Henry Barnes

Brady Corbet is excellent as thoroughly unlikable Simon.

If only the transitions in and out of the dollops of broad sex comedy weren't such a bumpy ride.

It’s a glorious spectacle, but a slight drama, with few characters and too-rare flashes of humour. It wants to awe us into submission, to concede our insignificance in the face of such grand-scale art. It achieves that with ease. Yet on his way to making an epic, Nolan forgot to let us have fun.

A wide-eyed tribute to human ingenuity that packs enough snark to pull itself out of the black hole of earnestness, even if its fuel runs out partway through.

A macro argument is being filtered through people’s local concerns, but without getting to know the subjects, you can understand their suffering, but can’t feel it.

Duplass and his co-writer, director Alex Lehmann, deliver this strange concoction – an improv bromance mixed with a tragic love story – with delicacy.

There's a degree of puffery in the writing, however, that makes this drama untrustworthy.

The artists’ blathering about the creative process and the nature of existence gets monotonous. It’s the ordinary folk that keep the film on-track.

Foy's talent lies in suggesting horror, not delivering it.

Joe Swanberg's follow-up to Drinking Buddies is short and slight, but undeniably charming.

There are moments when the film aches for focus. This again is down to Galloway. He is, like Blair, charismatic, opportunistic and never entirely consistent. The documentary lives and dies on those strengths and weaknesses.

Amma Asante's second feature tells Dido's extraordinary story in handsome, if formulaic, style.

[Jay Roach] wants the film to be fun, while the story is serious. It’s a good idea and an admirable intention. But it does suffer the odd wobble.

The Raid 2's faults are not in Evans's technique – he's unusually adept at capturing the art of violence. Instead, the film suffers from too much potential.

Even if Predestination is distinctive chiefly for Snook’s excellent performance, it’s still a tricksy story well-handled by its directors. It doesn’t offer any new twists on the genre, but it is clever enough to leave you satisfied that you don’t want the time back.

It's fun to watch Whedon pitch his heroes against each other. Child's play, maybe, but entertaining all the same.

Niccol creates an atmosphere that is airless and dull, an unusual tone for a modern war film, but one that fits the subject matter perfectly.

There's romance and tragedy, but little depth and no nuance.

Gondry's argument – that pack mentality crushes individual expression – follows a similarly predictable route, but there's enough of his signature playfulness (especially in the use of mobile-phone footage to present flashbacks) to keep the journey entertaining.

Where to Invade Next is a romantic film, equally affecting and annoying in its simplicity.

Director Francis Laurence ekes a paltry story out. The special effects are limp and the script a little creaky, although somehow it still manages to thrill.

While some of World War Z is rotten, the whole stands as a punchy, if conventional action thriller.

Jon Cassar’s film rejects the recent revisionism that’s flooded the genre. His take – a straight rip-off of the classics – is weirdly refreshing as a result.

A huge improvement on the muddled melodrama of Labor Day, Men, Women and Children is still a flawed Jason Reitman film. Its scope is too big, his ambitions too high.

A sequel that is slick with silliness, but peppered with enough wit and peril to sustain the franchise’s momentum.

The Place Beyond the Pines is ambitious and epic, perhaps to a fault.

A gooey love story is pitted against the end of the world. No wonder the romance comes up wanting.

Inconsistency is A Perfect Day’s biggest problem. The script is scalpel sharp in some places, flabby as the well-blocker in others.