Cath Clarke

It all adds up to a serviceable horror that at times feels like a B-movie without the fun, containing scenes that could almost work as a spoof.

The script steadily goes about its mission of freeing its characters from all forms of oppression – but it’s generous and unpatronising too.

For good to prosper, it seems, all it takes is enough good people to take action. It’s an uplifting message in a watchable movie.

Goat lacks heart and soul, and a sense of genuine emotions.

The movie is about how people ruin everything with their destructiveness, but also about the beauty of the human heart. It’s so inventive and imaginative that I wanted to love it more, but in the end found it a little bit psychologically uninvolving, perhaps because of its nonstop swirl of ideas and stories.

At times, it feels hopeless. But eventually the victories come, sometimes from unlikely quarters.

The plot pings about hyperactively, so dizzying that Cosmic Princess Kaguya! may leave audiences over 15 years old feeling more ancient than the original tale.

Poekel’s style is far too authentic-indie and unaffected to get slushy or sentimental about Christmas; through his lens Christmas tree lights blink like police lights. But in its own low-key way, he pitches his film just right for a little squeeze of festive warmth.

The film is essentially a legal procedural: solid, mostly entertaining and occasionally gripping.

Any of Dahl’s gruesome sense of fun is obliterated by a bulldozing message of empathy and kindness, thanks to a plucky orphan Beesha (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and her pals pulling together an opposition to the Twits. This is vile and revolting in all the wrong ways.

This film really is a sunny delight as the weather turns cold.

This is muscular stuff, with a firm grip on your attention.

This isn’t meant unkindly, but Vice Is Broke will be essential viewing for anybody who ever worked there, with its details about who had what job title and when.

Deadwyler’s performance is the driving force here. Without her, the audience’s attention might drift to the predictability of a plotline that hinges on Manny’s adolescent rebellion against his mum.

There’s more wit and energy this time around, and a genuinely sweet message about friendship. Even the fart joke (every kids’ movie must have at least one) was a cut above and had the adults giggling.

The movie is not lacking in adventure, perhaps what’s missing is a sense of fun.

Afterwards, everyone smiles reassuringly – then one man pipes up: “Don’t take this the wrong way, but …” and a begins a pretentious intellectual takedown. Like the film it’s a funny-smart moment, witty and grownup.

The comedy takes a bit of an IQ dip when the film crosses the Channel and the dialogue switches to English. Still, it glides along on Rutherford’s performance as Agathe – witty, warm, keenly observant, a bit clumsy and Bridget Jones-ish, but never, not even for a moment, cringy.

Making her feature-film debut, Elliott handles their story gently, with patience – though it might feel a bit slow for some.

The two women’s scenes together give the film its most interesting moments.

It’s perfectly adequate for little kids but with little character of its own and a straight-to-download-style blandness.

Dog Man is packed with goofy gags that whizz past, with no let up from the hectic pace.

It would be grating were it not for Kinnear, and some nicely performed supporting roles.

The trouble with Nick Frost’s knowingly cartoonish and silly comedy paying homage to folk horrors such as The Wicker Man and Midsommar is that Frost has done this kind of movie before, and better.

Kerr’s script doesn’t always match the quality of her interesting, layered lead performance.

There are some lovely playful moments: his favourite elf eats a magic shroom and grows to monstrous proportions. But there is a lot of padding and the decision to stick with the book’s rhyming scheme becomes annoying.

Strangely, this film keeps to the speed limit; it’s like Formula One with enhanced health and safety, slow-paced and a little low on adrenaline.

The film, with its clanging score, felt to me slightly tactless in its approach, like a Hollywood-ised version of a human interest story.