Mark Kermode

It may lack the depth of Eighth Grade or the punch of Booksmart, but it’s still blessed with enough post-punk energy to raise a smile, several chuckles and the occasional fist-punching cheer.

In a film defined by understatement, it’s the little details that matter.

For better or worse, House of Gucci is a little too well behaved to become a cult classic. But Gaga deserves a gong for steering a steely path through the madness – for richer, not poorer; in kitschness and in wealth.

Amid the screenplay platitudes (“The crash is not going to define who you are; how you respond to it will”) and shameless advertising riffs (unabashed spiels about PlayStation democratising motor sports), there’s an intriguing story of alien worlds colliding that somehow seems tailor-made for Blomkamp’s preoccupations.

One for the buffs. [17 Feb 2008, p.3]

After four decades of diminishing returns, the fact that a guy in a mask can still take an entertaining stab at a somewhat jaded audience is oddly reassuring.

Whether Irresistible is the movie we “need” in such testing times is open to debate, with some already accusing Stewart of having gone soft. But as a non-partisan response to the craziness of “this system, the way we elect people” (which is indeed “terrifying and exhausting”), it gets my vote.

The Champions ensemble takes this to the next level, showcasing a host of rising talent, with particular plaudits to Tevlin and Iannucci, both of whom have scene-stealing charisma and note-perfect comic timing to spare.

It’s functionally good-natured rehash fare, bogged down by some watery CG and a few uncomfortable dips into “uncanny valley”, yet buoyed up by Bailey’s winning titular performance.

The result is an A-list B-movie that juggles moments of breath-taking visual splendour with much on-the-nose speechifying about sins of the fathers and eternal isolation, spiced up with some action-packed silliness that entirely undercuts its more po-faced pretensions.

Sporadically goofy fun, a scrappy carnival of ripped limbs, severed heads and spilled intestines, all softened by an only partly parodic family-centred Spielbergian sensibility.

This is a playfully sensuous affair that wonders what happens to slow-burn intimacy when mediated by the urgency of the online world.

It doesn’t help that Dominion spends a good deal of time trying to figure out what story to tell and which genre (or country) to tell it in.

While the changing moods of BlacKkKlansman seemed bold and audacious, the warring elements of Da 5 Bloods appear bolted together rather than alchemically mixed.

Despite a spirited performance from Comer and an impressive roster of supporting turns (including a scene-stealing Harriet Walter as Jean’s withering mother, Nicole), The Last Duel has a tendency to mirror its central battle’s attempts to address complex issues with the blunt tool of rabble-rousing spectacle.

Jumanji: The Next Level keeps things upbeat and lively, thanks in no small part to the introduction of two counterintuitively revivifying characters – curmudgeonly old codgers whose gripes and aches provide a jolly counterpoint to the teen angst that fired Kasdan’s previous instalment.

This is Day’s show all the way, and her performance remains the film’s strongest suit.

Perhaps that is this frothy film’s strength: cherrypicking multiplex-friendly elements from a complex and still largely unknown life in a manner that leaves the audience wanting to know much more.

Disbelief is not so much suspended as detonated.

I think Beau Is Afraid is best described as an amusingly patience-testing shaggy dog story that asks: “What if your mother could hear all those unspeakable things you tell your therapist?” Parts of it are hilarious. Other sections sag. Some will find it insufferable.

Whatever its inconsistencies, The Lost King is an underdog story that proves a perfect vehicle for Hawkins’s reliably winning screen presence.

What we have instead is a succession of variously successful vignettes, only some of which hit that sweet spot between horror and humour, as we watch Arnaud’s life collapse around him.

For all its apparent structural complexities, The Father is not quite as mysterious as its creators would have us believe.

Watching this sporadically sparkling yet weirdly saggy “cover version” of Argento’s biggest international hit, I couldn’t help wishing that someone had been there with the scissors to trim the film of its indulgences – not the violence, but the verbosity.

Mortensen and Seydoux play it deliciously straight, jumping through the well-rehearsed philosophical and physical hoops with elegant ease, conjuring a sense of yearning humanity that saves the production from descending into silliness… just about.

It’s tempting to view Selah and the Spades as a triumph of style over substance, richer in visual promise than thematic rewards. Yet there’s also something thrilling about Poe’s refusal to smooth the odd and potentially alienating edges off this very personal (and ultimately empowering) drama, suggesting a strength of creative purpose that will doubtless pay great dividends.

He may be 80, but Ford carries the weight of the film, which, for all its gargantuan expense, feels a bit like those throwaway serials that first inspired Lucas – fun while it lasts, but wholly forgettable on exit.

Where Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner’s version comes into its own is in the moments where it dares to find its own distinct voice – nowhere more so than in placing Somewhere in the hands of Rita Moreno.