Phil Hoad

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

The visually overworked Dark Match feels oddly underworked at the same time.

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

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.

It labours for an hour to find its own thematic core, but as the psychological pieces accumulate, the film starts to exert an inexorable pull in its exploration of cognitive dissonance and mental illness.

This is a perfectly accurate board-game adaptation insofar as it’s well-packaged, undemanding fun.

There’s nothing revolutionary here, but the hybrid of old-style battle manga with a more modern oneiric sensibility feels a little different from standard superhero loudhailing.

Barfoot taps into liminal terrors more effectively through the visuals, from the gracefully shot fugue states experienced by stepmother and surrogate son, to a sinewy barrelling nightmare-beast that has apparently escaped from a Chris Cunningham video.

A delirious and oddly agreeable stopover.

The pay-off is a fast-moving, good-looking gallop of Mission: Impossible-style mask play, languorous conniving in courtyards and occasional outbreaks of derring-do that chews up three hours without pausing for quail sandwiches.

Its heartwarming aspect comes framed with real grandeur, and a stark absurdism and tightly wound sentimentality reminiscent at times of Takeshi Kitano.

It’s not quite the full grand cru period drama from the Merchant Ivory vintage, but rather a semi-sparkling biopic.

The cranked-up pitchside action is hilarious, like a live feed from inside Cristiano Ronaldo’s head as he replays his own goals reel. . . Translating football into the battle royale format only goes so far, though.

New Life makes the most of Jessica’s fraught interactions on the road, with spasmodic bursts of bubo-popping horror.

The rangy and trenchant Eckhart does convincingly bring the ruckus in a way that suggests an ageing 007. But if that’s a promising sign for this new phase of his career, he can do better than this dour and charmless parade.

Casas has an undeniable nose for middle-class peccadilloes, but tone is everything.

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.

If George Orwell had had a career stint as a Korean estate agent, this is the kind of story he might have turned out.

The directors and Dastmalchian – high on his own bogus gravitas – have fun with a fresh premise that reminds us that light entertainment is the anteroom of hell.

Matt Vesely’s impressive debut ably stakes out its own territory, not least in the vast distances covered by a single on-screen actor and a handful of vocal performances.

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

This pointless, aimless mission is expedited by the usual logic-slips, like inexplicably letting fanatical SS officers escape when you have them at your mercy.

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.

Building in power and finesse, Danner oversees a very satisfying dialectical dustup.

[A] somewhat bemused memoir-essay about place, cinema and time.

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.

Night of the Hunted may fall a bit short of moral substance, but it certainly holds us in its grip.

With Russia trying to further circumvent the OPCW, this coolly outraged film shows how Washington’s unilateralism has been a gift to even more belligerent parties.