A mid-budget mis-fire after the director’s promising indie debut, Bang Gang, Girls of the Sun seems more concerned with staging sisterly bonding sessions amidst the rubble than in developing what might have been an intriguing story – about how war can reshuffle social and gender inequality.

Fans of zombie spoofs and films-about-films should enjoy this bauble, which is elevated by the cheery ensemble.

This biopic reaches its high point early on, as Bafta-winner Naomi Ackie vividly portrays the pop star during her meteoric ascent. But once the film reaches Houston’s later career, when drugs and a difficult marriage began to take their toll, the story doesn’t just become more downbeat but also more of a slog, falling to find an insightful angle into this slow-motion tragedy.

Woman Walks Ahead is a story of defying expectations, finding common ground and gaining knowledge.

One wouldn’t expect A Walk In The Woods to be a rat-a-tat-tat 1930s comedy, but between the stars’ rusty comic timing and the script’s stale setups, the movie simply isn’t that funny, more likely to produce a smile than even a chuckle.

Spain’s J. A. Bayona is essentially stirring the same Jurassic pot here, with little that’s inspiring from his cast, unless you count the dinosaurs.

Refn’s gifts as a visual stylist are employed to arresting effect - there’s a luxuriant use of colour which evokes the work of fashion photographer Guy Bourdin. But peel back the glossy, overly groomed surface and there is not a lot of substance underneath.

Rambling but strangely compelling, Oh Mercy!’s documentary bedrock gives the investigation at the heart of the film a real authenticity. From around its midpoint, this uneven film becomes a riveting, compassionate interrogation drama.

A lively, funny and touching exploration of the way we live now through the filter of two generations.

Told with raw emotion and lurid violence, it transforms elements of his life story into a disturbing, eye-opening coming of age drama.

Despite this riveting premise, Padrenostro goes the way of 1970s cuisine in being over-cooked to the level of boil-in-a-bag.

Director Jay Duplass crafts a sensitive portrait of loss and forgiveness but ,for a picture based on actual events, there is an artificiality to the proceedings that undercuts the material’s inherent poignancy.

Alice Winocour’s captivating fashion drama Couture is a quiet, observational picture about creative women finding solace in one another.

The lack of emotional distance between the filmmakers and the subject – producer Jonathan Cavendish is the son of Robin and Diana – might account for the bracingly celebratory approach. This is understandable, perhaps, but it results in a lack of dramatic light and shade, and an absence of texture in the characterisation.

Unfortunately, the ending, like so much of what came before, is missing that certain magic, which not even a unicorn can provide.

A little more venom or bite might have been welcome but this is still an entertaining skewering of celebrity and the way a single day can flip from triumph to outright disaster

While the book had a kernel of believability and seriousness, on screen the drama is pretty insipid. The comedy, which produces only a handful of real laughs, comes from each character in turn, with Wilson dominating – and providing the mostly verbal raunch – in her now familiar party animal persona.

Despite early frissons from the very game lead trio, the overall effect is a lugubrious turn-off. In its spacily numb longueurs, Love effectively invents a new, singularly unsatisfying genre: chill-out porn.

An uncomfortably un-restrained Whishaw, and an enhanced, aggressive sound design make Surge a raw experience and its eventual lack of any deeper insight is a little like rubbing salt into that experience.

Twenty years after The Fifth Element, writer-director Luc Besson has once again delivered a widescreen, sci-fi spectacle full of rampant whimsy, lavish effects and creaky social commentary, resulting in a nervy, go-for-broke opus whose audacity is more laudable than its execution.

The issue of immigration couldn’t be more timely or poignant, but everything else in Desierto feels strictly by the book and it is a book we already know from cover to cover.

Nguyen’s documentary certainly leaves the viewer wanting more.

Outside of its admiration for mothers, Bier’s film seems to only vaguely hint at other ephemeral ideas, and as a result Bird Box is a curiously hollow experience.

