An ambitious, thematically overstuffed drama that’s both a crackling action-thriller and a ponderous political commentary.

An energetic, irreverent, autobiographically inspired affair filled with key swapping, children running amok and a rotting 200-tonne whale, the film proves a mixed bag but, given the era on display, its messiness always feels appropriate.

The CG images still impress, and there are gripping moments during the film’s second half as the insecure Mufasa embraces his destiny. But like too many origin stories, Mufasa often rehashes what was once stirring about this materia

Although There Is No Evil is a brave and impassioned work, the seams show.

To the credit of all concerned, however the one-take approach feels appropriate and organic, rather than gimmicky or stunt-like.

Buried in makeup that accentuates her character’s hard-luck existence, Nicole Kidman brings such compelling conviction to her role as a tormented detective that she single handedly imbues the film with urgency and authenticity. That proves crucial, since director Karyn Kusama often miscalculates Destroyer’s sense of its own profundity.

Despite a twisty, juicy and compelling story, there remains a staid conventionality that keeps the political and thematic undercurrents from being explored as satisfyingly as one might hope.

Featuring a rousing finale — two of them, actually — and substantial nostalgic pleasures, the new film can’t quite balance its desire to be both wistful and escapist, knowingly cheesy and surprisingly touching.

There’s real feeling in this story — and a genuine desire to challenge audience expectations — which is laudable but only takes Stillwater so far.

Strikingly photographed, sensitively acted but torpid in its pacing, this is filmmaking which will require a degree of patience from its audience.

Even for Garland’s adept visual storytelling, supported by daring cuts by Jake Roberts and offbeat needledrops, the core of Civil War feels hollow.

In Bed with Victoria (Victoria) has its moments but too often falls short of the “oomph” that renders a comedy special.

One thing missing in Pablo Larrain’s new movie is a touch of Luis Bunuel. Without it, the fierce sarcastic attack he launches against the Catholic Church looks a little too much like a self-motivated settling of accounts, terribly angry and lacking a perspective that would put it all into the right context.

Although the film’s different realms are all imaginatively designed — as are the looks of the characters themselves — Wendell & Wild gets a little bogged down explaining the logistics of how these worlds work.

The considerable chemistry between Kate Winslet and Idris Elba certainly helps sell this tearjerker, but even so the film feels oddly distant and muted, only really coming to life in a denouement that suggests the tasteful passion buried at the story’s core.

Although the story’s point is clear, the plotting is thin, and it can be easy at times for viewers to feel as confined as the prisoners. But the production design – all grey cement walls, with that platform cutting through the center of the screen like an infernal dumbwaiter – is superb.

Underwater is hampered by some of the genre’s silliest conventions — questionable character motivations, delusions of grandeur — but the movie nonetheless succeeds by capitalising on an elemental terror: underwater, it’s very hard to see the dangers right in front of you.

Chaotic lives can make for a muddled storyline, yet ultimately Hegemann allows her central character some kind of growth.

From the film’s first moments, the audience can guess exactly how the story will pan out, and the pleasure is watching Eastwood gracefully negotiate every well-worn twist and turn.

Last Dance does not top what came before, lacking the inspiration, freshness and spark of the earlier pictures. But it feels properly measured in its acknowledgement that the dance eventually ends. Mike bows out gracefully enough.

The fourth installment of the Insidious series has deft scares and some nifty twists, all of which don’t entirely distract from how strangely inconsequential The Last Key ultimately feels.

The film is most effective in conveying the sense of life’s foundations and certainties being suddenly undermined, and the doubt and panic that creeps into previously happy memories.

The debut feature by Janicza Bravo takes on a perennial comic genre yet, like its main character, it’s best described as a work in progress.

Beautifully shot, with a deft command of period detail and a starry ensemble cast, Costner’s Civil-war set epic offers an old-fashioned celebration of the pioneer spirit – and a clutch of storylines that never quite have time to engage before the film moves on.

By turns flippant and poetic, demystifying and just a touch reverent, the film thrives on whole-hearted collaboration from Deneuve and the other luminaries playing themselves.

