Donald Clarke

The amiable big-screen spin-off will satisfy fans but – unlike, say, The Inbetweeners Movie – is unlikely to win over those unfamiliar with the show’s pianissimo pleasures.

So joyous and inventive is each scene that it proves easy to disregard the ambling lack of plot.

For all its flaws, however, Origin does have power as both didactic treatise and drama of recovery. There is something reassuring being said here about the restorative power of work.

Many will have issues with the depiction of a largely benevolent military and political hierarchy. Some will worry about the necessarily terse summaries of North Korean and Russian polities. Almost everybody will shiver at the realisation that when a response to nuclear attack is required it is too late for any to be effective.

Featuring terrific female characters, endlessly funny sidekicks and a genuinely jaw-dropping score, this loose adaptation of The Snow Queen is the best film from Walt Disney Animation in close to a generation.

Think Mean Girls mashed into Lindsay Anderson’s If ... But with more sublimated high-feminist discourse. Just perfect.

Good news for both lubbers and sea dogs. The recent cutbacks in Netflix’s animation department came too late to condemn this lavish, funny, playful adventure to the briny depths.

Along the way, Scala!!! (the number of exclamation points varies) takes in the history of a wider culture. You could see the community under discussion as that swimming in the long wake of punk.

Perhaps Gray’s best film so far.

This remains a top-notch effort that implicitly pleads for invention and sincerity in family entertainment.

A bracingly original, notably creepy film that leaves you brooding on its knotty messages.

Will & Harper, a natural Netflix entertainment, oscillates between sincere openness and painful artifice.

The film is never boring, but, once that delightful opening winds down, the action clunks where it should purr.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s translation of the late Jonathan Larson’s semi-autobiographical musical, a cult hit off-Broadway in the early 1990s, asks a lot of even the most indulgent audience.

An exciting and often powerful piece of mainstream film-making that allows its heroes to emerge as normal people who make everyday mistakes. Highly recommended.

Older than Ireland is at its most moving when addressing the universal experiences that shape all lives.

Not everyone will approve of the big swing here. But few will resist the richness and fullness of [Arnold's] characterisation.

Some of the stylistic flourishes are delightful. Others work too hard for their own good.

Bloodlines, after that first-class opening section, isn’t quite so clever in its constructions as were the earlier episodes. There is more reliance on out-of-nowhere splatter than on amusingly inevitable disaster.

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

Michael B Jordan, who bossed the previous two rounds as Adonis Creed, shuffles behind the camera for a film that intersperses soapy sentiment with first-class acting duels.

It is hard to gripe at a movie that sends one out in such buoyant mood. Job just about achieved.

The film does occasionally struggle with getting England right. We are always aware that this is a French film-maker looking through the window at the crumpets on their doilies. But there is a mischievous intelligence at work that complements the embrace of sometimes broad misunderstandings.

The film certainly invites fists to be pumped in celebration. It is less certain Air offers any meaningful critique of the society that gave us the sacred gutty.

The directors do good work in conjuring up a remote era and teasing out still extant racial tensions. One does, however, end up yearning to hear a little more about how the legal team went about their work. A good complaint to have.

The two flawless performances, presented in the polite shades of prestige British cinema, make a winning case for the virtues of seasoned affection. An irresistible treat.

All this might be unbearable were it not for some lovely performances and, despite the familiar tropes, a commitment to treat Louis and his condition with respect.

A perfect late-summer diversion.