Adam Driver brings a brooding energy to the role of a tortured genius architect seeking to craft a modern utopia in a city threatened by mindless spectacle and rampant greed, but Megalopolis is stymied by arbitrary plotting and numbing excess. One can feel Coppola’s anger and sorrow over the decline of his beloved America, but narrative coherence is far less apparent.

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 picture is irreverent yet oddly touching, never especially great but often disreputable fun.

Too much of Kursk revolves around scenes of sodden sailors sitting around wondering why someone doesn’t just hurry up and rescue them. A sentiment likely to be shared by some audiences, as well.

DC takes the multiverse for a spin in The Flash, an entertaining adventure that outruns its familiar narrative trappings thanks to a playful sense of humour and the arrival of an iconic character in a supporting role.

More often than not, the stirring tunes and the genuineness of the proceedings help paper over Spirited’s rough spots. A couple of twists are well-handled, and Ferrell’s performance as a dutiful ghost who suddenly questions his (after)life choices reveals a vulnerability which is disarming.

You are well aware of the shameless manipulation and can second-guess exactly where it is going and yet resistance is futile. It tugs at the heartstrings with such determination and sincerity that there may not be a dry eye in the cinema.

Walk With Me is a slip of a film, at turns worthy and profound, yet also soporific and uneventful, an occupational hazard of spending three years embedded in a Zen community, no doubt.

There’s more texture than might be expected from characters based on plastic dolls.

Freud aside, this is a fairly straightforward boy-to-man narrative, but that it plays out during such a turbulent time in Austrian history brings additional texture.

Altogether solemn in tone, the film is undeniably handsome, with DoP Benoît Delhomme steeping the Japanese landscape in melancholy atmospherics, but Minimata tends to over-aestheticise its material, not least in the too-elegant recreations of Smith’s black and white imagery.

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.

It looks terrific – as always Hausner’s use of colour and costume is striking and eloquent – but this is a thinly-written picture that operates on a largely superficial level.

Overall, it’s as cheesy and just as hard to resist as a Mamma Mia! with smoother production values and a LGBTQ+ heart. The fact that Meryl Streep connects the two is a delight: at 71, this is an actress who still knows how to have a good time in her craft, and the viewer can feel the joy in it.

Blessed with some excellent voice performances, this new King is familiar but still lively enough to encourage audiences to emotionally invest again in story they are already so familiar with.

Like the first film, The Secret Life of Pets 2 is at its best when it concentrates on the unconditional love offered by mankind’s best friends, or gently mocks familiar situations.

The episodic, ruminative and very talky mood suggests something between Chekhov and Eric Rohmer – or at moments, Woody Allen without the humour. That’s not to say that the film is entirely dry, but there’s an earnestness about it and occasionally a leadenness in the acting.

It’s a dazzlingly executed, hugely enjoyable act of stylistic homage, but also the poignant story of a dysfunctional marriage and an insightful recreation of a critical and contradiction-ridden period of modern French history.

Hoping to be a stylish, witty conman thriller, The Good Liar starts out as an amusing lark but fails to stay ahead of its audience, piling on the ludicrousness until it’s impossible to take the proceedings seriously.

Despite some pacing issues and a slightly repetitive second act, this is a polished production which establishes writer/director Aleksei Mizgirev as a talent to watch

Anesthesia comes from the heart, as few films do these days.

Best appreciated as a sensory experience whose deeper meanings aren’t nearly as profound as the filmmaker and cast believe, Song To Song demonstrates that Malick remains a singular artist — albeit one in a palpable rut.

The film ultimately feels like a superficial examination of rich subject matter.

It’s impossible to deny the strength of the startling array of thoughts and concepts which Inarritu has brought to life and, ultimately, brings together, although the impact is clearly diluted by his unwillingness to cut.

A drama that simmers away on repression but never comes to a fully satisfying boil.

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.

The problem with City Of Tiny Lights is a plot that is all too easy to second guess and stretches of dialogue which fail to sparkle.

Ultimately, The Bride! stays the course as exciting, exhilarating filmmaking, a bracing example of creators throwing convention aside and pushing their vision to the absolute limit. Mary Shelley would no doubt approve.

An oddball hybrid that’s part documentary, part stylistic mish-mash, but wholly celebratory of Mansfield’s often derided ‘blonde bombshell’ image.

Underneath it all, superb performances from a stellar, experienced cast – confidently shepherded by debut director/star Kate Winslet – hit authentic, relatable notes, and save the film from sinking entirely into melodrama

This incendiary true story boasts a charismatic central performance from rising star Peters (X-Men, TV’s American Horror Story), whose everyman charm helps drive a narrative which has a tendency to get entangled in its own worthy intentions.

While Gervais returns often to the same comedic well, he’s adept at transforming simple miscues into horrific spirals of embarrassment.

Deliberately off-putting, Hosking’s latest tests the audience’s patience with frustratingly unfunny scenarios and an array of nasty, angry characters doing unpleasant things.

