The trouble with Miss Americana is that, although there is honesty and vulnerability, there’s also something rehearsed and distant about it. Swift invites us in, but she only lets us see so much.

An uneven mix of melodrama, eccentricity and hyper-male boisterousness never entirely convinces.

It’s a big-hearted picture, certainly, but one that doggedly labours its message.

Uneven but not without its charming, touching and even kinky moments, the film salutes the oddballs lucky enough to find like-minded souls – but the story’s invitingly bizarre vibe isn’t captivating enough to overcome some clear narrative flaws.

This plodding drama, centring on the friendship between a young German DJ and an ageing expatriate, never shakes the dust off the pages.

If judged by fluid effects work, Atwood’s stunning costumes, and the fun of watching Theron and Blunt reach new heights of arch camp, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a triumph. By any other measure, though, it’s a far more qualified prospect

Despite the pyrotechnics of McAvoy’s performances and Willis’s grounded conviction, there’s just not enough here past the high concept of “what if real people were superheroes?”.

Ultimately, the impression remains that Child 44 either needed to be much longer to let all the different elements breathe or much more tightly focused to let the murder manhunt dominate.

Fatman has its wicked charms, but ultimately this cheeky action-comedy is a lot of buildup without sufficient payoff.

El Conde comes across as a well-funded toyshop for Larrian to play in, indulging flights of fantasy, paying homage, and exacting a retribution which could, should, have been a far more effective sandblast from a man who has spent much of his creative life holding this particular vampire to account.

There’s plenty to gawk at, and to argue over, in this episode - yet No Time To Die is oddly lacking in pleasure or real wit.

The Fast & Furious movies always possess a certain amount of eye-rolling histrionics, but Kirby finds just the right mix of sincerity and snark, understanding that these films are meant to be knowingly ridiculous.

With more action and less mystery, a returning director and main cast and a handful of sketchy new characters, The Scorch Trials makes for an efficient yet uninspiring sequel.

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.

Ultimately, it’s a bit of a mess, but it has luridly entertaining moments nonetheless.

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

Nguyen’s documentary certainly leaves the viewer wanting more.

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.

What’s lacking here, mostly, is a clarity of vision and control of tone that would give this prestige Euro-Western’s mannerisms a focus.

It is a shame that director Catherine Hardwicke’s film cannot match its star’s inspired turn, settling for a likeable but strained fish-out-of-water tale.

The risk-averse approach to the remake extends to the humour. Pratfalls and benign double entendres (“I saw you slip her a sausage!”) rub shoulders with familiar gags and catchphrases which have been lifted wholesale from the original series.

The directorial debut of Orphanage screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez is powerfully frustrating, undone by an ornate storytelling style in which twists only beget more twists, all in service of some fairly obvious observations about guilt, self-deception and devotion.

While there’s no doubting its huge ambitions, The Battleship Island turns out to be a disappointing misfire.

Packed with better action sequences and a smidgeon more emotional resonance, this sequel may be more engaging than its predecessor, but the franchise remains a rather clattering and crude affair.

Emma Mackey gives a heartfelt performance as the titular protagonist, whose marriage is collapsing just as she’s about to be named her state’s new governor, and this comedy-drama contains some of the crackling dialogue and disarming candour of Brooks’ best work. Ultimately, however, this disjointed character study ultimately feels as messy as its heroine’s life.

Commercial considerations strangle the vitality from the movie, but Ritchie does his best to bring a bit of impish wit to the proceedings.

Looking and sounding disarmingly like father Tim, Roth imbues Danny with an edgy vim and vigour - reminiscent of his father’s early performances for Quentin Tarantino - and palpable vulnerability which draws sympathy for his righteous anger, however misjudged it may be.

Critical Thinking has plenty of heart, which unfortunately can’t make up for its fairly uninspired design and predictable trajectory.

Along with its arresting visual sense – the film is handsomely shot on 35mm – it can boast a robust resistance to the cinematic cliches of portrayal of disability.

When Parallel Tales shifts tones near the end to unveil an unsettling surprise, the film’s confectionery construction cannot bear the jolt. Like Sylvie, Farhadi wants to mine riveting fiction from the flotsam of the everyday, but his imagination proves to be not as formidable as hers.

What ultimately hampers the film is that, once the agonising dilemma is introduced, the script quickly becomes a standard survival-in-space saga, recalling everything from Gravity to The Midnight Sky. The performances are nicely modulated, though, resisting the story’s inherently melodramatic qualities and instead focusing on trying to solve the problem at hand.

