Dan Jolin

An initially cool premise that goes nowhere interesting as it heads off somewhere else too quickly. Hartnett does his best, but director Shyamalan seems more interested in trying to convince us of his daughter’s pop-star credentials.

An improvement on Murder On The Orient Express, with the increased focus on Branagh’s Poirot (even with its strange moustache obsession) welcome enough to distract from the problems with some of its ensemble and its too-obvious reliance on VFX.

A fiendishly effective holiday-gone-wrong thriller that's better at cranking up the agoraphobic action than fleshing out its characters. Still, it'll find few fans at the Mexican Tourist Board...

An engaging study of a beautiful but mysterious mind, which also reveals the stressful nature of world-class chess tournaments and raises the deep question of where intelligence actually comes from.

There is a frustrating absence of personality which means, for all her physical presence, this Major’s just not very engaging. It’s more a problem with the film than Johansson herself. A case, if you will, of it being so preoccupied with the shell, it forgot to bring enough ghost.

It’s as predictable as an Advent calendar, but thanks to Kurt Russell’s grizzly charms, The Christmas Chronicles at least gives us one of the movies’ best Santas yet.

A tender, nostalgic and warm ‘family’ drama which also quietly seethes with the threat and tension of imminent danger. Labor Day shows a new side to Jason Reitman as a filmmaker, and we like it.

Gilliam at his best and his worst.

A wildly ambitious space opera, but also a self-indulgent narrative morass. Sometimes, it seems, creativity can benefit from a few limitations.

The building may be taller than The Towering Inferno and the stakes may be higher than those faced by John McClane in Die Hard, but in comparison to both, Skyscraper is little more than a cinematic bungalow.

Karate Kid: Legends doesn’t quite live up to the promise of its Cobra Kai-meets-Mr Han marketing. But for breezy feel-goodness, you’ve come to the right dojo.

Stanton has built a fantastic world, but the action is unmemorable. Still, just about every sci-fi/fantasy/superhero adventure you ever loved is in here somewhere.

A simple entertainment in a summer of overcomplicated disappointments. Also much harder-edged than you may have expected.

A disappointingly straightforward, romance-driven take on a fascinating story of creation, but one that’s lifted by a superb central performance by Elle Fanning.

A confident, ambitious and action-rich Brit thriller, albeit one whose characters and clarity suffer from the frantic intensity of its pacing.

It is engagingly played by a cast including Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington and Luke Wilson, and handsomely mounted too, with Costner’s vision of the West’s untamed grandeur fully deserving the big-screen treatment.

A handsome period drama with the occasional impressive flourish, but despite its rich subject matter, it's Affleck’s weakest film yet as a director.

Uneven, occasionally unsavoury and at times frustratingly muddled, but there’s enough bloody, ’80s-style fun in The Predator to give it a pass from long-term fans.

Despite grasping for topicality and insight into human nature, Tron: Ares doesn’t have anything new or interesting to say.

An otherwise mundane rom-com that doesn’t know how to handle its one point-of-difference; and even that isn’t as much of a big deal as its writers think it is.

Harrison Ford brings his gruff charisma but this man-and-CG-dog adventure gets a bit lost in uncanine-y valley.

An interesting new take on a very well-known tale and a praiseworthy act of revisionism, but one which doesn’t ultimately deliver on its early promise.

Domestic chills, body horror, paranormal scares and gore-drenched action combine in a very distinct but rather uneven — and at times contentious — take on a classic monster icon.

The Merlot to "Sideways" Pinot, this is one of those middling movies that, while never terrible, also never really impresses.

With Hercules, Brett Ratner and Dwayne Johnson are out to entertain you — no more, no less. And that is just what they do.

Better avoided unless you're doing a study on vaguely titillating rubbish 80s animation.

It’s breezily fun at times, in a what-the-hey way. But, lumbered with a story that struggles to find resonance beyond its improbable plot devices and preposterous MacGuffinry, Justice League isn’t about to steal Avengers’ super-team crown.

