At 100 minutes, the film runs dangerously close to outstaying its welcome, but like its subject matter, Diaz's Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey is both amiable and appealing.

Not without flaws, but nothing to get too worked up about, Alita: Battle Angel is cynicism-free, first-class popcorn entertainment spearheaded by a knockout performance from Salazar. A star is born.

Each scene is presented like a taro card for the viewer to assign his or her own meaning. Occasionally this can lead to a profound and deeply personal connection to the film whilst at others it can feel like Malick is overreaching; with large swaths of the narrative washing over you like an agreeable summer's breeze.

Both leads produce solid performances despite a sloppiness in both the direction and the writing.

The Rise of Skywalker offers us nothing but toadying supplication to the worst aspects of fan culture. There is no story to tell here, no characters to care about, no ideas to explore. The film is pure construct, a box built for its own sake, at long last opened with excruciating listlessness, revealing nothing but its own vapid emptiness.

Ultimately, the attempt to over-deliver on themes leads to a serious under-delivery of dramatic impact. This is a disjointed film, inexplicably a classic for some, that fails to engage with modern audiences.

T.S. Spivet is a dreamlike fairytale, which swims in the romanticism of childhood and the decay of the American Dream.

At times the whole film threatens to turn into a visual stream of consciousness exercise which is a real shame, as Greenfield’s aims are entirely admirable and with merit.

Husson sketches teenage ennui well, and crafts complicated and watchable characters around which to base the core of her drama. The slip-up comes in a final act that bows out of the previously constructed conflict in disappointingly obvious fashion.

The Mauritanian is not the film it could, and really should, have been.

Of the many problems the film has, it’s the different plots that never quite bounce off each other.

Although it fundamentally has many of the same issues as the first film, the strengths are enhanced in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and it's certainly a step forward for the franchise. Now, let's give the web-head a villain worthy of his attention.

As in thrall to its fantasy as its characters, On a Magical Night confuses what is admittedly a charming conceit for depth. Nevertheless, that charm is enough to sustain the picture across its 90-minute runtime, even if its effects quickly recede into memory.

Nothing else this year can match Another Evil for its expert chills, comic dialogue, Office-level cringe and disturbing themes.

Sure, Detective Pikachu is messy and predictable, but the fact that director Rob Letterman and his team embrace the inherent absurdity of the Pokémon franchise as a whole means it’s a hoot.

Buried underneath the convolutions, the mistaking of melodramatic sensationalism over psychological reality, there really is something of a real emotional centre that just about makes enduring the rest worth it.

Demons and Demons 2 are classic (if that’s the right term) examples of what happens when any pretence at style or subtlety goes out the window, in favour of in-your-face carnage which is so over-the-top that it is no longer remotely scary, but just plain nauseating.

That Sy and Gainsbourg's love story never quite inflames the heart ultimately means that Samba remains a pleasant, rather than an enduring watch.

Astronaut is a sweet film that could have done with more fire under its belly earlier on.

Iceman’s violence and viscera is satisfying in its immediacy, and Randau’s singular focus is certainly admirable. It’s just a pity that any nuance in the fine line between humanity and savagery is lost among all the hacking and slashing.

There's a lot that's wonderful about Andrei Konchalovsky's Holocaust drama Paradise and yet there's something fundamentally wrong with the film.

Blackhat is about the contraflow; it's a disruption in the new technocracy and a fly in the ointment of big budget Hollywood cinema.

Overall this is a remarkable debut from Elba, and it makes for an engaging, captivating watch.

The thoughtfulness of Plummer's performance is not matched by a script that forgets human logic in favour of narrative tricksiness that ultimately undermines the initially intriguing premise.

Insidious: Chapter 3 is unquestionably lightweight material and really all down to the pleasures of ghost train frolics, but such are the uncomplicated joys of the horror movie.

Eternals should be commended for the positive creative decisions it has taken and in allowing at least some of Zhao’s directorial vision to creep in. For all its flaws, it is far from the worst entry in the MCU, but it is, perhaps, the first of Marvel’s films to be less than the sum of its parts.

Overall the film's trashy pleasures just about keep it afloat.

Watching the goofy boy develop into a man, we share in his experiences and root for him each step of the way.

Conceived as a biting commentary on inequality, sweatshop labour and…well, greed, the film lacks fluency and laughs, rarely managing to lands its many upward punches.

Fans of Kawase will likely enjoy this delicate tale of people finding their way in the dark.

Though Anna and Otto's story is undoubtedly a fascinating example of the necessity of resistance and Perez is clearly a skilful director of actors, there's something anticlimactic about Alone in Berlin.