There is not enough in the performances or the script to set it apart from the constant flow of indie crime dramas.

Elemental contains hints of the studio’s wit and poignancy while lacking the inspired execution that once seemed so effortless.

Although compelling ideas float through High Flying Bird, the film is neither well crafted or intellectually rigorous enough to compensate for a generally lacklustre presentation.

It’s a playful inversion of the bigfoot legend, cautioning against unthinking compliance, championing curiosity and encouraging putting oneself in another’s shoes (or feet). Still, this all-ages affair is as blunt as it is busy; children will warm to the movie’s ceaseless energy, but parents might take longer to thaw.

Timur Bekmambetov’s Ben-Hur remake offers robust spectacle and some decent performances. But ultimately, the director of Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is, perhaps unsurprisingly, not the ideal filmmaker to capture this timeless story’s more nuanced emotional range.

This spiky black comedy is smart, cool and occasionally funny, in a bleakly cynical way, but it’s also surprisingly dull for long periods.

Playfully, almost proudly shallow as it feeds off the feverish highs and lows of its addicted protagonist, this neo-noir offers plenty of buzzy delight — that is, until the story’s pretensions bring down the whole house of cards.

By the time Wheatley, who also edited, concludes with a full-on eye-searing weird-out, it’s hard not to feel that he is retreading old ground – that this isn’t a more arboreally lavish A Field in England 2.0.

The paradox is that in modernising Berlin Alexanderplatz, Qurbani has created an ambitious but also stridently melodramatic moral parable that seems oddly dated.

Rather than being thought-provoking or streamlined, instead Dark Phoenix is a frustratingly anticlimactic, familiar tale of misunderstood mutants.

This unfussy action-thriller has a lot of Jason Bourne in its bloodstream, with director Tarik Saleh focusing on taut pacing and crisp sequences. But despite some solid craftsmanship, the film never fully transcends what is familiar about the setup — much like the titular hero, The Contractor gives its all, possibly in vain.

Grimly upbeat rather than merry, and relentless rather than frenetic, the film’s gritty zest is splashed across the screen with momentum, but also to the point of overuse. It serves a late heist set piece well, yet wears thin in a sea of training, thieving and fighting montages elsewhere.

The film finds an unexpected way to reach its happy ending, but ultimately Quiz Lady is a fun premise seeking a sharper execution — unlike the brilliant Anne, Yu and her cast don’t have all the answers.

As thoughtfully rendered as much of Hologram is, the film eventually succumbs to the material’s fundamental triteness, offering done-to-death life lessons about second chances and the value of broadening one’s perspective.

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.

While there’s no denying the picture’s ferocious forward momentum and skilful execution, the empty swagger leaves the whole enterprise feeling a bit mechanical — a heist without the faintest whiff of escapist pleasure.

Spurlock again proves to be fascinated by the art of salesmanship, but too often Super Size Me 2 feels like its own hustle, peddling a slick, self-promotional investigation into a world that’s already fairly well covered.

Stewart and Davis have such adorable chemistry as the central couple — playful and flirty one moment, touchingly sincere the next — that it’s a shame DuVall has stranded them in such an unsatisfying story. Granted, Happiest Season is meant to be cheesy in the comforting way that cable-television Christmas films often are, but all too frequently the actresses seem smarter than the material, forced to navigate preposterous twists and increasingly silly plot complications.

Despite the constant effort and genuine warmth of star Melissa McCarthy, the film’s stitched-together stories come apart early on.

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

Bracing fun as it is to watch, the film is rather an empty thrill.

The Forgiven is a decidedly uneven piece of work.

This a film which has all the superficial contours of a profound and intelligent enterprise, but little of the actual content.

The picture’s initial comic energy proves hard to sustain even with a short runtime, though, as the jokes start to feel strained and the numbers grow uninspired.

Though suitably moving in parts, Desert Dancer is more dutiful than inspired, reducing a worthy message to lukewarm sermonising.

Aiming to be a blistering examination of America’s unwinnable War on Drugs, the high-octane King Ivory is intense without being insightful.

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.

Drive-Away Dolls is frantic rather than inspired, a caper with no sense of the truly madcap.

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.

