John Nugent

A touch less fresh than the original, but this is still bursting with energy, emotion, warmth and imagination. It knows the way.  

Though somewhat flawed and less artistically daring than it could be, Charlotte still makes for an emotional, humane viewing experience.

Indy’s final date with destiny has a barmy finale that might divide audiences — but if you join him for the ride, it feels like a fitting goodbye to cinema’s favourite grave-robber.

Wicked: For Good, sure — but not quite Wicked: For Great.

This collection of tired jokes is enough to prompt the question, “What day did the Lord create Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, and couldn’t he have rested on that day too?”

It doesn’t always work, but an unexpected, perfectly pitched bad-guy turn from national treasure Hugh Bonneville makes I Came By just about worth stopping by for.

Army Of The Dead is best when Snyder leans into the fun, and allows himself moments of pure silliness. When he aims for more emotional territory — like the rather trite guilt-to-redemption arc between Scott and his estranged daughter, played capably by Ella Purnell — we start to feel the weight of that running time.

An ingenious, wildly stylish new take on the body-swap movie, this deserves to be a Gen-Z cult classic. 

It’s always nice to see Illumination outside of its Minions comfort zone, but Migration is mostly generic. A bit of a flightless bird.

Its wackier moments sometimes feel like they have more bark than bite, but as an uncommonly honest and authentic depiction of motherhood, Nightbitch will come as sharp relief to mums everywhere.

Despite a fun voice cast, this is a lazy effort that squanders its characters, and will likely bore anyone over the age of ten.

As furiously funny as it is helplessly horny, this lesbian road movie simultaneously feels exactly like a Coen brothers film — and entirely its own thing, too.

Edgar Wright’s biggest film yet feels like something out of both the future and the 1980s: a scathing satire that’s also a lot of fizzy blockbuster fun.

Uneven, immature and a little derivative — but entertaining performances from Olivia Cooke and Alec Baldwin keeps Pixie watchable.

Guy Ritchie’s defiantly ahistorical romp is part derring-do spycraft, part bullet-riddled action, part impish comedy, and all-parts silly.

Michael Bay’s tribute to the emergency services (which involves blowing several of them up) is noisy, messy and frequently absurd — yet still somehow his most gleefully entertaining effort in at least a decade.

This is a film about nothing less than the future of America and the history of mankind. It is brash and bonkers and doesn’t always hang together, but 85-year-old Francis Ford Coppola has rarely been as audacious.

No Martinis in sight, but this is still an extremely watchable look at a unique naming phenomenon — with surprisingly profound results.

Bardo sees director Alejandro González Iñárritu looking at the man in the (hall of) mirrors; the result is visually sensational but sometimes lethally patience-testing.

An old-fashioned, B-movie creature-feature with some CG gloss. Beast is as predictable as anything but it’s a fun, silly, well-made film about a man punching a big cat.

It never scrapes the heights of Jackson’s trilogy — few do — but amid a messy meeting of worlds, there are stirring moments.

An exuberantly bad-taste ode to our poochy pals. Dumb & Dumber, but for dogs.

M3GAN 2.0 is more absurd, self-aware silliness: a riot of timely tech paranoia, with almost no horror but a ton of successful comedy. Slay, queen!

A solid if fairly derivative attempt to steal Disney’s thunder. There’s enough pep and vigour here to keep kids interested, if not quite enough for the grown-ups. 

John Woo’s first American film in 20 years is not the filmmaker at his peak — but it has its moments, with energetically filmed action enough to distract from a melodramatic tone and sometimes silly concept.

Statham is as gruffly convincing as he usually is (though it’s 20 minutes before he’s even allowed to kick any ass), but the action scenes are horribly inconsistent: fine in the hand-to-hand stuff, sloppy elsewhere.

This is not a perfect film, but it handles the important stuff — abuse, trauma and recovery — unexpectedly well. If its reception is anything like the book’s, it will be a powerful vessel for people with similar stories of their own.

Emancipation can’t avoid the well-trodden hallmarks of slavery stories, nor offer a particularly fresh perspective on them. It’s best when it leans into other modes — and when it centres on Will Smith’s outstanding, understated performance.