Helen O'Hara

The people of Downton Abbey have never been relatable, but they’re really pushing it this time.

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.

This lacks the sting in the tail of something like the similarly post-War The Others, but it offers a soupy atmosphere of low-level dread and paints a devastating portrait of a vanishing age.

It’s no masterpiece, but this is a promising debut from Boone and a good showcase for his entire cast.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The acting's better than it's ever been, but with the best will in the world, this can't get past the fact that the story's demented.

Objectively ridiculous but mostly fun, this is better than you could have predicted given the title but squarely aimed at a young and undiscerning audience.

While there are fun moments, the whole is an odd mix of grotesquerie and cutesiness.

This is just as unevenly plotted as the original, lacks even the element of surprise, and is not by any reasonable standard “good”. Between gooey and ghoulish, there must be better options.

It’s uneven and doesn’t quite hit the right balance between yuks and yuck, but the charisma of the two stars – particularly Nanjiani – carries it along. A shame to waste Uwais on such a limited role, though.

The setting is glorious and Dormer is on form, but the scares can’t match either.

Credit goes only to its two stars that this is watchable, because the film is a derivative hodge-podge unworthy of their charisma. Just rewatch The Mummy and cut out the middle man.

Union is committed and convincing, but the script apparently never met a cliche it didn't want to adopt wholesale. This offers some thrills and considerable pace, but never enough narrative force.

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.

"The Notebook" may have had us blubbing but since then Nicholas Sparks adaptions have offered thin pickings for cinemagoers. For all Efron's boyish charms, this one could be the most ordinary of the lot.

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.

Both heavy-handed and ham-fisted, this is a self-important morality tale where you can see everyone's uppance coming long before it arrives.

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

These bosses cannot justify either murder or lasting comic memories, fatally compromising a farce that could have been great but ends up merely mediocre.

We know that this cast can produce magic together, and that this director can inject pace into unlikely topics. It’s just this one that seems to have feet of clay.

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.

An awkward mix of realist social drama and Statham actioner, this doesn’t quite convince as either.

There are a few genuine surprises as this goes, but many more predictable twists. When the film engages with the real World War I, it feels pat, a ‘1066 and All That’ trip through the ‘best bits’ of history

Even by the standards of animation, the logic fails here are impressive. But the bigger problem is the lack of charm, focus and original storytelling as the animals suddenly have to save the world instead of just surviving it.

An animation that never drags itself out of mediocrity despite the best efforts of gifted animator Tartakovsky.

Two charming leads don't make up for a comedy that just doesn't quite deliver the laughs it should.

It's just not quite as much fun as it should be, despite Pearce's best efforts and some good chemistry with Grace. Unusually for an action thriller, this could have benefited from being just a little longer.

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.

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.

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 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.

Elba is genuinely great as the tormented Roland, but the film does its best to suffocate him under a mountain of plot-heavy nonsense. Disappointing.

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.

An overqualified adult cast and some fun moments can’t entirely compensate for a defanged protagonist and too-static plot. This fantasy desperately needed a little more magic.

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.

It’s not all bad: no film with this cast could ever fail entirely. Staunton makes you root for Sandra even at her worst, and Imrie offers an impish, joyous counterbalance to her pursed-lip disapproval.

The inconsistencies in tone - is it an Anchorman-style farce or something more serious? - distract from likeable turns from the leads.

Messier and heavier than Days Of Future Past, this is not so much the next step in the X-Men’s evolution as a failed callback to past glories.

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.

Perhaps no more absurd than the Verhoeven version, but certainly less amusing. Farrell and Beckinsale emerge unscathed, but the endless scrabbling for novelty and reinvention leaves this feeling unaccountably stale and familiar.

A tired retread of better jokes in the first two movies, this drags along to an admittedly heartwarming conclusion. But it’s a good thing this caps the trilogy because it’s coasting on fumes.

A defanged variation on the theme that doesn't commit hard enough to be silly fun, beyond a few chuckles.

It admirably avoids many of the pitfalls of adapting this book, but seems to have lost some of the life and pace as well.

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.

Had this adaptation of the young adult fantasy-romance taken a few more liberties, it might have been a home run.

If even a tenth of the care and attention lavished on the production design and action sequences had been afforded the script, this could have been an adventure of legendary proportions. As it is, this fizzles whenever anyone opens their mouths.

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.

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 well designed and shot, but in service of a story that never coalesces into something intelligent or compelling.

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 just a waste. The premise is ripe for absurdity and the talented supporting cast have interesting quirks that might have livened things up if Shepard ever gave them the chance. Instead, aside from a few surprisingly gory moments, this makes the original show look good.

Apparently unable to decide whether to take its own mythology seriously or not, this is a mess of sculpted cheekbones and incoherent romance.

Like "Ghost Rider: Low Voltage," this is a surprisingly underpowered excursion into Marvel's mad world by Neveldine and Taylor. More purgatory than hellfire.

It’s not the worst of the trilogy, but this is less for fans of thrillers and more for people who are pining after last year’s holiday to Florence.

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 by no means good, but there are moments of effective emotion and comedy that make up for some of the dumber jokes, and sheer charisma largely carries it along.

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.

Loud, silly and tired. Aside from an almost-fun Jackie Chan cameo, this is enough to give anyone a severe nut allergy.

The pristine setting never meshes with Jones’s efforts to give emotional reality to his army of characters, who cannot escape their tropes: leader, hero, warrior woman, mystic.

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.

Everyone’s trying hard, but they can’t quite live up to the particularly gentle, warm tone of Pooh himself. Unlike the bear of very little brain, this is a film pulled in different directions with entirely too many thoughts in its head.

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.

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. 

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.

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

Ben Barnes as a Colombian? Really?

For a long stretch of the second act the film feels like doing a long stretch, but Schwarzenegger’s having a ball as Stallone goes through the motions.

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

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.

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.

It may occasionally shock a laugh from you, but between those moments your face will be a rictus of horror.

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