Best films on the box: September 29 - October 5

GROOVY BABY: Mike Myers stars as Austin Powers and a whole cast of extras in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery on TV2 on Tuesday night.

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Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, September 29 to Monday, October 5.

Tuesday, September 29

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
1997, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Mike Myers "schwings" into the groovy '60s for this irresistibly funny spy spoof about a cryogenically frozen hero who might as well be from the Ice Age. There are more bad puns than beaut babes, Robert Wagner’s no Leslie Nielsen and move over Pussy Galore - here comes Alotta Fagina.

Wednesday, September 30

Leatherheads
2000, PGR, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
Leatherheads is a playful comedy about the fledgling days of pro-football in 1920s America. George Clooney, in charming rogue overdrive, falls out with teammate - and star player - John Krasinski over a feisty newshound (Renee Zellweger) who tries to seduce him for the sake of a scoop. Despite skewering professionalism’s corrupting influence on sport, Leatherheads is a screwball romance at heart. It’s just a pity that the repartee, colourful characters and terrific twist are undermined by slapdash storytelling. Cooney also directs.

Thursday, October 1

The Incredible Hulk
2008, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
Hollywood’s latest incarnation of the green ire monster is a so-so superhero movie that lacks the complexity of The Dark Knight and the wit of Iron Man (which provides one of the movie's few surprises). Edward Norton, Liv Tyler and Tim Roth (TV's Lie to Me) star; Louis Leterrier (Transporter 2) directs.

Friday, October 2

The Bank Job
2008, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
World’s Fastest Indian director Roger Donaldson dramatises, with lashings of sex, violence and humour, a 1971 Lloyds of London heist in which a gang of resourceful small-time thieves was used as patsies by British intelligence to avert a royal scandal. The ruse to retrieve incriminating photographs of Princess Margaret was compromised by double-crossing spooks, crooked cops, fiendish villains and bent politicians - some of whose names have been changed "to protect the guilty". Jason Statham and Saffron Burrows (TV’s Boston Legal) star.

Saturday, October 3

Monsters Inc
2001, G, 7.30pm, TV2
From Pixar’s ink comes a kidult scream set in the parallel universe of Monstropolis, where the kooky-spooky locals earn a living from scaring children and bottling their energy to power the national grid -- until a kid named Boo infiltrates their world and inadvertently turns their lives into a nightmare ... The computer animation is extraordinary and the characterisations adorable but, best of all, no monsters were harmed in the making of this larger-than-life lark.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
2005, PGR, 7.30pm, TV3
Keisha Castle-Hughes joins fellow Kiwis Temuera Morrison and Jay Laga’aia for the most recent instalment of the George Lucas franchise (and the fourth that he directed). The free-to-air, high definition broadcast coincides with the DVD release of volumes three and four of Star Wars: The Clones Wars - The Animated Series - and is just as two-dimensional.

Empire of the Sun
1987, AO, 8.30pm, TV One
Nearly every scene of this thwarted Steven Spielberg bid for an Oscar is picture-perfect - a celebration of composition and contrast that leaves you in awe at its virtuoso craftsmanship. But the extraordinary promise of the first half is betrayed by the self-indulgent excesses of the second. Still, when Empire works it takes your breath away, as does Christian Bale’s cinematic debut as a young man alone on Japanese-occupied Shanghai. John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Nigel Hawthorne co-star.

Lethal Weapon 2
1992, AO, 9.30pm, TV2
Sadistic sequel that unwisely opts for even more outlandish stunts and a juvenile sense of humour that would be forgettable were it not so ugly and disquieting. Jokey heroics and buddy-buddy bonding are one thing; trying to give them credibility through bloody realism is quite another. Rambo never pretends to be anything more than a macho myth but LW2 insists its heroes are real people with real feelings in a high-spirited framework of sitcom substance and Dirty Harry carnage.

Out of Sight
1998, AO, 10.30pm, TV3
Sexy, suspenseful, stylish Elmore Leonard adaptation that’s quintessential pulp noir with smarts. George Clooney plays a charming ex-con executing another scam while trying to dodge the feisty federal marshal (Jennifer Lopez) who’s been on his trail ever since they shared a close encounter of the car boot kind. Samuel L Jackson, Ving Rhames, Michael Keaton and Dennis Farina co-star in this worthy, quirky Get Shorty successor directed with cool aplomb by Steven Soderbergh.

Sunday, October 4

Wedding Crashers
2005, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
You wouldn’t want these guys at your worst enemy’s wedding. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play party animals who gatecrash flash weddings to bed bridesmaids and whoever else might be game for wedded trysts. It’s a premise ripe with promise but the execution becomes so extreme and contrived that the movie crashes much earlier than it should.

Monday, October 5

Miami Vice
2006, AO, 8.30pm, TV3
Michael Mann’s re-make of his iconic cop show for the MTV crowd owes just as much to his last TV series, the darker, moodier but dead on arrival Robbery Homicide Division. Twenty years on the beat still goes on but Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) have gone so deep undercover that fans may not recognise them.  Miami Vice’s drug-trade globalisation plot feels even more synthetic than the alarming pastels of the original. The result is stylish and sporadically suspenseful but with none of the Heat of Mann’s last TV re-make.