Trevor Johnston

A way-too-leisurely thriller whose destination is fairly obvious from early on, but to which the talented cast apply themselves with effortful seriousness.

Complications escalate to a tiresome degree, leeching the fun from the movie, which is slung together with cold competence (and not much more) by jobbing Icelandic maverick Baltasar Kormákur.

The humour lacks the zingy surprise that Pixar or Disney might have brought to it.

It’s a zingy set-up but just as quickly, it hits the skids.

Another convoluted tale of criminal bumbling.

This homegrown romcom is pretty much doomed from the start.

Chases on foot and four wheels keep the thing moving, but apart from a thematic wrinkle where Besson’s clearly siding with the hood rather than the lawmakers, it’s all pretty predictable.

This anime feature takes an intriguing premise and does little with it. The detailed Ghibli-esque visuals are decent enough, but this is disappointingly bland.

Refreshingly, Mariachi Gringo looks beyond the usual cartel/corruption/bloodbath take on modern Mexico, but the result is altogether stronger on sincerity than emotional engagement.

Futuro Beach is realised with such undeniable visual panache that the sheer beauty of the coastal landscapes or the moody images of urban isolation cast their own spell. But without much emotional connection to the central couple, it’s all a bit academic. Exquisitely lovely, confoundingly dreary.

This debut feature blows its chances by keeping us waiting way too long for revelations.

Curry’s film hints at the role of media images in determining such self-conscious behaviour on the world’s frontlines, yet misses an opportunity to take VanDyke to task.

This has its moments, but offers a significantly weaker call on your time.

There are laughs, but they’re tinged with the sadness of watching a beloved elderly relative making a bloody old fool of himself.

Instead of developing the story’s wartime context, Trueba and veteran screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière offer passing reflections on the relationship between observation and the largely mental process of creativity, but little that ignites genuine drama.

Never less than professional, rarely more than functional.

No shortage of appetising ingredients here, yet the execution sadly fails to make the most of them.

Sadly, much as we want to relish the shameless parade of cartoon violence, while indulging the equally shameless cavalcade of adolescent sexism, the soggy plotting and slack comic timing are downers.

Would-be seadog Short inherits old boat and sets sail for adventure in the Caribbean only to have sozzled captain Russell land the whole crew in deep trouble. Queasy ocean-going comedy, not helped by Kurt's Robert Newton impersonation.

The characters are less credible than their plastic counterparts, the puerile humour is dispiriting, and the plotting pulled this way and that by the conceit of releasing the film in the US with a trio of alternate endings.

Putting the ‘retch’ into ‘wretched’, this wedding comedy makes the fatal assumption that the sight of acting icons of a certain age – Robert De Niro, Susan Sarandon and Diane Keaton – behaving badly will have us rolling in the aisles.

It’s a struggle to glean many positives from this ugly, superficial offering, which gestures towards feminist empowerment while heaping mental and physical hurt on every one of its female characters.

There’s not a single, solitary laugh to be had.