Wendy Ide

This has the brash swagger of The Wolf of Wall Street, but the labyrinthine intricacies of the case may present something of a challenge to anyone not well versed in stock market manipulation.

Coppola evokes the aching loneliness and isolation experienced by women who simultaneously have everything and nothing.

A terrific Penélope Cruz makes up for the lack of colour with her enjoyably strident turn as Ferrari’s permanently furious wife, Laura.

Sofia Boutella shows action-star potential as Kora, a mysterious outsider who has found peace living with the farming commune, but she deserves a better vehicle than this chop-shopped jalopy.

The lush orchestral score, by regular Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi, is shimmering and exultant. All the elements are in place. So it seems almost churlish to note that this is middling Miyazaki at best.

It’s an interesting exercise – a show-don’t-tell action extravaganza. But Woo resorts to such clumsy storytelling devices . . . that the film is scuppered by its own gimmick.

The lazily generic plot devices (yet again, an ancient evil artefact offers unlimited powers to its holder); performances so thuddingly clunky that much of the dialogue sinks like a boulder in the sea; the lack of any humour whatsoever: these are all minor irritations compared with the picture’s glib trivialisation of the climate crisis.

If anything, this follow-up is even more enjoyable, its appeal boosted by Milady slinking on to centre stage, her weaponised sexuality backed up by her private collection of daggers and swords.

It’s a testament to the quality of writing, and to the action direction, that this never feels as corny or as crass as you might expect.

The result is a film of quiet but considerable power.

Heartbreaking as this story is, the picture’s peppy energy results in a film that is celebratory and defiantly upbeat.

It’s a tonal mess, a film that aims to be an adorably quirky romcom but plays out as such a surreally purgatorial ordeal.

It’s bleak at times, but there is a defiantly celebratory aspect to the film, which finds hope in the solidarity of Black women and dignity in Gia’s quiet stoicism.

Wonka is an effervescent pleasure – an endlessly, intricately charming treasure trove of a movie. And overall, Timothée Chalamet’s fresh-faced take on the central character – bringing a puckish innocence and spry, light-footed energy to one of the most famously jaded misanthropes in children’s literature – works rather well.

The meditative experience is heightened by Wenders’s innovative use of sound: indistinct whispers flutter like bats through the cavernous spaces.

Disappointingly but perhaps not surprisingly, this sequel fails to match the original on any level whatsoever. It’s not bad exactly, although there’s a synthetic look to the colour palette that feels very try-hard and gaudy next to the lovely, atmospheric earth tones of the first film.

The film is a match for Lars von Trier’s Dogville in its grimly relentless approach to misogyny and sexual violence. A disconcertingly beautiful picture about the ugliness of humanity.

The picture’s seductive power lies elsewhere, with a glorious, typically extravagant performance from Eva Green as the treacherous Milady. She’s great fun in a role that might have been tailor-made for her skill set: Milady is vampy, venomous and dripping with goth jewellery.

For all its decorous restraint, this is emotionally potent storytelling.

A provocative, superbly acted action drama that combines big-hitting ambition and spectacle with just enough humour to temper the whole end-of-civilisation meltdown scenario.

The film focuses on Taylor’s quest to uncover the perpetrator and learn their motives. And while finally she has a good idea of the former, the answer to the latter remains elusive.

With its nonlinear structure, Maestro feels a little like a scrapbook of life moments – glittering career achievements; crackling explosions of domestic tension – and Cooper keeps up a zesty, kinetic energy throughout.

Mostly, the soundtrack is an unhummable mess of warbled exposition.

A man, even a man as combative as Napoleon, amounts to more than the battles he has fought. And it is in this respect that the film is less successful.

Davis’s deranged games designer Dr Volumnia Gaul and Jason Schwartzman’s showboating compere Lucky Flickerman justify the price of admission.

There is little satisfaction to be found in the picture’s messily uninhibited climax.

This is more of a dutiful plod through the facts than the kind of film that makes history come alive.

The performances, from Moore and in particular Portman, are sublime: both bracingly unsympathetic and wildly enjoyable.