Benjamin Lee

The Report is an angry, urgent film that rarely raises its voice, smartly conveying inhumanity and injustice without unnecessary drama. I found it thrilling.

The Jason Bateman comedy model hasn’t quite been radically altered in Game Night but it’s one of his more entertaining outings. Just don’t count on remembering much of it once the night is over.

Even if much of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is in need of a rethink, it’s hard not to enjoy the scrappy, animated brainstorm taking place in front of us. The mess of it all is at least a very human one.

Another, more textured film might have tried to paint him as more than just lovable rogue but Roofman is too focused on making us feel good rather than bad. I would have settled for conflicted.

It’s not quite on par with Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the film it undoubtedly wants to be likened to, but it’s infinitely better than it had any right to be.

This odd, nasty yet rather funny little film tears apart ideas of sisterhood and female friendship and replaces them with burning hate and gratuitous violence.

It’s a calm, crisply made film (one can again see how it matches the Apple aesthetic) but one about heartache and tumult, and I found myself craving something that felt as difficult and stinging as the feelings it was trying to stir up.

It works for the most part because of Ruben and Cash and the spiky chemistry they share.

It sleepily hits the beats we expect but without the emotion or passion required to make them land, a by-the-numbers exercise from someone with barely enough energy to count.

Unlike the woozy love at its centre, Summer of 85 doesn’t haunt in the way that it should. It fades when it should burn.

There’s just about enough care and sensitivity in The End We Start From to offset its issues, providing us with an unusual, female-powered alternative within a field of films that are usually heavier on action than words.

Haley, who last directed the sweet and underseen Hearts Beat Loud, gives the film a stronger aesthetic than most Netflix teen offerings, and Fanning and Smith work hard at charming us into submission, but their hard-to-buy relationship isn’t quite the immersive ride-or-die love connection it needs to be, given the melodrama of the last act.

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Father of the Bride 2022 (was there ever really going to be?) but it’s a far better, and smoother, film than one would expect from the outset, a streaming premiere made with such confidence that it surely deserved a big-screen run.

We don’t fully buy into the connection between these men and as a result, we care little about what happens to them. Nothing here feels lived in or real, it’s mere construct.

There’s an authenticity underpinning the portrayal of events in The Front Runner that lifts it above the less-than-groundbreaking set-up.

When a writer-director of some undeniable talent throws so much at the wall, it’s inevitable that elements will stick and in Vengeance, there’s just about enough to make us curious to see what happens when Novak learns to tighten his focus. Vengeance is less the film we need right now and more the one he thinks we do but hopefully next time, he’ll figure out how to make something we want instead.

Lambert is too skittish to keep us in her character’s lives for longer than brief, often maddeningly flat moments.

The pace, which had been so tightly controlled in the first two films, is a curious mess, starting off painfully slowly, then rushing when it really matters.

There’s a whiff of familiarity haunting almost every scene and while it would have been rewarding to see Cooke and O’Conner take a few chances or add some more emotional depth, it’s a satisfying enough watch, best viewed with little investment and low expectations.

It’s brand management dressed up as insight and while it’s not not entertaining, it’s certainly far from particularly revealing, playing more like a PR exercise then a festival-worthy feature.

The Good Nurse remains a good, if not ultimately great, attempt to tell the story of a very bad person.

Killian’s spiral is intense and unpleasant but we’re not left at the end with much other than respect for technique. The film, like Killian, is all muscle.

Its wild nature won’t be to everyone’s taste, but that’s sort of the point. It’s not a film that cares if you find these women charming or likable – it just cares that you believe them.

This 70s-set prelude to the classic satanic horror has flair but struggles with the weight and familiarity of what came before.

There’s more of the same in Enola Holmes 2, an equally boisterous romp that’s equally as hard to remember once it’s over but one that should keep its many fans engaged enough to warrant further sequels.

Robles isn’t hard to root for but Unstoppable, a rousing yet overdone biopic, tries too hard to get us there anyway.

There’s a swirl of creepy noises in A24’s new hyped-up horror Undertone – screaming, gargling, singing, banging – but nothing is quite loud enough to drown out the swirl of films it’s cribbing from.

