Helen O'Hara

The film’s final moments mix compassion and vengeance to create something genuinely surprising, and if Cronin ultimately pulls a few punches in his body count, chances are you’ll be too traumatised by all the gore to notice.

It’s a light diversion rather than a symphonic masterpiece, but it’s still pleasantly in-tune entertainment.

The moments of fan service might keep the hardcore happy, but for everyone else over the age of five it’s just a succession of loud, bright things happening without any real point.

Blood-drenched and gore-splattered, anchored by a hard-as-nails performance by Beetz, this is a thinly plotted but immensely fun horrorfest. Best watched with a strong stomach.

Its magical denizens too often look and feel like out-of-season pantomime characters, but there’s just enough heart and humour to make this enchanting.

It’s easy on the eye, and indeed the brain, but this is nowhere near as sharply written or plotted as it should be to bring these characters to life.

This starts strong but doesn’t always have the room to explore all the ideas it crams in, even with a lengthy running time. Still, Rockwell’s man-on-a-mission is a delight.

It’s beautifully designed and pleasantly quirky, with fun performances from the cast, yet the arch narrative style and structure can make the whole feel thin and unsatisfying.

It’s another spin on the usual Statham actioner, solidly performed but with a ridiculous plot and – even by the standards of the genre – a predictable outcome. Less gimme shelter, more gimme a break.

Gnarly, gross and delightfully unconventional, this is exactly the kind of Sam Raimi film his fans have been waiting for, carried by a committed, no-holds-barred Rachel McAdams performance.

It has aspirations to be RoboCop but this feels more like autopilot. Pratt is committed and the plotting is sometimes effective, but Rebecca Ferguson’s non-Dredd-ful judge is the only good reason to watch it.

It’s relentless and exhausting for adults, but kids and die-hard SpongeBob fans may find something to love here as the consistently cheery fry cook once again out-dimwits a dastardly foe.

A strong directorial debut from Winslet with — as you’d expect — stellar performances from her cast. It might be the perfect antidote to other, overly saccharine Christmas films.

The plot is predictable and the look unmemorable, but Johansson has nevertheless crafted a pleasingly old-fashioned character piece with just enough bite to balance its emotion.

It loses sight of its own heroes amid the hustle and bustle of its wildly entertaining environment, but Zootropolis is still a blast to visit for a couple of hours.

Finnish him! Gore-soaked and unbelievably bloody, this will make you wince, gasp and cheer for the little guy. Another authoritarian regime is in for a bad day, and that’s a lovely thing to watch.

Although the quips aren’t always sharp enough and the sleight of hand a little lacking, it takes a hard heart not to cheer as a few young victims of a broken system carve out their own little bit of magic.

A crime thriller with no interest in thrills and not much in crime, this is an at times frustrating character study of a guy who can’t get out of his own way.

It’s not as scary or as effective as the first film, but points for the performances, and for trying hard to do something different and fresh.

The fire scenes are terrifying and may well sear themselves into your brain, but however well-intentioned, the human element is less involving than the disaster they must endure.

There are colourful characters and cool moments to keep you entertained on the road to nowhere, but they can’t disguise the fact that this is a shaggy-dog story with no real point.

A fun blend of scares and sentiment, this largely justifies a lengthy run time with effective frights and a valedictory feel. Just don’t watch it before trying to clear out the attic.

It’s not the toothless remake we feared, and is often very funny, but there’s a slight imbalance between the Roses that blunts some of its effect.

Denzel Washington’s unshakeable gravitas anchors a dazzling, jazzy riff on the crime drama that somehow feels wildly uplifting for all its grit.

It’s clearly made with real love and care, but shows far too much deference to its progenitor. Even in a remake, we need more originality and less playing the hits.

Some fun intergenerational warfare, clever genre nods and a generally sharp script enliven what could have been a bog-standard slasher movie.

Happily, it emerges at last with enough inventive action to stand alongside its murderous predecessors, and makes Ana de Armas into a likeable assassin hero – a phrase that makes more sense in her killer-filled world than our own.

This attempts to unite period drama and demonic possession, but feels tired and overworked on both counts.

Fleischer Camp brings a light touch and a good human cast to this reverently faithful effort, but it’s never as clear and bright as its source material.

Even the slightest wisp of critical thought will bring the house-of-cards plot tumbling down, but avoid thinking too much and it’s a frothy, sun-drenched bit of fun.

If you do pick up a penguin, you could do worse than experience Michell’s kind of spiritual and moral awakening. Still, the film is thankfully sharper and less cute than it initially appears.

An idiosyncratic, thematically dense twist on the vampire myth that’s oddly paced but beautifully played. One to sink your teeth into.

It's well performed, and Collet-Serra knows his way around a beautifully timed scare, but what's most haunting is the sense that the same idea has been done better before.

