Christopher Machell

The screenplay balances the big narrative beats that this kind of broad crowd pleaser demands, along with posing more difficult social questions to which there are no easy answers.

Religious allegories, monochrome photography and folk horror trappings will draw in viewers as much as its meandering contemplations and languorous pacing may test their patience.

Despite a few sentimental missteps and a second-act move away from horror that will upset some hoping for more slashing, Happy Death Day 2U is a fluffy and surprisingly smart, if shallow, tumble through genre tropes.

Labyrinth of the Turtles is a charming and occasionally moving love letter to the legendary Spanish-Mexican surrealist, and at a spry 80 minutes, doesn’t outstay its welcome.

The film’s biggest weakness is its reluctance to interrogate the personas of its supporting characters.

Free Solo goes some way to explaining just why someone would want to do such a thing, but is ultimately more captivated by the vicarious thrill of watching Honnold do his thing.

What distinguishes Skin to Skin from its counterpart is its subject, a man utterly dedicated to his craft and to its rich cultural traditions.

There are few outright surprises in Maya, and though things proceed roughly as we might expect there is a deeper sort of emotional revelation that comes from letting the story proceed on its own terms.

While Kursk doesn’t have the sufficient depth required for a truly effective historical drama it certainly works as a well-mounted and occasionally gripping, if somewhat formulaic thriller.

While The Five Devils doesn’t quite have the clarity of vision of her previous picture, its emotion, erotically-charged themes and puzzle-box structure leave much to recommend.

With surprises, compelling performances and strong visuals across the board, Barbarian warrants recommendation but with serious caveats.

Out of Blue undeniably works as a stylish, psychological neo-noir, but significantly less so as metaphysical rumination.

What keeps Green's film just about on the right side of rote is a trio of solid performances, a sensitive, fair portrayal of Jeff's relationship with Erin with some standout scenes between the two, and a focus on the personal over the political.

There is a great deal to enjoy here for devotees of Strickland’s work and the film feels destined to be described as his weirdest piece yet. But underneath that surface strangeness, Flux Gourmet doesn’t quite satisfy the appetite.

In drawing on a melange of influences, Ho’s film succeeds in using fractured time as way of puzzling together the essential drives that move a city and its inhabitants.

Accessible to newbies and satisfying to fans, it’s way past time that brilliant performers like Larson were given their time in the spotlight. But Marvel, please, can we sort out the colour?

As a neo-noir Holy Spider offers a tightly-woven procedural crime thriller, bolstered by a superb central performance from Amir-Ebrahimi and gorgeous, lurid aesthetics. A steadier hand marshalling its themes and a more disciplined third act might have tipped Abbasi’s third feature into being something truly special: as it stands we are left a very solid, smart and satisfying thriller.

As a mechanism the film functions very well indeed – but as a film, as “a machine that generates empathy” as Roger Ebert had it, Quantumania falls vastly short. Still, one might argue that we do not board roller coasters expecting art, and so as an entertainment at that level it is hard to deny that this latest entry fulfils its purpose handsomely, providing all the thrills and spills of the fair.

Conceptually, Azor, is brilliant and its dreamlike editing that joins one meeting to the next with little connective tissue is often intriguing. But as a viewing experience, it is roundly obtuse with a repetitious, meandering narrative.

As moving and timely as The Final Year is, it doesn’t quite hit these marks.

The film lacks the crackle of Grant’s later masterpieces yet there remains a great deal to enjoy here with an ending that surprises with its tenderness, not-so-subtle eroticism and visual wit.

Julia’s journey is one of nihilism having transformed into a quest for meaning: Rodeo’s final image speaks to both of these impulses.

Move Me No Mountain is an emotionally and thematically inert experience.

Fun, violent and cathartic, but with an air of arch self-satisfaction that misses the complexity of the debate it constructs around itself.

A stylish and fitfully engaging crime thriller with a great concept, let down by incoherent plotting and impenetrable characterisation.

Where Snyder’s previous film at least tried to consider the ramifications of Gods living among us, Justice League is about nothing other than the vapid, commercial need to make a Justice League film.

Endless drone shots, perspective switches and too many CGI animals undercut any grit or claustrophobia that Trachtenberg – director of the brilliant 10 Cloverfield Lane – might otherwise have crafted. Meanwhile, the interminable score refuses to quiet down and let the images or emotions speak for themselves.

There are glimmers of a more complex, empathetic film here: the main cast do fine work with what they’ve got and the film’s apparent detachment from its characters mirrors the empty indifference that often characterises depression. But any potential for complexity is undone by the film’s tacky reveals, mawkish speechifying and its often spiteful approach to its own characters.

Sea Fever proves better in concept than in execution, let down by a second act of fumbled editing and slackened tension.

Bitch Ass is an off-the-shelf genre flick with some decent ideas and a fun cast, sadly lacking in sufficient inspiration or originality to merit recommendation.

It’s not that Abigail is terrible: all its pieces slip together where they should, but its for all its excessive violence and gore it is a dull, lifeless experience.

