Fionnuala Halligan

At its weakest, there’s a suspicion that Eleanor The Great is leaning into the Holocaust for otherwise unearned emotion, but the piece is clearly genuine, and the cast so strong, it doesn’t linger.

There’s probably an excellent 66 minute film in Desert Of Namibia as well. Yamanaka certainly has talent. But fine-honing is not a strong point.

Ultimately, first-timer Langlois is unable to find a discipline within the excess that might keep these Queens on course over feature length. In fairness, his shorts were also over-long, so this won’t be a deterrent to his core crowd.

The effort is strenuous; all 128 minutes of it. But it’s almost as exhausting to watch as it must have been to make.

Oddly enough, in trying to capture a time that was wracked by scarcity, by the idea of make-do-and-mend, by the plucky spirit of the men and women under the might of the machines, Blitz just fires far too much heavy artillery.

Mostly Emmanuelle feels like a package and looks like packaged luxury, the kind that comes with money and not very much taste.

The stubbornly naive Horizon series — which may encompass up to two more instalments – is both enjoyably retro and fascinatingly aimless as it attempts to resurrect an old genre with gleaming sincerity.

For a Burroughs adaptation, it has all the provocation but none of the haunting power that Naked Lunch still holds, almost 35 years later.

It’s delightfully batty in parts, groan-worthy in others, but overall the ethos is to just keep firing – and some shots land even as others could clearly have been finessed further.

You could call it whimsical. Absurdist. Contrived. Or an unexpectedly unusual concept album that doesn’t quite come off but was worth the effort. And you would be correct every time.

Its sly irony is muffled by a convoluted, fatally tedious plot.

It’s just so hard to buy into Spaceman.

Zimbalist’s film is all about the highs: at no point will it dig deep. There is zero sense of perspective past the obvious.

Rogue One’s Edwards delivers a film which is reliably visually inventive even when the familiarity of the narrative can make it feel oddly stale.

El Conde comes across as a well-funded toyshop for Larrian to play in, indulging flights of fantasy, paying homage, and exacting a retribution which could, should, have been a far more effective sandblast from a man who has spent much of his creative life holding this particular vampire to account.

The imbalance between the sketched, what-if nature of the film and the weight of its visual wizardry is keenly felt.

The actors are reasonably charismatic and the film grows increasingly lovely to look at, while failing to really make a case for itself beyond the superficial pleasures.

Golda is a tentative step towards looking at that inflammatory era with the depth it needs and that’s worthwhile: but plucking Golda out of her own life and that time out of its wider context still feels like a missed opportunity.

Robinson is a precise, empathetic and informed speaker and a righteous man who, in sisters Emily and Sarah Kunstler’s documentary, is every teacher you might have ever wished for as a student, but who deserves a larger stage.

With a decades-long rapport on screen and off, they’re natural and sparky together, and Roberts joins Clooney in her decision not to presenting the cosmetically refreshed face of her peers. For that alone, Ticket To Paradise is a trip worth taking.

Technically-skilled, well-acted and fatally over-long, it’s hard not to see Blonde as a chronicle of exploitation and abuse which merrily carries on the tradition – a sensation reinforced by Ana de Armas’s poignant performance as Marilyn.

In a whizzing carousel of no war, no surprises, no peril, just 1920s frockery, Downton Abbey: A New Era delivers exactly the same as every other incarnation of Downton Abbey, only with a tearjerker ending for the core fanbase.

Nightride doesn’t try to reinvent the (car) wheel, nor does it really pretend to be anything more than it is. Fingleton shows us what he can do, so it’s efficient vehicle in the end. Like the audience, it knows where it is going. It all depends on whether those on board like the cut of its chassis.

A soft-edged, stolid blend of gorgeous geographical authenticity with a global-facing English-speaking cast whose accents range from Joe Cole’s Brit to co-producer, co-writer and leading man Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s mid-Atlantic purr.

As the narrative gears grind through like the slow and steady paddle boat, there’s a sense that Branagh has lost a lot of the fun of Agatha Christie along with his passport - although as the credits indicate he kept a navy’s worth of digital compositors in work through the pandemic, at least they’ll be smiling.