Like Set It Up before it, Always Be My Maybe hits all of the beats we have come to expect yet fails to do so well enough, as if the mere existence of a technically well-structured romantic comedy is better than nothing.

The writing might be disappointingly inelegant but The Lost Bus is forthright and frightening regardless.

Gliding close to genre tropes but moving more comfortably as an uneasy drama about the alarming power of blind faith, The Other Lamb is an intriguing mood piece, strikingly made and well-performed if not quite as powerful as it could have been.

As a comedy, it’s simply not funny and as a horror, it works better in pieces but not with the consistency a film set over one night would require.

Born to be Blue is a curious mixture of fact and fiction, cliche and originality, style and emotion – it never truly soars but by throwing the ingredients of Baker’s life together and producing something different, it’s never less than intriguing.

The novelty of a malevolent presence in the wholesome, brightly lit world of a kids TV show can’t quite sustain an engaging 95-minute feature, Kelly not knowing where to take his admittedly attention-securing setup.

It’s a breeze of a watch and with the bar for studio comedy being so very low right now, it’s at least mildly inventive and likably goofy, enough to warrant a cautious recommendation (premium rental price: no, next time you’re on a plane: sure).

It’s a gentle, predictable film that doesn’t exactly put any steps wrong in its depiction of adolescence but Orley doesn’t quite do enough right for it to linger in the memory for longer than the credits.

It’s an earnest rather then energetic retelling but Stanfield’s stare is indelible.

While it doesn’t have the same tense grip of Spellbound, it’s an amiable enough diversion.

I Am Mother is undoubtedly a strong calling card with plenty on its mind. I just wish it had figured out what to do with it all.

An awkward misfire at best and an uneasy and irresponsible one at worst.

It’s all very been here, seen that yet there’s something infinitely pleasing about a film doing very little but doing it very well, knowing just how high to aim without aiming any higher, aware of exactly what it can and can’t do. In a tight 91 minutes, without any bloat, Nobody gives us exactly what we want.

It’s an adequate, involving enough afternoon watch (faint praise: better than Geostorm) and for those with a certain destructive itch that still needs scratching, this should do the job.

It’s a bruising movie, being sold on the promise that it’s “scary as hell”, a quote that I worry will mislead expectant horror fans. The scariest thing about The Lodge is how human it all is.

Actor turned writer-director Jillian Bell’s naked, and sometimes literally naked, attempt to craft a new rewatchable comfort food favourite with notes of both sweet and salt is charming when it works but distractingly effortful when it doesn’t.

Official Secrets is a well-intentioned retelling of a daunting act of courage and as a vehicle for informing more people of who Katharine Gun is, it’s effective, carefully laying out the incremental stakes as well as her noble intentions. Credit for this however lies almost solely with Knightley.

It’s a fiery, flawed, often stunningly made film that provokes uncomfortable discussion, rather like the Richard Wright novel it was based on, although purists might argue over some key changes.

While a dedicated Bening gives her all in a tough, physically demanding role, deserving of at least another nomination if not necessarily a win, it’s Foster who steals the film with a fine reminder of her easy charisma.

It’s certainly a return to what many know him for – vibrant colours, unfettered sex, madcap plotting – but it’s also missing that same sense of infectiously boisterous energy. The parts are here but there’s nothing to truly animate them, just the vague hope that maybe nostalgia might be enough.

Even when it’s coasting, the cast still works hard to sell what they’re given and it remains visually handsome until the very end, an immersive and slickly captured last-act car chase proving a standout.

There’s no clumsy exposition here to explain motivations but delicately scattered crumbs involving status, family and the crippling strain of competitive masculinity.

The uplift of a woman triumphing in a male-dominated Stem world isn’t enough to get us through a mess of grindingly unfunny dialogue, too-broad performances and an utter, movie-killing lack of charm.

We’re in safest hands with Lopez and Condon when he’s playing in that sandbox as the cell-based scenes can be a little stagey and rushed in comparison.