Everyone here appears to be revelling in the juicy opportunities Earthquake Bird brings to hit up our memories of everything from Fatal Attraction to Single White Female.

Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman have crafted a knowingly cheesy action movie that flaunts its adrenalised excessiveness, while Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, playing two very different men in search of the pills, never manage to transcend the project’s fundamentally generic, cartoonish design.

Anyone expecting a shred of originality from this Dwayne Johnson vehicle will be disappointed, but writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber tries his best to compensate by amping up the over-the-top spectacle, hoping sheer gusto will keep viewers from minding his film’s shaky foundation.

With its uneasy and never-resolved conflict of interest between music star vehicle and music star drama and its lack of much at all to say about life, music or the creative process, Taurus ain’t rising anytime soon.

Though there’s some clunky dialogue and not much real character development, Reynolds manages to put the action, mystery and drama elements together into a credible, and at times quite touching whole.

The filmmakers preserve Seuss’s narrative beats but strain to replicate his whimsical spirit.

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.

Ultimately, 11 Minutes is as much a virtuoso party piece as anything - but it shows a veteran director in youthful form, clearly having a ball.

This live-action remake of the 1941 Disney animated classic finds the eccentric, inconsistent filmmaker tapping into his career’s core emotional themes and, on occasion, Dumbo has the magic and wonder of his best work. (And that blue-eyed baby elephant is awfully cute.) But there remains a frustrating impersonality — not to mention an audience familiarity with his well-worn aesthetic — that keeps the film from soaring all that high.

Like many would-be debaucherous evenings, Rough Night starts off with great promise, only to devolve into a series of poor decisions, regretful moments and a general sense of disappointment.

Ridley’s spiky sense of humour is a balm, especially early on when Joey interacts with her brother, but the script’s formulaic nature proves too much.

No matter Linklater’s efforts to keep the proceedings grounded in a light realism, this inherently melodramatic, sometimes absurdist material resists his naturalistic tendencies.

Though perhaps lacking in a real sense of dramatic tension; veering towards the schmaltzy at times and needing a far tighter ending, Woman In Gold is still a thoroughly enjoyable story, engagingly told and with a nice line in gentle humour to balance the legal battle structure which can veer to dryness at times.

Director Marc Forster lends this lightweight comedy-drama a crowd-pleasing breeziness, but the picture never cuts particularly deep, especially noticeable when it tries to tackle some darker subject matter. Audiences simply wanting an undemanding, reassuring entertainment may not mind, but Hanks’ change-of-pace role is intriguing enough to wish the material wasn’t quite so mawkish.

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.

A raw central performance from Danielle Deadwyler brings some depth to this Blumhouse thriller, which otherwise maintains a creepy atmosphere but mostly trades in familiar psychological horror tropes and an abundance of jump scares.

There’s nothing more terrifying in this film than the creative talent wasted on such shockingly mediocre material.

This new instalment knows which story beats to hit, but it has little grasp of the emotional undercurrents that made the original resonate — how it touched on adolescent insecurities, first love, and the scourge of school bullies.

The latest from director Gavin O’Connor (Warrior) is part character study and part airport-novel nonsense, and the film’s utter chutzpah gives the proceedings an agreeable kick. But The Accountant can’t balance its B-movie instincts with its more artistic aspirations, ultimately hamstringing a potentially juicy, escapist shoot-‘em-up.

The filmmakers’ handling of the surprises has a narrative deftness and visual cleverness that is legitimately unbalancing. It also adds a blast of dark comedy to the proceedings.

As cheery as the whole affair can be, no amount of razzle-dazzle can distract from World Tour’s meagre storytelling — or the gnawing suspicion that the proceedings are targeting overstimulated young viewers who just want nonstop sensation.

With its Sadeian overtones, and glumly perverse excesses, this is not a particularly enjoyable experience. It will be best suited to the more experimental fringes of the festival circuit and to audiences who thought that Salo: 120 Days Of Sodom was too much fun.