A hyperactive hot-pink mess of a movie, which fails to elevate its cubic source material and revels in that failure like it’s achieving something.

This year's Dodgeball? Not a chance. Ferrell admirably tackles the so-so material, but it soon defeats him.

All the boys might love Mandy Lane - discerning horror fans, however, will not.

As ultraviolent as the first film, and as ultrasmutty, The Golden Circle will leave the Kingsfans grinning, even if its characters have less growing to do this time around.

Valiant though this low-budget attempt to reclaim Hellboy may be, it sadly lacks the storytelling and stylistic savvy to rise above its all-too-obvious budgetary limitations.

If you crave Emmerich-esque disaster-porn with a mega body count, there’s plenty here to OMG at. But when it comes to character depth or plotting, San Andreas is a sadly familiar wasteland.

Despite an occasional burst of self-mocking glibness (mostly via Robbie, who skirts but never quite tilts into the manic-dream-pixie playground), this is a movie that isn’t afraid of sincerity, and it brings a bit of silver-lining energy to our overcast world.

Lacks the ‘ick’ factor of the earlier Bay-directed efforts, and Fishback and Ramos do a great job as the token humans, but this is still just silly and derivative.

We've seen all these stunts pulled before, and seen them done better, but there's some pleasure to be had here — even if it's of the extremely guilty kind.

The grave tone makes it stiff and leaden, the digi-saturated look is a turn-off. Damnable and disordered.

Violent, silly, embarrassing, clumsy, confusing, juvenile, occasionally offensive, occasionally a little bit fun.

About as good as a big, stupid American action movie can be without ever being anything better than a big, stupid American action movie.

Like Avengers Assemble forced through a Deadpool mangle, Suicide Squad gives new life to DC’s big-screen universe. So bad-to-the-bone it’s good.

Not the return to form you might have been hoping for. Its story might cover all the same beats as the 2003 original, but there’s little of that film’s spark or spirit.

Director Alan Taylor handles the big action adeptly as he did in Thor The Dark World, but the script is an ever-decreasing cycle of tool-ups, chase sequences and daft monologues.

To be fair, pulling off complex action sequences in such unforgivingly high definition is a ballsy move—it’s much harder to hide the joins between what was captured in camera and what was added later. But as impressive as the action is—and a Smith-vs.-Smith motorcycle chase in Colombia is a superb sequence worthy of peak Bond—the high-definition format just doesn’t work.

Exactly what you’d expect from a crime-caper action-comedy pairing Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fans of Moon and Source Code be warned: Mute is sadly, almost tragically, not worth the wait.

Marginally better than Part One, but still a weird, messy and humourless sci-fi that gives you little reason to cheer the potential continuation of this Snyderverse.

Stupid, with three o's. But also fun, never boring, and never insulting (to anyone other than Dumas) - unlike certain of the summer's A-pics…

Belying its title, this is a pretty flaccid offering which fails to gel the comedy stylings of Hart and Ferrell.

Unless you pine for second-tier Mel Brooks, you'll find more laughs in the Old Testament itself.

An odd but frothily entertaining genre cocktail, which coasts on the charisma of its two biggest names and keeps things just fun enough to forgive its considerable lapses in narrative.

As spectacular as you’d hope from a sequel to the 1996 planet-toaster, and as amusingly cheesy. You’ll enjoy yourself enough that you won’t even miss Will Smith.

Bond without the style and Team America without the bellylaughs. The moronic script and nonsensical plot are good for a snicker, though.

Like Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur, this tries hard to do something new and exciting with an old formula. It quickly makes you wish for something more traditional and straightforward.

A twist-burdened techno-thriller that would be by-the-numbers if it could count.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit meets Meets The Feebles, in a disappointing adult comedy that never lives up to the promise of its premise.

A botched Guardians wannabe that isn’t half as fun as you’d hope from the punky sci-fi promise of its video-game source material and the presence of Blanchett at the top of the cast list.

Less Tales Of The Unexpected, more Tales Of The Unconvincing, this uneven comedy horror fails to handle its ambitious structure, or deliver on its promising premise.