This gentle comedy trades heavily on Tsai Chin’s deliciously abrasive central performance, but stumbles when it comes to the execution of the action sequences

The results are more dutiful than absorbing.

While the film struggles to fully disengage from its theatrical origins, it is an intelligently slippery study which positions the audience in the grey area between empathy and complicity.

Giants Being Lonely may not add much to the landscape of coming-of-age dramas, yet the preciseness of its impressionism results in a striking atmosphere of hormones and vulnerability.

The early potency of this macabre fairytale becomes increasingly diluted however, as the film progresses and the story broadens.

A love-all crowd-pleaser for the most part, more Borg than McEnroe thanks to an arresting performance from lookalike Sverrir Gudnason.

A restrained production favours story over splatter but eventually delivers a fair amount of gloopy, tentacled creatures and exploding host bodies. That should be enough to satisfy Adams aficionados.

As a brief, brightly-coloured, virtual babysitter – lasting just long enough to keep the children diverted while you check in and out of that last Zoom meeting, and get dinner on the table – it dutifully fulfills its obligations. But anyone looking for much beyond that in this tale of a flying squirrel – well, they’d have to be nuts.

The shared experience between the filmmaker and the subject of the film allows for a character study of depth and intimacy. However, the story itself – a slightly soapy ‘romance against the odds’ narrative – presents few surprises.

Although Nitram is a thoughtful exploration of mental illness, highlighted by a strong cast, Kurzel can’t fully transcend what is familiar about this handwringing portrait of a ticking time bomb set to go off.

At its weakest, there’s a suspicion that Eleanor The Great is leaning into the Holocaust for otherwise unearned emotion, but the piece is clearly genuine, and the cast so strong, it doesn’t linger.

This is not great or memorable filmmaking but the power of the story and some of the performances make up for that.

This meticulous documentary can’t quite overcome the inevitability of its rise-and-fall trajectory, the familiarity of its sad-clown hypothesis.

With a decades-long rapport on screen and off, they’re natural and sparky together, and Roberts joins Clooney in her decision not to presenting the cosmetically refreshed face of her peers. For that alone, Ticket To Paradise is a trip worth taking.

The imbalance between the sketched, what-if nature of the film and the weight of its visual wizardry is keenly felt.

The Nice Guys harks back to the 70s golden age of revisionist detective thrillers, but the result feels too knowingly déja vu, rather than bringing a truly fresh angle.

Animals is a smoothly-made, beguiling tale of female friendship, which, like its protagonist Laura (Holliday Grainger), sometimes feels a little lost, in need of a home.

The film struggles to juggle its combination of rage and humour, satire and sadness, but the game performances mostly help gloss over the material’s familiarity.

A gentle, unassuming picture, it does have a satisfying, feelgood trajectory and empathetic central performance from Marie Leuenberger.

The later stretches, which are forced to become oblique and symbolic in the absence of any hard evidence about what really happened to the sailor, showcase some of Firth’s best screen work.

The result is a picture with gripping sequences and clever byplay, even if there’s a sense that it’s merely repeating past strengths, only not quite as ingeniously.

The Aftermath works best when looking at the bewildered people who have been left behind, literally, to pick up the pieces. The savage loss of family members still reverberates through empty rooms and ruined landscapes.

Whatever else could be said about this competent and generally pretty entertaining latest addition to the series, surprising it is not.

Wendy casts a powerful spell — the movie has the potency of a dusty folktale brought to vivid life — but it can be frustrating that Zeitlin doesn’t have much interesting to say beyond his stylistic flourishes and evocative atmosphere.

As arresting as this speculative portrait can be at times, the film is ultimately both galvanised and limited by how unknowable its protagonist turns out to be.

The action in Cold War 2 - again overseen by Chin Ka Lok - is far superior to its predecessor.

