Tim Grierson

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.