Tim Grierson

This satire boasts plenty of ideas but is only occasionally compelling.

Ross and his two leads set the stage for a provocatively unsteady romance that’s initially entrancing, honouring all the uncertainty inherent in new love. But eventually, Frank & Lola succumbs to a series of progressively more implausible twists that run counter to the carefully constructed everyman that Shannon has essayed.

The comedic sparks and emotional stirrings simply aren’t as potent this time around, despite some colourful animation and an occasionally inspired silly streak.

Roher’s willingness to blindly accept any and all of his speakers’ pronouncements leaves The AI Doc feeling toothless. ... Clearly, the filmmakers want to present the material in an evenhanded fashion so that viewers can make up their own mind, but in the name of so-called fairness, the documentary lacks any real perspective or inquisitiveness.

The Yellow Birds is a war movie whose outlines may be familiar — but its emotional clarity gives this drama an almost crushing sense of intimacy.

The improvisational flair, unpredictable tonal shifts and overt emotional lurches that highlighted American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook are here less consistently inspired and affecting, resulting in a heartfelt fairy tale that only soars in spurts.

Landesman’s film may not be scintillating drama, but it aches with muted anger, and his cast makes sure to keep the proceedings at a consistent simmering boil.

While one can’t argue with the Oscar-winner’s commitment, there’s far more mannerisms than inspiration — a criticism that also applies to this self-indulgent, infrequently transfixing stoner comedy.

An overly self-conscious somberness infuses the film, keeping this heartrending tale from being as poignant as it could be.

The plotting may sometimes be convoluted, but the picture rolls along so forcefully that its familiar genre trappings hardly hamper the proceedings.

Very effective in its flamboyant flourishes but dialled up so high it can feel excessively brooding and melodramatic, the film makes no apologies for depicting desire as an addictive drug, inviting the audience to succumb to the story’s narcotic pull

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

Antonio Campos introduces us to a world in which murder, violence, and suicide are commonplace, but he fails to find much new to say about this bleak thematic terrain.

Indulgent and meandering, but also very funny and thought-provoking, this film is ultimately about how little we understand about others — as well as ourselves.

More frustrating than nerve-wracking, Old is hampered by its one-dimensional characterisations within an intriguing set-up.

The movie is competently made, but also perfunctory, telling us things about the greed of rich business executives and the shallowness of cable TV that we already know.

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.

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.

Wendy casts a powerful spell — the movie has the potency of a dusty folktale brought to vivid life — but it can be frustrating that Zeitlin doesn’t have much interesting to say beyond his stylistic flourishes and evocative atmosphere.

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.

A superhero movie with the scope of an epic but the spirit of a mischievous boy, Aquaman is a goofy, uneven adventure that proudly sticks to its loopy vision even if it doesn’t quite work.

The picture is irreverent yet oddly touching, never especially great but often disreputable fun.

DC takes the multiverse for a spin in The Flash, an entertaining adventure that outruns its familiar narrative trappings thanks to a playful sense of humour and the arrival of an iconic character in a supporting role.

More often than not, the stirring tunes and the genuineness of the proceedings help paper over Spirited’s rough spots. A couple of twists are well-handled, and Ferrell’s performance as a dutiful ghost who suddenly questions his (after)life choices reveals a vulnerability which is disarming.

Despite Nicolas Cage’s committed performance as the imposing, hardheaded leader of the expedition, this mournful yarn can’t quite transcend what’s familiar about its study of masculinity and the unforgiving spirit of the natural world.

Blessed with some excellent voice performances, this new King is familiar but still lively enough to encourage audiences to emotionally invest again in story they are already so familiar with.

Stars Dave Bautista and Brittany Snow aren’t compelling enough, and the film’s formal gimmicks aren’t clever enough.

Hoping to be a stylish, witty conman thriller, The Good Liar starts out as an amusing lark but fails to stay ahead of its audience, piling on the ludicrousness until it’s impossible to take the proceedings seriously.

Best appreciated as a sensory experience whose deeper meanings aren’t nearly as profound as the filmmaker and cast believe, Song To Song demonstrates that Malick remains a singular artist — albeit one in a palpable rut.

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

If the destination ultimately proves a little less satisfying than the trip, Mitchell and his collaborators fill us with so many moody reveries that we succumb to its warped logic and indelible vividness.

The drama’s rich atmospherics vividly embody the melancholy mindset of its characters, although it does comes at a price, especially as the plotting grows increasingly convoluted near the finale.

Director Paul Feig brings the same sly approach to this lavish follow-up, but the results feel even more strained than the original, which was often more stylish than deliciously diabolical.

Ultimately, one suspects Perkins views Liz’s dilemma as little more than an excuse to construct a fun exercise in nightmare inducement that possesses the same craftsmanship that Malcolm clearly put into his swanky cabin. Each is a sight to see and neither is worth visiting for too long.

Everest director Baltasar Kormakur crafts his man-versus-wild-animal drama with some niftily tense suspense sequences that split the difference between compelling and cheesy. But whether it’s the so-so CGI or the threadbare character development, Beast frustratingly refuses to aspire to be more than a competent, disposable actioner.

To be sure, there are moments where the film’s studied quirkiness achieves something close to Piper’s objective, but the movie is so maddeningly uneven and brazenly combative that it’s hard to surrender to its ambition.

The results are both engaging and disposable, offering game viewers an exercise in suspense and off-kilter atmosphere.

This often absorbing opus can be as mighty as Superman himself, but a lack of restraint proves to be its Kryptonite.

Because Good Joe Bell spends so much time wondering how this father will change and grow, it doesn’t concentrate enough on his son, who is actually experiencing the bullying.

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

The result is an old-fashioned action-adventure replete with battle scenes and hearty proclamations such as “We will paint the dawn red with the blood of our foes!” But the hand-drawn animation style has its limitations, and the film’s central figures are not as magnetic as before.

