Olly Richards

A sturdy by-the-numbers legal drama that really belongs on the small screen.

Kosinski has again built a fantasy world that feels real to its core, but once more put most effort into the scenery and too little into the people.

Neither good nor bad. Scales dizzying new heights of okay. Aims for mediocrity... and nails it.

Judged against previous form, this is not Pixar firing on all cylinders, lacking the sophisticated comedy we've come to expect. Judged against fare from other studios, however, it's a triumph.

If it were any more manic you’d have to put it on Ritalin.

All involved have done a solid job in executing what most fans likely want from a very belated Beverly Hills Cop sequel. This is not an action movie with the slickness or invention to take on any current blockbuster franchise. It’s cheerfully old-fashioned and easy. It feels like you should be popping open a VHS case to watch it.

A retrograde fantasy with the depth of a dressing-up box, but it’s spirited, genuinely funny and played to the hilt by an excellent cast.

Strong subject matter and a superb cast are treated disappointingly with sledgehammer subtlety.

A small, strangely sweet tale well told. But this is all about Mol, who puts in a performance that gives her a very early lead on next year's Oscar race.

Macdonald's film is a noble stab at bringing Meg Rosoff's YA novel to the screen, which sees Ronan in typically watchable form.

Efron gambles with his image, but he knows when to up the star power. It’s perhaps fitting that the film falls flat when he, playing a killer who loved the spotlight, leaves the screen.

With a 105-minute running time, making it practically a short in the MCU, it has just enough good stuff that it doesn’t outstay its welcome. But the intricate plotting that was once a Marvel selling point is now becoming a millstone around its muscular neck, keeping newcomers out instead of welcoming them in.

A much bolder, braver horror sequel than most. Except for a wispy ending, it’s a match for the first.

It’s not one of this summer’s strongest entries, but it’s fun to spend 90 minutes in this dog-eat-dick world.

A well told, beautifully acted drama that offers nothing new but a comforting level of familiarity and cosiness.

Well above the standards of your average romantic comedy, it's funny, sexy and smart. It's just not smart enough to stick to its guns to the end.

Like every one of its songs, it makes a lot of noise about nothing much and cockily straddles awfulness and greatness. It's enormously entertaining nonsense.

If you enjoy Gondry’s brand of homemade art direction then there’s plenty to delight early on, but it’s all wallpaper.

Like Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody is three parts good but not terribly exciting, and one part absolute joyful, fabulous entertainment that makes you forget everything else around it.

A delightful premise never fully comes to life in this sweet romcom, which is a real shame because it gets off to such a strong start.

The usually distinctive filmmaker – Black Swan, The Wrestler, Mother! – is in unflashy form for this solid, starry but not very memorable thriller about one man’s very bad night.

It’s lifted by some very convincing performances.

The storyline delicately tiptoes along the line of good taste and is embroidered by a first-rate cast. Still, a knockout moment is missing.

It’s a film to see for the performances, which are faultless, but while it’s sometimes riveting this play has been awkwardly translated to screen.

There’s not a lot of consequence to this bizarre meeting, or really the film, but as a character study of two men alone at the top, it’s both very funny and quietly astute.

The cast is strong and the first act has an intriguingly dreamy quality, but it gives way to a soggy ending.

It’s a promising idea that starts well, and although it starts to flounder by the end, Kunis and McKinnon do sterling work making sure it never completely runs out of energy.

It suffers from ADD, but there's some terrific stuff in here. Leaving 15 minutes from the end and saving yourself a lumbering coda may improve enjoyment.

The Ocean’s Eleven: The College Years mood makes for a breezy good time, even if there is, like Vegas, precious little substance beneath the glitz.

A sequel that feels less necessary than willed into being, but that doesn’t mean it’s not pleasantly entertaining. There are more fluffy animals than in the first movie, more set-pieces and about the same number of laughs.

A solid adaptation, even if its camp exuberance is a bit muted on the screen. It’s unlikely everybody will be talking about it, but its positivity is infectious.

Vaughn gets a lot of points for imagination, but then quite a lot taken away for not knowing when to stop. A blast at times, The King’s Man could have sacrificed a fair chunk of plot for a bit more comedy.

