Neil Smith

Jared Hess's indie sensibilities help to elevate a video game adaptation that is boosted further by Jack Black's irrepressible star turn. The special effects could be better, as could the female roles. But this remains an entertaining fantasy adventure that makes light work of what might appear to be unpromising source material.

Though closer in quality to Morbius than Venom, Kraven is far from a catastrophe and serves up a decent helping of bloodthirsty, globe-trotting action. Taylor-Johnson makes a muscular if self-satisfied protagonist in a film that would have been better off standing on its own shoeless feet than cravenly (or should that be, 'kravenly') cleaving itself to its comic book brethren.

As impressive as [Berry] is, though, it’s the kids who shine brightest in a drama whose iron hold on the audience’s attention can withstand the odd dip into credulity-stretching implausibility.

A visually striking and inventive overhaul of well-oiled IP that suggests animation was the right path all along. Autobots, roll out!

Tapping into the same rich vein of British folk horror the likes of 2015’s The Witch and 2022’s Enys Men mined so productively, Starve Acre roots its dread in a gloomy past that is mundane, real and tangible.

The Gearbox title gamers loved has spawned a frenetic and disorderly shambles they’re likelier to loathe. Claptrap? You said it.

A serious subject is sensitively handled in a drama that’s otherwise just tear-jerking soap opera.

The horrors, like Cage himself, are largely kept off-screen for much of the movie’s duration. Yet with its eerie soundscape and sepulchral visuals, Longlegs nevertheless succeeds as a deeply disconcerting experience, one that burrows into the brain as insidiously as the innocuous means its villain employs to disseminate his evil.

Long before the film reaches its action-packed, train-based climax, however, adults will be questioning if its three writers have so much as seen an actual Garfield comic strip, given how removed their work feels from its activity-averse inspiration.

Entertaining enough but inessential, Kingdom offers spectacle and thrills but lacks the ambition, smarts, and gravity of its immediate predecessors.

Such is the in-built disposability of this sort of lightweight streaming fodder that those who watch it will probably have forgotten it inside of five minutes.

Snyder’s sci-fi epic stumbles towards the finish line with an underwhelming Part Two that feels more like a Part One-And-A-Half.

Given the short from whence it came ran a mere 12 minutes, there is a definite sense of material being extended beyond its elasticity. Yet it’s a decent vehicle for Ridley that, like last year’s The Marsh King’s Daughter, shows she doesn’t need a galaxy far, far away to demonstrate her star (Wars) power.

It might be too heady a brew for some, especially those whose appreciation of tennis is limited to strawberries and cream. On the acting front, though, it’s a virtual grand slam, Zendaya, Faist, and particularly O’Connor fine-tuning their characters’ 13-year romantic imbroglio into a lusty love match for the ages.

Taken as speculative fantasy, however, Civil War is never less than vividly, chillingly authentic.

Ethan Coen strikes out on his own with a frivolous frolic that wears its slightness like a badge of honour.

Chastain and Sarsgaard make a riveting duo in a film that – like Franco’s Tim Roth double Chronic and Sundown before it – is in no great hurry to elucidate its mysteries.

Capturing Marley’s essence on screen proves an impossible task in a biopic that veers towards hagiography.

Triumph and tragedy form an inseparable tag team in writer/director Sean Durkin’s (Martha Marcy May Marlene) emotional chronicle of the Von Erich clan, a close-knit family of sibling wrestlers whose rise to prominence in 1980s Texas was accompanied by a remorseless, almost Shakespearean succession of setbacks.

A brief cameo from producer Benedict Cumberbatch provides some additional mid-film star wattage. Yet who needs it when you have Comer, a force of nature to rival any city-swamping deluge?

The best bits of Kingdom come when Jules Verne-esque technology like Manta’s Octobots collides with Atlantis’ psychedelic bioluminescence, a colourful contrast that gets to the heart of this watery franchise’s trippy appeal.

Snyder’s passion project risks becoming subsumed by its own self-importance, but delivers bombastic mayhem and grandiose visuals by the bucket-load.

Marvel’s woes won’t be solved by a disjointed mini-Avengers that doesn't make a great deal of sense. But the cats are Flerken great.

A ploddingly predictable, gore-lite yawner.

It’s a straightforward morality story at heart, reminiscent at times of A Bronx Tale and with a sagacious neighbourhood DJ (played, rather fabulously, by ex-footballer Ian Wright) cut from the same cloth as Do the Right Thing’s Mister Señor Love Daddy. Yet it is such a stunningly and meticulously designed film that it continually captivates.

Stanfield, on double duty as both Clarence and his straitlaced disciple twin Thomas, is a charismatic lead in a cast that boasts more than one enjoyable cameo. Yet you can’t help concluding that Samuel’s laudable ambition to give his mischievous comedy a deeper resonance was too heavy a cross to bear.