Hands Of Stone tests how far a film can go solely on heart, and in this case, it turns out to be just enough to overcome biopic conventionality.

12 Strong wants to be triumphant but also mournful, rousing but also thoughtful in its chronicling of America’s place in a changing, complicated world. That tonal nuance is commendable...but the results are more muddled than thematically intricate.

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.

Starting off as a strained farce before segueing into a sappy family film, How To Be A Latin Lover has its likeable, goofy moments, although it is consistently undercut by a main character who is very difficult to love.

Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx are clearly enjoying themselves voicing their very different characters — Ferrell naive and energetic, Foxx cynical and streetwise — but apart from a few inspired moments, the outrageousness soon drags.

As sympathetic as Vikander is in the role, this queen remains a bit opaque, her inner life never brought into sharp focus. Katherine may have survived, but she’s still not fully known.

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.

As sunny as Eddie The Eagle is, its greatest liability is that it never pushes itself, content to let an amiable true-life tale be turned into a generic genre exercise.

While the movie overdoes the plot twists and existential musings, The Discovery is a diverting head-trip whose reach far exceeds its grasp.

The elegant tone undercuts the material’s inherent bite, ultimately defanging a picture that eventually shifts into a twisty thriller.

The movie is most cutting when it moves away from the big set pieces and, instead, examines the small ways that employees lose their humanity to a capitalist system that’s out to destroy them.

The Boys In The Boat is heartfelt and smoothly executed, but this inspirational drama cannot outrace the filmmaker’s staid, undemanding approach, which turns even the most stirring moments into predictable plot points.

Neither the humour nor the script is particularly sharp, although younger viewers may not mind the slapstick simplicity.

The sense of narrative deja vu — the nagging recognition that the film draws from disparate, familiar parts, rarely gelling into a coherent whole — cannot help but make the proceedings feel derivative. This is especially apparent in the humdrum animation style, which is bright and energetic but unspectacular.

There’s a natural tendency to want to like Greta so that you don’t feel like a killjoy or a snob. But as much as I appreciated Jordan and his actors’ balance of high and low, I rarely treasured its trashiness.

Sometimes marred by plot contrivances, Boogie works best when it breaks free of cliches to deliver an honest portrait of the struggles to attain the American dream.

Unlike its zonked-out predator, Banks’ film rarely feels similarly energised.

Because the roles are underwritten and the players struggle to establish a rapport, The Magnificent Seven never lets the audience feel like its along for the ride with a dynamic group of death-or-glory hombres.

Director Yuval Adler taps into the lean story’s Collateral-like intrigue but, outside of Cage’s hair-trigger antics, there is not much surprise here — especially when the filmmaker unveils a twist most will see coming down the road.

This action-romance provides the requisite thrills while offering new characters and narrative turns, creating a portrait of blossoming evil that is thoughtfully executed.

Because The Little Things is so indebted to the tenets of its genre, it can only succeed by bringing originality and a fresh perspective to the whodunit. Unfortunately, this film becomes a victim of its uninspired construction — which ends up being no small thing.

Giants Being Lonely may not add much to the landscape of coming-of-age dramas, yet the preciseness of its impressionism results in a striking atmosphere of hormones and vulnerability.

Once that narrative path becomes clear, Penguin Bloom never really surprises, delivering a series of heartfelt but predictable story beats.

Unlike this film’s sleek killing machines, the new installment is creaky and sometimes clumsy, and yet it ultimately succeeds by delivering sufficient thrills while also offering just enough emotional depth to keep viewers engaged in its familiar man-versus-robot tussle.

Although less convincing when it tries to say something meaningful about racism and police brutality, Black And Blue has sufficient pulp pleasures and a winning confidence in executing its modest ambitions.

The Hong Kong action auteur conjures up a few of his trademark over-the-top sequences, but this tale of bloody vengeance is not the most satisfying delivery device for Woo’s unique brand of melodramatic, slow-mo carnage.

The film’s scattershot humour doesn’t always land, but even when it does it’s merely masking what is ultimately a gloomy portrait of our walking-dead existence.

Director Ava DuVernay emphasises an emotional clarity and narrative simplicity that allows the book’s sci-fi examination of friendship, family and forgiveness to resonate with almost mythic force.

But as lovely as Blackbird can be, it’s never particularly insightful or compelling — for a film meant to celebrate life, the storytelling is curiously moribund.

There’s reason to celebrate that Daniel Day-Lewis has chosen, at least temporarily, to cancel his retirement, but “Anemone” as a whole strains for a greatness that its star effortlessly conveys. Amid the film’s self-conscious depiction of a brewing tempest, he remains a true force of nature.

The film is held captive by its myriad influences, but Cage is so high-spirited that you won’t mind being its prisoner.

Cutting-edge performance-capture technology gives us a remarkably lifelike Alita, but although Robert Rodriguez clearly loves this pulpy genre material, that affection rarely translates into anything more than an impressive display of technical might.

While Person to Person has an appealing less-is-more stance, sometimes less is just less.

The proceedings are often stifling, but not without their prickly pleasures.

Unlike The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, which were energised by the prospect of returning to Lucas’ galaxy, Rise feels obligatory and uninspired. Rey may learn who she really is, but this unengaging franchise finale remains disappointingly nondescript.

Annabelle Comes Home has effective scare sequences, especially as the film ratchets up the tension in its final reels, but this sequel ultimately feels too mechanical, and too familiar, to unnerve as proficiently as previous entries.

Filmmaker Tim Sutton elicits pitiless performances from Frank Grillo and Jamie Bell playing two very different criminals on a collision course, and the film exudes a grungy, B-movie ethos in keeping with its scrappy, resourceful characters.

