Phil Hoad

This is the cinematic equivalent of the stopped clock telling the right time twice a day: a film full of stylistic overkill suddenly runs into the material that justifies it.

It has a stubborn, almost literary feel for character that accumulates a baleful momentum by the time the finale hits.

Restricted to short line readings presumably because of his well-publicised health difficulties, Bruce Willis is not exactly in fighting shape here. But Corrective Measures is still a bracing combination of super-schlock and social commentary.

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.

Tradition of course demands that the pert teen sacrifices in such gore fodder be satisfyingly dislikable. It isn’t easy, though, to make stupidity interesting, and Shark Bait is always one-note in its exploitation of its characters.

For a film that aims to promote religious diversity and freedom of thought, its metronomic alternation between time frames, narrative slavishness and laughable coda have a suffocating sense of orthodoxy.

It’s a shame that, as it ramps up, this generational tension isn’t dramatised with the sharpness it might have been.

A halo of kinship, love and the tenacious power of art is gathered around this film.

Charli XCX’s drive and heart are infectious, even for non-Angels.

It’s a quizzical time capsule of pre-internet fame from the perspective of a troubled but capable young man who knew his way around a camera.

It’s hard to deny Fuhrman’s pinch-faced vehemence and the film’s hallucinatory verve.

Right down to its blaspheming finale, The Exorcism of God burns with a subversive desire to rip back the veil on the church’s earthly corruption – but the iconoclasm is somewhat undermined by the daft horror mechanics Venezuelan director Alejandro Hildalgo props it up with.

Narrating the film with occasional gonzo outbursts (“We were so fucking stupid”), Krichevskaya is perhaps over-infatuated with her subject, but then Sindeeva seems like quite a character.

Patric’s inscrutable performance recedes intriguingly while Elwes over-reaches, suggesting a man locked in internal combat.

It is an endearing sports film with just enough awareness of where it stands, now that Britain’s imperial legacy is being questioned more than ever, on a larger field.

There is a certain Cartesian buzz to be had from Sensation if you abandon all hope of following the plot, and let it wash over you. But that won’t help when it tries to land a final twist that is supposed to bend minds, but is more likely to exhaust patience.

Dolph Lundgren and Scott Adkins make a fine odd couple in this meatily satisfying action film – once it gets moving.

Becoming Cousteau is no hagiography, but greater distance might have also allowed Garbus to reflect more on the man’s environmental legacy.

Amid the current explosion of affirmative diversity-driven film-making, there is a kind of strength in such a self-excoriating and uncompromising point of view. Corbine Jr is one to watch.

This dense but witty film is never caught short for a flourish.

Night Drive doesn’t quite have enough time left to build on sharp interlocking performances by Dalah and Bowen and give their characters the full noir shadings the suitcase coaxes out of them. But it’s still an intriguing alternative routeing for LA night-owl cinema.

Even in terms of its attempted emotional cross-section of the pandemic, Convergence spreads its net too wide.

Madres never loses a strong underpinning of social conscience that seeps into director Ryan Zaragoza’s considered shots.

Director Axelle Carolyn maintains a pleasingly teasing rhythm so it’s a pity that, as the sprightly nursing-home gothic fun winds up, it descends into Scooby Dooish over-explication.

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.

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

With Civetta ably dashing off a couple of desperate kidnap attempts, The Gateway manages to scrabble over the line.

Charbonier and Powell like moving through the apartment in Steadicam but this results in a soupy style that seeks to cover for the lack of positional imagination and rigour in the script.