Donald Clarke

A film that is no less thrilling for its sober rigour.

All kinds of comparisons present themselves during Coralie Fargeat’s monstrous growl at the inhumanity of society’s response to the ageing process.

By the close, one is left befuddled. Is this a tragedy? Is this a comedy? Is it a moral fable? Cruelty to Homo criticus is the least of its problems.

James Watkins’s version easily justifies its independent existence, however. Four first-rate performances find new energies in the story. The shift in nationalities adds other interesting angles.

There are reminders of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and Sean Baker’s incoming Palme d’Or winner Anora in that urban chaos, but Watts’s bland style washes out all the grime to leave us with, well, something you might expect from a streaming release.

Though immaculately made in every respect, Paradise Is Burning never quite finds its narrative rhythms. The story is happily fussing over here and then gets distracted by something over there. But Sine Vadstrup Brooker’s lovely cinematography, drifting in the liminal spaces between city and country, keeps the viewer uneasily gripped throughout.

Jolie’s fragile brilliance is not to be questioned.

Sing Sing itself does us all good while delivering a compendium of engaging personal dramas. Domingo rules over all like the most benign of creative deities.

A glossy package. Not quite enough inside.

The only distinguishing feature of this exhilaratingly bad film is its apparent close association with London’s tourism authorities.

Alien: Romulus remains a shapeless beast that never so much as hints at the disciplined elegance of Scott’s founding text. The action progresses rather than builds.

Unfortunately, the longer the thing goes on the less it ceases to be good honest rubbish and the more it expects us to care about the stupid, stupid plot. Console junkies will find themselves involuntarily hammering an imagined X button in the hope of getting back to the gameplay. No good. You’re stuck with this wacko BS.

Janet Planet plays a little like a memory piece from an unknown future – the assembled past life of an adult who, as a child, grasped only a bare majority of the tensions unfolding about her. A lovely, flawed idyll.

With little of Crockett’s original charm remaining, the audience is left with a generic entertainment struggling to find a reason to exist beyond the need for more “content”. As soon seen as forgotten.

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.

Nobody will walk away from Skywalkers: A Love Story raving about its soap-opera shenanigans. But as an exercise in physical unsettlement it could hardly be bettered.

Twisters feels no need to offer footnotes and variation on its predecessor. It’s a big fat summer movie in its own right. And that’s something these days.

If nothing else, this fine debut feature from Korean director Jason Yu – hitherto assistant director to Bong Joon-ho – counts as a small masterpiece of tone.

Yes, the pulpy mythologies sometimes overshadow that carefully maintained mood. But it remains quite a mood. Hokum as high art.

A grim thrill rounded off with a chilling last shot.

Though largely for already-persuaded aficionados, Blue Lock The Movie: Episode Nagi has enough imaginative zing to make up for its somewhat monotonous storytelling. This is football reimagined as a heightened form of futuristic warfare. Those who already know they like it will like it very much.

Murphy reminds us, albeit at a lower temperature, what caused so many heads to laugh themselves off shoulders during his pomp.

The set pieces are well handled, but this prequel stands out most for its commitment to fleshy humanity.

It is plainly the work of talented individuals, but it ultimately leaves you with little to show for your patience other than a pounding headache.

Unfortunately the characterisation is so thin and the dialogue so clunky that the thing plays more like one of those 1960s surf horrors – Cannibal Martians at Wipeout Cove – that invited drive-in audiences to speculate about which beach denizen deserved to get eaten first (usually a hard question to answer).

Most contemporary westerns end up mourning a vanished era of compromised freedom. The Bikeriders doesn’t quite believe in that myth, but it still finds time to dampen a handkerchief as its shadow recedes. A flawed, fascinating film.

There is, as there was in the first film, a profound sadness at the heart of Inside Out 2.

The miracle is that most of it sticks. Kane is a fine craftsman.