The Kitchen may prove to be a meaningful time-capsule document, but is far less successful as broad entertainment.

This horror-action picture offers modest genre pleasures and a consistently spooky vibe, resulting in a film that has been designed chiefly to ensure future sequels, although the story includes enough emotional shading and robust set pieces to be an engaging standalone feature.

Instead of intriguing ambiguity, this updated version – which had a long and bumpy development – offers only maddening confusion...With false endings within false endings, it’s the sort of movie whose final fade-out will leave audiences groaning in frustration.

Zombie’s filmmaking career began with inventive pop videos for his band White Zombie and he can still frame an interesting shot or layer in an unusual and affecting snatch of music, but after six features he still can’t come up with a fresh story, write characters with more depth than their make-up or direct stalking scenes that are suspenseful or moments of gory violence that are shocking.

Directed with brisk efficiency by Philip Noyce, the mix of adrenaline-rush emotion, manipulative melodrama and moralising is surprisingly entertaining in the moment.

Kraven The Hunter is, by far, the most graphic and violent of the Spider-Man Universe pictures, but that extra bloodshed does little to quicken the pulse.

Despite the occasional cheeky moment and brutal slaying, a property that once satirised horror cliches has largely succumbed to them.

There are enough twists and turns in Self/less to keep things interesting

This is a film which doesn’t take itself very seriously, and it will work best with an audience which takes the same approach.

Keeping Up with the Joneses may have twice the talent of other outings in the spy-couple sub-genre...but its laugh quotient is pretty low. And that’s a real problem for a romantic action comedy that’s always going more for humour, with a touch of sweet-natured romance, than thrills.

Idris Elba makes for a dashing, haunted gunslinger assigned to safeguard the universe, but whether it’s Matthew McConaughey’s hammy turn as an all-powerful villain or the generic effects work, The Dark Tower proves to be a movie filled with faint ambitions and an even weaker pulse.

Like its star, The Last Witch Hunter is big, overblown and frequently incomprehensible.

Swiss director Baran bo Odar leans heavily on bone-crunching sound design and a percussive score which rumbles over the film like a pursuing helicopter.

A raunchy yet slack-feeling comedy that seems to put as much effort into playing on racial stereotypes as playing for laughs.

This is a downbeat slog of a film which tells a not particularly involving story.

More of branding exercise than a fully fledged star vehicle, this fast moving but instantly forgettable adventure allows Chan to participate in the set pieces while ceding the really strenuous activity to his up-and-coming co-stars.

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 the fun but strained Red One, director Jake Kasdan serves up an effects-heavy action comedy with a disarming sweetness that is undone by an overly complicated plot and some tired blockbuster conventions.

A parade of gaudy CGI and strained whimsy, Alice Through The Looking Glass proves even more manic and grating than its 2010 predecessor.

Story strands feel half developed; pacing seems erratic.

The stakes are higher, the action is bigger, the ambitions are grander, the jokes are appreciably less funny. Like many comedy sequels, Zoolander 2 supersizes everything in such a way that it’s that much more apparent how few of the jokes are connecting.

Collision Course is a colourful 3D romp that’s heavy on slapstick and cosy family comedy but light on real laughs and affecting drama.

Core’s incarnation of Point Break is about one thing, extreme sports, and it is no small relief that the film at least handles those sequences well.

Everything about The Mummy strains solely towards setting up a franchise in a world which only makes sense to its writers.

The perfunctory martial-arts sequences and convoluted plotting conspire to make this a painfully uninspired proposition.

A strangely lacklustre, unconvincing attempt to tell the story of the Heineken kidnapping.

Long, shiny, and treading a lot of water.

Deep down this is a conventional and predictably plotted period drama about a clash between bodice-ripping passion and social mores.

The whole endeavour ends up feeling fussy and clever rather than incisive and nuanced — especially when a late twist seriously jeopardises plausibility.

Unfortunately, this adaptation of the popular 2014 video game fails at delivering scares or cheeky laughs, resulting in a tedious experience that relies heavily on horror’s most cliched tropes.

The victims of notorious Chilean torture camp Colonia Dignidad suffered more than enough without Colonia adding insult to injury.

