John Huston was only one of five directors on Casino Royale, the expensive, all-star 1967 spoof of Ian Fleming's 007 lore. David Niven is the aging Sir James Bond, called out of retirement to take on the organised threat of SMERSH and pass on the secret-agent mantle to his idiot son (Woody Allen). The amazing cast (Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Deborah Kerr and others) is wonderful to look at, but the film is not as funny as it should be, and the romping even starts to look mannered after a while. The musical score by Burt Bacharach, however, is a keeper. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

The 1995 family film Casper tries to put a fun spin on the story of a paranormalist and widower (Bill Pullman) who moves into a new house with his daughter (Christina Ricci) and meets up with the ghost of a dead little boy. Based on the comic book about Casper the friendly ghost, the film is a dreary series of awkward interactions between live actors and computer effects, and you can almost see Pullman and Ricci reconsidering the project while on camera. A few cameo appearances from uncredited stars help things a bit. But there's no way, based on this film, that one could have guessed that its director, Brad Silberling, would go on to make the exceptional drama City of Angels. This special edition DVD release includes a director's commentary and exhaustive 47-minute behind-the-scenes documentary, plus games and DVD-ROM content for the kids. --Tom Keogh

In Casper's Haunted Christmas, a direct-to-video animated film, the haunted world of spooks meets the happy spirit of Christmas--a faulty premise to begin with. The plot gets even more absurd when Kibosh, supreme ruler of all ghosts, declares that Casper's "scare quota" is way down. To avoid serious repercussions, Casper must scare at least one person before Christmas Day, or he will be banished to the dark side. Talk about a merry holiday tale! To force the fear factor, Kibosh catapults Casper and the Ghostly Trio to Chrismassachusetts, where they must find an unsuspecting victim to scare. Kindhearted Casper doesn't have the nerve to scare anyone, so the Ghostly Trio secretly hires Casper's loo k-alike cousin, Spooky, to do the job. There's no doubt the wide-eyed little ghost is endearing, but his heyday may have ended with his series in Harvey Comics. There are some redeeming moments of humour, such as when Spooky mistakenly calls himself "Casper, the Frenzied Ghost", and country singer Randy Travis does his best to add his musical charms to the score, but overall, Scrooge would be more welcome under the mistletoe than these bunch of ghouls. Teens may discover a few laughs (if the video can keep their attention), but mildly scary scenes, thematic elements and irreverent language suggest parental guidance for the younger set. (Ages 5 and older.) --Lynn Gibson, Amazon.com