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What is Will Ferrell on these days? He’s gone from being genuinely laugh out loud funny to starring in duds like this that only contain one giggle at best.

Based on a dangerously dated TV series, the knitted-together-from-noodles plot has Ferrell starring as Dr Rick Marshall, a quantum palaeontologist falling through a wormhole into the Land of the Lost with Holly (Anna Friel) as his assistant and redneck Will (Danny McBride) as a hapless hanger-on.

Here they encounter a T-Rex, simian humans who speak a primitive language (and like touching Friel’s breasts – ha ha), giant crabs and some dubiously made-up lizard-like aliens who want to take over the universe.

Director Brad Silberling tries to juggle so many random characters and plot lines he forgets the film is meant to be a comedy so the comic timing is very badly off – if you don’t see the jokes coming from a mile off the first time round, you can, of course, catch them on the rebound as most are repeated lest you failed to get the joke.

It’s not worth the entrance fee to see what soon becomes a laugh-free land.

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Audrey Tautou bewitched us with her first big hit Amelie, but has not really made any impression since.

She’s far more convincing here, as dowdy little seamstress Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, destined to go on to much greater things, but interestingly her performance, good as it is, is matched by two perfectly delivered male characterisations. The first comes from Benoit Poelvoorde, as the massively wealthy socialite who becomes her sugar-daddy and verbal sparring partner – the sweetly coated barbs they sling at each other send shivers of outraged delight down the spine.

The other is the criminally under appreciated Alessandro Nivola as the English gentleman she falls head over heels in love with.

When not engaged in the battle of the sexes young, headstrong Gabrielle decides to create her own lifestyle and fashion sense and turns from a gawky if wilful shop girl, into the darling of the stylish rich.

Having bemoaned the parlous state of the modern romcom last week, it’s nice to be able to write that this is one romance with a successful, ambitious female lead that doesn’t depict her as a heartless bitch or descend into trite happily-ever-after sentimentality.

There was no romantic happy ending for Coco Chanel, but that didn’t stop her from forging her own successful path through life.  With some stunning settings and costumes and those two very strong central pairings, it’s a great tale of a historical figure who comes across as a thoroughly modern woman.

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This update of the 1974 original gets the full Tony Scott treatment – flashy camera moves, glossy special effects and staccato direction with added knobs on for good measure.

This is the difference between Tony and his brother Ridley, Tony can’t just let a story tell itself, he has to add twiddles and doodles and curlicues; it’s as if he just can’t stop himself.

Playing on the paranoia of the post 9/11 world, when the Pelham 123 metro train is hijacked underneath New York, the first thought is that Islamic terrorists have committed the crime. Unfortunately for the people on the train and the network controller (Denzel Washington) back at HQ, the gang is actually being led by an ex-convict (John Travolta) with a lot of old scores to settle. He wants bucket-loads of cash or else he’ll kill the commuters onboard one by one. This brings the Mayor (James Gandolfini) and a hostage negotiator (John Turturro) into the equation, but ironically (as he’s up on corruption charges), it is only the controller the hostage takers will talk to.

What should ensue is a taut cat and mouse thriller as the two men size each other up, try and get the better of each other, and end up having a massive face off. But this being a Tony Scott movie what we actually get is train smashes, car crashes and more mayhem than Waterloo at rush hour amid a train strike.

It’s certainly got plenty of crash, bang, boom appeal but it lacks nuance and depth and ends with a frankly jaw-droppingly unbelievable (like Travolta’s handlebar moustache) finale.

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Whatever happened to the romcom?

Back in the days of Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant romcoms like Adam’s Rib and His Girl Friday were dingdong battles of the sexes with witty one-liners whizzing around so fast you had to keep on your toes to keep up with them, while the women gave as good as they got and almost whisked the guys’ pants off in order to show who wore the trousers. Nowadays we get the likes of The Proposal, which isn’t bad as far as modern romcoms go, but is limp and emasculated compared to its forebears.

Here’s a short synopsis of the plot of any modern day romcom: she’s a bitch, preferably a hard working, high achieving bitch who has never had time for babies or men; he’s either a sexist slob or a bloke in real life she’d never even consider as a mate. They meet, they bicker a bit, there are some lame sex jokes probably involving nudity, inappropriate clothing or a sex toy, then he realises underneath her ball-breaking exterior beats the heart of a little lady who just wants to be lurved, while she (because she’s not getting any younger and her biological clock is ticking) lowers her sights and decides he’ll do as well as anyone else as a sperm donor.

Most of these movies star Katherine Heigl (watch out for The Ugly Truth coming your way soon) but The Proposal stars the once feisty and fabulous Sandra Bullock, now consigned to wearing inappropriately high heels and acting with her little finger as (you guessed it) the high powered, ball-breaking Canadian book editor Margaret, who is about to be thrown out of the States because her visa has expired. Enter her mousy assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) who agrees to marry her so she can stay in the country.

So, it’s off to Alaska so Margaret can meet her prospective in-laws, which is when she discovers (shock, horror!) Andrew isn’t the nobody she’s always thought, but actually the son of a mega-rich clan who live in a castle on an island. Cue misunderstandings, shared bedrooms but no nookie, yes, that inappropriate nude scene, and the sudden realisation that they’ve actually fancied the pants off each other all this time but never realised it.

There are one or two laughs and some nice supporting work from Mary Steenburgen as Andrew’s mum, but the movie runs out of steam halfway through, while Reynolds has all the emotional flexibility of a handsome man who has got by all his life on a winning smile.

So, it’s mildly amusing and entertaining, but it should have been so much sharper, quicker and more biting. It’s about time Hollywood woke up to the realisation successful, intelligent women don’t have to be bitches and can actually possess a sense of humour but, like women finally managing to break through that glass ceiling, don’t expect it to happen any time soon.

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To celebrate the launch of the new Tampax Pearl My Weekend My Way campaign, The Saturdays are performing a VIPearl Exclusive Gig at Oceana in Watford on Wednesday, August 12.

We’re giving away 10 pairs of tickets to this exclusive gig to see the hottest girl band of the moment. We’ll also give you a VIPearl card which allows you and a friend free and fast-track entry to 88 nightclubs around the UK, valid until September 30, 2009.

To enter, send an email to competitions@the-void.co.uk telling us in 100 words or less what your weekend your way would involve.

Please visit www.myspace.com/myweekendmyway for more information.