we're introduced to a steady drip-feed of barely-scripted supporting characters, each one more cliched than the last - there's the father figure (Duvall), the girl he left behind (Jolie), the mute strongman (Jones) and the inevitable black cop (Delroy Lindo) who assumes the role of Cage's arch-nemesis (in spite of their inevitable grudging respect for one another).

Cage, by this stage, is right up there with Phil Babb and Whitney Houston in the world hierarchy of Massive Squandered Talents - words can hardly articulate just what a dismal letdown his late-'90s career has represented, and if he carries on at this rate he should surpass Robin Williams as the world's worst sometime around 2006.

The gang's adversaries, on the other hand, are such a buzz to behold they almost make the movie worthwhile (though not quite). They are led by the normally reliable Christopher Eccleston, whose all-new Barry Manilow bouffant positively steals the show - in spite of Eccleston's impressive pre-Sixty Seconds resumé, he is hopelessly miscast here as an evil stock Hollywood super-villain, and winds up as the least menacing screen baddie since Return Of The Killer Tomatoes, squealing "Do I look like an arsehole?" in a voice that sounds like a castrato Jack Duckworth.

Sixty Seconds' characterisation is pretty lamentable everywhere you look, while the director's adoration for all things automobile-related appears to border on the erotic. We get treated to endless lines of fetishised shiny metal objects, and the script offers up such stupendous nuggets as 'What's better, boosting a car or having sex?' - in general, one senses it might be worthwhile looking under the director's bed for suspiciously-stuck-together copies of Auto Trader.

The soundtrack is a nightmarish MOR black hole, the film's visual style is extravagant but highly irritating, and the whole affair has something of the flavour of a Christian heavy-metal video - buzzy for five minutes, but a hole in the head over the course of two hours. Christ, even Vinny Jones ends up looking like he deserves better than this.