A curiously bloodless account of a real-life disaster that has moments of gripping tension punctuating long stretches of fatally understated business as usual.

It’s at its best when it’s an old-fashioned song-and-dance princess story, with Zegler and Gadot broad but effective, and at its worst in any scene involving the digital dwarves.

It’s occasionally funny, but the moments of sincerity are undermined by the unformed sense of grievance and bitterness at the whole wide world.

Maybe art does demand something profound of us all, but here the big, interesting ideas have been chipped away in favour of subpar scares, leaving this film’s own cult appeal looking rather limited.

It's all very, very silly. That, combined with the relentless pace, should ensure that it delights its target audience of under-tens, but the adults shouldn’t fear this dog’s bark too much.

Like Mickey himself, it’s goofy and a little inconsistent, but it’s also funny, thoughtful and more plausible than we might like. A charming space oddity for these unusual times.

Deeply misconceived and steadily unfunny, this feels longer than its running time. A few moments of emotional honesty between mothers are the only bits worth watching, but they're too scant to save this mess.

Pacy and punchy, this is a promising first official outing for the new Captain America, even if some awkward and inconsistent moments hold it back from greatness.

This old-fashioned tale of folk heroism and hardy underdogs benefits from solid performances and spectacular vistas, but it loses points for a sequel-baiting ending. 

It feels real, and honest, in a way that too few romantic films manage.

The stories are all individually charming, but overly familiar animation and underwhelming character-design blunt the effect. 

Chu amps up the colour and spectacle to extraordinary, almost overwhelming heights, but the real magic comes from Erivo and Grande as the frenemies at the story’s heart. 

With so-so performances and an immensely dumb conceit, this is snow Christmas classic. Still, it’s less naughty, more ice than we might have expected. 

A deliberate film that uses small moments to examine one of the great questions of our time: how good people let bad things happen, and how we might push back against the dark.  

There’s a little bit of heart here, in the story of two people who have lost faith in Christmas for very different reasons, but more often this feels engineered in a lab to provide seasonal spectacle.

It’s delightful to see these characters again, particularly the long-suffering Gromit, and if the jokes don’t come quite as thick and fast as before, the beating heart beneath the clay remains intact.

As with many high-concept horrors, it falls apart as it grasps for an ending, but there's still enough dread, and three great central performances, to just about carry it through.

Smart, and sharp enough to balance the sweetness of its simple yet profound message. All we have is time, and this film reminds us, movingly, that it matters how we spend it.

It’s consistently pretty entertaining, even if it takes a while to get going.

McKellen has fun as the bitter, biting Erskine, but the plot takes so long to come together that at times he’s the only thing holding the audience’s interest.

Brimming with compassion and punctuated by humour, this is a moving look at prison and prisoners. It’s both infuriating and inspirational to see so much beauty in such a harsh environment.

Savage directs with a light hand, and sometimes you wish for a little more shape to the baggier scenes.

An awkward mix of gross-out comedy and big emotional sincerity, which may be authentic to the experience of pregnancy but feels clumsily balanced between these two characters.

It’s well-intentioned and manages some nicely judged messaging by the end, but Harold’s mugging and his animal companions’ antics aren’t nearly as cute as the film thinks they are.

It’s not the fault of either star, but the half-baked script makes this an unsatisfyingly thin exploration of the weighty themes it seeks to cover. More intellectual cut-and-thrust and fewer flashbacks would have helped.

It's fine for an epic to sprawl, but you want a sense of purpose at the same time, and this one sometimes loses its way. Still, it’s handsomely shot and well performed, a throwback to the glory days of event-movie horse operas.

It’s long and sometimes gets swept astray by currents of family drama and period detail, but Ridley’s plucky determination and can-do energy carries the whole thing along. The result is an old-fashioned inspirational pleasure.

Lopez throws everything at this, but even major movie-star charisma can’t make up for the recycled story elements, tired exposition and endless psycho-babble. Maybe the machines can take over and do better.

It's less action-heavy than the last trilogy and inevitably more ape-centric, but this is a promisingly chewy start for the latest series of simian thrillers. These apes are still strong.

The performances are solid and the story is touching — and perhaps that will carry this to its chosen audience. But it's a little flat for true drama.

Tense and occasionally disturbing, but somehow you’re left with the nagging suspicion that what should have been a meaty psychological drama has been turned into a slightly insipid thriller instead.

With a cast this talented there will always be decent moments, but they never cohere. Credit for its casting and design, but it’s not the movie messiah, just a very disappointing mess.

A beautiful, subdued Daisy Ridley performance anchors a story that is underplayed to the point of almost non-existence. Still, if you’re tired of blockbuster bombast, this could be the antidote.

