Tim Grierson

Ultimately, the picture’s energetic swirl comes across as slightly hollow, its barrage of themes and impulses never finding harmony.

Grappling with serious themes, this wistful comedy opts for a sentimental tone that’s out of rhythm with the more realistic, tough-minded story that occasionally asserts itself.

The film’s deadpan good cheer makes room for big-budget spectacle and a modicum of emotional depth, but a self-effacing vibe and pop-culture giddiness work the best here — necessary countermeasures as Marvel fights against the inevitable creative fatigue incurred after a decade of multiplex dominance.

This muted drama is powered by uneasy questions about how our environment and cultural heritage inform our lives — and whether individuals can ever truly break free of their past.

Queen & Slim’s cumulative impact mostly justifies the tonal inconsistencies, leaving the viewer with a troubling look at a society in which the marginalised always feel hunted.

A sympathetic but clear-eyed character study transforms into something more insidious, sobering and infuriating in (T)error, a superb documentary that personalises the US War on Terror in ways that make the human toll intimate and unmistakable.

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.

Case 137’s no-frills style can leave the film feeling a tad generic, and one wishes that Moll resisted underlining some of his thematic points so strenuously. But there’s a laudable awareness of the racial, class and gender issues at play in this story of a dogged middle-aged woman going into battle against a heavily male police force.

Bolstered by a series of fragile, lived-in performances, led by Zac Efron’s astonishing turn as the soulful eldest brother in this seemingly doomed clan, the picture asks troubling questions about fate, fathers and ambition, eventually arriving at some hard-earned answers.

While Eye In The Sky is effective in building suspense and making a talk-y drama compelling, these techniques are in service to high-minded, heavy-handed filmmaking that buries troubling wartime questions in simplistic rhetoric.

An inability to crack the movie’s central mystery — why abandon your dreams to help facilitate someone else’s? — leaves the project feeling a bit like a missed opportunity.

Wilfully provocative — and going to extremes to make its points — this psychological drama sometimes strains credibility, but its poisonous cauldron of greed and contempt proves arresting.

Perhaps it’s simplistic to say that director Mira Nair has fashioned a good-looking but Disney-fied version of actual events, and yet the studio’s predictably uplifting-at-all-costs blandness slowly but methodically drains the material of its richness.

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.

As a director, Jordan has produced polished, briskly paced entertainment but what’s disappointing is that, quite often, Creed III hints at being something more.

Abacus: Small Enough To Jail isn’t as grand or engrossing a treatise as Hoop Dreams or The Interrupters, but in its intimate, well-observed way, the film is deeply moving and subtly shaming.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is endlessly watchable but only intermittently arresting—you’re held captive by its craftsmanship, even if you find yourself not particularly invested in how it all plays out.

Ben Affleck produces one of his most irresistibly entertaining dramas — albeit one that never forgets the capitalist reality of this feel-good story.

Feel free to ignore the nonsensical plot and tortured musings on honour, revenge, loyalty and destiny. All that matters is how director Chad Stahelski concocts his usual litany of flinty fight scenes, and how Keanu Reeves invests the material with his wonderfully spacey stoicism.

Sometimes the convoluted story forces its emotional beats, but Hoppers is a largely successful animation that introduces a refreshingly darker strain of humour alongside its paeans to the natural world.

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.

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.

Directors David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg don’t dig deeply enough into their complex subject, while spending too much time on the same distractions that are compromising Nye’s focus.

The prickly protagonists of Funny Pages would not be pleasant company in real life, but writer-director Owen Kline’s proudly dyspeptic feature debut gives his characters a scruffy integrity that makes them perversely fascinating.

As entertaining and engaging as Spider-Man: Homecoming can be, it remains merely a solid reboot.

Although this action-adventure moves briskly enough, audiences may ultimately crave a film whose storytelling is as inventive as the vibrant images that splash across the screen. But as Puss will learn, some wishes don’t come true

Although Jay Kelly explores familiar thematic terrain of an ageing man wrestling with regret, this tender film is mildly radical in its insistence that celebrities were once just everyday people — and might still be during unguarded moments.

Despite committed performances from LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges and Noah Jupe, Honey Boy ends up feeling indulgent rather than searing, settling into its anguish rather than translating it into trenchant drama.