While the style seems familiar, the material feels fresh: a testament not only to how Nichols lovingly crafts a fictional story around the photos Danny Lyon took for his seminal 1968 book The Bikeriders, but also to the flesh his actors put on the bones of the archetypes who populate it.

The performances keep us engaged.

Domont is too smart to go full Fatal Attraction, largely restricting the violence in the piece to the emotional and the verbal.

Tobin Bell’s comeback may please some, but it’s not a sufficient X-cuse to see Saw resuscitated.

Third time’s the charm for a franchise that’s found its groove, ironically by changing the record.

The Nun 2 feels like an unnecessary sequel to a hoary offshoot that was hardly essential in the first place.

A swearing dog voiced by Jamie Foxx is funny – once. Having set up its ribald premise, however, Strays – an R-rated riposte to such talking-pooch heart-stirrers as 2017’s A Dog’s Purpose, complete with cameos from that film’s stars – has to relentlessly and tiresomely up the ante, plastering the screen with so many peeing, pooping, and humping tail-waggers it feels more like A Dog’s Porno.

While bemoaning how tough life has become in the made-up Palmera City, Jaime’s sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo) remarks that "progress is not for us!" In a genre increasingly subsumed by numbing bombast, Blue Beetle’s abundance of personality might just be progress enough.

Fast, furious and based on fact, this pleasingly lateral adaptation embellishes a console-jockey favourite with familiar sports-movie archetypes.

The first Meg never pretended to be anything more than a shamelessly imitative, big-fish smackdown. Yet even that low bar proves too high for this listless, mechanical follow-up.

At least until its Turning Red-ish plot becomes subsumed by a tiresome showdown finale, there’s a lot to take pleasure from here - not least the invertebrate protagonists’ amusing elasticity, which recalls the madcap fun of Tex Avery’s cartoon classics.

Taste and laughs are in equally slim supply in Jennifer Lawrence’s latest, from which only her fresh-faced co-star emerges untarnished.

Sixteen years on from the Shia LaBeouf original, though, the many brains behind this franchise have still to figure out how to satisfy an audience without leaving it bludgeoned.

With a massive ensemble to play with and new characters to introduce, it’s inevitable that some cast members (Brie Larson’s Agency operative Tess among them) get a little shortchanged. But with Fast XI on the cards for 2025, there’s still time to shine as brightly as John Cena does here as Brian’s genially protective uncle: a retooled part that fits him far better than the nefarious one he took in 2021’s F9.

With writer/director James Gunn off to DC and some of its stars signalling they’re done with their characters, there’s an inevitable air of finality – not to mention contractual obligation – about this third instalment in Marvel’s Guardians series. If anything, though, that’s more a strength than a weakness, all involved being seemingly intent on going out on an emotionally affecting, thematically audacious high.

It’s heartening to find Fox so fearlessly unhumbled by his condition and the mobility problems that come with it. One of the star’s stipulations before consenting to this film was that it would have "no violins". By its end you’ll be happy to give him the whole flipping orchestra.

In Suzume, though, Shinkai goes full Ghibli, peppering his story of a teenage girl (voiced by Nanoka Hara) on a mission with oddball elements that would feel off-puttingly bizarre were they not incorporated so seamlessly within its epic grand design.

There’s no questioning Skarsgård’s commitment to his character’s descent into depravity, while the gifted Goth is fearlessly uninhibited. But just because Infinity Pool looks good on the surface, that doesn’t mean it has hidden depths.

Precision-built to make you chortle, M3GAN is a l0t of 4un. On the fr1ghts front, however, it’s basically a Furby.

The style might cause whiplash, but it’s worth it for the thrilling momentum Chazelle brings to his revisionist filmdom fantasia.

A serviceable translation of a theatrical success whose weaker elements are found wherever it veers too widely from its source.

As terrific as Colman is, however, the film around her has a schematic and engineered quality not too dissimilar from Jones’ prized projectors.

In narrowing his film’s field of activity, director Colin Trevorrow dispiritingly winds up reducing it to the tried, the tested, and the numbingly familiar.

It has an unpredictability that keeps you on your toes and a bitter pathos that gives every laugh (of which there are many) a note of tragic despair.

Guileless performances, understated direction and bucolic Belgian scenery combine to create a quiet gem of a film.

Reichardt and Williams reunite to muted effect to create a portrait of an artist that feels a little unfinished.

At two hours and change Hunt definitely outstays its welcome, while it’s disappointing Lee has room for only two notable female characters. If you are up for some robust, relentless, blood-splattered mayhem, though, it’s well worth hunting down when it makes its way into cinemas.