Certainly, The Mauritanian doesn’t lack for sincerity or muted rage. But the earnest, pat execution ultimately does a disservice to Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s arduous odyssey. His is a story that needs to be told, but with a little more urgency and ingenuity than what’s brought to bear here.

Despite Aladdin’s occasionally arresting moments, this remake’s most potent element is its intentional air of déjà vu.

The film is so weighed down by self-importance that the proceedings are embalmed in solemnity.

Although occasionally stirring, the film rarely rises above the level of intriguing anecdote, resulting in a deeply drab drama enlivened somewhat by Matthew McConaughey’s empathetic performance.

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

Gandhi speaks to collaborators, lovers and journalists, who help flesh out Hernandez’s life and career trajectory, although the musician’s unwillingness to participate leaves this an intriguing snapshot rather than a definitive portrait.

Hypnotic’s funhouse spirit eventually dissipates as it becomes clear that Rodriguez is mostly stealing from better pictures, never fusing them into a captivating new whole.

An aggressively cute family film that’s also a spectacle-driven sci-fi noir-mystery with hints of Blade Runner and the third act of every Marvel movie, this adaptation of the popular 2016 video game throws everything at the audience with such vehemence that the sum effect is overwhelming more than it is entertaining.

Wittrock and Chao have such a spark that it’s disappointing that Long Weekend is ultimately one more picture about how an amazing woman helps a nice but ordinary guy turn his life around. Chao’s lively performance — not to mention the audience — deserves better.

Trying to split the difference between trashy and classy, Red Sparrow is a sleek, juiced-up espionage thriller that overdoes everything: its brutal violence, its dramatic flourishes, its hairpin plot twists, and most certainly its sexpot shamelessness.

Politics is a dirty business, but Our Brand Is Crisis doesn’t stick its hands into the muck sufficiently to be as entertaining or stinging as it could be.

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.

Grant Singer’s feature directorial debut suffers from an overinflated sense of grandeur and a frustratingly convoluted story, reaching for dramatic heights that it hasn’t earned.

Zac Efron projects the right amount of edgy, empty handsomeness, but the movie’s conceit doesn’t pay enough dividends — especially when trying to reconcile Bundy’s distortions of reality with the actual terror he caused in the 1970s.

On the whole, 15:17’s slavish adherence to reality ends up arguing that, sometimes, a little Hollywood phoniness can go a long way.

Unfortunately, the film tends to underline its points, turning a clever idea into a fairly obvious one, and Love Me’s self-consciously innocent/sweet tone can become grating. But what holds the film together is the intelligence and commitment the two stars bring to this occasionally mawkish tale.

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.

This affectionate hoot hardly breaks new ground with its film-within-a-film structure, but the South Korean auteur attacks the material with such good cheer, populating the story with a collection of daffy dreamers, that it’s easy to root for these characters as they reshoot the ending of a picture some of them are convinced is this close to being a masterpiece.

This new edition feels less inspired, missing not just the superstar’s quick wit but the 1988 film’s fecund fish-out-of-water premise.

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.

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

If G20 barely registers as original, its star remains commanding. Even when Davis dutifully goes through the motions as stern government official Amanda Waller in the recent DC films, she seems incapable of phoning in a role or winking to the audience.

A treatise on art, ambition, long-distance relationships and the struggles to find one’s own voice, the film unfolds with uncommon grace.

Branagh, in his direction and especially in his performance, can’t help but overdo the cheeky artificiality, which keeps Murder feeling more like a well-designed exercise than a delectable thriller.

This tonally tricky comedy-drama tackles aging, loss, the Holocaust, Jewishness, and the difficulty of determining the truth in a fake-news world. But Johansson’s well-meaning film couldn’t be more aggravating, and its biggest problem is its insistence that we find Eleanor so damn endearing, no matter what.

Not quite thrilling or hilarious enough, writer-director Elizabeth Banks’ take on the 1970s television series preaches empowerment and gender equality, and leads Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska prove to be fun company. But this fizzy entertainment is yoked to a dull spy story which recycles genre tropes without adding much that is new to the mix.

The Amateur mostly tries to upend genre conventions without offering anything exciting in their place.

Last Dance does not top what came before, lacking the inspiration, freshness and spark of the earlier pictures. But it feels properly measured in its acknowledgement that the dance eventually ends. Mike bows out gracefully enough.

Despite Segel and Weaver’s best efforts, they can’t make this bickering duo deliciously awful, the characters proving more grating than hilariously combustible.

Silent Night works best as a grim chamber piece that subverts the season’s usual good cheer — or, depending on one’s temperament, serves as a tart distillation of the nagging gloom those who hate the holidays often feel.

Adapted from a chapter in Bram Stoker’s novel, the picture initially has some gory fun with its close-quarters suspense, but Ovredal unsuccessfully tries to elevate his monster movie with flimsy psychological depth and unconvincing emotional underpinnings.

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.

In its more diverting moments, A Working Man echoes its no-fuss protagonist, executing compact action set pieces that eschew flashy CGI in favour of good-old-fashioned shootouts and hand-to-hand fighting. But that spareness too often belies the lack of ingenuity elsewhere.

The X-Men adventures keep getting bigger, but Singer works extremely hard to ensure that, even when they’re not always better, they continue to thrill sufficiently.

The shifting loyalties and treacherous power plays that go on in Triple 9 are engaging, but Hillcoat especially shines in a series of three taut life-or-death sequences — one at the start of the film, one near the middle, and one at the end — that articulate more about who these characters are than anything they say.

Despite the comforting pleasures of watching old-fashioned battle scenes waged with swords, axes and crossbows, Bafta-winning director Nick Hamm’s action film recycles the stirring spectacle of bygone epics without having much new to tell.

Hits all the expected emotional beats but doesn’t take many risks or glean sufficient insights about our fascination with the double-edged sword of eternal youth.

