Donald Clarke

No good impression emerges of the former Slovenian model. No bad impression emerges either. Ratner’s film achieves, rather, a sort of passive distance – as you might get by pointing a camera, for close to two hours, at a waterfall or a wheat field.

Oh no. The sequel to M3gan is absolutely t3rribl3.

The thing is unremittingly dull and bland (not to mention cold, apparently). If it is good for anything it is good for providing deserved paid holidays to venerable older actors and their long johns.

The creators of Deadpool will argue, lamely in my view, that by admitting the puerile nature of the humour they inure themselves to criticism in that area, but no such excuses are offered for the onanistic self-regard. After two hours of this infantile mugging, one is left longing for the genuinely upending humour of the Batman TV series from 60 years ago. Awful. Just awful.

The reverence for the past here does nobody any favours. It is as if a 1984 kids’ film tried to get them interested in the collected lore and backstory of Abbott and Costello. We all need to move on.

For all its gimcrack incoherence, Madame Web – which would be nothing without Johnson’s charm – is a darn sight less pompous and up itself than the overstuffed Disney content.

You would get more sparks from rubbing a wet flannel with a wetter rock. But try it anyway. It could hardly be more tedious than waiting for Freelance to crawl to its predictable denouement.

All involved deserve better.

Some loyalists do still give a fig. They will still get something from the volume and the visual clutter. Nostalgia is a powerful drug. Even the most dedicated will, however, surely baulk at one of the stupidest final shots in the history of cinema. That surely doesn’t count as a spoiler.

The director of shockers such as Requiem for a Dream and Mother! has had his mainstream moments, but he has never before been quite so at home to tawdry soap opera.

Embarrassingly for a film that actually features a star of Pulp Fiction, Killing Field is still harbouring an undignified passion for early Tarantino.

Nobody looks to have helped Affleck get to grips with the author’s signature sociopath and, rather than appearing coldly ruthless, this cuboid-headed anti-hero comes across as a bored man queuing for an uninteresting clerical formality.

Almost entirely plotless, it consists mostly of the characters pointing guns and wracking their brains for the next terrible line. Yet they had enough money to pay Willis whatever he asks to sit in two different chairs for a few hours (and he may charge by the chair). Nothing adds up.

There are plenty of reasons to yell at The Starling. The pile-up of dreary sub-country songs eventually takes on the quality of something the CIA would have played outside General Noriega’s compound.

Viewing the entire film as it finally arrives to video on demand, one remains staggered that sentient human beings who walk upright and use cutlery believed this was a respectable use of their valuable time.

Time moves so slowly one begins to fear it may turn backwards and return us to the far distant opening credits.

An early contender for turkey of the year.

Look elsewhere for virtual methadone to hold you over until the real stuff gets back in the supply chain. Just awful.

It’s not quite as bad as the awful trailer threatened. Just dull, bland and pointless.