Tim Grierson

In the early going, the film delivers plenty of chills alongside some sly commentary about the music industry, but eventually Finn succumbs to the trite horror tropes the original picture so nimbly avoided.

For all its breezy animation, the film can’t match the vividness of its subject.

It is a testament to this deeply moving film that Lacorazza has laid bare her own complicated feelings about her father while acknowledging that, as shown in a silently shattering final scene, sometimes words fail.

While Morris’s attempt to personalise this humanitarian crisis by casting actors to play a mother and son crossing the border proves less than effective, Separated’s criticism of America’s dismissive attitude towards immigrants is sufficiently scathing.

[A] very entertaining, surprisingly moving film.

The picture has been worked out on a visual level — the immaculately sterile images evoke a future in which life’s pleasures, like having a family, have been wiped clean — but the script never explores those deeper themes.

What saves this uneven material is the actors’ committed, anguished turns.

The Wild Robot’s nicely modulated ending packs a wallop, hinting that a mother’s job is never done — that’s just not in her programming.

Heretic has been crafted with expert care, and the strong performances help carry this dialogue-driven thriller. The problem is that the film’s ideas are not particularly stimulating.

Unfortunately, Howard fails to modulate this wickedness and, at over two hours, the picture becomes monotonous and unwieldy. Indeed, the malicious proceedings lose their power to unnerve, to diminishing returns.

A mixture of domestic drama, apocalyptic fable and old-fashioned (and unironic) Hollywood musical, The End is an audacious and frequently enrapturing experience, with superb performances at its emotional heart.

Marielle Heller’s fourth feature is a gently observant comedy-drama about the perils of motherhood that could use a little more bite.

Garfield and Pugh have such instant chemistry that one never doubts why their characters would end up together. But ultimately, We Live In Time views Tobias and Almut as abstractions, and by jumping back and forth in time, it never makes them very present.

Unfortunately, David Gordon Green’s wholesome throwback to rambunctious family films like The Bad News Bears strains to sell the openhearted spirit of this Christmas-themed lark.

Joaquin Phoenix demonstrates again his willingness to take risks — in this case, singing alongside the far more technically skilled Lady Gaga — but a performance that was once so attuned to his character’s fragile mental state is, in Folie A Deux, littered with familiar flourishes.

September 5 recounts that tragic day with a combination of electricity and dread, drawing on strong performances for a meditation on the media’s responsibilities during such a volatile situation.

There are conventional elements to this story, but also a level of craft that keep the proceedings reliably taut — especially when Kurzel unleashes another excellent chase sequence or shootout.

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson are excellent as these carnal combatants, each of their characters jockeying for control. But the writer-director’s larger ideas — about sexism in the workplace and the feelings of shame surrounding sexual kinks — fail to burn as hot as the two leads’ fiery chemistry.

The Crow longs to be edgy and sobering, but the shallow, melodramatic treatment constantly calls to mind an insecure adolescent male who is trying to prove how dark and deep he is by dressing all in black and talking ponderously about death.

Romulus achieves its goal of being nothing more than a well-executed monster movie, but that modest ambition leaves this sequel feeling a little hollow and mechanical — a sufficient thrill ride that largely reminds the viewer how masterful the first two instalments were.

It’s fleetingly amusing to watch Blanchett flex her wit and grace amidst this motley crew of outsiders and reprobates. But Lilith so easily outclasses everything around her that Borderlands is that rare would-be blockbuster where you wish the main character could get her own standalone feature, just so she can escape this meagre adventure.

There are laughs and clever bits of business in “The Instigators,” but there’s never a reason to care.

Shyamalan and Hartnett struggle to fashion a convincingly layered murderer whose mental unravelling and inner anguish are sufficiently captivating. Instead, the performance is a muddled melding of serial-killer types audiences have seen before.

Rob Peace is buoyed by Jay Will’s touching lead performance as the titular aspiring scientist, but the film struggles to bring coherence to this cautionary tale, ambitiously tackling several themes and tones but never quite bringing them together into an engrossing whole.

Sarandon is as close as The Fabulous Four gets to touching on genuine emotion or comedy. . . but the prevailing sentiment is what a shame it is to bring together such entertaining women and then strand them with material so beneath them.

Hugh Jackman demonstrates again what a fine Wolverine he is but this comic-book pairing ultimately underwhelms, resulting in some touching moments and some anarchic humour in a picture otherwise dragged down by convoluted multiverse logistics and drab fan service.

The New Zealand landscapes could not be more enchanting, although the story lacks a similar magic.

Chung’s desire to add a touch of realism runs counter to what is, essentially, a low-nutrition entertainment about massive storms wreaking havoc on small towns and scooping up anything in their path. The more Twisters aims for gravitas, the more hot air it generates.

Myriad horror films create a sense of dread, but few manage to evoke the palpable evil that emanates from Longlegs.

What lingers is a collective misery and the invisibly masterful choreography of chaos, rage and death.

Day One never reaches the inspired heights of what came before, but Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn are compelling as strangers forced to work together in a devastated New York.

Despite some initial swagger, this 1980s-set picture lacks the ingenuity of the previous two chapters – a disappointment made worse by West’s wan attempts to satirise the film industry’s shallowness.