Wielding an ambitious visual strategy and volatile political commentary, Athena explodes but then fizzles, its often arresting images slowly undone by fuzzy ideas and a self-important air.

Consistently intriguing and filled with tender interludes, this elliptical drama is the filmmaker’s most experimental work – although it frustrates as much as it enraptures.

Unfortunately, however confidently Macaigne works his genially shambling nerd persona, the comedy of manners never comes across as sharply as you would hope from a director whose comic mode can be relishably trenchant.

Very effective in its flamboyant flourishes but dialled up so high it can feel excessively brooding and melodramatic, the film makes no apologies for depicting desire as an addictive drug, inviting the audience to succumb to the story’s narcotic pull

There is no question that this is an extraordinary tale of human fortitude and resilience: at least some of the tears that will be shed in the film will be honestly earned.

Nightride doesn’t try to reinvent the (car) wheel, nor does it really pretend to be anything more than it is. Fingleton shows us what he can do, so it’s efficient vehicle in the end. Like the audience, it knows where it is going. It all depends on whether those on board like the cut of its chassis.

In its own rather clunky way, the film strikes a blow for feminism in central Africa, and Amina, who strikes several literal blows on the man who impregnated her daughter, ends the film unexpectedly empowered by the experience.

This Running Man could have been a powerful anarchist fable for our turbulent times but fun as it is, it runs out of steam before making any lasting impact.

Prophet’s Prey is more effective at presenting the enigmatic figure of the Prophet himself. His drawling somnolent voice hovers over the movie like a menacing ghost.

There’s a terrific film in here somewhere, with upmarket echoes of the exploitation thriller tradition of the 70s, but it gets lost in overstatement and a surfeit of plot reversals.

Unimpeachably honest intentions and a solid, laid-back lead performance by star Reda Kateb mean that at least the film won’t be derided as Django Untuned.

Like the mismatched team from the Pacific Island, the picture is big-hearted and sweet-natured, but it is also rather lacking in polish and staying power.

Part stoner comedy, midnight movie, outsiders’ love story and ultraviolent B-movie, this intriguing film is given real soul by stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart, even if director Nima Nourizadeh’s ambitions end up being more laudable than the results.

This considered, muted drama can’t escape a fussy tastefulness — not to mention inevitable comparisons to more crackling treatments of similar subject matter.

Larson navigates through a cute story’s clear limitations to deliver a film that’s often quite funny, even if it sometimes flirts with being cringe-worthy.

Despite the slapdash plotting, the film – taken from the point of view of the star – gives an uneasy insight into the celebrity’s co-dependent relationship with the people who make him, and can destroy him.

Writer-director Angela Robinson chronicles a complex love story that investigates kinkiness, social mores and the impetus for art, resulting in a drama that’s far more intellectually intriguing than emotionally engaging.

Perhaps it’s the effort of introducing so many new characters that has sucked out the spontaneity from Deadpool: still, it’s nothing that can’t be sorted for the likely next installments.

Tears may well be shed but it is the actors who are delivering the goods rather than the script.

It’s a shame that Giannoli’s film, while ambitious, confidently executed and more than honourable, nevertheless feels like something of a relic.

Only in certain scenes do story and ideas really mesh

This earnest drama wears its politics very much on its sleeve — and makes no apologies for doing so — although its intimate take on an overwhelming moment in history can make for some compelling drama.

Though sometimes disappointingly broad, Radioactive nonetheless possesses a thoughtfulness that gives the film its stubborn spark.

While that familiarity is Scream VI’s major strength, it has also become its fundamental flaw. The location may have changed, the kills may be increasingly inventive, but underneath all that window dressing it’s the same as it ever was.

Everything in Hidden Figures is smoothly efficient but also a little anticlimactic and frictionless — the story’s happy ending a little too easily achieved.

Loveridge doesn’t seem to trust Maya’s natural significance and strains for the doc about her to achieve UN levels of relevance. Taking her for what she is would have been more than enough.

