Clarisse Loughrey

Pileggi’s screenplay and Levinson’s scattershot direction, like De Niro, make little out of the clash of ideologies at the film’s centre. What could be biblical, feels passionless.

All those technical triumphs only complicate what feels like an unanswerable question: how can a film look this good, feel so moving, and still come up lacking?

When the real shock occurs, it doesn’t feel cosmic so much as deliberate manipulation by a filmmaker’s hand. The rhythm feels off.

Caine, as Bernie, allows his natural, domineering presence to carry most of the performance.

Together, both actors rise above the most blatant of Memory’s manipulations.

There are measured performances here by both Russell and Plemons, two unfailingly talented actors, and a host of well-crafted practical effects that explain why producer and horror veteran Guillermo del Toro would take such an interest in the project. But all the trickery in the world can’t conceal how inauthentic Antlers feels at heart.

Its self-congratulatory crusade to restore its subject’s reputation has, for the sake of entertainment, distorted reality to the point that it borders on farce.

Warfare’s violence feels unmoored without its context.

Blighted by development problems and a star whose downward spiral has been widely dissected by all, this superhero blockbuster emerges just as confused as predicted.

The problem with this brand of Hollywood tale is that, by excessively romanticising their subjects, they diminish their humanity.

Conclave turns ritual into the hysteria of a murder mystery, the tension of a political conspiracy, the pressurised force of a criminal heist.

The Card Counter is claustrophobic, certainly – but not always in the right ways.

It’s hard to imagine what anyone could get out of Damsel that isn’t already liberally covered by Brown’s other projects. There’s a sweetness to Stranger Things’s Eleven, and a wit to Enola, that offer the actor a hell of a lot more to do than Damsel’s mean-mugging to camera.

The Substance doesn’t quite gel as it should, but it’s potent.

You, Me, & Tuscany is its own micro-miracle, a pure romcom where its protagonist isn’t jaded by romance, has no impulse to deconstruct the modern relationship, and isn’t forced through any preliminary Hinge date humiliation ritual. Here, all we need are two very charming and attractive people – Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page – and the soft, undulating hills of the Italian countryside.

Mendes’s script, his first as a solo writer, deals with a sort of formless empathy – what it’s like to witness injustice and feel very, very bad about it. But it lacks necessary self-interrogation. There’s no real sense of purpose beyond the soothing of a privileged viewer’s guilt. The emotions are too thin, a set of codes to interpret rather than anything raw or real.

Even if 28 Years Later feels like being repeatedly bonked on the head by the metaphor hammer, Boyle’s still a largely compelling filmmaker, and the film separates itself from the first instalment by offering something distinctly more sentimental and mythic than before.

No Sudden Move may be a fairly minor entry in his filmography, but it’s well-crafted and thrilling in a way that feels oddly reassuring.

The idea that it serves a film like September 5 to tell its story through an apolitical lens isn’t just wrong: it’s laughable.

We’ve seen all this before, but at least The Amateur finds its own way to get the job done.

Branagh doesn’t seem as eager as Cuaron to interrogate his own memories, or to reckon with how the protective veil of one’s parents can shield a child from reality.

We’re never told what this conflict is about, who might be oppressed, or what freedoms have been stolen away. All we’re given is violence.

The Equalizer 3 is about as good as the first film – it neatly counterbalances Fuqua’s baroque, blood-and-guts action with Washington’s ability to command attention while sitting perfectly still.

Rebuilding, instead, is a lovely rendering of what feels like half a story. It’s not the action its title promises, but the preceding moment of retreat to lick one’s wounds.

Birdy, in many ways, is basically a pint-sized Hannah Horvath, Dunham’s onscreen alter-ego and the de facto lead of Girls. Both wrestle with the insecurities that stem from never quite aligning with traditional expectations of femininity. Both refuse to ever consider that the blessings and burdens they carry may not be universally shared among their acquaintances.

As imperfect as Armageddon Time is, its director’s honesty is something to be appreciated.

The Duke reminds us once more, [Michell] knew how to get the very best out of his actors without forcing unnecessary dramatics.

Gadot remains Gadot, and there’s no hope that she might transform into something new because Heart of Stone can’t imagine its existence without her star quality.