In Hitch (UGC 12A), the erstwhile Fresh Prince of Bel Air turns his attention to matters of the heart, and with nary a malevolent alien or robot in sight, is systematically put through more hoops than in his previous half-dozen actioners combined.

Gently parodying his legendary smooth style, Smith plays the eponymous Alex ‘Hitch’ Hitchens, a discreet matchmaker who helps down-on-their-luck guys get the girl of their dreams. The obvious inference from his job is that Hitch himself will have little, if any, problem wooing the ladies. Not so, it would seem.

Hitch is the story of two romances. The first is orchestrated by Hitch on behalf of a client, a stumbling, nice-guy accountant (Kevin James) who has fallen from afar for an out-of-his-league heiress (ex-model Amber Valletta), whose assets he helps oversee.

The other involves Hitch’s own techniques backfiring on him when he meets his match in a spirited single tabloid reporter (Eva Mendes). She is determined to expose New York’s elusive, so-called ‘date doctor’ after her paper runs a picture of the knockout heiress out on a date with the accountant. Needless to say, the path to love is something of a rocky road.

Smith, as always, is a big presence on the screen and just about manages to retain his cool in the face of numerous disastrous dates. He is almost upstaged, though, by Kevin James, whose lovelorn accountant gets the lion’s share of the best lines.

Hitch is a highly-polished affair, taking place largely in a world of beautiful people and beautiful places. It is also highly enjoyable and, while not the most thought-provoking movie currently on release, it is a crowd-pleasing affair.

VERDICT: Goes without a hitch.

Three stars

But then a strange thing happened in America — out of the blue The Grudge had a massive $39 million opening and suddenly this psychological horror looked a lot more appealing.

Never one to miss making a quick buck, the Weinsteins rush-released this in America and now, two-and-a-half years after the film was released in Spain, where it was made, it comes to our shores.

Well, Miramax’s first judgement about the film was the correct one.

This is a poor attempt to ape the slow, psychological build-up of Japanese films like Ring and Audition.

But with one difference — those films actually go somewhere.

Darkness is like a long, tiring car journey that never reaches its destination.

Forty years ago, six children were killed in a creepy old Spanish house and their ghosts are in the house.

It’s up to Anna Paquin (The Piano, X-Men) to piece together what happened.

Ghosts, murder and an attractive female lead actually make this film sound promising.

But this is like a student film that has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Director Jaume Balaguero fails to deliver anything like an engaging plot and describing the film’s characters as one-dimensional would be giving them too much credit.

Darkness spends a lot of time trying to build suspense — but without anything at the end of it.

An-hour-and-a-half of staring at the screen, waiting for something to happen, Darkness is a frustrating, juvenile mess.

VERDICT: A film that leaves you with a grudge, but not a coherent ending.

One star

That is until Mary (Donnie Darko’s Jena Malone) becomes pregnant, after having sex in an attempt to keep her gay boyfriend on the straight and narrow.

This is a biting satire that, like last year’s Mean Girls, is a refreshing break from the predictability of most American teen movies.

All the archetypes of the teen flick are accounted for — the bitchy, popular girl, the outcast with a heart of gold, etc — but set in a Christian school, you're never sure where the film will go next.

Plus it has great performances from a cast which includes Mandy Moore, sending up her own good girl image, and a wheelchair-bound Macaulay Culkin.

It’s just a pity that the film plumps for an ending that tries to tie up way too many loose ends.

EXTRAS: two commentaries.

VERDICT: Full of memorable one-liners, Saved! is a new take on the teen comedy.

Three stars

WHITE HEAT comes to DVD, in one of the most exciting box-set releases this year.

Undeniably one of the greatest films, and probably the ultimate gangster film, White Heat (released in 1949) is a tough farewell to Warner gangster pictures that dominated the previous decade.

Three of these pictures, The Public Enemy, The Roaring Twenties and Angels With Dirty Faces, are also included in this tribute to James Cagney, who remains one of the most electrifying and daring actors ever to grace the screen. There’s so much expression in his performance, he was an actor who could erupt with violence one minute and then be a psychological wreck the next.

White Heat still seems fresh more than 50 years on, thanks to its fast, expressive direction by Raoul Walsh and the manic central performance from Cagney.

It’s just unfortunate that Warners has not made these titles available to buy separately.

EXTRAS: Impressive. Each DVD comes with a newsreel and a musical short that would have been shown at the film’s release as well as an audio commentary.

VERDICT: Absolutely essential.

Five stars

It’s among the director’s best, though, with plenty of jumps and a steely performance by Angela Bettis in the lead role.

The film is a throwback to the spirit of the classic “stalk-and-slash” movies of the late 70s and early 80s but it ups the ante, piling on the gore and pushing all the right scare buttons to produce one of the most crowd-pleasing frighteners in recent years.

Anchor Bay is releasing the DVD in a two-disc special edition, which includes two commentaries.

The second disc is taken up with a fantastic documentary called The American Nightmare, which looks at the classic horror film of the 70s.

Tobe Hopper (who directed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) contributes to the documentary, though real horror fans will have this already on the DVD release of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes last year.

On a more upbeat note, Scrubs star Zach Braff’s directorial debut Garden State is released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on May 2.

The quirky comedy stars Braff as an emotionally stunted twenty-something and Natalie Portman as a pathological liar with a heart of gold.

The disk features two commentaries (with Portman making a contribution), deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.