While Bob does slink around some predictable narrative beats, this is still a slyly subversive film with a social point to make as it highlights James’s isolation in a cold, hard-faced London which responds better to animals than its hopeless humans.

While the bracingly bleak climax will come as a surprise to pretty much nobody, it still comes with an efficiently grisly pay off.

The drama’s rich atmospherics vividly embody the melancholy mindset of its characters, although it does comes at a price, especially as the plotting grows increasingly convoluted near the finale.

Director Paul Feig brings the same sly approach to this lavish follow-up, but the results feel even more strained than the original, which was often more stylish than deliciously diabolical.

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

In pairing the aftermath of a natural disaster with the minefield that is female adolescence, it proves its own surreal, savage and superbly performed creation.

Hamstrung by lumbering plotting and variable special effects, this first part is an unimaginative hodgepodge which leaves its well-assembled cast stranded across time and space.

Everest director Baltasar Kormakur crafts his man-versus-wild-animal drama with some niftily tense suspense sequences that split the difference between compelling and cheesy. But whether it’s the so-so CGI or the threadbare character development, Beast frustratingly refuses to aspire to be more than a competent, disposable actioner.

To be sure, there are moments where the film’s studied quirkiness achieves something close to Piper’s objective, but the movie is so maddeningly uneven and brazenly combative that it’s hard to surrender to its ambition.

The results are both engaging and disposable, offering game viewers an exercise in suspense and off-kilter atmosphere.

This often absorbing opus can be as mighty as Superman himself, but a lack of restraint proves to be its Kryptonite.

Because Good Joe Bell spends so much time wondering how this father will change and grow, it doesn’t concentrate enough on his son, who is actually experiencing the bullying.

Between the strained punchlines and the unsurprising plot twists, the picture feels obligatory rather than inspired.

The result is an old-fashioned action-adventure replete with battle scenes and hearty proclamations such as “We will paint the dawn red with the blood of our foes!” But the hand-drawn animation style has its limitations, and the film’s central figures are not as magnetic as before.

A breezy but touching dysfunctional family dramedy, with real heart and some genuine musical soul.

Hands Of Stone tests how far a film can go solely on heart, and in this case, it turns out to be just enough to overcome biopic conventionality.

Goodbye Christopher Robin doesn’t just lack authenticity, it appears to scorn it.

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.

Rather than truly being inspiring or moving, Arthur The King manipulates and frustrates. Adventure racers may be encouraged to forge their own path, but this film is far from trailblazing.

Starting off as a strained farce before segueing into a sappy family film, How To Be A Latin Lover has its likeable, goofy moments, although it is consistently undercut by a main character who is very difficult to love.

Ultimately, Ride Or Die is such a relentless bombardment of bombastic effects whipped up by a pounding soundtrack, rapid-fire editing and frenzied camerawork — which, at times, emulates a first-person video game — that it becomes exhausting, rather than exhilarating.

The unexpectedly out-there quality of the third act reveal is a surprise which will work best on an unprepared audience.

Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx are clearly enjoying themselves voicing their very different characters — Ferrell naive and energetic, Foxx cynical and streetwise — but apart from a few inspired moments, the outrageousness soon drags.

It’s delightfully batty in parts, groan-worthy in others, but overall the ethos is to just keep firing – and some shots land even as others could clearly have been finessed further.

As sympathetic as Vikander is in the role, this queen remains a bit opaque, her inner life never brought into sharp focus. Katherine may have survived, but she’s still not fully known.

Unfortunately, David Gordon Green’s wholesome throwback to rambunctious family films like The Bad News Bears strains to sell the openhearted spirit of this Christmas-themed lark.

The style is minimalist and meandering but does eventually add up to an unsettling portrait of three generations connected by blood if not affection.

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.

A sharp screenplay and strong performances give this life as a watchable thriller, rather than just a mere pastiche.

As sunny as Eddie The Eagle is, its greatest liability is that it never pushes itself, content to let an amiable true-life tale be turned into a generic genre exercise.

While the movie overdoes the plot twists and existential musings, The Discovery is a diverting head-trip whose reach far exceeds its grasp.

The elegant tone undercuts the material’s inherent bite, ultimately defanging a picture that eventually shifts into a twisty thriller.

Returning director Gerard Johnstone does not feel the need to rewrite the code, delivering a tried-and-tested mix of action, effects and comedy. Yet the whole thing now feels overly self-aware, resulting in a lumbering actioner that lacks the novelty value of its predecessor.

Seberg somehow manages to pull off a tricky combination of radical politics, inter-racial sex and Hollywood tragedy while styling Stewart in Chanel. It’s quite a balancing act, but this is a film in which the story is just about strong enough to pull that heavy cart along.

The narrative would be sufficiently daunting to follow if the film didn’t make such heavy play on the thin line between fiction and reality; the frequent blurring between the two Saturday Fictions – Lou Ye’s and Tan Na’s – is muddily executed to begin with, without the play being so unconvincing as a piece of stage drama.