This likeable, emotionally precise film has a big heart and a genre-shifting construction that keeps the proceedings from feeling like just another young-adult meander. But despite an agreeably earnest performance from rising star Nat Wolff, Paper Towns covers familiar coming-of-age terrain and suffers from an opaque turn by newcomer Cara Delevingne that’s not quite as captivating as the story requires.

Romulus achieves its goal of being nothing more than a well-executed monster movie, but that modest ambition leaves this sequel feeling a little hollow and mechanical — a sufficient thrill ride that largely reminds the viewer how masterful the first two instalments were.

While American Honey exudes ample energy, this episodic piece doesn’t muster much narrative drive over its daunting running time of two and three quarter hours. There’s probably a stronger, tighter film in here, but fair game at least to Arnold in her commitment to following the winding back roads of filmic experiment rather than the well-mapped highway of storytelling.

Gandhi speaks to collaborators, lovers and journalists, who help flesh out Hernandez’s life and career trajectory, although the musician’s unwillingness to participate leaves this an intriguing snapshot rather than a definitive portrait.

Gloriously ludicrous and stridently melodramatic, F9 is fuelled by its own goofy energy, delivering comically grandiose chase sequences and shameless fan service all in the name of giving audiences an uncomplicated good time.

The Convert promises the potential for plenty of fire and brimstone but, despite some committed performances, lacks the dramatic passion that would have really left a mark.

From the earnest score to the breathless talking heads to the atmosphere of awestruck reverence, this is a film which takes itself every bit as seriously as its subjects.

For all the creativity on display in Tron: Ares, it’s in service of a story with scant signs of life.

Even when it is more dedicated to brand extension than the art of deduction, Detective Chinatown 3 exudes a heightened zaniness which is most welcome in today’s largely homogenised franchise landscape.

Grappling with serious themes, this wistful comedy opts for a sentimental tone that’s out of rhythm with the more realistic, tough-minded story that occasionally asserts itself.

The Choral is a narratively jumbled film whose unrestrained sweetness and adept ensemble tie up some of the film’s looser ends.

A film of two halves, Cloud’s excessive, bullet-strafed second section is more effective than the restrained and sluggish first part. The themes it explores are uncomfortably of the moment.

While the film doesn’t quite work as a horror, and can stumble as a character piece, Abrahamson has pulled together a sumptuous production which is more than sufficient to keep viewers engaged throughout.

Fluid, shifting and tense, the action here easily outstrips the film’s basic set-up (man tests himself against nature, is humbled), which can feel like unconvincing filler between surges of effects work.

Intense battle action and rousing heroics just about make up for the dramatic shortcomings of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.

Less on the nose than the title makes it sound, faith-based offering Miracles From Heaven spins some bland but efficiently tear-jerking drama out of its true story-based tale.

Skin is a little pedestrian and obvious in its early stages, skirting with the feeling of a television production. It is the nature of the story and the scale of the mountain that Widner had to climb that finally makes it into something more compelling.

Lost City is the acme of a 21st century prestige picture. Sadly, however, it is one that is also deeply flawed. Gray’s most ambitious movie yet is marred by a story arc that fails to rise or reach a climax, unnatural-sounding expository dialogue, and an unforgivable lack of thrills.

It’s a small, worthy, film that works reasonably well, although there’s something a little too linear about its structure.

If nothing else, Deepwater Horizon makes a case for going back to basics with action films. It’s classically framed, executed, and feels like the real deal, and while it clearly boasts some fine effects work, it manages to lose the cartoonish aspect of so many recent tentpoles.

It’s a radiant debut for young newcomer Joe Alwyn, who plays a Texan war hero uneasy in his own land. It’s a shakier curtain-raising for Lee’s ambitious weaponising of new technologies.

Beautifully shot, impressively cast, and revolving round a charismatic lead from long-time US indie favourite Pitt, the film otherwise comes across as a derivative, solemn affair with a look that suggests a retro gloss finish on generic material.

The script puts artsy effect before character credibility.

The actor’s comic sad clown performance lifts the film above an ordinary script.