Fans of zombie spoofs and films-about-films should enjoy this bauble, which is elevated by the cheery ensemble.

This biopic reaches its high point early on, as Bafta-winner Naomi Ackie vividly portrays the pop star during her meteoric ascent. But once the film reaches Houston’s later career, when drugs and a difficult marriage began to take their toll, the story doesn’t just become more downbeat but also more of a slog, falling to find an insightful angle into this slow-motion tragedy.

One wouldn’t expect A Walk In The Woods to be a rat-a-tat-tat 1930s comedy, but between the stars’ rusty comic timing and the script’s stale setups, the movie simply isn’t that funny, more likely to produce a smile than even a chuckle.

Too often, Fallen Kingdom has all the soul and grace of a well-prepared business proposal—you can sense all the money being invested into an intellectual property in order to reap a sizable windfall and ensure the franchise’s continued commercial viability. It’s as scintillating as a retirement plan.

Director Jay Duplass crafts a sensitive portrait of loss and forgiveness but ,for a picture based on actual events, there is an artificiality to the proceedings that undercuts the material’s inherent poignancy.

Unfortunately, the ending, like so much of what came before, is missing that certain magic, which not even a unicorn can provide.

Twenty years after The Fifth Element, writer-director Luc Besson has once again delivered a widescreen, sci-fi spectacle full of rampant whimsy, lavish effects and creaky social commentary, resulting in a nervy, go-for-broke opus whose audacity is more laudable than its execution.

Outside of its admiration for mothers, Bier’s film seems to only vaguely hint at other ephemeral ideas, and as a result Bird Box is a curiously hollow experience.

Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman have crafted a knowingly cheesy action movie that flaunts its adrenalised excessiveness, while Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, playing two very different men in search of the pills, never manage to transcend the project’s fundamentally generic, cartoonish design.

The film’s intermittent charms come thanks to some of the voice actors.

Anyone expecting a shred of originality from this Dwayne Johnson vehicle will be disappointed, but writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber tries his best to compensate by amping up the over-the-top spectacle, hoping sheer gusto will keep viewers from minding his film’s shaky foundation.

The filmmakers preserve Seuss’s narrative beats but strain to replicate his whimsical spirit.

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.

This live-action remake of the 1941 Disney animated classic finds the eccentric, inconsistent filmmaker tapping into his career’s core emotional themes and, on occasion, Dumbo has the magic and wonder of his best work. (And that blue-eyed baby elephant is awfully cute.) But there remains a frustrating impersonality — not to mention an audience familiarity with his well-worn aesthetic — that keeps the film from soaring all that high.

Like many would-be debaucherous evenings, Rough Night starts off with great promise, only to devolve into a series of poor decisions, regretful moments and a general sense of disappointment.

Ridley’s spiky sense of humour is a balm, especially early on when Joey interacts with her brother, but the script’s formulaic nature proves too much.

No matter Linklater’s efforts to keep the proceedings grounded in a light realism, this inherently melodramatic, sometimes absurdist material resists his naturalistic tendencies.

Director Marc Forster lends this lightweight comedy-drama a crowd-pleasing breeziness, but the picture never cuts particularly deep, especially noticeable when it tries to tackle some darker subject matter. Audiences simply wanting an undemanding, reassuring entertainment may not mind, but Hanks’ change-of-pace role is intriguing enough to wish the material wasn’t quite so mawkish.

There’s nothing more terrifying in this film than the creative talent wasted on such shockingly mediocre material.

This new instalment knows which story beats to hit, but it has little grasp of the emotional undercurrents that made the original resonate — how it touched on adolescent insecurities, first love, and the scourge of school bullies.

Terrence Malick often wrestles with the cosmic, the spiritual and the eternal, but with A Hidden Life, the meditative writer-director attacks his usual themes from a rewardingly timely and urgent perspective.

The latest from director Gavin O’Connor (Warrior) is part character study and part airport-novel nonsense, and the film’s utter chutzpah gives the proceedings an agreeable kick. But The Accountant can’t balance its B-movie instincts with its more artistic aspirations, ultimately hamstringing a potentially juicy, escapist shoot-‘em-up.

The filmmakers’ handling of the surprises has a narrative deftness and visual cleverness that is legitimately unbalancing. It also adds a blast of dark comedy to the proceedings.

As cheery as the whole affair can be, no amount of razzle-dazzle can distract from World Tour’s meagre storytelling — or the gnawing suspicion that the proceedings are targeting overstimulated young viewers who just want nonstop sensation.

There’s very little that’s shocking — and not nearly enough that is funny — about this romantic comedy.

The remake of Papillon doesn’t lack for potential metaphorical riches, yet this brutal, bruising film never quite connects with its deeper themes, resulting in a story full of suffering but not enough transcendence.

A solid but forgettable crime thriller whose best asset is Boseman’s commanding presence.

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

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.

Abbott and costar Julia Garner give grounded, emotional performances in this occasionally thoughtful chiller ultimately undone by its grander ambitions.

Lead performances from Jonah Hill and James Franco are plenty impressive. But at the same time, True Story is almost too polished and clever for its own good, sacrificing complexity for a surface-y examination of the issues at play.

Shamelessly sentimental but also dedicated to the proposition that, in our dark political moment, kindness still matters, director Paul Feig’s film benefits from the adorable rapport of stars Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, who help puncture the story’s conventional trappings.

When Now You Don’t tries to be poignant while pondering the passage of time and the loss of loved ones, the franchise’s glib construction cannot withstand the tonal shift. And the story’s relentless razzle-dazzle eventually feels laboured, sapping the fizzy fun.

Unfortunately, this relatively lighthearted instalment, which boasts likeable performances and some unapologetically goofy comedic moments, ends up feeling insubstantial rather than freewheeling.