Despite the keep-it-open ending, it seems clear that Chastain has an idea, and not a franchise; that Simon Kinberg (X-Men) works better as a producer than a director.

This meticulous documentary can’t quite overcome the inevitability of its rise-and-fall trajectory, the familiarity of its sad-clown hypothesis.

Strenuously heartfelt, Tick,Tick…Boom! belts it out like a pro, but increasingly feels as if it’s raising the volume to an emptying room.

Moll is a director who is adept when it comes to loading the screen with tension; actors swerve in from the side of the frame, silhouetted against the plateau, all playing characters who are clearly not walking a straight line mentally.

Boxily framed, the film tries out several visual looks, wandering tonally through its own aesthetic maze.

Whether it’s the sheer weight of the narrative repetition - which involves rewatching a brutal rape - or the two-men/one-woman perspective, which results in an underwritten character and a strained performance from Comer, The Last Duel is crushed by the weight of its own armour.

An uncomfortably un-restrained Whishaw, and an enhanced, aggressive sound design make Surge a raw experience and its eventual lack of any deeper insight is a little like rubbing salt into that experience.

It’s hard not to wince sometimes, even amid all the lewd jokes and proud sexuality in the face of a no-hope future.

Beckett, though, has better films in its DNA - it is by no means original. What it mostly serves as is a reminder of what is missing from independent cinema - and may well be gone for good.

The dynamics of the Claire family (whose daughter is rarely to be seen) are several layers more interesting than the plot, which makes it all the more disappointing when a film that has ballooned its running time with attempts at nuance then bursts into silliness.

Good-natured, soft-hearted, a little lazy, and propelledby the relentless charisma of Melissa McCarthy when all else fails, this Netflix production makes for cozy pandemic at-home viewing with scant thrills but a couple of genuinely funny moments.

This religious-themed horror based around the phenomena of Marian apparitions has an intriguing premise but cuts too many corners in its catechism.

This involving, stranger-than-life story has been edited for cinematic release although seems purpose built for streaming: like its protagonist, it suffers from a sense of unfinished business and unanswered questions.

Cherry comes across like a deeply personal passion project for a group of talented filmmakers, and that’s for better and for worse. In its attempts to address Cleveland’s opoid crisis and the devastating trauma of repeated overseas conflicts for young Americans, the Russos’ film can effectively convey the grim desperation of those involved. It is often distracted by its own technique, though. The tone wavers wildly, the attention hovers, and scenes are allowed to ramble on. At times the resulting sense of discomfort can help challenge the viewer, but Cherry isn’t sufficiently fresh to be challenging enough.

There’s hopes of an awards push for Zendaya and a bravura show from John David Washington, and their commitment should be recognised (although, as producers, they’ve already experienced some significant success). This is a woefully self-indulgent piece, however: fascinating at the outset in its frank assessment of race – written by a white man - but ultimately a hollow drum.

Wiig is terrific, but there’s just not enough of her. It truly is a wonder to see an A-lister like Chris Pine embrace the traditional female support role of the pretty sidekick so winningly, while Gadot is as smooth as silk and never less than watchable. The team is there, but this is most definitely a sequel.

The main audience takeaway here will be the two main performances by Adams and Close.

Bezhucha seems to have spent all his effort and imagination on the journey: the destination an afterthought, the denouement bizarrely prolonged, and all but written in a flashing neon sign above the Blackledges’ heads.

A drama that simmers away on repression but never comes to a fully satisfying boil.

It’s a familiar watch and a pallid reminder of better days we’ve had with the director.

Final Account is shocking footage which hasn’t quite made the leap into being a forensic film.

Despite this riveting premise, Padrenostro goes the way of 1970s cuisine in being over-cooked to the level of boil-in-a-bag.

Fitfully-entertaining, the film says many things in many different ways about one subject – the de-sensitising effect of the have-it-all media age on young people. Prolonged exposure to it will certainly reawaken the senses, although not in a way that’s always welcome.