Barnaby’s colonialist take on the formula is far from subtle, and at times a little too bluntly on the nose, but he’s a film-maker with both something to say and the skillset to say it in a distinctive way, offering up an initially engaging alternative to mere guts and shock tactics.

The focus on the job at hand works until it doesn’t as with just the slightest of characterisation, we’re invested in the problem rather than those solving it and the grip of the first two acts loosens as the finale beckons.

With its handsome, and expensive, period recreation, a wide rural American canvas and an audience-provoking last act, it’s a shame that more of us won’t get to enjoy Let Him Go on the big screen, where it truly belongs. But for those who will, they’re in for a wild ride.

A movie to be enjoyed on Friday night and forgotten all about by Saturday morning.

There’s something lacking, a touch of the bizarre or the perverse, with just one particularly nasty death to serve as a reminder that you’re watching a Ben Wheatley film.

In a flawed yet fierce return to form, Ben Wheatley has crafted a phantasmagoric treat with In the Earth, an ambitious, atmospheric little woodland horror.

It’s slickly made but shoddily scripted, with sub-reality TV dialogue...and a range of unengaged, soapy performances. There is some fun to be had from the loud and nasty death scenes though, which allow us the pleasure of seeing self-absorbed Facebook addicts get gruesomely murdered.

The formula is so well-trodden that it needed a sparkling jolt of energy to justify Penny traipsing his way through it again. Uncorked isn’t exactly corked but it’s definitely flat.

The life it’s focused on, that of model turned second world war photographer Lee Miller, is an undeniably interesting one, but it’s only in the briefest of moments that the film justifies why it’s a narrative endeavour rather than a documentary and every one of those moments comes courtesy of its lead.

There are echoes of Happy Death Day, Back to the Future and The Final Girls in Amazon’s perky Halloween offering Totally Killer, echoes often loud enough to drown out the film entirely. Its time-travel slasher plot cribs elements from all and relies on enthusiasm over invention to keep us entertained, a gamble that only works in brief bursts.

There are moments of crushing emotional weight but as the film progresses, they start to carry less power.

Red, White and Royal Blue just isn’t the fun, brain-disengaged romp it could have been, any praise going toward intention rather then execution.

There’s an extraordinary story to be told here. It’s just a shame it had to be told in such an ordinary way.

Fall is the rare three-drinks-in “what if?” elevator pitch that somehow survived the journey to the big screen, made with unusual precision and punch.

It’s a far better version of a romantic comedy than we’re used to streaming of late.

Mara and Mendelsohn have a compellingly toxic chemistry together and their initial confrontation is intriguingly tense. But once we’re locked into the meat of the story, the film has nowhere else to go, at least anywhere that’s of interest and the pace becomes laborious as their discussions turn repetitive.

It’s just about diverting enough for the most part but there’s something a little off about its pacing, French director Jean-François Richet (who peaked a while back with his propulsive Mesrine movies) struggling to corral his moving parts, suspense never really arriving as it should.

While Hall’s script might keep us at a remove, her direction takes us closer to something that feels more real, managing to conjure the specific thrill of travelling from the airport to the city at night, the hum of possibility increasing with every mile and finding ways to make what could have felt like a static location come alive, putting us in the car right next to her characters.

As the plotting falls apart and the wheels truly come off, there’s nothing that strong direction and a work-hard cast can do to keep Abigail from sucking. There’s a lot of blood here but very little else.

Kidman fearlessly commits to the filth of it all, whether it’s drunkenly fighting off her daughter’s sleazy boyfriend or jerking off a bed-ridden informant, but her radical transformation and some timeframe trickery can’t mask a plot that feels rather empty.

But as effective as the film might be in the moment, Singer’s increasingly sloppy plotting starts to get in the way of the bigger picture by the frantic last act, which is both strangely filled with exposition info dumps yet still lacking in much sense.

The deaths here are neither funny nor scary or even gross enough to linger, we’re all rendered unshockable far too soon.

An awful number of cliches are being ticked off here (the Fincher-esque lighting, the dogged and socially inept cop), but it’s a diverting potboiler for crime drama completists.

In a genre plagued by a lack of effort, I’ll take a solid try.