Though its 60s-inspired, Gilliam-esque animation style is certainly awkward enough to draw the notice of the arthouse and indie crowds, Cryptozoo’s storytelling and themes fail to come up to the complexity of even a middling Pixar effort.

While Binoche is reliably magnetic and the fitfully pretty visuals match a ripped-from-the-headlines script, Who You Think I Am’s pot never quite comes to the boil.

Though the grins, laughter and cheering of the film’s climax is a little too heavy on the sweetness, it’s a harder heart than mine that would fail to be just a little moved by Bunton’s speech about our dependence on one another.

An entertaining-enough survival romp that at only 90 minutes long feels oddly slack.

Sadly, Love and Thunder proves that it’s possible to have too much of a good Thor.

Despite its myriad issues, Glass is often a hoot to watch – particularly once Elijah comes out of his self-induced fugue to wreak havoc on the facility, with Jackson hamming it up with infectious relish, bouncing off the gurning McAvoy.

American writer-director Erika Arlee’s debut feature showcases strong performances and nice visual flourishes, but A Song for Imogene struggles to find an emotional hook.

Like most of Howard’s films, Hillbilly Elegy is perfectly watchable, unchallenging and largely forgettable awards fodder.

No amount of tight corridors and shots of CCTV monitors ever make protagonist Tatyana feel in peril: this, far more than derivative monsters and confusing themes, is Sputnik’s fatal error.

If for no other reason than its place in comedy history, Here Comes Mr. Jordan is interesting, if dispensable viewing.

Racer and the Jailbird is a stylish, often promising film, but sadly one that never coheres into genuine drama.

Sadly, despite some cultish potential this aptly-titled debut feature is indeed a lost cause: an incoherent, undisciplined and tedious mess with little about it to truly recommend.

In a film about resurrected dinosaurs, suspension of disbelief is mandatory, but the script’s illogical nonsense and flat, cartoonish characters compound on each other until any audience goodwill has evaporated.

A basically entertaining, but flimsy and shallow object, The Flash may not be the final entry in this long-beleaguered franchise, but it might as well be.

What begins as an intriguing premise is gradually squandered, used as little more as background noise for comic tics and lazy characterisation.

Mary Shelley is a film at relentless pains to tell us how poetic and ethereal its heroine is, but without remotely grasping the political and philosophical underpinnings of her work.

Much of this documentary sequel to to Thomas Balmès’ 2013 film Happiness is beautiful and humane, but is more often simplistic and questionable in its exploration of the impact of technology on a traditional society.

8 A.M. Metro is a sweet but ultimately shallow film whose final act ultimately finds depth and dimension too late to redeem its prior narrative shortcomings.

Bebjak’s film is far from bad and its three-tiered narrative is often compelling, buoyed by fine performances. But its treatment of women and shallow exploration of its themes sadly bring down its initial promise.

Depicting a fictional uprising in an unnamed Mexican city, New Order ably depicts the terror, confusion and violence of political revolution, but stops short of offering meaningful context.

As the credits roll on one of the most spectacular and unengaging films of the year, The Way of Water’s vision is as clear as mud. As Cameron has become more fascinated with the technology of storytelling, it seems he’s become less so by the actual storytelling.

It’s a shame that the real hope gap here is that between expectation and reality.

In giving rope to Bannon and hoping that he’ll hang himself, we’re instead forced to watch him fashion a lasso and play at being John Wayne, with Morris seemingly powerless to stop him.

Nathan Grossman charts her rise in this perfectly enjoyable but ultimately unpersuasive and shallow documentary.

The film undoubtedly delivers, with all the monster thumping and building smashing that we could want, not to mention a not-so-surprise late appearance from a classic adversary.

As a comedy about contemporary American society it feels weirdly anachronistic, with an uninspired story told with little urgency or novelty.

Eternals should be commended for the positive creative decisions it has taken and in allowing at least some of Zhao’s directorial vision to creep in. For all its flaws, it is far from the worst entry in the MCU, but it is, perhaps, the first of Marvel’s films to be less than the sum of its parts.

In the end, Justine is an enjoyable and often charming British film, but a messy third act and unnecessary contrivances leave it lost in the lanes.

Aside from its unremarkable presentation, Ben Is Back’s major hurdle, and the one that it never manages to clear, is that it’s yet another story of a rich, white young man wasting his future.

The Falling World contains moments of intrigue but a limp script and a cast of unengaging characters make this effort fall flat.

The Rise of Skywalker offers us nothing but toadying supplication to the worst aspects of fan culture. There is no story to tell here, no characters to care about, no ideas to explore. The film is pure construct, a box built for its own sake, at long last opened with excruciating listlessness, revealing nothing but its own vapid emptiness.

In an almost impressive display of ineptitude, Dominion combines the very worst vices of its predecessors in addition to a few new ones for good measure. As well as non-existent characterisation or thematic coherence, quaint concepts like comprehensible scene geography and narrative tension have all but disappeared.

It is dull, cynical and utterly mirthless.