If it never quite delivers on its promise of cheesy scares, neither does it really try for true psychological thrills with enough conviction.

Like protagonist Pete Davidson, on whose life it is loosely based, The King Of Staten Island is a loping, amiable, sweetly-funny film, and yet you sometimes wish there was a bit less of it.

All the lavish sets and gorgeous costumes in the world – and they are here – can’t quite cover over the cracks in Friedkin’s canvas, constructed by three writers from a non-fiction book.

Jonze’s film (his first full-length feature since 2013’s Her) sits in an awkward gap between live performance and event cinema.

Call Of The Wild isn’t animation, it isn’t live action, it isn’t fish, fowl or dog and somewhere in between it falls off its sled. Mankind can always benefit from some digital enhancement; man’s best friend, not so much.

Like the book, Reed Morano’s film is long on atmosphere and short on the kind of detail a spy thriller needs to be credible.

It’s a commercially marketable prospect, sure, thanks to a committed performance from Julia-Louis Dreyfus (who also produces), but Downhill has also groomed out the subtlety from the original Swedish-language source material in some wincing stabs at cross-cultural comedy.

Wittock has neatly sketched out her subject and a groovy neon palette for scenes involving Jumbo “himself”, but the story and general characterisation remains broad and thinly developed.

A film to respect for its audacity, admire for its lead female performance perhaps, but also view as dramatically contrived.

It’s only when Pugh gets her hands on spoiled younger sister Amy and opens up that often-overlooked strand of the work does the film seem to find relevance beyond its pretty fussiness and that warm, wintery – decidedly Christmassy, somewhat pleased-with-itself – glow.

Seen at 60 frames per second (fps) on 3D-Plus (2K resolution), Ang Lee’s action spectacular Gemini Man proved a compulsive watch: not for the usual ingredients of can’t-look-away Hollywood cinema such as acting – Will Smith takes a dual role - or plot, both of which fell a little flat, and seemed almost wilfully generic. As a viewing experience, though, this picture delivers as a prototype of future action film-making.

Sibyl is far less than the sum of its parts, and never manages to shake off a heavy tone which consistently threatens to capsize even the rare funny interludes.

Yesterday is a film we’re all familiar with, for better or worse.

This story of a frustrated man and the slow recognition of what really matters in his life could, indeed, have come from a Springsteen lyric, but the sketchiness of the premise doesn’t really favour the full cinematic treatment it has been awarded here.

A Dog’s Journey is certainly manipulative - humans aren’t safe here either, with a significant cancer side-plot. At times, it even seems obsessed by death. Yet there’s something oddly cathartic about sobbing your way through this film, with its mash-up of Buddhism and All-American values.

The Aftermath works best when looking at the bewildered people who have been left behind, literally, to pick up the pieces. The savage loss of family members still reverberates through empty rooms and ruined landscapes.

Animals is a smoothly-made, beguiling tale of female friendship, which, like its protagonist Laura (Holliday Grainger), sometimes feels a little lost, in need of a home.

Despite the pyrotechnics of McAvoy’s performances and Willis’s grounded conviction, there’s just not enough here past the high concept of “what if real people were superheroes?”.

Veteran Danish director August (1987’s Pelle The Conquerer) has presented a well-meaning, flat film which also feels somewhat unfinished - although there’s not much in here to suggest that a further reworking is merited.

Using the Great Hunger as a backdrop for a revenge western is an interesting way to exorcise old ghosts, but the end result drains pathos from the tragedy while muting The Proposition-style genre elements.

While the film doesn’t quite work as a horror, and can stumble as a character piece, Abrahamson has pulled together a sumptuous production which is more than sufficient to keep viewers engaged throughout.

Loveridge doesn’t seem to trust Maya’s natural significance and strains for the doc about her to achieve UN levels of relevance. Taking her for what she is would have been more than enough.

Perhaps it’s the effort of introducing so many new characters that has sucked out the spontaneity from Deadpool: still, it’s nothing that can’t be sorted for the likely next installments.

