Much as I had hoped to love it given its cast and source material, Midwinter Break just never took flight. Not all great books make great movies.

The ironic thing about Ella McCay, James L. Brooks’ surprisingly slight politically themed comedy, is that it’s an aggressively feel-good movie that may leave you feeling bad.

I get a sense that Five Nights at Freddy’s and this week’s inevitable salad of a sequel Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, marks a turning point in how Hollywood approaches the visual medium that has been eating its lunch for decades. The lesson: Stop trying to make video game film adaptations that appeal to a general audience. A giant in-joke of a movie can pay off bigtime if the target audience is big enough. Screw the rest.

It’s a clever conceit but bungled in the delivery.

Every so often, though, a film like Bau: Artist at War comes along which is so off-balance it feels, not just flawed, but embarrassing, an unintentional parody of the ethically entangled genre.

By the time the narrative decides where it’s going, the audience has already decided not to care.

Neither big nor bold nor beautiful. Though I suppose it does count as a journey. Well, one out of four ain’t — no, wait, one out of four is terrible!

Freakier Friday is a corny, tepidly enjoyable, thematically recyclable, narratively entangled cinematic situation — sort of like watching four people trying on the same style of sweater in different sizes. And it’s nuanced.

The Home has neither haunting atmosphere nor paranoid madness to recommend it; it’s just a weak story, badly executed and dragged along until it launches into a blood-spatter bonanza in the last five minutes.

Whatever you do this summer, watching this reboot shouldn’t be one of them.

Hot Spring Shark Attack is a broad spoof of Jaws, related monster movies, police procedurals, contemporary culture (think influencers) superhero sagas and other things. And it is initially quite a lark.

Bang operates in its own category: so bad, it’s almost watchable. And in the crowded deluge of disposable entertainment, that’s almost a compliment.

Push feels like a long joke waiting for a punchline that never lands. Or worse, one that makes you feel stupid for not getting it, even though the setup was never quite clear to begin with.

The humour is scattershot, the themes undercooked, and despite some high-tech window dressing, M3GAN 2.0 ultimately feels more refurbished than a technical evolution.

For all its proclamations of authenticity, The Ritual feels no more grounded than a message from a Ouija board. And that, perhaps, is the real possession at work here: truth, struggling to be a spectacle.

It has the potential to be a cracking good comedy, and the trailer suggests as much. But in the end, all this proves is that you can distill two minutes of hilarity from 96 of meh.

It's clear the formula for the last film is the expectation for this one, but what’s missing is the believability behind it.

Disney’s Lilo & Stitch is about a dangerous alien lifeform that escapes from its creators, arrives on a backward planet and charms the inhabitants. Which is not a bad metaphor for Disney itself. It continues to remake hand-drawn animated classics as bloated live-action spectacles, hoping a nostalgic moviegoing public will continue to greet them with open arms and wallets.

Not to put too fine a point on this or anything, but Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is an interminable slog.

There are a lot of moments that are quirky, but the film never quite finds the right comedic rhythm. Things that should feel funny rarely rise to make us chuckle, and too often the film, which does have a genuine warmth, falls flat.

Despite the presence and performances of the likes of Mira Sorvino and John Cusack, Fog of War fails to deliver what it promises: a war-time mystery filled with suspense and intrigue.

Typically, action films benefit from a standout villain in an unexpected role. But with A Working Man, Ayer, along with Stallone and Chuck Dixon as co-screenwriters, dilutes the role of the villain so much and so often, that it becomes challenging to determine whom to harbour a grudge against and to what extent.

That the movie also inspires more wholesome feelings is entirely thanks to Ferreira (Euphoria), whose character communicates enough warmth, energy and emotional fragility to make even a doubtful curmudgeon soften a little.

Geremy Jasper’s O’dessa is a dystopian rock opera lacking the essential elements of soul, rhythm, and the rebellious spirit characteristic of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a tone-deaf attempt at greatness that ultimately falls short.

While there is pleasure to be had in watching De Niro play opposite De Niro, an overly detailed plot gets in the way, making it a listless and frustrating watch.

Fighting giant robots - even though they are so freakin’ cool - aren’t enough to make a great film, and I know after forty years, this won’t change.

As written by Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino (who also directs), there is precious little going on beneath that alabaster exterior. One can only have characters ask each other “What are you thinking?” so many times before it feels as though the question is being begged.

Thick with dank atmosphere and well-acted with a cast that includes Colm Meaney and Barry Keoghan, it’s a drama about angry men with mommy issues that starts with a slow burn and ends up to its ears in gore.