Inside Out 2 is strongest when harnessing the essence of how our emotions define us and, occasionally, lead us astray. But Mann never condemns any of Riley’s feelings, recognising that each has its place.

Ultraman: Rising lacks sophistication in its storytelling, but the film nevertheless achieves a quiet poignancy.

The documentary is a work of earnest advocacy, pleading with viewers to see their stake in Taiwan’s fight. The results may not be gripping cinema, but the passion behind the project is undeniable.

By shying away from demonstrating the degree of hardship Ederle underwent to make history, the film shortchanges the catharsis it seeks in its final passages.

Adele Exarchopoulos and Francois Civil may be top-billed, but this unapologetically sentimental drama actually works better in its first half when their adolescent counterparts take centre stage, seizing on the irrepressible excitement of first love.

Baseball is just a game, but Lund recognises why some need it so badly. On the diamond, these ageing men feel young again – if only for a few hours.

Generously mixing comedy, nostalgia, pathos and misanthropy, Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point embraces its brood’s rambunctious spirit, resisting the temptation to let any character become the central protagonist.

By striving for realism, The Apprentice ends up dramatically flat, the recitation of Trump’s most infamous incidents ... playing out perfunctorily.

This potent body horror is executed with skill and compassion, bringing fresh insights alongside generous helpings of graphic gore.

Finnegan continues to demonstrate a passion for upending the banality of the everyday, but The Surfer gets as lost as its protagonist, unable to ride the wave of its own mad design.

Adam Driver brings a brooding energy to the role of a tortured genius architect seeking to craft a modern utopia in a city threatened by mindless spectacle and rampant greed, but Megalopolis is stymied by arbitrary plotting and numbing excess. One can feel Coppola’s anger and sorrow over the decline of his beloved America, but narrative coherence is far less apparent.

Lea Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel and Raphael Quenard commit fully to this cheeky postmodern exercise, but neither the humour nor the commentary is incisive enough to sustain such a strained bauble.

This ripping action-adventure features stellar effects and a superb lead performance from Owen Teague as a timid simian who must rescue his clan from the clutches of a warlike tribe.

As diverting and gleefully disgusting as it can be, Abigail ultimately has more gore than brains, its funhouse escapism fleeting rather than ferocious.

The result is a smirking, shallow action-comedy — a total mission failure.

A scintillating romantic triangle paired with a gripping sports drama, Challengers finds Luca Guadagnino in crowd-pleasing mode, delivering his most purely entertaining film.

The film’s Lynchian surrealism and time-jumping adventurousness, although occasionally hobbled by narrative digressions, are lifted up by the two leads.

As punishing as some of The First Omen’s terrors are, they are quickly forgotten in service of answering questions about Damien (and leaving the door open for further sequels) that undercut Free’s gripping turn.

Jones, never winking at the rampant absurdity, gives the proceedings a little grounding. But Besson wants off the leash and his instincts lead him astray.

For all the punches thrown and buildings pulverised, The New Empire barely leaves an impact.

A corrosive rage courses through this 163-minute odyssey that’s matched by a leavening absurdism, Jude aghast at the comical stupidity of our inauthentic, greed-driven world.

The clumsy mixture of nostalgia, scares, set pieces, sincerity and wisecracks never gels.

Rather than truly being inspiring or moving, Arthur The King manipulates and frustrates. Adventure racers may be encouraged to forge their own path, but this film is far from trailblazing.

Cabrini is a respectful biopic designed to shed light on a forgotten woman whose charitable acts deserve recognition. It’s also so stultifyingly dutiful you may find yourself missing Sound of Freedom’s tawdry watchability.

Between the strained punchlines and the unsurprising plot twists, the picture feels obligatory rather than inspired.

The effortlessly orchestrated dialogue scenes are riveting, but what’s remarkable is that, no matter how talkative Samet and his cohorts are, they often don’t say what they mean. The characters argue politics, worldviews or how to handle the disturbing accusations leveled against Samet and Kenan at school, but their rhetorical jousting masks unspoken resentments and disappointments.

Drive-Away Dolls is frantic rather than inspired, a caper with no sense of the truly madcap.

As Hans Zimmer’s propulsive score juices the drama and thrill of Paul’s quest, Part Two achieves the sort of big-screen momentousness that is too rarely dared in contemporary cinema. Anyone swept away by the 2021 film will hunger to return for a second helping — and be richly rewarded.

An overly precious tone ultimately sinks the writer-director’s attempt to recapture the enchantment of adolescence.

No matter how likeable Cassie and her friends are, they are powerless in the face of a plot that goes through the motions, revealing ‘shocking’ twists about her past and building to an overblown finale. Madame Web argues that no one’s future is written, but it is very easy to see exactly where this film is going.

The central performance has a likeable, modest charm, and King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green resists the typical, unwieldy cradle-to-grave biopic narrative approach. Yet he fails to breathe much life into this underwhelming drama.

It is to Jacobsen’s credit that she highlights how apparently minor decisions can suddenly feel weighty.

Writer-directors David Zellner and Nathan Zellner’s fifth feature is easily their finest, a portrait of a Bigfoot community that starts out as an absurdist comedy before slowly transforming into a moving study of survival and loss.