Tim Grierson

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

No Other Land’s sense of grim futility is very much the point — it’s what the strong count on in order to suppress those who oppose them. Anyone who sees this devastating film may share in that sense of hopelessness. But we can no longer say we had no idea what was going on.

The perfunctory martial-arts sequences and convoluted plotting conspire to make this a painfully uninspired proposition.

Many Americans recognise the injustices within the country’s prison system, but the case has rarely been laid out as comprehensively as it is in The Alabama Solution.

Ewing and Grady want to leave viewers with a heartwarming message about the capacity of people to discover their true selves.

Sometimes overwhelming but always penetrating, the film practically demands multiple viewings to absorb its rich collection of ideas, images and music.

The actors’ on-screen rapport is sweet and loving, and they lean into deadpan once Together gets bloodier and increasingly more outrageous.

Director Clint Bentley sculpts a sentimental story whose gentle ironies and modest design have a cumulative power.

Delicately segueing from deadpan humour to delicate poignancy, Sorry, Baby is guided by the filmmaker’s graceful lead performance, which captures the guilt, anger and sadness of a woman who once seemingly had a bright future — until, suddenly, everything changed.

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.

Music-video director Isaiah Saxon’s feature debut sometimes wobbles when balancing its impish sense of humour with darker tone, but ultimately, the picture’s peculiarity becomes part of its charm — as difficult to resist as that adorable titular critter.

This twisted fable suggests a filmmaker who gleefully goes to extremes, but the story’s shocks and stomach-churning gags prove more memorable than the underlying observations about the way in which women are pitted against one another in a patriarchal society.

Thompson reveals his deep love for this musician by looking past the rock-doc cliches, searching for the soul of a man who put every ounce of it into his songs.

The Perfect Neighbor’s sombrely objective approach invites audiences to discover how this tragedy unfolded and speculate what, if anything, could have prevented it.

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.

Byrne is raw, brittle and believably volatile, bringing such immediacy and nervous energy to every scene that we understand why Linda cannot think straight — and why the seemingly most simple tasks (like making an appointment with the doctor) are beyond her.

Kwedar never denies the harsh realities of the penitentiary system but, by preferring an ultimately hopeful tone, he eventually falls victim to some of the tropes of the prison drama which his thoughtful picture had, until that point, mostly sidestepped.

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.

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

Although it is initially intriguing to see Nick and Donnie put aside their differences to form a fragile truce, their wary partnership does not generate much spark.

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature travels across the landscape of that most potentially treacly of genres, the cancer drama, locating something tough, tender and brittlely funny in this portrait of two women facing their own impasses.

Whether it’s Jim Carrey playing not one but two supervillains, or the introduction of even more supporting characters, Sonic 3 wears out its welcome, resulting in an entertaining but exhausting affair.

The CG images still impress, and there are gripping moments during the film’s second half as the insecure Mufasa embraces his destiny. But like too many origin stories, Mufasa often rehashes what was once stirring about this materia

Kraven The Hunter is, by far, the most graphic and violent of the Spider-Man Universe pictures, but that extra bloodshed does little to quicken the pulse.

The film manages to illuminate precisely what makes Dylan’s opaqueness so captivating.

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.

Eggers gives us a gothic horror that teeters on the edge of madness, resulting in an elegantly woven tapestry of encroaching evil. Led by Bill Skarsgard as the unholy titular monster, this Nosferatu leaves its mark as one of the most memorable of vampire tales.

By making the political personal, Rasoulof warns us that repression starts at home.