Neil Smith

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.