Sometimes sexy, sometimes campy, Fifty Shades Darker is a smorgasbord of silliness, its dopey pleasures indistinguishable from its many awkwardly melodramatic moments.

Like many films designed to double as opening chapters in ongoing screen sagas, The Fifth Wave always feels padded, its focus on establishing a springboard for future sequels rather than satisfactorily exploring its own narrative.

The Longest Ride plays like cynical fan service to Sparks’ readers, who, it is assumed, will be content to sit back and enjoy a cheap tearjerker, no matter how mouldy its execution is.

Ines and Emilie have tensions between them which are uncomfortably alive, and Langseth’s script is a gnawing reminder that, even when the date of death is set, family quarrels and resentments can still be corrosive.

If some of this loud horror material looks frankly absurd, that’s only, Amenabar would no doubt argue, because it reflects the hackneyed, trick-or-treats way in which we give form and body to our night fears. Fine, but for a thriller to thrill, such didactic admonishments are not enough.

With a script that’s about as inventive as the title, Ride Along 2 does little more than rehash the formula that two years ago teamed Ice Cube and Kevin Hart in an amiable if unambitious action comedy.

Genre fans close in age to the characters depicted onscreen should be appreciative of the enjoyably familiar mix of inspired comedy moments, smart zingers, grossout gags and nudity offered by the apostrophe-phobic Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.

Resurgence doles out the action and effects work in carefully calculated, incremental doses, which give the film a cumulative tension. Even if it’s hokey and jokey, this is a loud, effects-driven piece, with a driving score. For fans of Roland Emmerich disaster movies, this both hits all the marks, while delivering nothing new.

The film takes a long time to build dramatic momentum and gets interrupted by what seem like unnecessary plot points; some of them, perhaps, geared towards potential sequels.

Badly cast, broadly directed, and hampered by a book that hasn’t aged well since the musical’s 1981 West End debut, it’s hard to imagine just who this film’s target audience is.

Modi’s ramshackle romanticism never remotely convinces, and – given that it’s about artists who suffered for their radical modernism – it feels terribly dated, stylistically and in content.

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 first Transporter film in seven years is moderately entertaining and reliably ludicrous in all the predictable ways, but the film’s new sharp-dressed driver doesn’t possess the effortless stoic wit of the original trilogy’s Jason Statham, which ends up making all the difference.

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

The supporting cast takes some of the comic weight off the always likeable Vaughn’s shoulders. But Wilkinson’s character is too sad-sack to be really funny and Franco’s verges on the mawkish.

For audiences craving shoot-‘em-up carnage, the sequel contains an abundance of explosions, car crashes and kill shots, although the strained air of hip irreverence soon turns suffocatingly stale.

Some moments of poetry and emotional truth lurk in among the pretentious high grass. But the sometimes baffling dialogue is a serious subtitle endurance test ­for non French-speaking audiences.

While we can quibble about the underused lead or the meandering plot, Fifty Shades Freed ultimately authors its own most stinging rebuke, closing on an extended montage highlighting major moments and turning points from the trilogy. Tellingly, none of them come from this film.

Unfortunately, there is not much ingenuity or inspiration to Snyder’s vision.

Once we realise what’s at stake, and where it’s all likely to go, this grim study of a damaged duo, and of the screwed-up society they live in, offers diminishing returns.

There is an undeniable cheesiness to the closing stage of ma ma that makes it hard to take entirely seriously.

The downside to a film that includes multiple shots of a clock counting down is that it provides audiences with an unintended rooting interest: we’re just hoping it gets to zero soon so we can leave the theatre.

Between the overblown poor CG, witless dialogue and pervasive, numbing violence, the new Hellboy deserves its own special circle in Dante’s inferno.

Seyfried is impressive in the role, mercurial and fragile, but with a flinty coldness deep within.

The actors lend sincerity to the proceedings, but the film keeps cheating to achieve its dramatic payoffs.

Although Reese Witherspoon and Sofía Vergara do have their fleetingly amusing moments, this road-trip buddy comedy feels like it rolled off the cliché assembly line, offering wan laughs and familiar setups.

The only thing saving the film from utter catastrophe is Watts.

[A] depressingly inept comedy.

