Simran Hans

There is about as much jeopardy as you’d expect from an action thriller about an obscure land dispute; a tense encounter with an angry polar bear and a phantom hot air balloon are highlights during the endless plodding across the frozen wilderness.

Letts gives thoughtful context to the way he was able to straddle the racially delineated worlds of dub reggae and punk rock, drawing parallels between the merging of subcultures in 1970s London, and the intersection of hip-hop and rock’n’roll in 1980s New York.

Poehler, herself a gifted comedian, doesn’t include her own voice in the film, though we still get a sense of her feminist perspective.

Diallo utilises the visual language of horror – red lighting, empty shower stalls, a gnarled hand that emerges from under the bed – to express the terror of racism and the rot of its legacy.

The latest film from horror director Ti West (The House of the Devil), about a porn movie shoot gone wrong, is ripe with playful winks and nudges.

Zoë Kravitz is a highlight as cocktail waitress turned cat burglar Selina Kyle.

When Fine encourages him to elaborate, Wilson isn’t especially articulate, but his emotional responses to the individual songs are often lucid and revealing.

Adams is a vivacious screen presence with a twinkle in her eye, and Jordan can’t quite match her, unable to draw out any real inner turmoil in a character who is respectable to a fault.

Kenneth Branagh’s unabashedly feelgood memoir of growing up in Belfast as the Troubles erupted in the late 1960s suffers from a problem of perspective.

The film is obsessed with deconstructing good screenwriting, the way a line lands, and ensuring clear character motivation.

The smug asides plastered on screen, and the hyperactive inserts of nature documentary footage do nothing to raise the film’s real-life stakes.

The film is best when it sticks to children’s caper mode, jostled along by gentle toilet humour, bad-tempered barnyard animals and a scene of two kids driving a van across Manhattan.

The film has a cold, abstract beauty.

The film can’t resist revelling in a conservative conclusion outside Buckingham Palace, with a victory banner fluttering against a smattering of St George’s flags.

Film-maker Jamila Wignot pays particular attention to the specificity of Ailey’s black influences: the church, blues music and his southern upbringing, all of which informed his best-known work, Revelations (1960).

MacKay is muted; his character is teased for his reserve, a quality he shares with the film. Niewöhner gives the sparkier performance, as a passionate German nationalist whose loyalty has flipped.

Simon Kinberg’s film feels aggressively focus-grouped for the girl-boss crowd.

The story is a little flat, but the gorgeous, hand-crafted puppets and sets give the film dimension.

Alexandra Shipp is a grounding presence as Larson’s girlfriend, Susan, while Garfield fizzes with energy and outsize emotion. He’s a fabulous crier and pitch-perfect as a shrill, preening narcissist who manages, against the odds, to remain resolutely likable.

In theory, natural light is more forgiving than its artificial counterpart: in photographs, it makes the subject look less harsh. Less so here.

There’s something touching about seeing the 91-year-old Eastwood in such a reflective mood.

It’s satisfyingly gross – there’s plenty of black bile, crunching bones and half-chewed bodies. Russell, best known for her radiant portrayal of a domestic abuse survivor in Adrienne Shelly’s Waitress, is clever casting too.

The debut feature from animation studio Locksmith is cute but familiar.

In an improvement on the film’s predecessor, director Andy Serkis dispenses with detailed explanations and instead amps up the humour, leaning into the goofy, flirtatious dynamic between Venom and Brock.

Though Brühl is an affable and witty screen presence, there’s no getting round the fact that the film is a vanity project.

Alexis Louder holds her own as the heroine of (and sole woman in) Joe Carnahan’s lean, mean, 70s-inspired action thriller.

The director treats the film as an empathy exercise, hoping to complicate and humanise a terrorist. Yet this is undermined by the obvious red flags that she plants in each section. Saeed’s flight path becomes a foregone conclusion.

The film’s abrupt tonal shifts are jarring.

The journey is a nice excuse to paint Tom into a cheerily cosmopolitan portrait of the UK.

Though this stolid drama, based on a true case, begins as a procedural, about systems, processes and deadlines, it is most absorbing when it zeroes in on one man’s moral arc.

The overall tone is one of wry knowingness, which is DaCosta’s achilles heel.

Whishaw’s intensity is gripping to watch but the character remains opaque; whether we’re meant to read Joseph as experiencing psychosis or simply suffering the unforgiving conditions of city life under capitalism is ambiguous.

Though the film is teed up as a kind of John Wick-style revenge bender, Cage’s star persona is soon smartly subverted.

From his cheesy narration (“Nothing is more addictive than the past,” Nick solemnly opines) to the movie’s double-crossing femme fatale and nocturnal, neon-lit setting, the director has great fun playing with genre tropes, but it’s unclear whether she’s going for heightened camp.