By shying away from demonstrating the degree of hardship Ederle underwent to make history, the film shortchanges the catharsis it seeks in its final passages.

A Taken-style no-holds-barred family survival action film, with an inevitable side order of xenophobia undimmed by the indictment of faceless corporate chicanery.

Talia Ryder gives a magnetic performance, providing an anchor for a film that is amusing and electric but mostly uneven.

Despite Nicolas Cage’s committed performance as the imposing, hardheaded leader of the expedition, this mournful yarn can’t quite transcend what’s familiar about its study of masculinity and the unforgiving spirit of the natural world.

The chemistry between these three is the film’s greatest strength, and Good Grief plays best as a love story between friends.

Lead performances from Jonah Hill and James Franco are plenty impressive. But at the same time, True Story is almost too polished and clever for its own good, sacrificing complexity for a surface-y examination of the issues at play.

While enjoyable in parts, its episodic pacing lets down the real-life story of a bold and remarkable woman.

Much like the original, The Lost Kingdom boasts a gleeful exuberance, whether through Bill Brzeski’s eye-popping production design or in Rupert Gregson-Williams’ knowingly overdramatic score. There is a boyish zeal to Wan’s filmmaking, which is not afraid to embrace the goofy or the playful.

Jacquet makes the fundamental miscalculation — at least for non-French audiences — of assuming that his endless musings about why he is drawn to this part of the world, delivered at length in his own voice, are, well, sufficiently interesting.

The best Pixar films make their dexterous mixture of humour, emotion and spectacle feel effortless but the ingredients do not blend as smoothly in Elio.

In their scenes together, Clear and Duggan spark beautifully, navigating their characters’ emotional highs and lows with a mix of caustic wit and often moving vulnerability.

The film subsides into piled-up shocks and reversals, leaving the actors to bolster the drama with emoting – not always in the most subtle of ways.

It’s certainly got the Perkins style and plenty of genuine chills, but the journey is more satisfying than the destination.

It’s an aggressively stirring account of a nation painfully enduring catastrophic conflict as prelude to independence.

As exciting as the film may be, Berg too easily undercuts the human element of his story.

The feature debut of Vladimir De Fontenay is an accomplished piece with a committed central performance from Imogen Poots, but the emotional impact is lessened by an air of predictability and the sense that every bit of fresh hope is destined to end in disappointment.

Whannell is so invested in unloading juicy surprises that this initially realistic story becomes increasingly preposterous, but Moss keeps the film anchored in plausibility; although sometimes just barely.

Like all of his work, the writer/director’s fourth film in Berlinale competition is elegantly made, ingenious and intellectually challenging. Yet it’s also too much like hard work to be entirely satisfying and, dramatically, it suffers from the same condition as its protagonists: inertia.

The veteran Hong Kong director makes his audience wait for the promised fireworks, and Three’s flimsy premise never quite captures the grounded realism of Drug War or Election, or the visual flourish of Exiled or Vengeance.

Politics is a dirty business, but Our Brand Is Crisis doesn’t stick its hands into the muck sufficiently to be as entertaining or stinging as it could be.

Emma Thompson again proves what a versatile star she is in The Dead Of Winter, not only convincing as a have-a-go heroine unexpectedly trying to save a damsel in distress, but also single-handedly rescuing this film from the worst of its formulaic elements. Indeed, lying beneath the icy surface of director Brian Kirk’s thriller is a lake of gooey warm sentiment that’s deep enough to drown in.

12 Strong wants to be triumphant but also mournful, rousing but also thoughtful in its chronicling of America’s place in a changing, complicated world. That tonal nuance is commendable...but the results are more muddled than thematically intricate.

Despite Aladdin’s occasionally arresting moments, this remake’s most potent element is its intentional air of déjà vu.

Jump, Darling travels along predictable roads as family secrets are revealed, ghosts of the past confronted and separate generations discover the strength to be true to themselves. What makes the journey worthwhile are the performances.

