The Times (London)
March 11, 2004
By Wendy Ide

Handsome, but ultimately disappointing, Leo is a worthy picture that attempts to knit together two separate stories. One tells of Stephen (Joseph Fiennes), a convict recently released, the other of Mary, a widow who can't bring herself to love her son Leo (named after Leopold Bloom in Ulysses) because he reminds her of her own guilt. It's a film with literary aspirations but without the authority to carry them.

When Stephen reads aloud from his own attempt at a Joycean groundbreaking novel, it's like listening to Cilla Black trying to sound like Dionne Warwick.

The sinewy starlet Jessica Alba stars in Honey, a kind of ghetto-kids from Fame that patronises almost everyone in it and yet still is curiously entertaining. She plays Honey, a gorgeous young dancer who spends her time teaching hip-hop moves to keep the kids off the streets.But when her career takes off, Honey begins to lose touch with the hood.

Packed with good intentions and wholly unconvincing street vernacular, it's sweet but too obviously manufactured to be satisfying.