Pugh and Freeman are superb at embodying their characters’ emotional wounds, but Braff’s melodramatic approach quickly becomes oppressive, clumsily orchestrating wild highs and lows with such inelegance that his protagonists start to resemble helpless pawns he is pushing around the narrative chessboard.

This sequel’s real sin is the fact the usually fearsome beasts are not suitably terrifying, resulting in some mildly effective action sequences but nothing that suggests the series is in the throes of a creative renewal.

The Hunt is the cinematic equivalent of watching strangers argue on the internet about politics: It’s fleetingly amusing but, ultimately, not the best use of anyone’s time.

For a spell, this sequel to the 2014 hit intrigues because of its insistence on taking time to establish melancholy themes and thoughtful tone. But no amount of Denzel Washington’s weary authority is enough to distract from the fact that this overstuffed, ultimately unsatisfying potboiler merely dresses up its clichés in strained gravitas.

The Ugly is less concerned with the machinations of the whodunit and more invested in how physical appearance defines both ourselves and our feelings about others.

This lack of sparkle can be felt throughout the remake which, like so many of the studio’s recent redos, feels stiff and reverential — a cynical reproduction suffused with deadening CGI.

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.

Julie Delpy’s latest directorial effort juggles some potentially delicious ideas, but Lolo proves to be an exasperating romantic comedy that flirts with darker terrain it never has the guts or wit to really explore.

A lazy heist comedy that asks little of its appealing leads, Going In Style goes down smoothly even if the only thing that really gets stolen is the audience’s time.

Part stoner comedy, midnight movie, outsiders’ love story and ultraviolent B-movie, this intriguing film is given real soul by stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, even if director Nima Nourizadeh’s ambitions end up being more laudable than the results.

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.

Despite a stellar cast led by Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, After The Wedding never cuts very deeply, staying on the surface of a tale that ought to tear into the viewer’s soul the way it does these tormented characters.

The solo directorial debut of Bobby Farrelly goes for broad laughs and a crowd-pleasing spirit, never mocking its disabled characters but, instead, celebrating their irreverent sense of humour and athletic skill. Unfortunately, that does not keep Champions from feeling patronising and cloying at times.

This adaptation of Bethan Roberts’ novel is full of repressed emotions and the occasional tearful recrimination, but the stateliness of the proceedings eventually becomes stifling rather than absorbing, draining this doomed love affair of its potential to break the heart.

An initially captivating drama that loses steam once predictability starts to take hold.

Anchored by Imogen Poots’ emotional performance, Black Christmas is uneven and overreaches, and yet its anger at a misogynistic society gets its claws into its audience.

Unfortunately, a glib superficiality hangs heavy over the narrative. Rather than really explore these lost and angry souls who feel destined to be despondent, Wilson settles for simplistic quirkiness, which makes the characters merely bland misanthropic types instead of fleshed-out individuals.

Though it’s laudable that Vallée and his cast tried not to make just another story about someone wallowing in his grief, their alternative coddles Davis’s mourning with a rampant colourfulness that’s suffocating.

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.

Though suitably moving in parts, Desert Dancer is more dutiful than inspired, reducing a worthy message to lukewarm sermonising.

The film is adrenalised but familiar, sporting a sarcastic sense of humour in an attempt to mitigate what’s so threadbare about the premise and increasingly over-the-top fight sequences.

Appropriately for a group known for its theatrical, crowd-pleasing tunes, this authorised-by-the-band biopic carries itself lightly, serving up familiar plot points with panache and a sense of humour, while at the same time investing in the story’s emotional through-line, building to a genuinely moving climax.

Bullet Train has no shortage of giddy, madcap gusto, hoping to satiate hardcore genre fans with its bloody, over-the-top violence and rising body count. But this lumbering locomotive proves to be neither hilariously amoral nor liberatingly violent — it makes quite a commotion, but mostly just spins its wheels.

Although stuffed with ambition and the occasionally arresting moment, this 1930s mystery flaunts a freewheeling spirit that far outpaces its convoluted story and dramatically thin protagonists.

A girl-and-her-horse adventure that never really hits its stride, Spirit Untamed offers undemanding family entertainment alongside some easily digestible life lessons.

The fourth installment of the Insidious series has deft scares and some nifty twists, all of which don’t entirely distract from how strangely inconsequential The Last Key ultimately feels.

Although the two leads have a steamy rapport, their chemistry cannot overcome a predictable and shallow saga about grief and second chances.

Qualley brings the required smoky-sexpot energy, but Julia is so underwritten that the actress turns her into an unintentional parody of a familiar character. Also disappointing is Powell’s glib portrayal of Beckett.

Terry George buries a worthy subject in a stuffy story of unrequited love and selfless heroism that gives off a strong scent of mustiness.

Two Steve Carells most assuredly aren’t better than one in Despicable Me 3, a winded sequel which is cloying when it isn’t exhaustingly frenetic.

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.

No doubt the world needs more paeans to tolerance, but movies as ineffectual as The Best Of Enemies feel profoundly inadequate to the task.

The trouble with Miss Americana is that, although there is honesty and vulnerability, there’s also something rehearsed and distant about it. Swift invites us in, but she only lets us see so much.

This Prohibition-era drama deals limply with themes of loyalty, love, power and redemption, but not in any unique way, its emotional punch as vague as its cipher of a main character.

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

Tongue firmly in cheek and sporting a taste for blood, The Predator has some nasty down-and-dirty pleasures, but director Shane Black can’t entirely reconcile his lightly self-mocking tone with the film’s muscular B-movie action.

Juliette Binoche may play a seasoned truck driver with a firm grip on the wheel, but Paradise Highway proves to be an unsteady ride, guided by intriguing ideas but hampered by generic tendencies.

For all the creativity on display in Tron: Ares, it’s in service of a story with scant signs of life.