The Gentlemen is a disposable crime caper on autopilot. Propped up by an all-star ensemble, particularly the sturdy Charlie Hunnam and scene-stealer Colin Farrell, Guy Ritchie reclaims the genre that brought him to fame but does little more than shuffle battered parts into an intermittently entertaining configuration.

There’s very little that’s shocking — and not nearly enough that is funny — about this romantic comedy.

The remake of Papillon doesn’t lack for potential metaphorical riches, yet this brutal, bruising film never quite connects with its deeper themes, resulting in a story full of suffering but not enough transcendence.

Riveting from start to finish.

A solid but forgettable crime thriller whose best asset is Boseman’s commanding presence.

In the end, Marry Me can’t wed its conflicting ambitions, resulting in a likeable picture that’s hard to love.

An increasingly overwrought approach undermines its better instincts and creates an uneven affair.

Only Cloud Knows doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel as the catharsis of the final act hinges on revelations, but what could have been rather mournful instead becomes a poignant celebration of life thanks to Feng’s deft handling of patently sincere material.

Dynamic storytelling and powerful performances bring out the pathos in an unusual tale of conflicting loyalties set on the criminal edges of a travelling community.

An amiable, average-at-best caper-like quest remains just that, even with recognisable talent, and even more so when its combination of elements is clearly stretched.

A sometimes mesmerisingly intense lead performance by Alena Mikhailova is the trump card of this sprawling, sumptuously mounted revisionist drama ... But for all its sometimes-crazed energies, it feels ponderous and overwrought.

It’s rather meta since the backstory riffs on the star’s life and reputation, yet Yang gives the proceedings cross-generational family appeal through focusing on the protagonist’s deep bond with his steed.

Gory rather than scary and goofy instead of very funny, this fitfully amusing horror-comedy will be embraced by fans of the popular band, who demonstrate that, while they’re adept musicians, they’re not similarly gifted at delivering killer punchlines.

Abbott and costar Julia Garner give grounded, emotional performances in this occasionally thoughtful chiller ultimately undone by its grander ambitions.

What power it has derives from the knowledge that this shocking story actually happened. When that’s the case, it’s maybe good to have it served straight.

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.

The thin story plays out in a hail of bullets, zombies and action-laden sequences.

Shamelessly sentimental but also dedicated to the proposition that, in our dark political moment, kindness still matters, director Paul Feig’s film benefits from the adorable rapport of stars Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, who help puncture the story’s conventional trappings.

The Water Diviner is a heart-warming tale of family, love and sacrifice told with four-square enthusiasm and manliness by director and star Russell Crowe.

When Now You Don’t tries to be poignant while pondering the passage of time and the loss of loved ones, the franchise’s glib construction cannot withstand the tonal shift. And the story’s relentless razzle-dazzle eventually feels laboured, sapping the fizzy fun.

Unfortunately, this relatively lighthearted instalment, which boasts likeable performances and some unapologetically goofy comedic moments, ends up feeling insubstantial rather than freewheeling.

Petrunya is careful to maintain the ideal balance, parodying the ridiculous response to its protagonist but never downplaying its realism.

Hester’s goal was to convince politicians that gay people are like everyone else. In its ultra-mainstream style, and now in its argument for equality (which most of America endorses today), this solidly acted drama drives that point home.

Pugh and Freeman are superb at embodying their characters’ emotional wounds, but Braff’s melodramatic approach quickly becomes oppressive, clumsily orchestrating wild highs and lows with such inelegance that his protagonists start to resemble helpless pawns he is pushing around the narrative chessboard.

This sequel’s real sin is the fact the usually fearsome beasts are not suitably terrifying, resulting in some mildly effective action sequences but nothing that suggests the series is in the throes of a creative renewal.

The Hunt is the cinematic equivalent of watching strangers argue on the internet about politics: It’s fleetingly amusing but, ultimately, not the best use of anyone’s time.