While we understand Sam’s back story and present situation, we too rarely get a sense of who he is when not struggling against misunderstanding and harsh weather.

Swiss Army Man is a powerfully audacious and wilfully odd odyssey that is too nervy and strangely emotional to dismiss outright but, ultimately, isn’t satisfying enough to provoke a full-throated defence, either.

Hailey Gates’ ambitious debut feature Atropia is full of comic potential that is never quite realised. The mixture of war games satire, deadpan farce and sweet romance provides amusement along the way without cutting as deep as it sometimes promises.

Possessor is ultra stylish and uber violent, but, despite a top tier cast, it’s not always entirely clear what is going on and who is in control of the finger on the trigger.

This twisted fable suggests a filmmaker who gleefully goes to extremes, but the story’s shocks and stomach-churning gags prove more memorable than the underlying observations about the way in which women are pitted against one another in a patriarchal society.

A film of considerable visual poetry and, at times, grandeur, Our Time is unmistakably the work of the ambitious, visionary director behind Battle In Heaven and Stellet Licht, but as a Bergmanesque drama of emotional anguish, the solemn, militantly downbeat Our Time often makes oppressive viewing and at times struggles to justify its nearly three-hour length.

It’s hard not to wince sometimes, even amid all the lewd jokes and proud sexuality in the face of a no-hope future.

Abattoir gets past its clunky storytelling with a great look - dark, shadowed, with a 1940s hardboiled feel - along with some well-staged shocks and scares.

Fremon Craig doesn’t radically alter the conventions of the coming-of-age narrative, and so a general predictability settles over the proceedings pretty quickly. With that said, though, she does a good job observing the relationships between her central characters.

Ponti fills this adaptation of the Romain Gary novel with an abundance of empathy, illustrating how all of us are nursing invisible psychic wounds, but the execution is so gauzy it never quite connects.

Denzel Washington gives a terrifically off-kilter performance in Roman J. Israel, Esq., a fascinating and flawed character study that frustratingly can’t meld all its ambitions into a coherent and satisfying whole.

While this lively crime comedy doesn’t exactly break new ground, it does, in the form of an appealingly naive central performance from Brown, have a disarming, sweet-natured charm at its heart.

A superhero movie with the scope of an epic but the spirit of a mischievous boy, Aquaman is a goofy, uneven adventure that proudly sticks to its loopy vision even if it doesn’t quite work.

The surprise in Maggie is Abigail Breslin, playing a teenager who flares and burns with dread as she becomes aware of the horror of her infection. For a zombie film, her performance delivers real emotion which is rarely seen in this genre.

The sliver of a plot sees An American Pickle stumble in its attempt to be a timely commentary, although its emotional underpinnings give the film a modest charm to relish.

As diverting and gleefully disgusting as it can be, Abigail ultimately has more gore than brains, its funhouse escapism fleeting rather than ferocious.

Hardly lacking ambition or verve, this amped-up fairy tale comes complete with social commentary and a grownup examination of the consequences of seeking connection, but the episodic, intermittently engaging saga frustrates more than it enchants.

There’s plenty of food for thought here, but the script’s penchant for saccharine touches – one aided and abetted by a lilting string-led soundtrack that turns to treacle a little too often – undercuts the authority of the film’s philosophical musings.

The temporal leaps don’t distract us from the fact that the plot is threadbare in places.

Terminator Genisys is a reasonably entertaining and niftily executed sci-fi action-thriller, and yet its ingenuity and craftsmanship are all in service of justifying its existence, resulting in a sequel that can be appreciated for its cleverness but otherwise regarded with a certain amount of ambivalence.

Filmmaker Jessica Palud’s second feature may be uneven, but it hits on something fundamental about its troubled, defiant subject.

In its own deja vu way, Bridget Jones Baby is intermittently entertaining, mainly thanks to Zellweger’s performance.

John McKenna and Gabriel Clarke have been assiduous in tracking down the participants and their descendants, and deserve recognition for the effort they have put in to raising Le Mans for a new generation of fast car enthusiasts and Hollywood buffs.