This strained musical is content to play to the cheap seats. Earnest in the extreme and armed with lethal amounts of razzle-dazzle, the feature debut of commercial director Michael Gracey is an all-out assault of sentiment, pop songs and dime-store psychology that’s somewhat held together by Hugh Jackman’s likably shameless portrayal of this striving charmer.

Underwater is hampered by some of the genre’s silliest conventions — questionable character motivations, delusions of grandeur — but the movie nonetheless succeeds by capitalising on an elemental terror: underwater, it’s very hard to see the dangers right in front of you.

Outside of Vikander’s performance, Tomb Raider tends to go on autopilot, either too scared or uninspired to reimagine this blah action-adventure material.

Neill Blomkamp puts the pedal to the metal with Gran Turismo, a high-octane underdog sports drama that boasts electrifying race-car sequences but a badly cliched narrative away from the track.

Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun let the tension build between their characters and, although director Susanna Fogel doesn’t always navigate the film’s tricky tonal shifts well, Cat Person pokes at larger issues about modern courtship that don’t seem likely to disappear anytime soon.

Flying off the rails at an alarming speed, The Girl On The Train fails as a compelling character study, struggles to satisfy as a psychological thriller and ultimately settles as an overheated potboiler that doesn’t have the courage to go full camp.

Despite its thoughtful ruminations and supple performances, this period drama fails to produce the expected intellectual fireworks.

Quantumania has greater stakes and a grander canvas than the more lighthearted previous chapters of the Ant-Man saga, and the film mostly negotiates the tricky tonal shift — even if the results are more predictable than spectacular

Crafted with style, and led by Florence Pugh’s redoubtable performance as a picture-perfect housewife who learns a horrifying truth, this glossy thriller draws unfavourable comparisons to a whole swath of different bygone films, cribbing their unsettling undertones without adding much new to the mixture.

Like its appealing main character, I Feel Pretty is a smart, funny comedy that isn’t always confident enough in its potential greatness.

Rambunctiously riffing on celebrity, activism, technology and economic inequality, this dark satire works best when the director’s swirl of images achieves a hypnotic, primal rush. At other times, Sacrifice is as muddled as the terrorists’ plan.

The considerable chemistry between Kate Winslet and Idris Elba certainly helps sell this tearjerker, but even so the film feels oddly distant and muted, only really coming to life in a denouement that suggests the tasteful passion buried at the story’s core.

Despite an appealing cast and some nicely executed moments (not to mention some direct references to the original attraction) Dear White People director Justin Simien’s third feature is mostly a dispiriting experience.

Lee Cronin knows how to construct suspense sequences and ramp up tension, and there are moments in his portrait of a couple dealing with the traumatic return of their missing child that are legitimately frightening. But the film’s ambitious scope is betrayed by derivative genre ideas that make this tale of the dead disappointingly listless.

Filled with feeling and led by heartfelt performances from Elle Fanning and Naomi Watts, the latest from director Gaby Dellal (Angels Crest) is a warm, rich film in many regards — and yet, there’s a nagging suspicion that, in the attempt to de-emphasise the hot-button topicality, About Ray isn’t ultimately about that much.

Despite some sweetness and playful absurdity, this big-screen outing feels mostly like derivative, fussed-over product.

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.

For all the big themes rustling around in Hunted, they lack the startling ferocity that develops on Eve’s face — for her, there’s nothing theoretical about this study of predatory male behaviour.

Hyde’s fifth feature is an affectionate, perceptive observation about the quiet difficulties of family, even if the picture overstays its welcome with a melodramatic, predictable final third.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is always faintly diverting but never particularly engrossing, putting the venerable movie star through his paces without really asking much of him.

Jamie Lee Curtis brings a regal bearing to her performance, but the prevailing feeling is of a cinematic series that’s probably best left for dead.

Disney has rarely and so shamelessly plundered its own catalogue — not just in terms of homages to its greatest hits but also in the familiar elements thrown together for this wan fable.

No doubt Black Flies wants to honour the heroism and sacrifice of paramedics — the end credits include a statistic about the alarming rate of suicide in the profession — but it often dehumanises the people in desperate need of their help. Sauvaire seems more concerned with one group’s suffering than the other.

Wanting to honour history, Midway proves to be an oddly polite war film, afraid to be too exciting lest it interfere with the solemn tone.

An assembly line of ostensibly “hip” gestures and snarky attitude, The Hitman’s Bodyguard wants very badly to be a naughty, R-rated guilty pleasure. Nobody tell its makers that it’s mostly just mildly boring.

Told mostly through the screens that consume the characters’ lives, the feature debut of director Carey Williams has its superficial pleasures as a riff on our media-soaked moment, but the novelty of the approach is hard to sustain, and a fresh-faced cast fails to capitalise on the play’s enduring appeal.

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.

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

And while the events depicted in The Alto Knights will result in a major law-enforcement action that profoundly shaped the American mafia, Levinson’s sombre, pedestrian approach captures neither the excitement nor the momentousness of the incident.

The director doesn’t draw well-rounded performances from Bruno or Eastick, failing to capture the awe or confusion of youth. What we get instead are adrenalised chase scenes and needlessly showy special effects that lack charm.

Comic-book fans have seen much of this film before, but Levi at least tries to make it soar.

Director Nash Edgerton never really sinks his teeth into the delectable darkness of his hero’s nemeses, struggling to maintain the right acidic tone.

Doubling down on the giddily ridiculous tone of its predecessor, Now You See Me 2 is diverting, but the film’s rampant, cheeky cleverness — its ‘can you guess what’s going on?” coyness — ultimately proves tiresome.

There’s real feeling coursing through Jellyfish, even if its insights aren’t particularly trenchant.

Playfully, almost proudly shallow as it feeds off the feverish highs and lows of its addicted protagonist, this neo-noir offers plenty of buzzy delight — that is, until the story’s pretensions bring down the whole house of cards.

