Festen, Vinterberg's sublimely unsettling saga of a family patriarch facing allegations of child abuse, signalled the arrival of a major talent.

Here was one Dogme production where the use of natural light and hand-held camera succeeded in focussing the attention onto the plot to startling effect. Less was more.

So hopes were high that the same levels of bleached out intensity could be achieved after dispensing with the Dogme strictures and enjoying the luxury of an international cast and crew.

Sad to say, Vinterberg's blown it. He insists he's in keeping with the spirit of Dogme but the result is a bloated shambles, lacking pace and paying lip service to structure.

It's 2021 and the world is facing a new ice age, gravity has called it a day over parts of Uganda and people are collapsing in the street with love sickness.

On the plus side, ice skating has taken over from football or baseball as the world choice of spectator sport. So that's all right then.

Top of the pile is Polish skater Elena (Danes), who is constantly surrounded by a phalanx of malevolent suits led by The Manager (Alun Armstrong).

Phoenix, who showed he's completely at home with left-field projects in Buffalo Soldiers, plays Elena's soon-to-be ex-husband John.

He flies into New York from Poland with the divorce papers in hand only to find himself staying longer than he planned and falling in love with her all over again.

However, things go awry when he discovers The Manager's up to all sorts of cloning shenanigans when Elena announces her intention to quit.

Visually stunning (Copenhagen doubles for New York), you might think you'd stumbled into a David Lynch movie where "evewy botty spiks lik dis".

Unfortunately, it's just Vinterberg with a wheelbarrow of cash promoting a series of unrelated concepts including Sean Penn flying round the globe when he overdoes the air sickness pills.

There's none of the taut control of Festen or that film's microscopically perfect pitching and killer denouement.

Instead, Phoenix and Danes are left to manfully stagger around a sprawling mess which should have been thrown to the Dogmes.

Tim Evans