It stretches character credibility, and resorts too much to criminal-underworld cliché and the driving pace of its own perpetual motion, which curiously does nothing to paper over the longueurs in certain over-stretched sequences. You come out on a high of sorts – but it soon fades.

While the story’s sturdy, familiar structure remains resonant, this version never feels particularly inspired or revelatory, despite some lovely moments scattered throughout.

Hugh Jackman commits fully to his role as a vain superintendent trying to stay two steps ahead of his lies and self-delusion. Ultimately, though, the character and themes feel a little too simplistic — a movie’s paltry attempt to explain the inscrutability of human nature, which is so interesting precisely because it’s so mysterious.

Wim Wenders’ latest is a handsome production which, although it is rich with symbolism, is ultimately not quite as satisfying as it should be.

The ceaseless stupidity of men is lamented but also dissected in Sleeping Giant, a thoughtful, well-observed but also familiar coming-of-age drama.

How much a viewer will enjoy the convincingly cringe-making portrait on display here will depend on whether one feels empathy for Sophia’s inability-come-reluctance to access the ramp to adulthood or would prefer to reach into the screen and shake her.

The result is mixed: buoyantly energetic at times, manically unamusing at others and decidedly overstretched.

Although director David Gordon Green commendably opts for a realistic, unfussy depiction of Bauman and his on-again/off-again girlfriend (played with welcome grit by Tatiana Maslany), Stronger feels more perfunctory than lived-in.

The narrative is often nonsensical, and the dialogue can lean towards the risible, but the action is kinetic and Statham as watchable as ever.

The film itself has a commendable logic and credibility, but perhaps lacks a little of the pulse-racing intensity that might have made it a more obviously commercial proposition.

A testy father-daughter relationship adds weight to the story, all of which Armanet, in her first lead role, tackles with a convincingly frayed and frustrated performance.

What’s missing is much in the way of substantial drama or character development.

This depiction of young people facing up against school and state authoritarianism lacks a certain urgency, despite its manifest intelligence and craft.

Older children will appreciate the brisker pace and peril, so the overall strategy may be a smart commercial move – but this is the least striking of the series so far.

The fun pop-culture riffing remains, but The Second Part lacks the density of ingenuity, humour and whiz-bang action that marked the first film. Rather than bursting with imagination and wit, the sequel feels busy, overstuffed, a little routine.

The latest film from the prolific Olivier Assayas’ makes for a genial, lolloping ride, but it’s also one that will frustrate those with little patience for the script’s casual attitude to coherence.

Whatever the film’s flaws, this is certainly the most unrepentantly confrontational work we’ve yet seen from Jude - and perhaps from any Romanian director. And, as the beleaguered, improbable figure of scandal at the centre of it all, stage actress Pascariu impresses with a crisply reserved performance.

There are plenty of elements to admire in Amant Double but the endless twists and revelations grow tiresome.

Joan of Arc is in some ways a more conventional drama than its predecessor, but is still intransigently individual. Yet even with a subject as eternally popular as Joan, it’s hard to imagine the film making waves with a mainstream audience or bringing new revelations to Dumont’s long-term followers.

The Way Of Water’s resplendent presentation couldn’t be more breathtaking — the drama unfolding inside that world isn’t always as masterfully rendered.

The film’s energy and passion (and no doubt, eye for detail) can’t be faulted, but a tighter film could have more pointedly made the connection between the subjects’ brief lifespans and the fate of a young culture of refusal that arguably died when the system it questioned was replaced by a differently oppressive social order.

Undemonstrative but at the same time oddly compelling - rather like its eponymous main character - Felicité is a challenging, perhaps overlong, but also quietly resonant slice of new African cinema.

While some of the decisions by first-time director Gaysorn Thavat reveal a lack of experience, [Essie Davis] is as compellingly watchable as a car crash.

Undoubtedly the film’s charm comes from the performances of Kim and Huppert, and scenes involving the pair and their tangible chemistry resonate the strongest.