War On Everyone is essentially a clothes hanger for smart one-liners, verbal and visual, and its success will depend partly on how folks like the look of the clothes hanger.

For a spell, this sequel to the 2014 hit intrigues because of its insistence on taking time to establish melancholy themes and thoughtful tone. But no amount of Denzel Washington’s weary authority is enough to distract from the fact that this overstuffed, ultimately unsatisfying potboiler merely dresses up its clichés in strained gravitas.

The Ugly is less concerned with the machinations of the whodunit and more invested in how physical appearance defines both ourselves and our feelings about others.

This lack of sparkle can be felt throughout the remake which, like so many of the studio’s recent redos, feels stiff and reverential — a cynical reproduction suffused with deadening CGI.

Adele Exarchopoulos and Francois Civil may be top-billed, but this unapologetically sentimental drama actually works better in its first half when their adolescent counterparts take centre stage, seizing on the irrepressible excitement of first love.

Tell It To The Bees can seem a little too respectable for its own good but there are moments of pain and heartbreak that rise to the surface, especially in a tense climax that puts the fates of several characters in the balance.

Julie Delpy’s latest directorial effort juggles some potentially delicious ideas, but Lolo proves to be an exasperating romantic comedy that flirts with darker terrain it never has the guts or wit to really explore.

A lazy heist comedy that asks little of its appealing leads, Going In Style goes down smoothly even if the only thing that really gets stolen is the audience’s time.

How To Talk To Girls at Parties shouldn’t work, as it feels at times like a film made by a talented student collective who overheard a ‘punk vs aliens’ elevator pitch. But work it does: it’s all a bit mad, but ultimately rather moving.

An indulgent 130-minute running time and a plot that wildly over-stretches sees Racer ultimately bounce off the rails.

Key to the film’s appeal is the way that the friendship between the four girls, Dina, Lola, Daisy (Lisa Barnett), and Mari (Eden Grace Redfield), is persuasively brought to life.

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 overstuffed adventure-comedy barely takes a breath while bombarding the viewer with spectacle, special effects and one-liners — but what ultimately makes the film so likeable is the flirty rapport between Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt as a mismatched pair in search of a magical tree somewhere deep in the Amazon.

Hyperactive, oddly premised and never quite as endearing as it should be, The Boss Baby is an animated family comedy that seems to have all the right elements but just doesn’t deliver.

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

Despite a stellar cast led by Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, After The Wedding never cuts very deeply, staying on the surface of a tale that ought to tear into the viewer’s soul the way it does these tormented characters.

The solo directorial debut of Bobby Farrelly goes for broad laughs and a crowd-pleasing spirit, never mocking its disabled characters but, instead, celebrating their irreverent sense of humour and athletic skill. Unfortunately, that does not keep Champions from feeling patronising and cloying at times.

This adaptation of Bethan Roberts’ novel is full of repressed emotions and the occasional tearful recrimination, but the stateliness of the proceedings eventually becomes stifling rather than absorbing, draining this doomed love affair of its potential to break the heart.

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.

An initially captivating drama that loses steam once predictability starts to take hold.

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.

The transporting power of art is a difficult thing to capture in cinema at the best of times, and this film struggles to do so, leaning heavily on a score which signposts the emotional content of each scene a little too emphatically.

The ending is simultaneously satisfying and slyly subversive, allowing an unravelling of ideas that should lead audiences to think about what they have watched.

A superpower movie with a premise absurd even by the far-fetched standards of the genre, iBoy misses out on the opportunity for entertaining mischief with a po-faced approach to the material and a lack of internal logic to the story.

It’s a bedroom farce with Jihadist jokes; a film which attempts to skewer the preconceptions harboured about its marginalised characters without allowing those characters the leeway to emerge from the margins as fully rounded individuals.

Technically-skilled, well-acted and fatally over-long, it’s hard not to see Blonde as a chronicle of exploitation and abuse which merrily carries on the tradition – a sensation reinforced by Ana de Armas’s poignant performance as Marilyn.