Christopher Machell

WW84 is far from perfect: its length and fumbling of Minerva’s arc are chief among its sins, but equally there are no denying its simple, vibrant charms. Much like Christopher Reeves as Superman, Gal Gadot simply is Wonder Woman – and this latest entry is undoubtedly her most fun, spectacular and charming yet.

Much like young Jeanette, there is no compromise in Dumont's vision that mixes the irreverent and the austere.

Despite its bland paperback title, French writer-director Stéphane Demoustier proves hasty assumptions wrong with his gripping, thoughtful third feature, courtroom drama The Girl with a Bracelet.

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

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

Read as a loose adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Little Joe is a gripping and visually striking satire of essentialist maternal instinct and the contemporary anxiety of wellbeing.

Despite its lunkish, ludicrous – and frankly cynical – qualities, this entry retains much of the appeal of previous entries.

Outlaw King is proof positive that Pine is one of the most underestimated actors in modern cinema.

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.

Though It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World struggles to justify its ludicrous length, there are just enough laughs, cameos and memorable set pieces to garner a recommendation.

Natural Light illuminates the fading glow of humanity amidst horror.

As both director and performer, Waititi is on top form.

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

The Dial of Destiny starts with a prologue that easily stands up against the classic trilogy, is often disarmingly poignant and never less than entertaining. Much of this is down to Ford, who has always excelled at bringing depth and charm to a character who on paper is fundamentally little more than a silhouette.

In sensual romantic drama Simple Passion, Lebanese-born director Danielle Arbid captures viscerally that peculiar detachment that comes from romantic and sexual infatuation.

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.

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

Paul Verhoeven’s first English language film Flesh + Blood is bloody, cynical and unrefined, but indicative of his later satirical tendencies.

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

I Love You, Daddy is a hilarious, awkward and boundary-pushing comedy about fatherhood, anxiety and the ethics of relationships.

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.

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.

Broomfield’s triumph is in reimagining Biggie and Tupac’s murders out of their mythology and into a new context in which they are emblematic of a social malaise characterised by toxic masculinity, misogyny, racism, and police corruption.

Piece by piece, Assassination Nation lays out and deconstructs the misogynistic assumptions that underpin many of our reactions to the girls’ behaviour.

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

A Jarmusch joint through and through, The Dead Don’t Die is as charming, affected and perplexing as we’ve come to expect from the long-time darling of US indie cinema.

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.

As in thrall to its fantasy as its characters, On a Magical Night confuses what is admittedly a charming conceit for depth. Nevertheless, that charm is enough to sustain the picture across its 90-minute runtime, even if its effects quickly recede into memory.

Buried underneath the convolutions, the mistaking of melodramatic sensationalism over psychological reality, there really is something of a real emotional centre that just about makes enduring the rest worth it.

Iceman’s violence and viscera is satisfying in its immediacy, and Randau’s singular focus is certainly admirable. It’s just a pity that any nuance in the fine line between humanity and savagery is lost among all the hacking and slashing.

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.

Overall the film's trashy pleasures just about keep it afloat.

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.

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

Actor Daniel Brühl makes his directorial debut with this delightfully taut, blackly comic satire.

Director Yeon Sang-ho’s Peninsula is a solid follow up to his original, with just about enough shambling momentum to distract from a fairly uninspired plot.

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

White Riot is a belligerently hopeful film: Shah vividly depicts the insidious violence of racism, but she also renders its futility in the face of community, and of music’s limitless power to unite and strengthen.

Albert Serra’s latest is a hazy fever dream of post colonialist politics and ambition that in its final minutes lurches into apocalyptic mania.

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

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

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.

David Leitch once again proves himself one of the most adept action directors in Hollywood.

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

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.

Whether one can get on board with such nonsense determines the subjective success or failure of King of the Monsters.

As blades pierce flesh and Carpenter’s iconic theme swells, the film wrestles with provocative imagery it’s not entirely in possession of, but which is nevertheless rich and layered with meaning. Whether transcendental, idiotic or both, the effect is overwhelming, a catechism for a series that has defined modern horror.

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.

A super sweet, affecting comedy with a magical premise and a terrific central performance from Larson herself.

While not entirely successful, the film’s sense of finality gives the main players space to grow, unhampered by the usual carousel of upcoming sequels and spin-offs.

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.

It is dull, cynical and utterly mirthless.

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.

Never has the banality of the plight of refugees been laid out so plainly as in this heartbreaking, Kafkaesque documentary.

Second Spring is a film about endurance and acceptance, tackling its subject matter with quiet poise where a lesser film might have fallen to mawkish sentiment.

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.

Following in the footsteps of legendary documentary Paris Is Burning, Pier Kids is a poignant and chaotic study of the community of young black gay men and trans women who congregate at the piers of Hudson River Park, New York City.

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

Oyate isn’t an extraordinary documentary, but in telling the story of some of the United States’ most marginalised and persecuted people, it is certainly an important one.

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

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.

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.

The components are all here for a compelling psychological drama, led by two excellent performances, but a conflation between narrative obfuscation with thematic depth undermines Esme, My Love’s final emotional impact.

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

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.

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.