Tara Brady

This meandering, mysterious 164-minute meditation on French imperialism is not for everyone.

This isn’t as funny as Blades of Glory or The Other Guys or premier league Ferrell outings. It is, however, amusing and good-natured.

Collet-Serra, who directed The Shallows and the Liam Neeson thrillers Unknown, Non-Stop, and The Commuter, keeps up a lively pace. That, and the capable cast, ensure that Jungle Cruise passes the time, much like the old-fashioned, uneventful ride that inspired it.

This later timeline, featuring two of the planet’s most wonderful actors, adds clout to a film that, in stark contrast to most faith-based fodder, is gorgeously shot and designed.

It’ll do well enough for summer-break popcorn-lovers, but as DreamWorks Animations go, it’s no How to Train Your Dragon.

Watchable, if a bit lopsided, it’s far from the catastrophe that some of the more unkind reviews have suggested.

It feels almost like a pitch to direct Bond and – in common with the recent 007 spoof scenes in Minions – it’s a better Bond film than (at least) the last two entries from that franchise, save for a couple of things.

A good-looking waste, but a waste nonetheless.

As with its frantic copyright-countdown predecessor, Venom 2 is, by any metric, a bad movie. But, gosh darnit, it’s going to be the baddest bad movie of the year.

Gore, who directs with her partner, Damian Kulash, maintains a giddy tone that sometimes sits uneasily with temporal shifts that mirror the narrative complexities of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The needlessly busy structure is easily offset by appealing performances from Banks, Snook and Viswanathan and by a keen critical eye for the mad free-for-all economics of the Bill Clinton era.

Thankfully, Tron: Ares is less ponderous than Tron: Legacy, and the music is turned up to 11 in the hope you won’t notice all the shortcomings.

It’s tricky material, but what the script loses by making an actual monster it gains in small, poignant details.

Gran Turismo, a spectacular new racing film from the Oscar-nominated writer and director Neill Blomkamp, wisely sidesteps the pitfalls of many dreadful screen outings (often from the perennial game-ruiner Uwe Boll) by finding a big-hearted human-interest story to better explore the racing environment.

Both actors are ill-served by a script that carps on about finding your moment or some such. Can’t a hedgehog go on a quest to find a magic master emerald without this constant haranguing?

The grand casting gambit of pitching De Niro against De Niro proves an unnecessary distraction. Curiously bloodless in every respect.

The kind of kids who hide behind the couch during Scooby-Doo may well feel emboldened by the fuzzy feelings, silly quips and toothless villains. But it all feels rather pointless for the non-meek community.

It is unfortunate that two directors and a screenwriter (Matthew Fogel) felt the need to shoehorn in an extended family and – groan – Oedipal crisis for both Mario and Donkey Kong. Despite this misstep, the film belts along with an assault of candy colours and a commendable command of canonical detail.

Too often this feels like a project that insists on delivering poor facsimiles of iconic scenes.

Working on a small budget, writer-director Alison Locke puts the confinement of one location in service of her claustrophobic script. A promising first feature.

The pacing can be too stately, but an impressive ensemble working through a surfeit of good ideas compensates for the lack of jump scares.

In common with My Neighbour Totoro, there is no menace here, only strange fun aimed squarely at younger viewers.

There are interesting notes on the intersection between love, mental illness, obsession, performance, and fandom. If only the movie were a little better.

The details and atmospherics are diverting. The blindingly obvious plot twist is less impressive.

Cartoonishly colourful cinematography brings emerald-tinted sparkle to Killruddery House, Lough Tay, the Cliffs of Moher and other tourist traps. What else? It’s professionally assembled? Everyone has nice hair?

Playwright Florian Zeller’s third instalment – and second film – in a cycle that includes The Father is a muscular, devastating drama that ought to have featured more prominently in the protracted “awards conversation”.

The moon is square and the action is so daft that it makes the Sonic the Hedgehog sequence feel like the work of Ingmar Bergman.

Afterlife is fine. It passes the time. But somewhere between the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man recycled as hundreds of Tribble-alike menaces and Muncher, a fatter variant of Slimer, one finds oneself wishing that studios might use their vast resources for something more than the repackaging of old rope.

Wells Tower’s screenplay creates a compelling, compromised hero in Eliza, one matched by Blunt’s charm and commitment. But the film is ultimately torn between raucous satire and social conscience.