My ten year old son wanted us to see this movie. I was mildly interested by the trailer but expected to be let down by corny gags and Black's increasingly annoying 'eyebrow acting'.

Imagine my surprise when, in addition to the amusing references to the original movies through the 'sweding' technique , I was treated to a charismatic and sensitive movie about the coming together (against a common enemy) of a local community.

The story is...Danny Glover runs a video rental store in a grotty L.A. suburb called Passaic. It's only claim to fame (according to Glover) is that Fats Waller was born on the site of the aforementioned shop. Glover's character (Mr Fletcher) has to find thousands of dollars for repairations or else the shop, and connected block of tenaments, gets demolished and he gets relocated to 'the projects'. He decides to 'stake out' a nearby competitive video store to get some tips and leaves Mike (Mos Def) in charge of the '$1 per hire' store. The store only hires VHS tapes and one day Jerry (Black) who becomes super-magnetised, accidentally erases all of the tapes. Jerry and Mike decide to Swede (make their own naff version) Ghostbusters to fool Mia Farrow (effortlessly playing the part of a semi-senile old bat). You can guess how things pan out...

It's actually a charming little movie and although there really aren't any 'belly laughs' (not that I expected any) it has a happy ending and it did make me feel good. James, my ten year old, wanted me to tell you that he liked it too.