Tim Grierson

Murina is a superb study in sustained subliminal menace, with Gracija Filipovic especially skilled playing a young woman learning how to utilise her sensuality to secure her freedom

Impeccably crafted but only intermittently gripping, the third instalment in the Fantastic Beasts franchise has the scope and sweep of an epic while suffering from some of the same weaknesses as the first two chapters.

This horror-action picture offers modest genre pleasures and a consistently spooky vibe, resulting in a film that has been designed chiefly to ensure future sequels, although the story includes enough emotional shading and robust set pieces to be an engaging standalone feature.

From a technical standpoint, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is fairly impressive in its merging of live-action and animation, a reminder of the technological advancements since the days of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Too bad it is in service to one more story of a scrappy young male hero on a search for powerful talismans in order to defeat increasingly more formidable villains. For a film about a character who is incredibly speedy, this sequel feels behind the curve, chasing after blockbuster trends but only falling farther behind.

This unfussy action-thriller has a lot of Jason Bourne in its bloodstream, with director Tarik Saleh focusing on taut pacing and crisp sequences. But despite some solid craftsmanship, the film never fully transcends what is familiar about the setup — much like the titular hero, The Contractor gives its all, possibly in vain.

For all its showy excesses, sophomoric humour and strained gravitas, Ambulance is often riveting, the film speeding along as recklessly as that ambulance. This popcorn thriller certainly is not brainy, but its escapism has a muscular precision.

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum have a great, flirtatious rapport in The Lost City, yet something is missing in this romantic-comedy action-adventure, which sports a funny premise but slipshod execution.

Director Gail Lerner’s Cheaper By The Dozen is aggressively cutesy while trying to address real-world issues such as race and class. Lerner’s version feels busy and laboured, its sitcom treatment straining equally for laughs and pathos.

Despite some resonant themes, this playful thriller grows increasingly implausible, relying on twists that neither shock nor deepen the film’s exploration of unhappiness and regret.

By this point, the 1960s have been sufficiently chronicled and celebrated, but the specificity of Linklater’s portrait nevertheless has a poignancy to it.

Ultimately, though, Everything Everywhere is best appreciated for its grandiose ambitions, bombarding the viewer with its frenetic style while telling a poignant story about an older woman trying to make peace with her not-so-wonderful life.

Turning Red is often very funny thanks to the fact that Shi lets her main character be smart and three-dimensional — the filmmaker doesn’t talk down to her adolescent audience by burdening the script with juvenile jokes.

As much as is possible considering all the Dark Knight films that came before, The Batman feels like its own creation, not beholden to past instalments while still honouring what remains riveting about this character’s milieu.

Gory rather than scary and goofy instead of very funny, this fitfully amusing horror-comedy will be embraced by fans of the popular band, who demonstrate that, while they’re adept musicians, they’re not similarly gifted at delivering killer punchlines.

Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg are a likeable duo, and there are some spectacularly overblown set pieces, but this video-game adaptation ultimately feels too familiar, borrowing heavily from Raiders Of The Lost Ark and National Treasure when it’s not riffing on heist films and buddy comedies.

In the end, Marry Me can’t wed its conflicting ambitions, resulting in a likeable picture that’s hard to love.

Although Moonfall is packed with such giddy good cheer that its abundant narrative cliches and dismal dialogue are almost part of the charm, even game performances from Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson aren’t enough to save the day.

Some things never change: the pranks remain juvenile, the stunts continue to range from harrowing to disgusting, and the laughs come at a steady clip, even if there’s more than a little familiarity to the formula by now.

Semans pushes Margaret into potentially preposterous narrative terrain, but Hall’s total commitment to her character’s growing mania helps ground the proceedings, no matter how outlandish the plotting becomes.

The film is led by Maika Monroe’s fragile performance, which grounds the story even when the proceedings start to become formulaic.

The narrative may have familiar contours, but Ford’s close attention to the have-nots’ desire to transcend their circumstances gives the proceedings a gripping emotional undercurrent.

Allynne and Notaro’s film is suffused with sweetness, but the slim, conventional story keeps the directors and their capable cast from really exploring the bonds that connect people, whether as friends or lovers. It’s an OK debut that, like Lucy herself, struggles a bit to find its footing.

Sometimes the comedy is too broad, sometimes the targets are too easy, but this acting duo repeatedly reach for something deeper in the material, leaving the viewer uncertain if their characters are manipulators or true believers.