Whilst the tone is off, and the talented cast wasted, Exodus is, at times highly entertaining, albeit unintentionally.

A mess then, but a mess that deserves to be indulged.

The problem is that Apocalypse's highlights feel like moments of serenity amidst two-and-a-half-hours of lumbering, inconsequential chaos.

Anderson's comic slasher doesn't quite earn its wings as a potential future classic, nevertheless it's very funny and another welcome indicator that antipodean genre cinema is where it's at right now.

Triple 9 becomes a victim of its own inane script. All the usual cop tropes are there - and that's part of the problem. Rarely does screenwriter Matt Cook throw anything at the page that hasn't been done better elsewhere.

The trajectory of success and excess followed by last act redemption is familiar to the point of parody, and the ploys with time come over as gimmicky attempt to inject an element of surprise into the otherwise predictable narrative.

Husson’s film is first and foremost an appalling account of stomach-churning misogyny and the sickening horrors Kurdish women met at the hands of their vile captors.

Your appreciation or otherwise of the film is going to be greatly influenced by whether or not you’ve seen the original, and as such Final Cut doesn’t really elbow its way to the front. However, if you can stand the slight whiff of decomposition then this deconstruction is fun and clever.

In a film about resurrected dinosaurs, suspension of disbelief is mandatory, but the script’s illogical nonsense and flat, cartoonish characters compound on each other until any audience goodwill has evaporated.

Even Lavant's brief cameo as a roving theologist towards the finale can't spark the disappointingly bland Michael Kohlhaas into life - surely the most damning indictment of all.

The fact of the matter is that Refn has now become so predictably shocking that the truly shocking thing for him to do would be to make a film without attempting to shock.

Some actors can play anything, but asking super-posh and glamourous Seydoux to play dirt poor is an ask too far.

John Madden's The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel offers just as much joy, heart and chuckles as its hugely successful predecessor.

Led by a trio of tremendous performances from its female leads, Wright, front and centre as Jamie, is the stand-out.

Actor Daniel Brühl makes his directorial debut with this delightfully taut, blackly comic satire.

Though an entertaining-enough stab at a new kind of orgiastic extravaganza, Noé's Love is so mired in its own hang-ups and conservative gender views that it never gets past the first stroke.

Whishaw is utterly compelling and committed to this performance, and we watch the slow-motion car crash unfurl with mouths often agape, but Surge needs more depth to really leave a lasting mark.

There is no soul, and no heart to the story. A good sci-fi is never merely about the effects, it's about the plot, character and thoughts they bring to life, all of which Valerian lacks in abundance.

Slattery does at times struggle to bring anything new to the impoverished blue-collar, working-class trope. Relying heavily on several top-drawer character actors to lift his occasionally flat, even nihilistic story of love and death amidst urban decay, it's Hoffman and Jenkins that deserve the largest proportion of praise, while other characters quickly fall to the wayside of our interest.

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot is a thoroughly enjoyable and sneakily touching oddity which is entirely worthy of a big screen outing.

The dénouement when it comes doubles down on the madness and 11 Minutes is never boring, but neither is it quite as revolutionary as it thinks it is.

Woman in Gold is ultimately a worthy endeavour even when it is not entirely successful.

With some seriously fine performances and a simple but effective visual style that helps establish the film as a believable period piece, O'Connor's film is a solid adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel.

The comedy is never hearty enough to be truly enjoyable, only managing a chain reaction of titters at best.

Araki does manage to give Kasischke's ending a subversive little twist, but the scenario has spawned numerous complex questions and while they may be given traction throughout, the rushed and forced conclusion leaves one simultaneously nonchalant and conflicted, much like Kat.

With Yves Saint Laurent, Lespert has played it safe but stylish, and pulls it off thanks to some canny casting choices and a refreshing focus on mainstream appeal.

An uneven blend of melodrama and the horrors of civil war, it should be anchored by strong leads but instead remains listless and adrift.

Director Yeon Sang-ho’s Peninsula is a solid follow up to his original, with just about enough shambling momentum to distract from a fairly uninspired plot.

The visuals are undeniably impressive at times, as Henry parkours around the city or during a particularly tense shoot-out, but they also struggle with inevitable motion sickness of the frenetic handheld camerawork.

A deliberate almost-thriller that provokes many questions, but leaves answers equivocally out of focus right through to its conclusion.

With God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya, Mitevska has fashioned yet another bleak satire about Hegemonic masculinity in the Balkans.

There are moments in Bel Canto that stretch credibility but the tension never lets up.

