Richard Whittaker

Making a movie about how annoyed you were that your label tried to force you to make a concert movie is just 103 minutes of Charli xcx relitigating an argument she already won, just with added product placement.

Call it what it is: Luc Besson’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a copy of a copy.

In Cold Light is far better constructed and executed than its generic, straight-to-video title might imply, but it’s too monotonous – in the literal meaning of the word – to reach its aspirations or to really use its cast.

Tokyo Ghoul: S is at its best when it embraces its high weirdness (Shu setting up a cannibalistic threesome is hilarious) but it's never sure what it wants to be.

The pat defense is that Skinamarink is not for conventional horror audiences, and that's obvious, but at the same time it feels overextended as a conceptual piece.

The underlying narrative theme of sons who become greater – and better – men than their fathers is underdeveloped. Meanwhile, the animation feels oddly dated, as the decision to give visual continuity to three and a half decades of storytelling re-enforces this as fan service.

It’s as if Hot Fuzz was under the cultural and chemical influence of Sixties and Seventies psycho-pharmaceutical mind expansion conspiracy fantasies rather than Eighties action flicks and real ale.

Burton and his writing team waste the opportunity of a sequel to fix the errors of the past, and instead double down on the most problematic elements of the original.

The further director Vicente Amorim pulls out, the more exciting the film becomes; but he never really takes advantage of the supernatural overtones that swim around the edges, or the unique cultural background of Brazil's massive Japanese diaspora.

The experience is a little like being stuck in a Doom Buggy on a day when the ride is very stop-start. The flow of the attraction collapses, becoming individual cool designs but not a story.

Between the cardboard characterization, the heavy-handed emotional outbursts, the intrusive murder subplot, locker room morale-boosting speeches that should have stayed in the locker room, a strange lack of meaningful emotional beats, and the utter inability to tackle its white-savior subtext, Under the Stadium Lights is pee wee by comparison to Peter Berg's All-American.

Unfortunately, the formulaic Spirit Untamed never seems to know which trail it's taking.

Sometimes the heartstrings need tugging to an old, established rhythm, played here with simple charm by Zhu, and given high notes by Hu's dedication to highlighting what being profoundly dyslexic can mean.

Some of this – the simplest parts, the interpersonal drama played out in the rehearsal room, the power dynamics between actors and directors – are genuinely fascinating and darkly fun, as director Karl quietly abuses his position for his own ends. If Warmerdam had kept to that refined perspective, with quibbling about blocking and line delivery, then Nr. 10 might have become more of a complete film.

The audience is required to invest their emotional energy in seven people who consistently make terrible decisions and give even worse advice, and it's not worth the return.

House of Gucci isn't aggressively bad, but it is undeniably tedious, threadbare, and unengaging.

Dead, the latest from the Land of the Long White Cloud, is closer in tone and subject to last year's phenomenal low-key Irish exorcism comedy "Extra Ordinary" – just without its charm or gentle silliness.

Even by Byington’s lo-fi standards, Lousy Carter feels ramshackle. It’s got traces of the familiar warm bathos of his sardonic best work. However, like Lousy’s cardigan, it’s all a little threadbare.

If what you want is a fancier episode of The Great British Baking Show, then you'll "ooh" and "ah" at all the right moments as Ottolenghi assembles his kitchen of world-class patisserie chefs and jelly experts.

Sisto's direction is a victory of glacial tone over actual content, and John and the Hole's frustrations outweigh its insight into the forces that can spawn a monster.

The Mauritanian wants to be a fusion of Papillon and A Few Good Men, but it cannot work out whether it wants to make a purely emotive argument, or engage in a brutal cross-examination of the legal system.

There's none of Spielberg's verbal wit or the astonishing shot composition that helped the rest of the films flourish so far above their gutsy, 1930s action serial roots. Dial of Destiny feels like a less skilled hand tracing over the work of his favorite artists: The lines may be their own, but you'll always see the superior work underneath, overshadowing it and making you wish you could see the original instead.

It’s hard to blame the actors for not grasping the tone when it seems to elude the filmmakers.

Memory is better than some Neeson action flicks, worse than others, but, predictable as it is to say, you'll have trouble remembering it much longer than its run time.

It’s a fittingly mediocre end to a franchise that has always been OK with being average.

Morbius does what it's supposed to, nothing more, and barely that. If only this living vampire had more of a pulse.

It’s all too bland, the smooth-crotched erotic thriller equivalent of banging a G.I. Joe and a Barbie together.

Singer has great inspirations, and the multilayered approach to edits and sound design within the hypnosis is ingenious and excellently executed. But it doesn't add up to much.