talk on the wild side; The trouble with gabbing to the animals is

reviewed Dr Dolittle 2 (PG) Steve Carr hhh Swordfish (15) Dominic Sena hh Aimee and Jaguar (15) Max Frberbck hhh Animal Attraction (12) Tony Goldwyn h Intimacy (18) Patrice Chereau hhh After the simple- minded scatology and relentless riffs on obesity of The Nutty Professor 2, Eddie Murphy is back on comic form with another sequel. Dr Dolittle 2 is an engaging family picture that builds on the foundations of the first Dolittle movie, rather than trying to recycle the jokes. In addition to providing cheerful, non- threatening entertainment, the movie has something approaching a conscience, with a woolly but well-meaning conservationist message lurking beneath the gags about smart-mouthed animals.

It's a while since the near miss involving a car, a dog and a mouthful of canine abuse sparked Dr Dolittle's unusual gift and he has by now come to terms with the fact he can hear what the birds and the beasts have to say. What is slightly harder to resolve are the increased demands on his time as creatures from far and wide badger him for his attention - and then there's the sullen resentment from the family he's neglecting in order to keep the beasts quiet (or at least stop them from nagging for a while).

His oldest daughter has taken to locking herself in her room with her headphones and a couple of years' worth of teenage grievances; meanwhile his wife's glances are getting increasingly frosty. So it's particularly bad timing when he is summoned by the beaver, the Mafioso-style head of the forest who looks like a small, hairy, bucktoothed Marlon Brando. His forest is about to be razed to the ground by developers and the only thing that would stop them is if a mate could be found for Ava, a Pacific Western bear and endangered species (voiced by Lisa Kudrow). The unlikely candidate is Archie, a performing bear whose love of showbiz and junk food would seem to preclude his success in the wild, but the determination of the doctor and his furry friends should not be underestimated.

The animatronics and computer effects are as impressive as ever and most of the beasts in the supporting roles are extremely funny (although the alcoholic monkey is probably surplus to requirements). The humour occasionally descends into the realm of bodily functions - which currently seems to be a prerequisite of any movie aimed at teens or below - but aside from a protracted toilet joke featuring Archie the bear and the fallout from his dietary excess, the film doesn't suffer too much because of it. In fact most of the time it's highly entertaining, with a thin but well-meaning central story shored up by some top quality comedy writing. Into the mouths of dogs and iguanas go most of the best lines, and the impressive roster of talent providing the voices (Isaac Hayes, Steve Zahn, comedian Cedric The Entertainer and Michael Rapaport among others) do a fine job bringing the bolshy, wise-cracking fauna to life.

To continue the non-human theme, albeit in title only, this week sees the release of Swordfish, summer blockbuster contender and latest hilarious screen outing for the monumental talent of Vinnie Jones. In this movie, Vinnie gets to play an evil henchman, although to all intents and purposes he exactly reprises his performance in Gone In Sixty Seconds (director Dominic Sena's previous film). In other words we get lots of stony-faced glowering and then one single, spectacularly inappropriate line of dialogue. John Travolta is the deranged mastermind who has Vinnie's muscle at his command, Hugh Jackman plays a down-at-heel hacker who is recruited by Travolta's organisation to do something inexplicable with computers and Halle Berry is Travolta's nubile girlfriend who may also be a special agent.

Having passed an ingenious test (he hacks into a military mainframe while receiving oral sex from a Swedish porn actress with Travolta's gun barrel pressed against his temple) Jackman soon realises he is out of his depth. So too, unfortunately, is Sena - a blistering opening sequence involving a colossal explosion that levels huge swathes of California's law enforcement agency is not matched in intensity by the rest of the movie. It's stylish and superficially entertaining, but Travolta's megalomaniac motives for his crimes are at best muddily explained. And faced with the dilemma of how to make computer programming look interesting on screen, Sena tries for the rock and roll option with Jackman strutting and pouting in front of his bank of VDU's like a keyboardist from a 1970s prog- rock outfit - unfortunately it just looks stupid.

More animal references (sorry, I'm going to run with this one) in Aimee And Jaguar, a movie based on the true story of a lesbian relationship between a Jew and the wife of a German officer, set against the backdrop of the first world war. The title, by the way, refers to the women's nicknames for each other.

Maria Schrader is enchanting as Felice, the sexually confident thrill-seeker who works for a Nazi newspaper while feeding information to Jewish resistance organisations. She is determined to seduce haus-frau Lilly Wust (Juliane Khler) when she hears that Lilly claims to be able to "smell Jews" - what neither of them expected was to fall desperately in love. But their passionate affair makes them both vulnerable, and the consequences for Felice of dropping her guard are potentially fatal.

It's a melodramatic picture that concentrates more on the romance between the two women that on its context - director Max Frberbck gives an evocative glimpse of a decadent underworld of glamorous Jewish lesbians, but it feels rather insular and self-contained. Still, the film looks wonderful and the performances from Kohler and Schrader especially are strong enough to carry the film when it feels a little tame.

Yet another beastly movie (in every sense of the word) is Animal Attraction, (Someone Like You) a romantic comedy so crammed full of cinematic cliches that it's astounding there was room for the sludgy narrative. There's the writer's block scene where Ashley Judd struggles to pen a magazine article surrounded by balls of screwed up paper; there's the broken stiletto heel as a metaphor for that moment when a woman's life has sunk so low, she can't even trust her own accessories; there's even Greg Kinnear cast as an oily cad - haven't seen that before. In short there's little to recommend this tired and unoriginal movie, and very little in it that hasn't been endlessly recycled before.

Finally escaping this week's extended animal theme, is Intimacy, French director Patrice Chereau's intelligent cinematic interpretation of Hanif Kureishi's novel and collection of short stories. Kerry Fox and Mark Rylance star as a couple whose wordless, adulterous affair descends into paranoia and self-destruction. Much has been written already about the explicit nature of the sex scenes, but it should be stressed that they probably wouldn't have anywhere near the impact that they do were it not for the extraordinary emotional honesty of the two performances, particularly that of Fox. Not easy watching, but a film unlikely to disappoint.

All films are released on Friday, apart from Animal Attraction which is out now

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