The film is a meticulously, perhaps even cynically crafted crowd-pleaser. Even those alive to its tactics might find themselves wiping away a tear or two.

The ratcheting tension is sadly punctured by unintentionally hilarious scenes of ambitious “research” by journalist Amy (Valene Kane), mostly involving frantic Googling and YouTube tutorials on “how to look younger”.

Directed by Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight), this is a thoughtful, knotty character study, albeit one nestled inside a polished, and less interesting, action thriller.

The film’s second half suffers from frantic pacing and overstuffed action sequences.

The cartoonish tone of the relentless violence feels at odds with the otherwise sombre, apocalyptic mood.

James’s natural charisma should allow the film to soar but he’s bogged down by an avalanche of distracting cameos, from Gremlins to Game of Thrones.

Alma Pöysti is luminous as Jansson, bringing to life her playful, pleasure-seeking artist’s spirit.

Merlant’s performance is committed, and the film takes her romantic and sexual fixation with the ride seriously, immersing the viewer in her dazzling, neon-lit world.

The film spends scant time exploring the implications of these darker themes, and doesn’t attempt to understand the root of Dreykov’s god complex. Instead, it’s more comfortable in comedy mode.

Pontecorvo seems particularly interested in conveying the gravitas of Lúcia’s spiritual burden, which is anchored by Gil, who is full of quiet intensity and impressive conviction.

Footage of recent concerts and meet and greets is included to showcase both her imperious glamour and how far she’s come, yet we never really get a sense of where she’s been, let alone My Life’s musical and cultural context.

Prior acquaintance with the eight previous instalments of this colossal action movie franchise isn’t necessary for enjoyment of this one – the film’s muscle cars and maximalist approach continue to serve it well.

The frenetic pacing, intended to sweep the audience along, can’t draw attention away from Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh’s platitude-riddled script.

To suggest Krasinski is only interested in surface thrills feels at odds with the seriousness of his craft. Judicious pacing, clever cross-cutting and visceral sound design build tension, but there’s an absence of soul, and no satisfying sense of what the monsters might be a metaphor for.

Wright is sympathetic and believable, but we never truly get a sense of Edee or her desires outside the bounds of her loss.

With its hero’s journey structure, punchily edited racing scenes and warmly drawn oddball community (a widow, Maureen, is obsessed with Tunnock’s Tea Cakes), the film is shamelessly predictable and thoroughly feelgood.

To call the film meditative would be to undersell Kosakovskiy’s instinct for drama and tension.

For a film about magic, there’s little sparkle to spare.

Unfortunately, the second half is over-reliant on flashy disaster set pieces, blazing towards a predictable, melodramatic conclusion.

Shanley has an Oscar and a Pulitzer (he wrote the sublime Moonstruck, and the stage and screen versions of Doubt). Here, that’s easy to forget, given the cartoon accents and overblown metaphors about horses destined to jump the fence.

Levine’s playful deconstruction of tortured genius is a witty and provocative send-up of tyrannical directors, diva-ish actors and over-invested voyeurs alike.

Kawase’s frequent use of handheld camera gives parts of the film a quasi-documentary feel, but it’s the lyrical touches . . . that hit the hardest.

The styling is at odds with the otherwise straightforward courtroom narrative. The prestige procedural elements work better; the real-life story is enraging, and it’s fun to see Benedict Cumberbatch’s morally conflicted military prosecutor lock horns with Foster’s icy human rights lawyer.

The spectacle is more involving than the plot, especially the dazzling image of Kong floating skyward, serene and surrounded by purple glowing rocks.

Maslany is magnetic, her coiled fury and sexual energy threatening to erupt as her placid partner plods along beside her.

The sci-fi stuff is tedious, but Wiig and Mumolo are bawdy and brilliant as ever, their effortless chemistry bolstered by years of collaboration.

The showy singer turned actor struggles to modulate his natural charisma, a flirtatious, extroverted energy repeatedly leaking out where it should be muffled.

The impish Leslie Mann is well cast as his dead wife, Elvira, who provides a jolt of creative inspiration. Judi Dench’s screechy caricature of psychic Madame Arcati is less winning.

My Rembrandt is at its most interesting when struggling to reconcile the slow, careful work of art restoration with the crass, instant gratification on acquiring such rarefied objects.

Reorienting a typically white male genre around themes of feminist awakening and racial tension is an intriguing proposition, so it’s frustrating that Brosnahan remains blank and the film’s pace plodding.

The performances create anthropological distance, not human empathy.

Brits Hunnam, O’Connell and Barden are strangely well cast as its all-American grifters. (Hunnam in particular gives a finely tuned performance as a washed-up smooth talker who still knows how to flirt.)

As Amber becomes more comfortable with her queerness, the taciturn Eddie retreats inwards. Their parallel journeys dispense with a one-size-fits-all coming-out narrative and are handled with a lightness of touch by Irish writer and director David Freyne.