It’s almost churlish to complain that some of the carnage is too basically carnage-y, but at 169 minutes there’s a lot of it to sit through. That running time might test the casual fan, but for Wick devotees this character’s battle through assassin hell will be close to action-movie heaven.

A lean, atmospheric and acutely creepy little horror pic - nothing more, nothing less.

It’s essentially, y’know, for kids, but the dedicated fairy tale fan will have tons of fun spotting all the references. Adams, meanwhile, gives one of the comedy performances of the year.

If there's a criticism to be made, it's that the script doesn't push itself far enough with the moments in which it excels.

A cheerful comedy-drama with charm to spare.

If it’s surprisingly sweet-sounding subject matter for Albert Hughes’ first solo film, he treats it with respectful seriousness. It’s a family movie but one unafraid to show some very sharp teeth.

It's not on a gasp-inducing making-the-Statue-Of-Liberty-disappear level, but with its opulent presentation and confident storytelling, The Illusionist has the power to keep an audience rapt like a good old-fashioned card trick.

It’s extremely antic for the most part, covering a lack of real story with a lot of distracting quirk. Yet when Petit’s foot slips out onto a wire thousands of metres from the ground, it’s quietly mesmerising.

Structurally it’s a bit ragtag, but, as your mum would say, it has its heart in the right place. For all its wilful oddness it’s enchanting, imaginative and genuinely moving.

Given the work lavished on every detail of the glorious backdrop, it’s a pity that the story happening in front of it is so familiar and safe.

This is actually a very middle-of-the-road movie.

Sure, the final act is the sort of monster battle we’ve seen countless times, but Shazam! Fury of the Gods never loses the energy and easy laughs that makes this second-tier hero far more fun than a lot of his more famous colleagues.

Farty, burpy, fall-y over fun tied to a pretty inconsequential plot. Your kids will explode with joy.

Despite a second act lull, Connolly convinces in this cute and charming comedy.

A by-the-numbers biography, this sheds little new light on an icon but features a soaring performance from Kingsley Ben-Adir.

Since the adorable, simple Garden State, Braff’s ambitions as a filmmaker have grown. He’s reaching for answers to really big questions, but they are, just slightly, beyond his grasp.

Lovely to look at and with some fun material not of Seuss' invention, but it's too hectoring, like reading an environmental textbook with jolly pictures.

Strong performances and direction make the most of a lightweight tale.

As a perfectly serviceable horror movie, it at least gets the Exorcist franchise back into respectable territory, but there was the potential for something much better.

It starts off very sprightly and witty and maintains a high giggle-count throughout.

A likeable comedy that uses its greatest asset, its talented, funny cast, to good effect.

It’s impossible to overstate how much this film owes to Ryan Reynolds. Even if you don’t understand Pikachu’s world, everyone can understand a great joke superbly delivered.

There's more here for the under-tens than over-, but it's still charming, amusing and energetic enough to win you over.

The first film was so middle-of-the-road that most have probably forgotten it existed. Its sequel creates a more lasting impression, with vibrant animation and a wackadoodle sense of humour.

Like its slack-jawed clones, The Island is full of energy and incredibly pretty but burdened with only the minimum of smarts.

Bertrand Bonello’s sci-fi epic-cum-period-romance-cum-stalker-thriller is absolutely teeming with ideas. That they don’t all come together in an entirely convincing way doesn’t spoil the overall effect of something thought-provoking, very handsomely made, and appealingly weird.

It may share a narrator with "March Of The Penguins" but this short documentary is happily more sturdily scientific.

A step back from the last film in terms of ambition, this nevertheless continues the series’ chirpy, amiable mood. Nothing to be po-faced about here.

The horror-lite element gives it a boost, with Branagh’s direction conjuring up a few jumps, but this gently entertaining mystery could have used far more scares. If he’d gone the full leering Hammer Horror, rather than tastefully occult, this could have been a scream.

The animals are cute and Gleeson is extremely game. What keeps Peter from Paddington-style delight is a self-conscious need to distance itself from its source material.

This is everything you might expect of a Baz Luhrmann biopic. It’s brash, loud, maximalist, and certainly never boring, but also keeps its subject at a distance, enthralled by his glamour not his soul.

Like the Minions, this instalment is barely distinguishable from any of the others, but it’s easy to be won over by its nutty joy and enthusiasm.