Union is capable of powering the film through, valiantly trying to plug the holes the high-concept plot can’t reach. She’s got that big screen charisma, even though, this time, she’s working with small-screen material.

An indulgent 130-minute running time and a plot that wildly over-stretches sees Racer ultimately bounce off the rails.

This film, mostly shot in the UK, is technically suberb. But splitting the pleasures of virtual and reality, Ready Player One never fully satisfies on either front.

Norway’s Roar Uthaug (The Wave) directs it straight up, without even a twist of humour, bouncing Vikander from set piece to set piece with no real attempt at coherent plotting in-between. Yet Vikander is so watchable as the video-game-made-flesh, and the low-fi chase sequences can be so exciting, it’s almost enough. Almost.

The Cured is at its sharpest when drawing acute political parallels. As a zombie film, the shocks are few/

The thin story plays out in a hail of bullets, zombies and action-laden sequences.

Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series is comprised of page-turning, airport-blockbuster Scandi crime potboilers; Alfredson scorches the seventh, The Snowman, with such art-house intensity that it eventually melts into an exhausted puddle.

It’s a long, long road cluttered with clichés and stalled in softness, pot-holed by its self-serving use of Alzheimer’s as a narrative convenience.

Director Juan Carlos Medina (Insensible/Painless) fails to muster Golem’s many moving parts, and tension leaks from the film like the blood from one of its many savaged corpses.

Watching it is akin to witnessing Maggie Smith’s The Van slowly rear-end Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill: a cringing slow-mo car crash best viewed between your hands.

Everything about The Mummy strains solely towards setting up a franchise in a world which only makes sense to its writers.

It’s a long, flat, no-frills journey which struggles to engage despite its many bloody shocks.

Walk With Me is a slip of a film, at turns worthy and profound, yet also soporific and uneventful, an occupational hazard of spending three years embedded in a Zen community, no doubt.

Preposterous, nonsensical, but fun nonetheless, Unbroken frustrates as much as it entertains.

While Schwarzenegger is solid – almost literally, his face like granite and his movements stiff – and McNairy is completely committed in this tragic two-hander, Lester’s film is resolutely one-note.

I, Olga Hepnarova struggles with its difficult central character, always spiky and occasionally psychotic but never really as intriguing as the filmmakers clearly believe.

If the film belongs to anyone, it’s creature designer Carlos Huante. Kong is expressive and impressive, both in hair and full-body movement, and his interaction – with water, humans, other animals – is consistently fluid.

The film is visually arresting, but narratively stale.

If nothing else, Deepwater Horizon makes a case for going back to basics with action films. It’s classically framed, executed, and feels like the real deal, and while it clearly boasts some fine effects work, it manages to lose the cartoonish aspect of so many recent tentpoles.

In its own deja vu way, Bridget Jones Baby is intermittently entertaining, mainly thanks to Zellweger’s performance.

As more information is dispensed - much of it in a rush in the final shots – the strength of Owen’s screenplay becomes clear but the issues it raises are largely left un-examined.

For a film industry determined to open itself to a diversity of voices, this is very much a safe, back-to-basics play for British audiences in need of some reliable comfort food.

For all that it bounces off a lot of contentious issues about children and the internet, where Carrie-style bullying has moved into the unsupervised zone of cyberspace, Nerve frustratingly stops short before eventually falling in on itself in the third act.

Ronde, who clearly identifies with the teenage perspective, has delivered some gorgeous sequences, nonetheless. Formerly a documentarian, his debut could be seen as a delicious experiment, tantalising audiences as to what he might do next. Or it could be dubbed chaotic and indulgent, an awkward misfire.

Neighbors: Sorority Rising turns out to be an uneasy watch, awash with unconvincing performances, unfunny stereotypes, and dubious gross-out gags.

While McGregor and Harris convincingly portray a couple in trouble, and Lewis’s odball spook is an uneasy fit, it is Skarsgard’s dynamic performance which saves the day.

This is an idiosyncratic hop around Fassbinder’s life by his Danish film historian friend Thomsen.