Director Phyllis Nagy has crafted a subdued but affecting portrait of that time, strengthened by deft performances from Elizabeth Banks as a sheltered suburban mother whose eyes are opened and Sigourney Weaver as the leader of an underground abortion-facilitation service.

There’s a slightness to this tale, and also a nagging familiarity in its exploration of twenty-something restlessness, but Raiff’s compassionate eye — paired with Dakota Johnson’s melancholy turn — results in a touching, understated affair.

Superb performances from Boyega and the late Michael Kenneth Williams highlight this sombre, character-driven tale.

The Seer And The Unseen director Sara Dosa has fashioned this documentary with modesty and sensitivity, in some ways as awed by the strange beauty and destructive power of the volcanos as she is by the nonchalant willingness of the Kraffts to put themselves at risk in the name of science.

One can feel Williams’ anger at an America that imperils young Black and Latino men, viewing them only as potential threats, but the picture never fully gets a handle on its mixture of satire and seriousness.

This clever, heavily meta picture has fun both mocking its own existence and trying to find enough twists to justify itself. The result is a film which is superficially appealing even if it is ultimately undone by the contortions necessary to keep the irreverent sleight-of-hand going.

Eighteen years after The Matrix Revolutions, Lana Wachowski goes back down the rabbit hole, only to get lost in a sequel that lacks the visionary flair and zeitgeist-y profundity that once made this franchise such a game-changer for blockbuster cinema.

Once No Way Home finds its rhythm, the picture builds to a thoughtful, touching final act that does justice to the heroism and self-sacrifice that has always been central to Spider-Man’s appeal.

Clearly a commentary on global warming, which folds neatly into a treatise on our ongoing Covid-19 crisis, Don’t Look Up takes aim at plenty of ills — especially the scourge of science-deniers. But a smug, self-satisfied approach proves insufficient at addressing the legitimate woes at core of this picture.

A solidly entertaining remake peppered with a few transcendent moments, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story emphasises the musical’s most beloved elements without trying to radically reinterpret the source material.

The period details are impeccable, the look and feel are seductive, but the muddled script lacks the killer instinct of its central figures.

A frustrating drama that struggles to be either a thoughtful character study or a slow-burn thriller.

With shades of Robert Altman’s freewheeling spirit embedded in this tale of politicians, Hollywood producers and waterbeds, Licorice Pizza gains momentum as its ambles along, resulting in Anderson’s gentlest, most endearing picture to date.

Underneath the percussive, buoyant tunes and the colourful, breezy animation is a story about understanding that people who seem better off than we are may be carrying private pain that they keep bottled up inside.

Boosted by a warm performance from Ali’s Moonlight costar Naomie Harris, Swan Song proves to be a rather straightforward tearjerker, but it earns its sentiment thanks to the thoughtful approach from its cast and crew.

For a film that aspires to be a frank look at a middle-aged fighter’s hard road back to glory, Bruised too easily indulges in sports-film fantasy, undercutting the story’s inherent bleakness.

Thurber spends so much time referencing films he loves that Red Notice feels more like an elaborate game of dress-up than a worthy heir to their greatness.

The vivid performances capably capture the humanity at the centre of a film that can sometimes be dominated by Wright’s showy excesses — in particular, his overly elaborate set pieces. But there’s no mistaking Cyrano’s sense of tragedy, its lament for soulmates destined not to get their happy ending.

Director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s drama works best when it pushes against genre conventions, focusing more on race, class and the difficulties of family rather than in the typical concerns about winning the big match.

The obligatory nature of the fan service constantly undercuts the bittersweet, occasionally tearjerking tone, with the filmmakers more concerned about extending the franchise’s commercial life than really saying anything meaningful about loss and reconciliation.

C’mon C’mon is a gentle drama, but its deep emotional wellspring is mitigated by how wise it is about what impossible little monsters kids can be when they’re acting out.

These characters may be immortal, but the studio’s assembly-line predictability drains the vitality from the proceedings.

This small-scale drama is sensitively rendered, examining two people who share a past that they’re only beginning to untangle, resulting in unhappy recriminations that offer little in the way of closure.

Neither the milieu nor the insights are especially fresh, despite the tender tone.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a grander spectacle than the mediocre 2018 original, offering monster-movie mayhem with a welcome sense of humour about its own ludicrousness.

The Humans is a marvel of slight shifts in tone and rhythm, guided by a uniformly strong cast of actors who deliver naturalistic performances which show the cracks in their characters’ pleasant veneer.