From a technical standpoint, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is fairly impressive in its merging of live-action and animation, a reminder of the technological advancements since the days of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Too bad it is in service to one more story of a scrappy young male hero on a search for powerful talismans in order to defeat increasingly more formidable villains. For a film about a character who is incredibly speedy, this sequel feels behind the curve, chasing after blockbuster trends but only falling farther behind.

A so-so stoner film where the premise is almost always better than the execution.

While there’s energy and edge to the picture, Cruella feels stitched together from different influences in order to justify a rather blatant attempt to renew interest in a moribund property.

It achieves stray laughs and some clever moments, but not enough to render it more than a strained curiosity.

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

For all that it bounces off a lot of contentious issues about children and the internet, where Carrie-style bullying has moved into the unsupervised zone of cyberspace, Nerve frustratingly stops short before eventually falling in on itself in the third act.

It’s a long, flat, no-frills journey which struggles to engage despite its many bloody shocks.

A film drunk on its own trashy, lurid aesthetic, Knife + Heart (Un Couteau Dans Le Coeur) has style to burn but not as much sense.

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

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.

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.

Rather than fleshing out its characters, the picture uses them as props to mock our obsession with our phones and, predictably, young people’s inability to interact with the real world.. For a film about the evils of artificial intelligence, Good Luck doesn’t have enough of a human element.

Beckett, though, has better films in its DNA - it is by no means original. What it mostly serves as is a reminder of what is missing from independent cinema - and may well be gone for good.

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.

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 main audience takeaway here will be the two main performances by Adams and Close.

Sibyl is far less than the sum of its parts, and never manages to shake off a heavy tone which consistently threatens to capsize even the rare funny interludes.

A mixed bag that doesn’t quite work — it’s too jokey, and too tonally erratic — and yet there’s real sweetness, as well as a genuine attempt to not just be another comic-book movie.

Neill Blomkamp puts the pedal to the metal with Gran Turismo, a high-octane underdog sports drama that boasts electrifying race-car sequences but a badly cliched narrative away from the track.

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.

This fitfully funny comedy — in which they must come up with the perfect song to stop reality from folding in on itself — offers little beyond nostalgia for an onscreen friendship that was once far more excellent.

As more information is dispensed - much of it in a rush in the final shots – the strength of Owen’s screenplay becomes clear but the issues it raises are largely left un-examined.

Certainly, The Mauritanian doesn’t lack for sincerity or muted rage. But the earnest, pat execution ultimately does a disservice to Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s arduous odyssey. His is a story that needs to be told, but with a little more urgency and ingenuity than what’s brought to bear here.

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.

Humor does provide some welcome relief from the heaviness of Mohave’s script.

A heartfelt but ultimately hobbled coming-of-age drama.

Comic-book fans have seen much of this film before, but Levi at least tries to make it soar.

Whatever mild pleasure can be derived from seeing Batman and Wonder Woman team up with other costumed crime-fighters quickly dissipates as it becomes clear that director Zack Snyder has again crafted a lumbering blockbuster that dilutes what’s so stirring about these fabled fictional champions.

This film, mostly shot in the UK, is technically suberb. But splitting the pleasures of virtual and reality, Ready Player One never fully satisfies on either front.

While it’s impossible not to be somewhat caught up in these climbers’ life-or-death struggle, Everest is oddly uninvolving — it depicts a horrific scenario in an underwhelming, distancing way.

Dogman may have a more intimate, reflective tone than much of his work – at least until its final man-versus-dog showdown – but it struggles to get past that initial cool pitch.

It’s just so hard to buy into Spaceman.

Silent Night works best as a grim chamber piece that subverts the season’s usual good cheer — or, depending on one’s temperament, serves as a tart distillation of the nagging gloom those who hate the holidays often feel.

Kurosawa remains a master of twilight-zone atmosphere, but this extended metaphor for the grieving process relies too heavily on ambience alone.

This is a film with some grace and exuberance, but a cavalier attitude to period verisimilitude only adds to the impression that, when it comes to facing ugly historical reality, Kiberlain’s approach is naïvely inadequate.

Unlike Entertainment, which had a cracked energy about it, this has such a somnolent pace, blandly desaturated palette and sombre tone that staying the course can be a challenge.

More frustrating than nerve-wracking, Old is hampered by its one-dimensional characterisations within an intriguing set-up.

Elements of craft and performance are very persuasive but the slight storyline and recourse to awkward flights of fancy make it a film that never quite gels.