Phil Hoad

Hunt, though, gives an excellent performance in the lead role, agilely running the gamut from deadened admin serf and hipster-bar dating veteran, to infatuated young lover, to abuse victim. She brings emotional suppleness and complexity to what is – despite some flaws – a bold and stylish take on the endless samsara of digital romance.

Too many scenes of sub-vaudeville witchy cavorting suggest Kramer hasn’t completely mastered her own poetic register. But it is bracing to watch her reach for the stylised impact needed to carry her ideas about social identity; exactly the kind of the expressive messiness this wing of the post-#MeToo film industry should be engaging in if the old order isn’t going to reimpose itself.

At 85 minutes, Destroy All Neighbors gets a little indulgent, and the plot, as William finds his creative mojo in the company of his newly acquired ghoulish ensemble, is throwaway. But it’s a gleeful lo-fi rampage all the same.

Both of the leads keep it low-key, with 95-year-old Renaud’s unfussy reminiscences dotted with defiant irony, and the initially unforthcoming Boon opening up under her cajoling as naturally as a flower.

Strangely, given Prieto’s visual acumen, the film is also a bit bland visually, bar a flashy prologue kicked off by the camera sinking into the bowels of the earth. But the story has enough residual power to deliver a dark night of the Mexican soul nonetheless.

Prospective future instalments might want to aim higher than mere competency.

Some of the storytelling gets clotted, leaning too much on the girls shrilly screaming at each other. Bad Things, though, is sharply filmed, with cinematographer Grant Greenberg feng-shuiing the hotel spaces into tone-setting tableaux (with a touch of Twin Peaks’ kitsch).

This hectic fantasia struggles to plumb deeper depths.

Christophe Honoré, now edging into veteran status with his 12th film, once again steps up to the oche of desire and infidelity. But this peppy, flighty and self-involved film – a hybrid of marital drama, chamber piece, erotic farce and crypto-musical – hovers frustratingly outside the bullseye.

Parker clearly has ideas he’s aiming at, but lets his target slip in the fog of war.

Mäkelä is too in bed with his protagonist’s objectives to develop the kind of perspective that might yield richer insights into the life/art trade-off.

Developed by China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate and directed by butt-kicking luminary Donnie Yen, The Prosecutor is a bizarre mashup of courtroom procedural and action flick; it is just as keen on lionising due process and the “shining light” of Chinese justice as it is on reducing civic infrastructure to smithereens in several standout bouts.

Haze is excellent: pacing, weeping, baring his teeth and adding ample unruly emotion to his prison.

Where it initially threatens to be a new The Thing, it finally serves up sloppy zomcom; just about enough for a Friday night but not much else.

A sombre, steadfast argument for art’s life-giving properties.

Despite its somewhat diffuse centre, Collins’ film still has a straightforward poignancy, with subtle and dignified performances across the board.

Castillo’s talent for spiritually attuned atmospherics could be her USP among Chile’s current crop of directors with idiosyncratic slants on their country’s recent past.

While Knight and team duck origin-story slavishness that has dogged so much recent franchise work, they succeed in reviving the playful Saturday-morning-serial spirit of the original 80s Transformers.

Despite possessing unusually detailed context for a thriller, it’s a bit like diplomatic efforts in the region: the same old story.

If Atkinson isn’t quite the Coen inheritor he aspires to be, this hectic flurry of schemers, snatchers and low-lifes puts him three-quarters of the way to inventing a new genre: Texan noir farce.

In the end this is a fundamentally genre-subservient film, staying within the safe lines that absolves it from getting close to the true horrors it hints at.

This docu-portrait verges on corporate promo at times, though there are a couple of telling vignettes in the second half.

Without any real stylisation to shake up Nolan’s inner realities beyond bog-standard techno-realism, this sunken place has no strong signature of its own – and little to add to the African American experience.

Its history assignment comes out pretty jumbled but this breezy YA vampire flick shrugs “whatever” and gets back to nailing the undead.

It gets turgid in its final third but backed by director Gigi Saul Guerrero’s cartoonish punch, Barraza’s cantankerous grimace and hair-trigger rejoinders are a pure pleasure.

If it’s not quite devious enough overall, Redux Redux still opens up a punchy murder-revenge side alley for the genre.

Where it’s lacking in psychological bite, Wardriver’s demi-monde is convincingly venal in general terms. Thomas lends it enough fast-driving attack and romanticised ferment that it might just pass in the darkness for a Michael Mann film.

Belli’s supple direction – reminiscent of Edgar Wright’s pop’n’snap – keeps its energy levels high as it roves around the living room that is its main location; it also exults in the occasional set-piece, such as the players’ Jazzercise routine. There aren’t quite enough of these zany segues, but with a larger budget, you can smell the franchise potential here.