Haley Lu Richardson and Owen Teague are both excellent at conveying everything that remains unsaid between these estranged siblings, eschewing melodramatic flourishes for stoic insights.

Writer-director Potsy Ponciroli has crafted a taut Western that borrows heavily from familiar themes and storylines, but it has been constructed with such confidence and precision that one can’t help but be seduced by the picture’s stripped-down spell.

The free-flowing style, aided by dreamlike editing from Isabel Freeman, is both playful and sombre, offering a captivating snapshot of a young artist trying to make sense of her complicated self.

There’s no shortage of familiar elements here, and yet one can’t deny the empathy Levinson brings to the material.

From the film’s first moments, the audience can guess exactly how the story will pan out, and the pleasure is watching Eastwood gracefully negotiate every well-worn twist and turn.

The film ultimately feels like a superficial examination of rich subject matter.

Director Stephen Chbosky badly mishandles the material, resulting in an increasingly frustrating experience in which Evan’s inability to come clean leads to a string of emotional manipulations that sometimes border on cruel.

The storytelling ends up a little too murky to be the grand commentary on privilege and exploitation McDonagh intends.

The actors lend sincerity to the proceedings, but the film keeps cheating to achieve its dramatic payoffs.

A claustrophobic thriller about a disgraced cop trying to undo his past mistakes over the course of one supremely stressful night, The Guilty boasts a clever close-quarters conceit that ends up feeling more like an actorly exercise than a gripping human drama.

More informational than revealing, John Hoffman and Janet Tobias’ documentary makes the case that in times of great uncertainty concerning mysterious diseases, calm reason and unassailable science are our staunchest allies — two assets the 80-year-old immunologist possesses to ample degree.

Marcel The Shell With Shoes On manages to harness enough of what initially made this diminutive protagonist such an unexpected treat; in particular, Slate’s endearing vocal performance.

This Dune dwarfs most contemporary sci-fi in its scope and execution, ably juggling multiple characters and settings so that it matches the sprawling drama of the original tome.

When the film thoughtfully dissects the fable’s patriarchal attitude, this Cinderella can be touching and light on its feet. But too often, whether because of the subpar songs or the hit-or-miss comedy, Cannon’s rethink struggles to consistently dazzle — it’s a glass slipper that doesn’t quite fit.

Consisting of three non-fiction segments and four narrative instalments, the film is refreshing in its understated modesty. If anything, the shorter running time seems to energise the directors, who tell miniature stories with a minimum of fuss but careful attention to the emotional fallout of life under quarantine.

Director Nia DaCosta’s follow-up is both bitingly satiric and elegantly suspenseful, illustrating how race and class still bedevil modern life. Produced and cowritten by Jordan Peele, and featuring an arresting performance from Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Candyman has an unmistakable anger embedded within its scares, persuasively depicting how Black Americans feel traumatised by a country that treats them like monsters.

As the action sequences grow more elaborate, Shang-Chi loses a little of its personality, succumbing to de rigueur effects-driven spectacle. Granted, some of these scenes can be stunning, but the visual pizzazz means less than Liu’s graceful navigation of this tale of a man who long ago fled his father and must finally face him. It’s these intimate character moments that help distinguish Shang-Chi from other MCU pictures.

There’s no question that director Liesl Tommy and star Jennifer Hudson have approached this project with reverence, hoping to highlight the late singer’s importance both as a cultural figure and a symbol of her era. But the cliches that usually attend such biopics — specifically, the need to simplify an individual’s demons and traumas into easily digestible dramatic beats — are especially frustrating here, leaving this overly earnest picture lacking the vibrancy of its dynamic subject.

Ryan Reynolds is endearingly wholesome as this likeable digital nonentity, but once the story’s initial burst of cleverness fades, director Shawn Levy becomes bogged down in convoluted plotting and the overfamiliarity of his seize-the-day message.

Margot Robbie and Idris Elba shine, balancing humour and edginess in a blockbuster studded with visual wonders and inspired set pieces.

This overstuffed adventure-comedy barely takes a breath while bombarding the viewer with spectacle, special effects and one-liners — but what ultimately makes the film so likeable is the flirty rapport between Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt as a mismatched pair in search of a magical tree somewhere deep in the Amazon.

The exceptional level of craftsmanship — which includes some seamless, low-key special effects — wouldn’t be nearly as affecting without the comparable care Lowery brings to this story.