A general lack of detail ends up meaning that a lot of the film’s emotion and ideas are stated directly, whether through Murphy’s jittery (and at times quite contrived) performance, or via a voiceover device.

This is French-British rising star Mackey’s first screen role in French, and she’s charismatic enough to make future French-language features centred on her seem enticing. That said, as engaging as she is, her casting simultaneously embodies the sloppiness of the film as a whole.

It’s a hard film to despise, and it works perfectly well as a supercharged Movie of the Week for the Hallmark Channel, but the lack of attention to detail and nuance mean that much of the film comes off as maudlin fluff rather than lightly philosophical tearjerker.

It’s a strange, disjointed film that lacks a clear structure and a satisfying denouement, even if O’Neill excels at channelling her prior years in the emotional doldrums via her stern, seen-it-all-before manner.

MaXXXine is the weakest chapter in this throwback horror saga as West just cannot seem to decide what film it is he’s making. And by the time he does, he sadly opts for the most boring and narratively underwhelming one.

Though not beyond salvaging as The Carpenter’s Son offers some moments of biblical horror, including an Hieronymus Bosch-like depiction of hell, it doesn’t succeed in pushing past mild discomfort. There is still not enough to drag it down into truly blasphemous depths.

Unfortunately, Disco Boy is afflicted with the curse of trying to pack too much (in terms of both style and substance) into its 92-minute runtime, rendering it incapable of saying much at all.

Failing to capture the wit or intelligence of Christie, See How They Run instead relies on tired stereotypes about women and gay men, and in an ensemble full of talented actors, there’s barely a compelling performance to be found.

There’s a sense that Smyth’s writing only works in fits and starts, and all the fractured elements don’t ever quite fit together.

While the mysterious finer details of Clooney and Pitt’s characters are willfully obscured on account of their guarded professionalism, it’s a shame that the film paints in such broad strokes more widely, as this doesn’t leave much room for substantial character development or emotional investment.

Everything about the film is undercooked and lazy, and one is led to hope that this franchise is put back in the deep freeze for a very long time.

As slipshot and lazy as it all is, it passes the time as air-headed escapism, and does manage to save all its vaguely-original moves for a bulky final act that delivers some decent spectacle.

Much like the candy whose corporate slogan features as one of the most prominent aspects of the script, Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a film with close-to-zero nutritional value.

If Sorrentino has a special power as a filmmaker, it’s his ability to draw the very best out of Servillo in any type of terrain, and it’s this wholly committed and natural lead performance which holds together an otherwise slipshod and fatally schematic tale how the cold realities of life and death can feed into the process of politics.

As a piece of compelling and coherent narrative filmmaking, Hounds is unfortunately a fun beginning, a silly ending and with a mid-section that’s missing in action.

Although the film avoids depicting any act of violence (aside from that which Nitram inflicts on his father and a shooting we hear but don’t see) its sympathies seem strangely weighted in favour of a man who showed none to the people he murdered.

Memory’s relatively restrained hundred-minute runtime is bloated with repetitive sequences focused on the characters navigating the world physically rather than emotionally, suggesting that even Franco fails to grasp the vast potential of the parable at hand.

Crowe is pleasingly game, affecting a questionable Italian accent and bearing a striking resemblance to Orson Welles as he cuts about on his scooter, and Amorth – who was the subject of a 2017 documentary by William Friedkin – is undoubtedly a fascinating character worthy of a schlocky B-movie outing. But the stilted script takes a long time to deliver on its scintillating premise, and Avery can’t seem to strike a balance between the absurd and the disturbing, with the elaborate climax coming too late to really have an impact.

Buoyed by a strong performance from Regina Hall, it’s a thought-provoking debut from Diallo, but one, unfortunately, weighed down by hokey jump scares that undermine its much more interesting commentary.

It feels as if Crialese wants to explore this subject matter without potentially alienating an audience who may disagree with the stance it takes, so everything political is soft edged, and Adri’s dilemma is nudged to the background in the film’s final act.

To Vaughn’s credit, at least Argylle isn’t as gleefully misogynistic as the Kingsman films, but that’s a bit like saying “Well, at least the pigeon shit didn’t get in my mouth” after a pigeon has shat on your face.

Salomé is not an imaginative director, apparently content to sit back and watch Huppert command the film with little regard for the rest of his cast and crew.

It’s a rosy, adoring view of pubs and clubs as explicitly, perfectly Marxist – a coal country – accented chorus rising in a single voice to inspire us all to a more perfect union.

In River, the waters soon turn murky as context is largely omitted in favour of exquisite yet repetitive aerial imagery depicting astonishing natural landscapes, tidal currents, and elemental forces.

It’s a shame the film that exists around this technical experiment oscillates between ludicrous and tedious, undermining any scares that might be generated through the wonder of creative foley and effective mixing.

It’s a deeply unpleasant and reactionary film that even compelling central performances can’t save.

[Chon's] execution is heavy-handed, with the ending steering into a mawkish spectacle which undercuts the seriousness of the topic at hand.

With this film, we get little hints of the Cronin of yore, but there’s also so much dire exposition and necessary genre static in the background that his imprint is less discernible (and enjoyable) than you’d hope it would be.