In stripping Jack Ryan back to basics it’s lost some sophistication, but reinvigorated an action hero who’s unlike any other on offer and who absolutely earns his second — or rather fourth — shot.

Eastwood’s message that no good deed goes unpunished feels misplaced, but for the crash sequences and Hanks’ turn it’s worthwhile. But for goodness’ sake, don’t watch it on a plane.

While lacking the richness of its source material, it remains an enjoyable, immoral and sometimes beautifully Gothic tale.

A dream cast are on good form in a film that makes you want to call your siblings, but very glad you don’t live with them.

Its brainless brawn is again pretty entertaining, until the credits roll and you can instantly forget the whole thing.

The gleefully Gothic fingerprints of Guillermo del Toro are all over this zippy excursion into Mexico's myths and legends, although the gag-count falls quite a lot short of Pixar greatness.

A movie that while thin and silly, moves with such joyous speed that you almost want to throw your arms in the air and scream.

Highly likeable, pleasantly unpretentious and plenty amusing.

Filmically it's more of a pleasantly diverting kick about in the park than a 90th minute back-of-the-net at the world cup final.

The film is at its best when it’s sitting just with them, not doing much, not trying too hard to be eccentric; just shooting the breeze and being cheerfully weird.

High in gloss if not necessary insight, this is manna for fashion fans but a marginally slighter piece of work than The September Issue.

This is far from the disaster that was predicted. It’s cute and cheerful, but its efforts to make Snow White both respectful to the original and relevant to a new audience leave it stranded in some smudgy grey areas.

The jokes are strong and delivered by a very talented cast, but the heart isn’t there. It’s easy to laugh, but hard to care.

This is a gentler, less confrontational Solondz. It makes you laugh, but probably won’t leave you reeling after. Some fans of his might consider that a disappointment, others might find it a relief.

Okay, so it's not exactly a groundbreaking advance from the team behind "Ice Age," but with its kaleidoscope of colour and heaps of humour, you'll be charmed.

If you can make it through the bland schmaltz of the first half you'll be rewarded with a spectacular blast of sustained action and the promise of even better to come. This could be the start of something great.

Ror all its cleverness, Emily Rose does have its hokey moments.

Positioned as a tense political thriller, Jewison's film is high on the (somewhat confusing) politics but falls a little short on the thrills.

Ridiculous, of course, but not as ridiculous as it might have been. As much fun as it has with the idea of animals stomping cities to rubble, it seems shy of going completely over the top, and it’s the poorer for it.

If you’ve asked yourself why on earth there needs to be a movie about Troll dolls, this doesn’t really provide a strong answer, yet for all its awkwardness and fluff-brained logic, its enthusiasm is infectious.

Surprisingly watchable, at least by recent Vince Vaughn standards, with Chris Pratt stealing the show was the hilariously gormless lawyer.

It's always trying to do something unusual. It has a great lead in Pegg. What it doesn't have is an ending or a clear reason what it wants to be.

A few big laughs but weakly drawn characters mean a film that is enjoyable enough in the moment but then quickly forgotten.

It’s fun to take another turn with Derek and Hansel, but they probably don’t have another season in them.

There’s still plenty here to make you shiver, but in letting events out of the basement this sequel has also released much of the tension.

The young cast, which resembles a collection of Gerald Scarfe illustrations, acquits itself reasonably well, but is too ordinary to be heroic. And, once action is introduced into the mix, Barry Levinson'’s direction falters.

A Hitchcockian Poltergeist meets Single White Female, it's exactly as confused as that sounds, but just as intriguing. Stewart shows she’s now one of the most interesting actresses of her generation.

An ambitious documentary on one of the most intriguing, frightening phenomena of our time. The attempt to cover every aspect of a broad topic results in an intriguing if slightly disjointed watch.

A sequel nobody needed, and very few demanded, but one that is nice to have anyway. Very daft and very childish and mostly very funny.

There are almost endless holes you could pick in its logic and storytelling, but it gives you few reasons to want to. This Friday’s freakier, but it’s kind of… funner too.

Zosia Mamet is the major selling point here. In a film that’s lovely but unlikely to prove memorable, she shows she can carry a film with immense charm.

It’s Liman’s least charismatic action movie and the least developed, but it still packs some cracking action into its brief running time and lays foundations on which a great franchise could be built.

It might have worked better if it took itself a little less seriously.