Adam Woodward

Kingdom certainly has its moments, but the rougher, darker edges of predecessors Dawn, Rise and War have been smoothed out, leaving us with an over-long, relatively low-stakes instalment sorely lacking in originality.

It’s a competently made and compellingly acted film which will hopefully lead to us seeing a lot more of both filmmaker and lead actor.

If it’s pure action you’re after, there’s plenty to set your heart racing here. Cruise and his long-time directing partner Christopher McQuarrie have once again engineered some truly staggering set-pieces

Where Thor: Ragnarok was unpredictable and unruly in the most thrilling way, Love and Thunder by contrast feels safe and formulaic. Waititi is too preoccupied with trying to land the same jokes, and he burdens the film with a wishy-washy love story which even by the MCU’s low standards feels shallow and perfunctory.

The film keeps us guessing to the end, although a lack of character development and some ponderous plotting means it’s hard to care too much about the fate of Pete and the others.

If this is Noé at his most compassionate and vulnerable, it’s telling that Vortex ultimately lacks the raw emotional impact of Michael Haneke’s Amour, another brutally honest, skilfully acted chamber piece about dementia and death, or Florian Zeller’s more recent The Father.

It’s undemanding, dramatically inert and, although class is very much on its agenda, one-dimensional in its depiction of the golfing establishment’s stuffy elitism.

For all its reliance on gore and good old-fashioned jump scares, the film rarely raises the pulse.