Catherine Bray

Madame Web isn’t much worse than the rest of the SPUMC, give or take, but it’s not really better, either. Its minimal saving grace is that it doesn’t require much familiarity with the wider universe.

The longer it goes on, the more we find ourselves in therapy-land, in contrast to the zingy, zesty territory in which we began.

Mordini’s film, though, is a handsomely made, stylish-looking piece of cinema, with some beautifully lensed racing scenes and great 1980s wardrobes – but when you sit down to watch something called Race for Glory you do want your heart to beat faster. This can’t quite get away from the lurking sense that it could do with just a little bit more rev in its engine.

Sharp, funny and strongest when it stands on its own two perfectly manicured feet, this snappy musical successfully updates the original Mean Girls template for a fresh audience.

For every bright spot in The Shift, and every moment where it has value as a cultural curio or object of camp intrigue, you unfortunately have to sit through a fair amount of blathering on about Kevin’s mission.

You’re never left in any doubt that The Sacrifice Game is made by film-makers with affection and respect for horror movies – but it might not be the type of horror movie you thought it was at first sight.

It’s a Wonderful Knife is diverting enough to start with, as the plot clicks efficiently into motion with the requisite stabbings and impalings. Unfortunately, there’s not enough fuel in the engine – the characters don’t have quite enough to do, we can’t care quite enough about them, and the world-building is nearly-but-not-quite convincing.

If you feel the need to watch a faith film, you could do far, far worse than this one, a decently staged musical treatment of the nativity that feels like a Christian version of a live action Disney movie.

Scott's take on Napoleon is distinctively deadpan: a funny, idiosyncratic close-up of the man, rather than a broader, all-encompassing account.

Directed with verve and enthusiasm by 37-year-old former bank employee Lokesh Kanagaraj, who moved into directing after winning a short film competition, the influence of the likes of Quentin Tarantino on all of this is very much evident.

While the craft team here feel at the top of their game, delivering scene after scene of perfectly composed glossy, grimy, sweaty tableaux, the script could have used a bit more time to sharpen up. Still, there are some zingy, zesty sequences here that really pop.

I’m sure there’s a way to make this theoretically fun premise work better, but regrettably Besson hasn’t found it.

De Angelis offers some muscular film-making, with decent action sequences.

Well-behaved to a fault, Happiness for Beginners is sweet but a little tentative.

Despite occasional detours into darker themes, this is fundamentally a relaxing trip for an audience — ideal for women of a similar age to the main characters who might fancy treating themselves to a trip to the Greek islands without actually having to get on a flight.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but maybe they’re wrong: on this evidence, Guy Ritchie can absolutely learn how to make a Paul Greengrass film, delivering a handsome slice of serious war drama.

More a portrait of Kiefer’s work than a standard biographical study of Kiefer himself, “Anselm” is a very particular study of a singular man’s soul, told through images of his oeuvre, augmented by sensational use of archive rendered in 3D.

The film is intriguingly anthropological in its take on America as a subject, viewed less through the prism of what American might signify as a nation, than how America might feel as an experience — there’s a sense of disintegration and incipient violence seeping through everything, which occasionally explodes to entertaining effect, but there’s clearly deep affection there too.

It’s the unique rhythm of the way that this film is written and cut that elevates it beyond a standard millennial malaise movie.

Where “Seven Kings Must Die” is most interesting, however, is in its approach to religion, sexuality and culture. While it’s tempting to see our current era as unprecedented in its social blending of diverse faiths and identities, early medieval England gives contemporary Western society a run for its money in this respect.

It’s not just the demonic possession victims whose eyes will be rolling back in their skulls – none of this should work, really, and yet the film just about gets away with it, proving the Lord truly does move in mysterious ways.

Riper than the ripest of ripe Brie, this crime caper provides a ridiculous vehicle for the talents of pretty much everyone involved, all of whom appear to be having a splendid time. Taken on these terms, viewers probably will too.

This film is a slightly slipperier customer than a topline summary would suggest, with tonal shifts that shouldn’t work, but somehow do.

Newcomer Marder’s performance is a thoroughly engaging one. She manages to demonstrate both screen presence and likability, despite a role which requires her to represent youthful optimism to an almost symbolic degree.

this compassionate film is as much about its very specific Cambodian setting as it is the characters, with the film’s standout star its neon-pastel location work.

Despite their lack of experience, the Fontana sisters do a lovely job of sketching an intimate yet at times claustrophobic bond.

Director Pete Travis’s film is distinguished by some transposition of noir tropes into cultural spaces not traditionally associated with the genre — from the London bar scene to a mosque — that keeps things from feeling too déjà vu.

Where the film runs into some difficulty is in sustaining its initially very promising mood of incipient violence. Withholding revelations can be an effective strategy, but it’s perhaps slightly overused here, as the result feels ever so slightly dry.