Ellen E Jones

Since Levi is the single-use plastic of screen performers – flat, shiny, desperately unfashionable – it’s left to Jemaine Clement to provide the story’s charismatic core as Gary, the villainous failed fantasy novelist with a thing for Mel’s mum.

Proof that even the most basic cinematic tools can be used to make fire.

Aside from one marvellous set piece at a magazine stand, The Nun II’s mid-century design is tasteful to the point of tedium, and a disgrace to the good name of 70s-era nunsploitation. That really is the gravest sin.

This documentary shares Scorsese’s theme of obscene greed, while Kuala Lumpur’s neon nightscape gives the feel of a Batman villain’s origin story. The Penguin, probably.

Kraken anatomy differs from human in some aspects, but this is a film with its heart, at least, in the right place.

The plot proceeds like a mid-season episode of CSI: Anywhere, just with better cinematography and a mournful cello score.

Bailey is the best thing about this film but, despite a team crammed with talent, this live action reworking can’t match the magic of the 1989 classic.

As you’d expect from a movie originated by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead zombie franchise, Renfield is also resplendent in gore. Dracula’s grotesque visage – decaying in reverse as he gathers strength – is a prosthetics triumph.

Not since Snakes on a Plane has a movie promised so much, but despite a great cast the plot is too tame.

In his more wistful moments Kang would surely understand the main misgiving with this efficient movie product: the MCU marches inexorably onwards, through “phases” and “sagas”, but what’s the point if there’s no time to pause, reflect and enjoy a joke with old friends?

A third-act plot twist is audacious enough to regain our attention, but Reuten and Wolf don’t quite have the charisma to fully carry it off.

Antebellum offers neither a coherent social commentary nor – thanks to its pat, ahistorical ending – a revenge thriller’s catharsis. What else, besides entertainment, could its purpose be?

Brantevics convincingly portrays Arturs’ four-year transformation from a callow youth to a war-weary one, but as a national coming-of-age story, The Rifleman never quite outgrows its innocent, uncritical patriotism.

The performances are fine, but the questionable decision to cast not one, not two, but three Brits can’t help but intensify the off-putting sense of Americana cosplay.

Rogue isn’t offering nature-documentary realism, but director MJ Bassett is a former wildlife presenter whose interest in the South African grassland goes beyond mere backdrop.

This film’s real propulsive, emotional motor is nothing to do with a woman, but rather the age-old entanglement of lawman and outlaw.

Any poignance Stern’s David-v-Goliath fight might have possessed is undermined by a flowery script that’s over-fond of quick comebacks. To hear Bosworth curl her lips around some of these zingers though, almost makes for a fair trade-off.

To watch Tesla the film is to admire its ambition while regretting its follies. Much like Tesla the man, perhaps?

Not much about this film is original, but the buddy-pairing of two equally competent criminals is something we haven’t seen too often.