Neil Smith

Assured if not inspired, Legacy keeps the Bourne engine ticking over without reaching top gear. The action's accomplished and Renner's fine. Without Matt Damon, however, it feels like a placeholder.

It’s a step up from the garbled silliness of Wolverine’s first solo outing. Unlike Origins, the storytelling is more sharply focused here, ignited by flashes of stylised superheroism.

Though not as dramatically rich or emotionally compelling as Skyfall, Spectre still ranks as a sleek, pulse-pounding if slightly overlong entertainment.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Pixar’s least essential franchise gets back on track with a polished but disposable threequel.

Tamer than the book and not as funny, this is Salmon filleted. But McGregor and Blunt make fetching lovebirds, while Kristin Scott Thomas is off the scale in a rare comic outing.

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

This classy adap of a much-garlanded stage play will appeal to discerning audiences who can tolerate unpleasant characters with potty mouths if they're played by Oscar winners.

Saluting both America's national pastime and its oldest working icon, Curve is a solid heart-tugger that plays with a straight bat when it comes to plot, character and message.

In a summer hardly starved of comic-book properties, this redundant extension of a series that ran out of gas a decade ago doesn't need a neuralyzer to be forgettable.

Some will balk at Pinto's passivity, but Trishna again shows Winterbottom to be one of the few directors today who are liberated, rather than constricted, by classic literature.

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.

Despite being as garish and manufactured as Perry's multi-coloured hair-don'ts, Part Of Me deserves kudos for allowing an element of unpredictability to intrude upon its tween exploitation and sugary vulgarity.

A solid outing for a re-Bourne hero that could, with a few key tweaks, generate another round of vehicles for the Clancy cash cow.

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

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

The breakout stars of the Despicable Me franchise seize the spotlight in an enjoyably demented off-shoot that is guaranteed to send their young fans bananas.

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.

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.

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.

Washington and Wahlberg are an effective double act in an intermittently exciting thriller with more twists than it needs. We’d love to see them partnered again, though perhaps as characters.

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

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

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