Angels & Demons leads the round-up of this week's DVD releases

Angels & Demons (15)

3/5

WHEN a research scientist is murdered at the CERN particle physics facility in Geneva, Harvard professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is summoned to investigate.

He links a symbol on the dead man to a secret society called the Illuminati, which was thought to have died out centuries ago.

Then Italian scientist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) reveals that a canister full of antimatter was stolen from the laboratory and is now primed to explode within the Vatican.

Langdon joins forces with Vittoria and local Swiss Guard and police Commanders to avert disaster.

Adapted from the best-selling book by Dan Brown, Angels & Demons is an action-packed game of cat and mouse around Rome.

Akiva Goldsman and David Koepp's lean script trades in the spurious mythology for unabashed thrills.

Unfortunately, by excising so much of the plot underpinning Brown's book, Langdon is reduced to a glorified tour guide.

Crank 2: High Voltage (18)

3/5

IN MARK Neveldine and Brian Taylor's 2006 action-thriller Crank, Jason Statham played hitman Chev, who combated a deadly and powerful toxin, injected into him, by maximising the amount of adrenaline in his system.

In this preposterous sequel, Statham wakes to discover that an enigmatic Chinese mobster has ripped out his heart and replaced the vital organ with a battery-operated ticker that will stop unless he gives himself regular jolts of electricity.

Most unfortunate.

Aided by kindly Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakum), vengeful twin Venus (Efren Ramirez) and his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart), Chev intends to retrieve his heart while outwitting Mexican crime lord El Huron.

Directed and edited at a furious pace which becomes exhausting well before the end credits roll, Crank 2: High Voltage takes all of the elements of the first film and turbo-charges them to ridiculous extremes.

Is Anybody There? (12)

4/5

BOOKISH teenager Edward (Bill Milner) lives in the Lark Hall retirement home run by his parents (Anne-Marie Duff, David Morrissey).

He is left to his own devices, spending long periods with aging charmer Reg (Leslie Phillips), prim kleptomaniac Ena (Thelma Barlow), jittery war veteran Bob (Robert Vaughn) and despairing Lilian (Symvia Syms).

The boy's solitude is interrupted with the arrival of grieving widower Clarence (Michael Caine), a retired magician who doesn't suffer children gladly.

At first, the boy and the newcomer clash, but a dramatic incident brings them together, forging an unlikely friendship. Is Anybody There? is a surprisingly tender coming of age story set in the fashion blackspot of 1987.

Screenwriter Peter Harness teases out the humour in the grimmest of situations.