Eva Green’s full range of skills have rarely been so thoroughly showcased.

A smart, original approach makes this much more than just another Exorcist wannabe. You’ll sense that there are horrors coming, but you still won’t quite feel ready.

This sequel brings everything back to the original film – even recycling some of the same jokes. But they’re a pale echo of its greatness in an overly stuffed and only occasionally fun spectral adventure.

Who needs humans? This is visual storytelling at its finest, a traditional animation of gentle, unshowy genius. Sometimes the very best love stories go deeper than words can say.

The two gifted comedic actresses give their characters depth while also finding moments of lightness that stop the drama from ever bringing the pace down too much. It makes for a wickedly funny spin on the safe old British period drama.

It’s unexceptionally filmed and occasionally clunky, but this is a gently heart-warming underdog story, and Turner shows real star-power in the lead role.

The set-up is not as elegant as that of the first film, so this feels more forced and the humour more familiar. Still, the performances are winning and the setting appropriately seasonal, so it might do for the holidays.

It might not have the overwhelming impact of an Endgame or even a Guardians 3, but this is the MCU back on fast, funny form.

Creepy rather than scary, and more a ghost story than a monster movie, this has a good heart but feels a little toothless for something with so many killer robots.

It’s annoying and one-note and so relentless in its cheeriness that it eventually comes to seem almost likeable. At least there are great voice performances underneath all the felt and pop mash-ups.

A nuanced and intelligent legal drama that neatly combines big characters and big ideas. By focusing on wider issues of race and injustice, Betts finds continuing resonance in a case nearly 30 years old.

The blood and gore is all present and correct, but the focus on Kramer's vulnerability and human side sits at odds with his awful judgmentalism. Let monsters be monsters.

Rather than a simple story of underdogs vs The Man, director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) has made a complicated, sometimes funny story that is not a comedy, and sometimes feels like a horror.

A sportsman biopic that concentrates more on the man than the sport, this offers food for thought for those who can stand the languorous pace.

It may be too tame for horror fans, but the gothic twist works remarkably well — even if everything else is business as usual for the Belgian detective.

As action-packed as a holiday nap on a hot afternoon, this is a must-see only for Portakalos die-hards. Still, Vardalos’ sheer affection for the characters means it has a warmth that sustains it through weak jokes.

It is entirely predictable from moment to moment and frequently laughable in its portrayal of international relations and politics, but it’s also funnier than it needed to be, and, thanks chiefly to Zakhar Perez, often charming.

Franchise fans will enjoy seeing the Lamberts again, but newcomers will be baffled by the under-developed story and nonplussed by the over-familiar scares.

Beautifully designed and voiced, this has a solid message at its heart. But it’s a well-told tale that’s suffers from being too well-trodden already.

It’s far from a complete biography, but it makes at least some effort to engage with the messier aspects of Lee’s life. Ultimately, however, this is a celebration of Lee and the cheerleading he did for comics, and that is surprisingly moving.

Hargrave, a stuntman turned director, knows where to put his camera for maximum impact, and genuinely disturbing foley work showcases sounds of crunching bones and splattering blood. You feel every punch land.

Another ‘live-action’ remake that’s darker and less compelling than the animated original, but it’s saved by Bailey’s charming performance, McCarthy’s sass and the story’s own eternal magic.

This is silly and sentimental, but it’s also basically well-meaning and inoffensive. Best watched after quite a few grappas, or with your sprightly grandmother.

Thanks to some judicious plot tweaks and a full-bodied commitment to action, director Martin Bourboulon (Eiffel) has succeeded in making the best Alexandre Dumas adaptation in decades.

A return to form for the MCU and for the Guardians, this is tear-jerking and heart-warming in equal measure, keeping its characters in focus despite all the chaos and colour swirling around them.

If you’re going to take a hugely familiar premise and rely on easy star chemistry to sell it, you really need the right stars in the right roles and a killer script for all the killing. Sadly this ain’t quite it.

The long and devastating fallout from a senseless act of violence affects almost everyone in this compelling reality-inspired account, which lingers in the mind in a way that few crime stories do.

A so-so animated adventure that can’t ever find a compelling story to tell despite a few catchy songs and some colourful design. Maybe some dead things should stay buried.

It’s bleak and understated, but strong performances and a thorny moral maze give this considerable power despite the gloomy skies.

Revelling in its own ridiculousness but finding an emotional core too, this is a wildly entertaining high-fantasy-meets-low comedy. It will leave you prancing your way out of the cinema, lute or no.

Unfortunately, writer-director Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s has made just another sadistic slasher movie, notably only for its inexpressive animal masks.

A likeable cast and colourful depiction of Pakistani (and Pakistani-British) culture makes this look warm and inviting, but the central romance can’t hold our attention as it should.