The visuals are compelling but something is missing. The tone is too flat and the world-building too smooth for this film to ever come fully to life.

Zippy duologues, expertly teased beehives and stunning late ‘60s costumes may make this pro-choice message more palatable to the masses but ultimately the film pulls its punches, never lingering long enough on a single scene or tragedy to let the impact of these women’s work consume the audience.

There’s just nothing here to cement The Boys in the Boat as anything other than a sort of interesting story made in a competent but uncomplicated manner.

Lamb’s premise is intriguing too – a pleasing twist on the familiar horror trope of monstrous motherhood. Even so, the imaginative conceit is let down by a rather sudden and underwhelming climax.

This is simply a generic and brutally efficient tearjerker – like its title, it aspires to archetypal grandeur and lands somewhere blander.

For all its convention, Oscar Harding’s A Life on the Farm remains an elegy for amateur filmmaking, while also allowing for the survival of Carson’s work, which though brilliant, remained undiscovered and unrecognized until now.

Even though it’s a story that severely lacks for surprise, in both the silly nature of the tests and the question of Anna and Amir’s latent bond, the actors take the material seriously enough for the film to remain engaging enough.

The film excels in nasty generic thrills, even if there are some fictional elements of the story which undermine its apparent allyship to the victims.

As a writer and director, Sweeney shows much promise, at times demonstrating the swaggering confidence of the Canadian upstart, Xavier Dolan – the pair even look quite similar. Yet the film works best as a showcase for exemplary range of O’Brien.

Clearly taking inspiration from Italian neorealism, Camilleri never embellishes or trivialises the landscape of fishing in Malta but rather presents it as it really is. Luzzu is a foreboding warning with no climax. A quiet call to action in the vein of Andrea Arnold’s Cow.

After the self-contained and simmering Assistant this feels like Green’s attempt to make similar material more accessible.

What lifts Mirza’s film above the pack is that it is alive with colour and music, her characters are endearing and, while a little fragmented towards the end, the writer/director at least makes sure it’s a pleasure to reach that point.

It’s a fascinating, chilling, if limited study of how the endless cycle of global warfare plays out.

The film may not be lacking in emotion – Tengarrinha’s emotions are portrayed through the combination of realism and surrealism – but this ultimately comes across as disconnected due to the lack of political contextualisation, leaving an emotional weight missing from the film.

For all his puerile instincts, Gunn is able to create stakes in this film that feel real and meaningful – perhaps because of the care that has gone into fleshing out this group of characters over the course of three films (and all their supplementary appearances).

It’s such a lovely set-up, you wish the filmmakers had attempted to do a little more with it.

It’s an accomplished directorial debut, focusing on the power of faith and the strength of motherhood to become symbiotic beasts fighting for dominance in its hero’s mind during her quest for autonomy.

Once you get used to some of its perplexing choices, there’s fun to be had here. De Niro has delicious chemistry with himself, which becomes more amusing when imagining how he would have been performing these duologues to an empty void.

What we can do, like these journalists, is bear witness to the pain in the hope that it transforms into an urgent, rallying cry, and address our universal capacity to connect with the pain and suffering of others.

Despite this contrived narrative and the group’s aggravating attempts at humour that land like dead fish – including multiple “that’s what she said” lines and a “not a today Satan” – Something in the Water succeeds in creating tension.

It’s a hushed yet effectively emotive drama that’s bolstered with the addition of Mikhail Krichman’s stunning cinematography. Yet sadly, it’s hard to overcome the film’s biggest weakness – the ripple effect that comes from its overcomplicated characterisations.

After so many punishing stories, most recently 2022​’s Tori and Lokita, it’s hard to begrudge them the raw sentiment and mostly happy, hopeful endings of their newest one. But it comes too easy, in a film so artfully and opportunistically structured, which jumps from dramatic peak to dramatic peak as if skipping tracks on an album.

Ultimately, Once Upon a Time in Uganda would have benefitted from diving much deeper into the making of the studio’s many iconic productions, but by mirroring Wakaliwood’s lively, exuberant energy, still comes together as a thoroughly entertaining crowdpleaser.

It’s a slow, detailed procedural, one which carefully draws you into its dismal intrigue – and it’s engrossing for much of its runtime.

While this is ultimately a film about taking the time to appreciate what you have and enjoying every step of your way, the overall impression remains one of haste and only occasionally contagious overexcitement.

Sono has flow to spare, but samples heavily from icky fanboy culture.

It’s an engaging movie about being able to control one’s destiny, but the wait continues for when this director will pull something truly heartfelt out of the bag

Garbus never tries to conceal Cousteau’s flaws. For her, in order to understand where we are now, we first need to understand where we came from, and Cousteau represents that touchpoint.