Tom Huddleston

Much of the film's impact stems from a pair of remarkable lead performances.

A startling examination of how artistic principles translate into real-world actions, and a moving portrait of a genuinely, unexpectedly brave man.

When the best one can say about a movie is that it’s pyrotechnically impressive, something important is missing. In this case it’s tension, originality and memorable characters.

This is a slicker, shinier, admittedly inferior affair. But with a strong cast, a roaring pace and at least one genuinely unforgettable scene, it’s by no means a write-off.

The LEGO Movie is sheer joy: the script is witty, the satire surprisingly pointed and the animation tactile and imaginative.

This feature-length Mr Peabody and Sherman is by no means unbearable: there are a few decent gags, and the episodic plot just about manages to hold the interest. But there’s little here for any but the most easy-to-please youngsters.

A little too rough around the edges to fully engage.

If you enjoy improbable plot twists, overcooked dialogue and Hollywood legends champing on scenery, this adaptation is a highly entertaining slice of American Gothic.

As ever with this series, the shocks are cheap but effective, and the shaky-cam aesthetic adds an unsettling layer of realism (if you’re willing to overlook the innate ridiculousness of the film-everything concept).

It’s a shame, because there’s a good, solid documentary to be made about this fascinating, enormously talented, slightly self-congratulatory little man and his unmistakeable ouevre.

The result is entertaining and insightful, balancing cold statistics with real-life stories of success and tragedy, presenting a broad, clear-eyed view of an increasingly complex issue.

Scorsese never digs too deeply under the skin of these reprehensible playboy douchebags, and there are times where the swooping photography, smash-and-grab editing and toe-tapping soundtrack conspire to almost – almost – make us like them. But when the film’s cylinders are firing, it’s impossible not to be dragged along.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is not the disaster some feared it might be, but neither is it the endlessly quotable, deliciously idiotic follow-on so many of us were optimistically anticipating.

A potentially gripping study of the fallout from the JFK assassination as experienced by his doctors, secret service agents and the man who famously photographed the incident is rendered tame by a combination of flat writing and overly busy storytelling.

Low key and occasionally frustrating it may be, but Computer Chess is a supremely intelligent, beautifully constructed film, interweaving comedy and character, satire and subtext, and loaded with more ideas than some filmmakers manage in a lifetime.

This is a woman who has been through hell and come out kicking, and the result is as much a celebration of her life as it is a documentary.

This is tame, lifeless stuff.

The film does approach Milius with a certain reverence, but it can’t disguise the fact that he’s a troubling, divisive figure: bull-headed, almost cartoonishly macho, staunchly right-wing and dangerously self-obsessed.

For all its humanistic warmth and undoubted charm, Short Term 12 just never quite rings true.

This is a deeply silly, extremely noisy and sometimes impenetrable action movie that’s drowning in CGI, wild overacting and mullets. And it’s enormously entertaining.

How Knight and Crowley managed to persuade such upstanding actors – not to mention Jim Broadbent, Anne-Marie Duff, Ciaran Hinds and Riz Ahmed – to take part in this fiasco is destined to remain a mystery. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Trite.

It falters once the actual war begins: Ben Kingsley shows up as a Maori warrior with the weirdest imaginable accent, the final battle is uninvolving, and there’s an unconvincing upbeat coda. Ender’s Game ends up being fitfully engaging and endearingly odd.

What 12 Years a Slave is really interested in is creating an honest, believable experience: in culture and context, place and people, soil and skin. The result can, at times, be alienating.

With gorgeously crisp photography and pitch-perfect performances from the two leads, this is one of the most intriguing and thoughtful American films of the year.

Escape Pla’ would have made a perfect vehicle for, say, a Chuck Norris or even a Jean-Claude Van Damme. But these two redoubtable, enormously watchable old-school heroes deserve better.

This sequel suffers from the same lack of quality control that plagued the first film.