Whether it’s the hit-or-miss jokes or the familiar action beats, the film too often plays down to its young audience, valuing rambunctious energy over wit or heart.

The feature debut of director Max Joseph can occasionally be as entrancing and euphoric as the pulsating dance songs on the soundtrack. But even an empathetic performance from Zac Efron (and an impressive, nuanced turn from Wes Bentley) can’t distract from a movie that mistakes surface flash for probing, zeitgeist-y insights.

Never satisfyingly kooky, spooky or ooky, the new animated Addams Family film transports Charles Addams’ lovably macabre clan into the 21st century, resulting in an undistinguished children’s comedy full of dull pop-culture referencing and half-hearted commentary about the importance of inclusiveness.

With modest ambitions and a slender runtime, the film proves to be a sexy, amusing time – despite being fairly forgettable.

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

Boasting some strong performances and clever writing, this breezy overview of the author and his magnum opus, The Catcher In The Rye, fails to fully capture the magnitude of this brilliant author’s struggle for greatness and then, later, his decision to walk away from literary stardom.

More giggle-inducing than terrifying, The Meg throws enough incidents at you that it simulates the feeling of being entertaining.

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.

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.

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.

Whatever mild pleasure can be derived from seeing Batman and Wonder Woman team up with other costumed crime-fighters quickly dissipates as it becomes clear that director Zack Snyder has again crafted a lumbering blockbuster that dilutes what’s so stirring about these fabled fictional champions.

Rather than being insightful or candid, Five Nights mostly feels inconsequential — an intriguing, uneven narrative experiment more than a fully satisfying story.

Roland and Vanessa simply aren’t sufficiently compelling to provoke us to fill in the blanks. Pitt brings his usual weathered charm, and Jolie Pitt makes her character’s all-consuming melancholy occasionally ravishing, but there’s not enough depth underneath.

Audiences familiar with this kind of story — and the inevitable complications that ensue once characters try to hide a brutal crime — will be ahead of the overheated storytelling.

Often amusing but rarely shifting into a higher comedic gear, Snatched features fun chemistry between co-stars Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, some delightfully goofy moments of stray hilarity, yet not enough story or heart to keep this thin tale afloat.

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.

Alongside a sharp supporting cast that includes Dean Norris and Michael Kelly, Secret’s leads do what they can and never embarrass themselves. But the film’s so disposable, it vanishes right in front of your eyes.

After the sorry spectacle and blatant xenophobia of London Has Fallen, it’s almost a relief that Angel is merely a competent, second-rate action vehicle. This trilogy’s ambitions have never been particularly high, but at least this third chapter’s fleeting junk-food pleasures aren’t undermined by base pandering.

The gargantuan critters are dwarfed only by the derivativeness in Rampage, a clunky spectacle that, like many Dwayne Johnson vehicles, is elevated by his charismatic presence but not enough to recommend it.

A teen group therapy session disguised as a superhero movie, Power Rangers is numbingly predictable and cynically made, recycling myriad blockbuster tropes but draining their adolescent pleasures in the process.

Larson navigates through a cute story’s clear limitations to deliver a film that’s often quite funny, even if it sometimes flirts with being cringe-worthy.

Although Neeson has a nice rapport with young costar Jacob Perez, there’s no escaping the formulaic storyline featuring uncomplicated good guys and abundantly villainous bad guys.

As kinetic as its predecessor — and just as belaboured — Kingsman: The Golden Circle serves up another batch of hyper-stylised action, irreverent humour and sharp threads, resulting in a film that’s not nearly as cool as it thinks it is.

Familiar execution and drab characters conspire to drain this vital story of its intensity.

This ungainly and glum tale of the man famously known as Tarzan — who returns to the Congo, reconnecting with his past in the process — slavishly adheres to contemporary blockbuster convention, offering not a single spark of inspiration or real daring. A talented cast led by Alexander Skarsgård scowls through the film, held hostage by a solemn script and ghastly amounts of CG.

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.

To be sure, Kidnap is unadulterated B-movie nonsense, but when it’s delivered with this level of trashy gusto, the pleasures are plentiful.

Pacific Rim Uprising’s jokey tone fails to leaven the movie’s leaden clatter, and so any attempt on Boyega’s part to be heroic feels a bit shrouded in irony. But at least he registers: Eastwood may be even duller than Charlie Hunnam was in the first installment, and Spaeny plays the spunky Amara with maximum attitude and a paucity of charm.

Hyena Road may be a bit underwhelming in its action set pieces and storytelling urgency, but its heart is certainly in the right place.

Luke Wilson and Martin Sheen are respectably earnest as the caretakers of these blandly noble underdogs, but this sepia-tinged portrait slavishly follows the playbook at every turn — which is ironic since it’s a film meant to honour a coach who won by being inventive.

The film’s down-and-dirty nastiness does have its merits, but the bloodshed isn’t nearly as interesting when the characters are as exciting as a spreadsheet.

The film follows a slick, predictable rise-then-fall narrative structure full of boisterous montages when things are going well and sombre music once the good times end.

This flawed thriller manages to tap into the sickening realisation that no matter where we travel in the universe, we always bring the worst parts of ourselves.

Bloodier but not better, the rebooted Mortal Kombat is a far more violent affair than the 1995 original, hewing closer in spirit to the gory video game which inspired the film franchise. And while there’s some fleeting gross-out glee in watching the martial-arts carnage — pulverised heads, severed limbs, a beating heart torn from a victim’s chest — the overkill only underlines how feeble the storytelling is otherwise.

Not without its bluntly funny bits, this nasty, programmatic comedy wants to be outlandish but, oddly enough, it’s the movie’s lack of realism that really hurts it.

As the mysteries behind the strange occurrences are slowly revealed, this underpowered horror film starts to drown in cliches and predictable plot twists.