The Boys In The Boat is heartfelt and smoothly executed, but this inspirational drama cannot outrace the filmmaker’s staid, undemanding approach, which turns even the most stirring moments into predictable plot points.

Neither the humour nor the script is particularly sharp, although younger viewers may not mind the slapstick simplicity.

The sense of narrative deja vu — the nagging recognition that the film draws from disparate, familiar parts, rarely gelling into a coherent whole — cannot help but make the proceedings feel derivative. This is especially apparent in the humdrum animation style, which is bright and energetic but unspectacular.

Greta is best read as tongue-in-cheek femme fun. And proof, certainly, that despite her considerable success, Huppert has not at all fallen into the trap of taking herself to seriously.

The story is told entirely on a computer screen, through skype, social media and editing programs. And despite the restrictions of this device, the film crackles with tension.

Sometimes marred by plot contrivances, Boogie works best when it breaks free of cliches to deliver an honest portrait of the struggles to attain the American dream.

Freak Show’s formula, fabulousness and feel-good messaging doesn’t sparkle so much as soak up the glow of its obvious predecessors.

The material may be slicker but the novelty of the format has faded.

Unlike its zonked-out predator, Banks’ film rarely feels similarly energised.

Because the roles are underwritten and the players struggle to establish a rapport, The Magnificent Seven never lets the audience feel like its along for the ride with a dynamic group of death-or-glory hombres.

Director Yuval Adler taps into the lean story’s Collateral-like intrigue but, outside of Cage’s hair-trigger antics, there is not much surprise here — especially when the filmmaker unveils a twist most will see coming down the road.

This action-romance provides the requisite thrills while offering new characters and narrative turns, creating a portrait of blossoming evil that is thoughtfully executed.

Because The Little Things is so indebted to the tenets of its genre, it can only succeed by bringing originality and a fresh perspective to the whodunit. Unfortunately, this film becomes a victim of its uninspired construction — which ends up being no small thing.

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.

Once that narrative path becomes clear, Penguin Bloom never really surprises, delivering a series of heartfelt but predictable story beats.

Unlike this film’s sleek killing machines, the new installment is creaky and sometimes clumsy, and yet it ultimately succeeds by delivering sufficient thrills while also offering just enough emotional depth to keep viewers engaged in its familiar man-versus-robot tussle.

Although less convincing when it tries to say something meaningful about racism and police brutality, Black And Blue has sufficient pulp pleasures and a winning confidence in executing its modest ambitions.

It is hard to decide whether Dumont is treating his genre borrowings with belittling contempt, or getting a kick out of the possibilities offered; it seems safe to assume both. And while the overall weirdness has charm and shock effect, once you’ve got over the surprise of Dumont being this flippantly outre the pleasure wears thin.

Empire Of Light is a sentimental film – the piano-heavy score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross advertises that from the opening bars – but its message of love, tolerance and finding family wherever you can should make an impact in darkened rooms wherever it plays.

Talpe is excellent in the lead, his tightly-honed physique an increasingly transparent veneer for his troubled emotional state.

The Hong Kong action auteur conjures up a few of his trademark over-the-top sequences, but this tale of bloody vengeance is not the most satisfying delivery device for Woo’s unique brand of melodramatic, slow-mo carnage.

The film’s scattershot humour doesn’t always land, but even when it does it’s merely masking what is ultimately a gloomy portrait of our walking-dead existence.

If it occasionally strains too hard to underline its “rebellious” credentials, with an expletive-laden script, quick cuts, archive pop clips and trippy visuals, the brassy, keep-up-if-you-can approach keeps the authentic cadence of Glasgow and, more generally, helps Moran mitigate the slightly stagey production values and sets.

Director Ava DuVernay emphasises an emotional clarity and narrative simplicity that allows the book’s sci-fi examination of friendship, family and forgiveness to resonate with almost mythic force.

This is a film that leans into its cliches — long, loving nights transform into windswept mornings, ardent dialogue teases obsession — and smartly uses them to enact triggering lessons about generational trauma.

But as lovely as Blackbird can be, it’s never particularly insightful or compelling — for a film meant to celebrate life, the storytelling is curiously moribund.

Even for a man who could be called the greatest actor of his generation, the obtuse script and abstract visual language are too much to overcome in what is ultimately a dull, meandering film.

The film is held captive by its myriad influences, but Cage is so high-spirited that you won’t mind being its prisoner.

For all that it promises the thrill of high-speed racing, the crush of the peloton, and the drama of disgrace, The Program works best when it deals with this fascinating case of investigative journalism which saw Walsh doggedly pursue his target through 13 years and the temporary loss of his own reputation.

Cutting-edge performance-capture technology gives us a remarkably lifelike Alita, but although Robert Rodriguez clearly loves this pulpy genre material, that affection rarely translates into anything more than an impressive display of technical might.