Paul Bradshaw

Endlessly silly, and hampered by a lousy script, Fall somehow still manages to be almost unbearably tense – the equivalent of spending two hours watching those stomach-churning YouTube videos of mad freerunners hanging off tall buildings for fun.

Catching Fire delivers on all the promise of Part 1 with a gutsier, tougher, better round of Games.

Like most daydreams, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is funny, sad, weird and corny all at once – and you’ll probably only remember the good bits as soon as it’s finished. But it’s still a lot better than real life.

The script keeps its gloves on but Gyllenhaal gives his all, notching up one of his very best performances.

It’s hard not to be moved by the story, but it’s only a handful of great performances that save it from underwhelming. Steal the book instead.

The film runs out of rail a long time before it stops moving. On the other hand, it’s almost impossible not to enjoy every moment that Pitt is on screen. Stealing the film with whatever he’s given (a water bottle, a bucket hat, an automatic toilet…), he’s clearly having a great time. It’s lucky for us that at least some of it rubs off.

Watching Pine and Newton try and erotically spoon-feed each other bits of bacon while secretly trying to work out if they have to kill each other is more than enough to hang an entire film off. It’s just a shame the rest of the movie isn’t up to scratch.

Never quite sure enough of itself to answer its own questions, this is a fun, sweet and occasionally funny film, but it’s never going to win a battle of the band movies.

Tetris tells a cracking story, but it suffers from The Big Short effect – the thinking that no mildly complicated script is palatable without throwing every gimmick possible at it.

Bristling with good ideas and two great performances, a rushed ending that dips into daftness ends up killing off what could have been a great pitch for an offbeat little TV show that we’re now never going to get to watch.

The 3D is completely redundant and the action sporadic but unexpected gearshifts provide plenty of narrative meat.

The first two Deadpool films were funny and violent and original, but this one shows Marvel’s most gloriously inappropriate superhero at his very best and worst.

There’s plenty to admire in Silverton Siege, but most of it comes from the true story itself, with the film squandering every opportunity it has to make an impact.

Turning an awful true story about a serial killer into an awful true story about the system that let it happen, The Good Nurse is an important lesson for anyone who tries to package Cullen’s crimes too neatly. Better still though, it gives us one of Chastain’s best performances; one of the year’s most believable superheroes.

Choosing quantity over quality, intensity over tension and big-screen thrills over low-fi shocks – this is probably what the zombie apocalypse will actually look like.

There’s creepy dolls, cameras tipped on their side, blasts of white noise and a horny teenage Scooby gang helping Jared Harris’ Oxford prof stir up a poltergeist in the mind of a moody emo girl (Olivia Cooke).

Less about the thousands who died in the Nanking massacre than about how stunning it all looked, Zhang Yimou's epic puts Bale in the midst of a lavish nightmare.

His state of mind goes some way to explaining the something-missing air of his last film, but it inspires to see how deeply he cares about his craft.

Weighed down with daft new characters and an overstretched story, the prehistoric saga is looking a bit old. On the other hand, it still has Scrat –which is all any movie really needs…

It’s predictable, politically incorrect and too long – but a handful of really big chuckles excuse most of the cop-outs. There’s a much edgier film in here somewhere, but this one will definitely do.

It works hard, and the first half hour is textbook creepy, but the oldschool grab-bag of shocks struggles to jolt a dour script to life.

As a comedy creation, David Brent is still a masterwork, and the film works best when the pathos hits as hard as the punchlines. But Life on the Road should probably be the leaving party we all thought had been thrown a few times already.

A sad, gloomy family drama dressed up as horror, Maggie proves that Schwarzenegger can act when he wants to – even if he still looks like he’d rather be blowing shit up.

The Naked Gun isn’t big or clever and that’s just fine – silliness has been missing from comedy cinema for far too long now. It might not smell quite as ripe as the original trilogy but it’s never not wonderful to hear Frank Drebin let ‘er rip on the big screen.

With more whimsy than a Wes Anderson wedding – and a clunky third act that potholes the plot – Jeunet’s American comeback is beautiful, heart-warming and a bit of a mess.

Full of sex without ever being sexy, and twisted into the shape of a thriller without having any actual intrigue or suspense, it still stands up as the kind of adult relationship drama that’s gone out of fashion – just as trashy as it is complex.

Not one for cynics or bedwetters, if you’re after a ripping, roaring, thigh-slapping giant of a fairytale, Bryan Singer’s blockbuster panto will be right up your beanstalk.

Hanks takes to Walt like a pair of cosy slippers, but it’s Thompson who adds layers to a classy but predictable slice of Disney schmaltz.