As a piece of extraterrestrial-tinged whimsy, Lifeforce occasionally shows weak signs of life, but in the end it falls well short of achieving classic status.

All of Gilliam's little details are fun and there are some laugh-out-loud lines, but the actual story itself is never compelling and simply doesn't zip as it should.

Mitchell's understanding of punk seems to be the brandishing of two or three cliches, shouting a lot and name-checking bands.

Racer and the Jailbird is a stylish, often promising film, but sadly one that never coheres into genuine drama.

The visual aspects of the film cannot override the sometimes cumbersome dialogue that orientates political scenes of this subject matter.

The sheer joy and energy of the boys propels Trash and keeps us rooting for good over evil despite the contrived ending.

There's no doubt that the people that Fox singles out are worthy of his cameras attention, but it doesn't equate to a coherent feature film as much as an enormously wasted opportunity.

The found footage format has been milked to death of late... but here it's used to fully immerse the viewer, ensuring that the characters speak directly to the audience and, with the removal of the third wall, throws them straight into the lion's den to create maximum discomfort.

Out of Blue undeniably works as a stylish, psychological neo-noir, but significantly less so as metaphysical rumination.

Mary Shelley is a film at relentless pains to tell us how poetic and ethereal its heroine is, but without remotely grasping the political and philosophical underpinnings of her work.

David Leitch once again proves himself one of the most adept action directors in Hollywood.

It is a kooky, touching, continually droll comedy drama that treads simultaneously familiar and unusual ground in its exploration of grieving for a sibling, more specifically a twin.

Rarely has China's explosive economic growth been captured with such grace and with such a heavy heart.

Leach's camera remains sympathetic to these characters. He doesn't judge, and for a time it is intriguing to see why these people are so obsessed with this myth.

There are some dumb thrills to be had but there is also the sense here of an ambition not quite realised.

The art direction, cinematography and costume design are superb.

Rio 2's Amazon adventure finds its wings clipped by more tired and unnecessary subplots than you can shake a feather at.

Barnz's Cake could have been an intriguing look into the world of chronic pain and depression, but trying to be a jack-of-all-trades ruined the film and left it a master of none.

Clearly modelled on a familiar western narrative, Pablo Fendrik's The Burning (2014) both embraces and playfully inverts the tropes that define its genre classification.

What begins as an intriguing premise is gradually squandered, used as little more as background noise for comic tics and lazy characterisation.

Eaten Alive is plagued by Hooper’s endlessly strange directorial choices, particularly when it comes to getting performances from his leads. His efforts confound rather than disturb.

Molero's film is a challenging and truly contemporary work: a forceful, if imperfect, look at the shifting sands of digitally-mediated reality and the people balancing on its surface.

The material is weak, overly familiar and cliché-ridden. Dolan throws the cinematic sink at it but his latest feels like a shorter, not particularly watchable sequel to August, Osage County.

It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.

Taken as a transient, high-paced and familiar rock 'em, sock' em kind of film, it packs quite a punch.

The Girl on the Train engages more than it rivets and brings goosebumps to skin more than chilling to the bone.

Up for Love lacks tact and substance but its leads make it a watchable, albeit bite-size, jaunt.

Although there is certainly tension at moments and Driver once more proves himself an actor of great promise, Hungry Hearts falls between two baby chairs - neither satisfying as a thriller nor convincing as a drama.

Written by first-time screenwriters Darren and Jeff Allen Geare, The Retaliators deserves praise for its storytelling and plotting. For a good hour or so, the direction in which the film heads is destination unknown.

As a mechanism the film functions very well indeed – but as a film, as “a machine that generates empathy” as Roger Ebert had it, Quantumania falls vastly short. Still, one might argue that we do not board roller coasters expecting art, and so as an entertainment at that level it is hard to deny that this latest entry fulfils its purpose handsomely, providing all the thrills and spills of the fair.

Wilde has already proven herself as a director with her brilliant debut. Even the hackneyed sci-fi concept behind Katie Silberman’s screenplay wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if it wasn’t for the performances.

Beneath the veneer of fake tan, rippling muscles and feigned ecstasy lies a striking amount of heart, soul and sincerity of emotion.

Whether one can get on board with such nonsense determines the subjective success or failure of King of the Monsters.

Pink Flamingos remains a delightfully repugnant cinematic treasure. Watching Divine as she struts her stuff amongst the genuinely dumbfounded residents of downtown Baltimore, perfectly encapsulates with Waters was reaching for with the film.

The aesthetic, tone and performances result in a package that sits alongside similar Hollywood fare comfortably. However, in an industry that demands even the most famous spies to try something different, Nalluri's film never stands out.