Poker Face ends up being a cautionary tale about appreciating what you have — ironic since this thriller doesn’t have a sufficient grip on any of its myriad elements to fully engage.

Hunter Killer conjures up whiffs of entertainment value from its shameless but spirited derivativeness.

Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut eventually finds its own emotional core, zeroing in on the tragedy that befalls a seemingly perfect life once a man’s wilful daughter torpedoes it.

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.

The Angry Birds Movie is fitfully funny but tends towards a madcap mixture of comedy and action which never develops much forward momentum. The joke-a-minute approach misses more than it hits, although the bright animation and adorably-rendered characters are decent compensation.

Lacking the freshness of the original trilogy or the meticulous, insidious tone of Fincher’s film, Spider’s Web mostly feels like a holding action to ensure that more sequels can be made in the future. That timidity flies in the face of this series’ inherent edginess.

Mistress Of Evil invests heavily in inundating our eyeballs with relentless enchantment, which unfortunately translates into largely dreary CG renderings of pixies, sentient trees and other woodland critters

This adaptation of the Delia Owens bestseller proves to be an unconvincing, melodramatic affair that only occasionally locates the story’s mournful heart.

Rather than being thought-provoking or streamlined, instead Dark Phoenix is a frustratingly anticlimactic, familiar tale of misunderstood mutants.

The New Mutants’ greatest failing is that, even as a spinoff, its drama is puny and its spectacle nonexistent.

Slavishly obeying the rules of a would-be franchise starter — including crafting an open-ended finale that leaves room for sequels — Snake Eyes features plenty of martial-arts mayhem but very little actual excitement.

Some heartfelt performances and an adorable dog aren’t quite enough to combat the sentimentality and contrivances that follow.

The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent director Tom Gormican once again latches on to a meta-movie idea with great comic potential, but this limp satire of vain actors, deluded filmmakers and shamelessly recycled IP quickly starts to sputter.

Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista are a likeable pair that deserve better than Stuber, a strained action-comedy with a clever premise but maddeningly uninspired execution.

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson brings some stylishness to the killings, but I Know What You Did Last Summer’s lack of compelling characters robs the story of its juiciest hook: these brutal slayings are cosmic comeuppance for their duplicity.

The picture’s just-a-lark tone, emphasised by the quick turnaround from script to final product, proves to be a double-edged sword: Locked Down feels like a fleetingly fun experiment that would have benefited from more time.

Hugh Jackman commits fully to his role as a vain superintendent trying to stay two steps ahead of his lies and self-delusion. Ultimately, though, the character and themes feel a little too simplistic — a movie’s paltry attempt to explain the inscrutability of human nature, which is so interesting precisely because it’s so mysterious.

Creed II director Steven Caple Jr. brings a little playfulness and emotion to the series but, unfortunately, the clattering action and self-important tone remains.

It is a shame that director Catherine Hardwicke’s film cannot match its star’s inspired turn, settling for a likeable but strained fish-out-of-water tale.

Much like the original, The Lost Kingdom boasts a gleeful exuberance, whether through Bill Brzeski’s eye-popping production design or in Rupert Gregson-Williams’ knowingly overdramatic score. There is a boyish zeal to Wan’s filmmaking, which is not afraid to embrace the goofy or the playful.

Unfortunately, the film often feels as unremarkable as its protagonists, evincing little of the impressive spectacle or snarky wit of Marvel’s best installments.

Every thoughtful story beat and every well-observed character moment happens with such predictability and slick professionalism that the whole project seems smothered in bland sweetness.

Unfortunately, the film’s off-kilter tone and the characters’ beguiling opacity only enrapture for so long. The constant commentary about the banality of suburbia deadens the story, and a couple of late-reel twists fail to satisfy.

Despite the potentially fun pairing of Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich as, respectively, the writer and her messiah-like subject, neither the film’s commentary on celebrity nor its escalating body count pack much punch.

The directorial debut of Australian filmmaker Kim Farrant is undone by a series of overwrought, miscalculated scenes that can’t be redeemed by an expert cast that’s fully committed to the heavy-handedness.

Wielding the same grim power as his most obsessive, tormented work, Jack is deeply embedded within its creator’s psyche, and while the results may be cathartic for him, the movie is only intermittently arresting for the rest of us.

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.

The new film is hardly a comedic lump of coal, but the broad, sitcom-y material has inherent limitations that no amount of shameless, gleeful silliness can overcome.

When Parallel Tales shifts tones near the end to unveil an unsettling surprise, the film’s confectionery construction cannot bear the jolt. Like Sylvie, Farhadi wants to mine riveting fiction from the flotsam of the everyday, but his imagination proves to be not as formidable as hers.

Suburbicon warns of the dangers of moral rot infesting our communities. No word yet on the effect that chronic smugness might have.

Commercial considerations strangle the vitality from the movie, but Ritchie does his best to bring a bit of impish wit to the proceedings.

Director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) applies his usual slick professionalism to a genre piece that touches on mortality, regret and child abuse without much emotional resonance or riveting action sequences.

The latest instalment in the DC Extended Universe too often succumbs to the conventions of its genre — it’s a film suffused with hokey punchlines and predictably gaudy action set pieces — but some compelling performances and director Jaume Collet-Serra’s ebullient B-movie flourishes prove to be sufficient compensation.

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.

Mothers will do anything for their children, but this film’s simplistic brand of horror never makes that devotion compelling or frightening.

What works best is the dopey charm of Hardy opposite his CGI sidekick. Their grouchy rapport is almost enough to make up for a slapdash script and some predictable genre elements.

With more than a dash of Jason Bourne and Mission: Impossible, director Stefano Sollima’s undistinguished shoot-‘em-up feels so indebted to its influences that it never establishes much of a personality of its own.