First impressions aren't promising - Sandra Bullock draped round a wrecker's ball as she protests against the impending destruction of an asset to the community.

She plays environmentalist attorney Lucy Kelson - the sort of person who inspires secret feelings of amusement when the object of their righteous obsession comes crashing to the ground.

The New York company behind the demolition is the Wade Corporation - run by stodgy Brit Howard Wade (Haig), but given its public face by his glamorous brother, George (Grant).

It's the feckless George's habit to hire bimbo attorneys... but Howard, fearful of another expensive mistake, insists he gets "someone who can write a brief instead of removing yours".

Kelson reluctantly takes the job... on the condition that, a) her local community centre doesn't disappear under an apartment complex and, b) she holds the purse strings to the Wade Corp's charitable causes.

And so the premise of confrontation between loafing playboy capitalist George and caring, right-on, Harvard-educated lawyer Lucy is rather tenuously set up.

Grant isn't breaking any new ground here - much of his character is pinched from his roles in Four Weddings and Notting Hill rather than About A Boy, which marked a real step forward.

However, there's no denying he does the waspish wit pretty much better than anyone else around, and he's adequately served with a sharp script from Lawrence, who penned Miss Congeniality.

It's Bullock who's the problem. She just can't seem to break out of the 'kooky' straitjacket that basically extinguishes the Bunsen burner under any chemistry she may be cooking up with Grant.

We're not asking her to be another Meryl Streep, or even Nicole Kidman... just to do something genuinely different while waiting for the phone to ring for Speed III.

Fortunately, she doesn't drag the movie down and there are some nice moments - particularly a cameo from Donald Trump, whose barnet suggests he was a member of the Wurzels in another life.

In any event, we have another sterling show from Grant to thank for stopping this becoming a load of bullocks.

Tim Evans