A master filmmaker mines cinema’s glamorous past in a nostalgic neo-noir you don’t so much watch as surrender to.

An intense and gripping dramatization that, a few liberties apart, does justice to a disturbing true story.

The director of The Square gives a new shape a whirl with hilarious, scathing and sometimes jaw-dropping results.

Atlantic cod and oyster beds provide a pungent backdrop for this effective fillet of atmospheric psychological drama.

Though delightful in places, the third entry in Sony’s third Spider-Man cycle feels both overstocked and underwhelming.

It’s not great Scott, but House Of Gucci still offers a fine excuse to vicariously experience the lifestyles of the rich and shameless.

Chloé Zhao gives the MCU just the kick in the pants it needs at this phase in its evolution.

A lot of thrilling, dazzling, sometimes frightening fun.

Marvel’s Phase Four makes up for lost time with an origin story that richly entertains when it’s not pushing boundaries.

Task Force X has the X factor in James Gunn’s lively, funny, and very bloody improvement on a DC disappointment.

An action vehicle that, in trying to do it all, does a little too much; Johnson and Blunt keep it afloat.

It’s no slam dunk for King James in a reprise that shows you can only spread Space Jam so far.

Damon’s sturdy presence just about holds it together, while Breslin shows some impressive chops as the daughter who is too aware of his failings to see him as her saviour. By the end, though, the still waters McCarthy seeks to navigate don’t run deep so much as dry – a consequence, you suspect, of trying to cram too many genres into one star vehicle.

Better than The Conjuring 2 and most of the Annabelles, this latest entry gives some zip to a stumbling franchise.

A memorable showdown from yesteryear is recalled in an enjoyable yet frustrating film that stubbornly refuses to pick a side.

Like the inscription on her daddy’s sword, the new Mulan is loyal, brave and true… but not quite as funny or dramatic as it might have been.

Do not throw away your shot at watching Hamilton’s original cast both make and recreate history. ‘Satisfied’? You will be.

Devastating and uplifting in equal measure, this emotionally draining film makes good on Shults’ early promise.

A lot of talented people have done their utmost to make Hooper’s vision succeed. Sadly, it doesn’t.

“You did well!” Bening tells Driver. Writer/director Burns deserves the same praise, and more besides.

Driver and Johansson face off to stunning effect in Baumbach’s finest feature to date. So good it hurts.

Jillian Bell goes the distance in an inspirational comedy that’s funny, fresh and feelgood.

Gore and guffaws go hand in weapon-wielding hand in a belated follow-up that struggles to replicate the original’s winning formula.

Maudlin, glum and distinctly cheap-looking, Angel brings the curtain down on a trilogy that should have never got this far.

A well-cast coming-of-age story with a potty mouth, Good Boys certainly has its moments, but is overall pretty small fry, too reliant on recycling the same joke.

It takes more than two Avengers and the director of Fast & Furious 8 to make the MIB hip again.

Reynolds and Pikachu make an inspired combo in a CGI/live-action mash-up that otherwise adheres to a rigidly boilerplate formula.

A little more anger would not have gone amiss in this well-acted but strangely remote slice of Oscar bait

One of the decade’s most accomplished fantasy sagas signs off with a finale that’s exciting, moving and fabulous to look at.

A superlative slice of ’70s social realism.

A spiky, pithy, and unconventional delight.

Wildly inventive, unpredictable, and unhinged, Riley’s genre-bender stands out from the comedy pack.

An all-too-familiar story is told with empathy and vigour in a film arguing for tolerance, activism and change.

The story is predictable, but Simmons’ tighty whities and Delpy’s fish impressions compensate.

A primitive concept (cavemen play football) generates unsophisticated laughs in an animated caper that’s fun but rather second division by Aardman standards.

We’ve seen Stiller do ‘exasperated malcontent’ before, but this remains a perceptive portrait of fortysomething angst.

The shadow of subsequent events looms oppressively large, but Greg Barker’s film still speaks eloquently for diplomacy and selfless public service.

A solid if far-fetched thriller that still entertains, even as it goes off the rails.

An outlandish high concept is a recipe for hope and humour in a film that bears viewing more than once.

The action’s passable and Gillan makes a decent fist of an underwritten character. Otherwise, this Jumanji makeover’s a losing game.

Backdraft clichés notwithstanding, this is a stirring fact-based tribute to public servants putting it on the line.

With it comes admission into a stunning world of majesty and savagery; shame about the overbearing Philip Glass score.

A feel good sequel only marmalade haters could resist.

Tots will enjoy, but there’s no denying the pieces don’t quite click together. Best giant moggy since The Goodies, mind.

Believers will be more interested in what he uncovers than the layman, who will soon identify this ’80s-set adap of Lee Strobel’s book as a tedious sermon that’s preaching to the converted.