Resistance to this delirious romantic tragedy is futile, save for that nagging voice in our head wondering if it really has to be this way.

Although the gags hit home throughout – as they should, with such a broad target – the script loses focus slightly in the final twenty minutes.

Strip the neo-noir style and attitude away from Stefano Sollima’s latest, and you get a not particularly original tale . . . But there is one very attractive bonus, aside from the moody Roman settings: the casting of Pierfrancesco Favino and Toni Servillo.

Fans of the enduringly popular ITV period drama series will no doubt embrace this feature film spin-off, which represents a step up in lavish visual spectacle while retaining a comforting familiarity of themes and storytelling style.

Those laudable intentions can too often result in a lethargic narrative. The characters may contain degrees of shading, but they rarely come to life, leaving Nuremberg feeling like a professional but dusty reenactment.

There is certainly much to admire about this ambitious homegrown sci-fi saga, even if it feels rather protracted with the running time clocking in 45 minutes longer than its predecessor.

Moll is a director who is adept when it comes to loading the screen with tension; actors swerve in from the side of the frame, silhouetted against the plateau, all playing characters who are clearly not walking a straight line mentally.

The Ghost Dimension isn’t exactly frightening — the setup is so well-worn now that it’s hard to be particularly startled by what transpires — but it’s able to wring sufficient dread out of this franchise’s go-to fears.

Slick production values and stylish directorial flourishes help make Detective Chinatown an effective and entertaining buddy cop comedy.

Good-natured, soft-hearted, a little lazy, and propelledby the relentless charisma of Melissa McCarthy when all else fails, this Netflix production makes for cozy pandemic at-home viewing with scant thrills but a couple of genuinely funny moments.

In a bid for blockbuster status, Yang strives to balance an air of reverence with increasingly ramped-up set pieces. It’s not always a seamless blend, but he certainly displays impressive technical proficiency.

The film lets Nicolas Cage’s gonzo performance be its guide, mixing mocking self-parody and giddy enthusiasm for an utterly disposable, demented genre diversion.

A World War II romance-thriller that starts off smartly but sputters to an underwhelming finale.

The picture affirms Nebraska’s stature without shedding much light on the man who brought it to life.

Ultimately, the picture’s energetic swirl comes across as slightly hollow, its barrage of themes and impulses never finding harmony.

A mosaic portrait of Hong Kong’s older gay community is pieced together, but the film loses some of its energy and focus as it drifts to its close.

This involving, stranger-than-life story has been edited for cinematic release although seems purpose built for streaming: like its protagonist, it suffers from a sense of unfinished business and unanswered questions.

Even with uneasiness dripping from Smith as Adrian, the acting in 1985 is like the script – stiff. 1985 gets the notes right, and its foreboding look takes us back to a dark age. It’s a lesson worth remembering. Yet with all the prejudice and pain, the film still feels a lot like a sermon.

Despite the size of the spectacle, the picture feels minor by the standards of the franchise, placing Natasha in a James Bond-style spy thriller that proves diverting rather than truly gripping.

This Grand Guignol riot of rotting animal and Godless creations is great fun. However, of the cast, it is only McAvoy, walking the line between madman and genius, who fully manages to hold his own against the spectacle with which he shares the screen.

The drama’s underlying theme of social and personal conscience clearly lifts Exit 8 beyond the more mechanical aspects of its gaming origins, although Kawamura doesn’t quite handle it without a certain mawkishness.

Some of the most fun in Uprising comes from its elder statesmen, holdovers from Pacific Rim who play for laughs.

Despite a strong, affecting performance by Willem Dafoe – who, even more than Kirk Douglas or Pialat’s star Jacques Dutronc, looks born to the part – the director’s pugnacious visual and editing style never impart the kinetic emotional charge of his 2007 drama The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Whether it’s Skarsgard’s cartoonish villain or the director’s showy nods to Lawrence Of Arabia and Sergio Leone, Chapter 4 plays dress-up rather than feeling like a legitimately rich, involving epic.