This film, co-written by Billy Crystal, should have been a fascinating romantic comedy that explores love in the glare of celebrity and the competition between siblings, all cleverly played against a backdrop that shows the bare bones of the movie industrys efforts to sell itself to the world through modern media.

Sadly Americas Sweethearts touches on all of the above but not enough. Well, OK its a romantic comedy, but its no Sleepless In Seattle.

Catherine Zeta-Jones and John Cusack play Eddie Thomas and Gwen Harrison, Americas sweethearts, a kind of Tom and Nicole before they split. They are married and have an on-screen partnership that has made Dave Kingman (Stanley Tucci) and his studio a huge amount of money through several films. Then Eddie and Gwen split up when she falls for a Spanish hunk, Hank Azaria. Eddie goes mad and tries to kill them and so the love affair with each other, with the camera and with the fans, is over.

The problem for the studio is there is one film left to be released, but the fans wont want to see it now they are all too aware that the couple kissing on screen, so attractive when they knew the kiss was real, cant accept the portrayal knowing they arent together anymore.

So, to save his neck and his studio Tuccis brilliantly manic studio boss is forced to re-hire publicity genius Lee Phillips, Billy crystal. To make all this worse the director of the film has stolen it and is refusing to show it to the studio until he shows it to the press. So Crystal is hired to get the stars to appear to be back together and get the press more interested in them than the film.

So, Crystal does what he does best, fast-talking and wisecracking his way to organise a press junket in the middle of nowhere, and persuade Cusack out of a weird new age retreat, back to being grinning movie star and Zeta-Jones away from the hilarious hot-blooded Spaniard.

Cusack is the more normal of the two cinema freaks, Zeta-Jones needing more pampering. Luckily theres the frumpy sister Kiki Roberts), who recently lost four stone, as her assistant, to do all the pampering a Hollywood brat could need.

When it all comes together it becomes obvious that the long-suffering Roberts is in love with Cusack and now that shes thin he notices her and they can get together. A nice message from Hollywood there.

This film is a real slapstick comedy. All the best laughs come from physical humour or over the top characters. Hank Azaria, Stanley Tucci, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin are hilarious.

Roberts looks bored with less to do than she has done a million times anyway. Cusack is brilliant. He always is even when theres not much on paper for him.

The romance is pretty naff, paper thin, and completely unbelievable right from the outset when we see a spoof documentary about the couples films, which look badly fake, probably on purpose but I wasnt sure. The comedy is so silly that luckily none of this matters and there are just enough really funny gags to keep you going through the slow bits.

The interesting parts of this film are where Billy Crystal gives insight into how hot movies are really made, not on set but by the spin-doctors handling the vicious press monster.

At one point Crystal tells his assistant that if hes launching a movie and hears that his mother has died he should go to the press and say: "Its such a tragedy, she would have loved this movie.

More of that would have got more praise out of this critic for Americas Sweethearts.

Director: Joe Roth; Starring: John Cusack, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta Jones, Billy Crystal, Hank Azaria; Cert. 12; Dur. 123 mins