With Neeson well within the confines of his comfort zone, tailed by corrupt cops and diving out of hotel windows, the film should be better. Yet it drags.

Documentaries should be more than a vehicle for information. Here, the message is hard to argue with, but the medium – an excess of music video-style cutting, contemporary pop culture montages and literal music cues – does the material no favours.

The film is called Misbehaviour, but a timid script belies mischief of any sort.

The Roads Not Taken is frequently moving, and a fascinating creative idea, but without sufficient information about Leo’s character to anchor the narrative, it feels too abstract.

Hyperactive editing, the jittery rap score and an obligatory acid trip scene grate, but Doff’s social commentary is sharp.

Nolan’s desire to stimulate both the blood and the brain feels earnest. What’s frustrating is that he doesn’t trust his audience to follow along.

Millennial self-interest and performative liberal politics are contrasted with “authentic”, let-it-all-hang-out conservatism. It’s a simplistic critique. Still, the frequently charming Rogen brings enough of his affable, nice guy credibility to each character to ground both loose cannon Herschel and his straight man foil.

The feelgood tone feels a little flaccid.

High-class sex work is presented as a financial quick fix and a route to female empowerment, but the film’s sex-positive politics gloss over any of the job’s potential pitfalls.

Characters and storylines appear to have been chosen at random by a Woody Allen meme generator.

It’s not subtle, or particularly clever, though Glow’s Betty Gilpin is fun to watch as an ultra-violent ex-military veteran with a southern drawl.

The performances, especially the brittle Louis-Dreyfus, are admirably grounded, but the script’s comedy wastes time with lazy barbs about European brusqueness and American exceptionalism abroad.

The parallels drawn between Fabienne’s life and the stories she’s drawn to are a little on the nose. “What matters most is personality! Presence!” she declares, determined not to fade into obscurity. Deneuve’s luminous performance ensures she won’t.

Marsden is charming enough, summoning surprising chemistry with Schwartz, and so it’s not total torture spending an hour and a half with the pair. Yet for better or worse, it doesn’t linger.

This harrowing retelling of Norwegian rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik’s 2011 terrorist attack on the island of Utøya is less exploitative than Paul Greengrass’s brutal, Netflix-bound, English-language version, but the question remains: does a tragedy have to be turned into cinema for people to engage with it?

Frat boy humour is dressed up in an expensive, arthouse jacket.

It’d be easy to map Gilliam on to Grisoni, a film-maker dogged by his artistic misfires and the mess left in their wake. Really, though, he’s Quixote, stuck in a noble past and wilfully disconnected from a present that jostles uncomfortably close.

The tone veers haphazardly from tense, high-stakes cat-and-mouse chase to ill-judged satire.

Trey Edward Shults’s bombastic third feature crashes and recedes, leaving few revelations in its wake.

The film can’t square the fact that its protagonists are the victims of sexism and yet perpetuate it by sheer virtue of working for a rightwing news channel.

The film shies away from any kind of political commentary, and as a result feels oddly sapped of fire or urgency.

More than 70 civil and criminal charges have been lodged against the family. Marcos flaunted her wealth while her country’s living standards plummeted, and Greenfield’s portrait is damning.

Guy Ritchie’s latest gangster comedy presents itself as a harmless romp, but behind its wink-wink-nudge-nudge humour is a bitter and dated worldview.

Gibney struggles to psychologically penetrate his cold antihero.

As a genre exercise, it mostly works; set pieces are tense, explosive and pleasingly gory, littered with flying scraps of metal and meat. Davis in particular is an authoritative presence. As a sequel, it’s baldly opportunistic, grab-bagging contemporary political issues (reproductive justice; undocumented migrants) in a transparent attempt to justify its cultural relevance.

There’s perhaps an over-reliance on voiceover by way of letters and emails, though the film’s unvarnished formal directness is a good thing, given the sensitive material.

It’s not unfunny watching McConaughey smoke a joint from between Isla Fisher’s toes, but some viewers may find themselves less enamoured of Moondog than the film is.

There’s a note of truth in Bell’s finely tuned performance as a character whose insecurities have calcified over the years, hardening her to genuine goodwill, which she frequently misreads as pity.

This story of motherhood and moral conundrums, of privilege and philanthropy and “worthy causes” is one whose dramatic twists and soapy reveals feel at odds with the cultivated tone of serious, muted elegance.

Enitan’s trauma is revelled in but for what? Few new truths are learned here. A rushed, redemptive montage towards the film’s end is presented as ickily aspirational.

Probably, the intention was to make explicit the connections between Theo’s past and present, but there’s not enough detail or characterisation for this structural intervention to work. Without those connecting narrative bones, the result is all flab and no flavour.