The Perfect Catch (PG)<br></br>The Secret Lives of Dentists (15)<br></br>Eugenio (15)<br></br>The Island (12A)<br></br>Spirit Trap (15)

The Farrelly brothers adapting Nick Hornby's 1992 footie memoir Fever Pitch looks an improbable union on paper, but on screen it's a puppyishly tender romantic comedy.

Substituting Hornby's Arsenal with their own beloved Boston Red Sox, the brothers balance the baseball obsession of schoolteacher Ben (Jimmy Fallon) against the workaholic tendencies of corporate exec Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) and try to pretend that these two might not be a perfect match. But can a baseball diamond really trump a lovesick heart?

The trademark grotesquerie is occasionally allowed to sport (the dog having its teeth cleaned was a bizarre moment) but generally plays second fiddle to the excellent leads: Barrymore sweetly earnest, and Fallon, unknown here, a revelation as the schlump-hero. Back of the net - or, should I say, a home run.

The Secret Lives of Dentists (15) ***

Alan Rudolph, the vaguest of all directors, surprises here with a sharp comic drama about a marriage under stress. Campbell Scott plays a suburban dentist who seems to have it all - three cute daughters, houses in town and country - but suspects his amateur soprano wife (Hope Davis) of having an affair after spotting her in a passionate clinch with a stranger. Thrown into turmoil, he channels his aggression through an imaginary dialogue with one of his most difficult patients (Denis Leary), whose sardonic advice needles him.

Adapted from a Jane Smiley novella (The Age of Grief), it's a bleakly funny take on the nightmare of domesticity, faltering only in the last reel as Rudolph loses concentration. All the same, it's baffling why the film had to wait three years for a UK release.

Eugenio (15) **

Hard to resist Giancarlo Giannini's slow, toothy smile as the gentle Eugenio, a Down syndrome-afflicted careworker at an Italian hospital who coaxes back to sentience a traumatised young woman.

It was reportedly inspired by a true story (one of the screenwriters has a Down's child) though the contrivances of writer-director Francisco Jose Fernandez's melodrama would make a cat laugh.

The Island (12A) **

The only thing less subtle than Michael Bay's monster set-pieces are the product placements littered throughout this dystopian sci-fi fable: two minutes in and we've already had a plug for a certain brand of sports trainer.

Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson play genetically modified clones, grown for rich clients at a hush-hush institute in futuristic America. Realising their plight, the pair escape to Los Angeles, setting in motion a chase thriller that principally reminds you of several superior movies (Coma, Gattaca, Minority Report) and showcases a spiffy production design by Nigel Phelps.

It's better than anything else Bay has ever done, though given his CV (Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys 2 et al) that's really not saying much.

Spirit Trap (15) *

I think it's meant to be scary, but this paranormal thriller triggers laughs rather than shocks. A bunch of students (including Billie Piper) are summoned to a mansion in the belief that it is their new digs, though given that the place a) looks like a film set, and b) is in unaffordable Hampstead, they might have twigged something was up. Honestly, students nowadays.