Feels like a Saturday Night Live skit that’s been stretched out over 90 minutes.

This is an earnest, half-baked fairy story drenched in a thick soup of CGI. It’s awkwardly staged, with turgid, expository dialogue that is appreciably tricky for a palpably ill-at-ease young cast to deliver

The Crow longs to be edgy and sobering, but the shallow, melodramatic treatment constantly calls to mind an insecure adolescent male who is trying to prove how dark and deep he is by dressing all in black and talking ponderously about death.

This tense, memorable study of one man’s breakdown and the unreliable stories it generates may not live up to the promise of its first excellent half hour, but it is still an audacious piece of filmmaking, one that imprints a memorably skewed worldview on the ears and retina.

A drearily sincere movie about faith and tolerance, Little Boy boasts plenty of good intentions but very little else.

Danny’s story isn’t dramatic or affecting enough to carry the film and other characters never develop into anything more than colourful ciphers. Irvine is appealing and relatable, but his performance isn’t always convincing and he’s handicapped by some clunky dialogue.

Despite a few touching scenes in which Sophie and Agatha reassert their bond amidst handsome suiters and devious spells, Good And Evil ends up feeling both too busy and too underdeveloped to let their relationship blossom. There’s no happily ever after awaiting audiences at the film’s end.

The Gallows offers up few new ideas and very few genuine scares.

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.

Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are a lot less fun this time around, paired with a fumbling John Lithgow and a stiff Mel Gibson as their overbearing fathers who stop by for the holidays.

The film feels like a long succession of incidents that tend to climax in familiar platitudes or weary declarations of the “I can’t handle this!” variety.

A stunningly misjudged comedy, Rock The Kasbah stretches and strains Bill Murray’s deadpan nonchalance until it snaps, and what results is a singularly unfunny, often infuriating tale.

While it may struggle to satisfy diehard Orwell purists, the film still takes a political stance and delivers an emphatic message celebrating equality and the power of the collective – albeit one which permits us a little more hope than was present in Orwell’s 1945 novella.

Consistently off by a beat, Hitman: Agent 47 fails to ever click into gear.

John F. Donovan may revisit a lot of familiar territory for Dolan but on this form it is good to welcome him home.

Creepy “send them back to Fuckheadistan” sentiment overwhelms London Has Fallen’s guilty pleasures, its meaty violence and xenophobic nastiness giving the cheddar an unpleasant aftertaste.

A grab bag of vulgarities, sex jokes, slapstick, nudity and chase scenes, the action-comedy CHIPS holds together better than expected, thanks largely to the goofy, dim-bulb rapport between stars Dax Shepard and Michael Peña.

Sporting a flowing mullet and aviator shades, Dinklage perks things up considerably as the story’s comically arrogant bad-boy-turned-good-guy.

Last Knights is little more than a dutifully compiled collection of genre conventions, its tale of a group of brave knights seeking vengeance for their fallen leader so undemanding that it’s almost charmingly pedestrian.

This well-meaning debut feature about following your dreams just treads water.

While the actors and puppeteers are committed to The Happytime Murders’ surreal reality, they almost do too good a job: This world’s authenticity is so complete that you’re left mostly slogging through how inanimate most everything else about the movie is.

No matter what Oplev throws at us, the film refuses to catch fire and just grows sillier and more contrived as it unfolds. It never feels distinctive and often has the air of just another entry in the Final Destination series.

This series’ tone-deaf humour and dull nods to selfless heroism have become toxic irritants — a sensation not helped by the film’s collection of clattering, joyless robots and dopey humans.

A good cast led by Miles Teller gets swallowed up in a narrative that grows progressively more muddled and tedious.

Whether it’s Downey’s mannerisms or the dull quipping provided by his menagerie of digital co-stars, Dolittle is a joyless slog trying to pretend it’s a hip, magical adventure.

It’s fleetingly amusing to watch Blanchett flex her wit and grace amidst this motley crew of outsiders and reprobates. But Lilith so easily outclasses everything around her that Borderlands is that rare would-be blockbuster where you wish the main character could get her own standalone feature, just so she can escape this meagre adventure.

No matter how likeable Cassie and her friends are, they are powerless in the face of a plot that goes through the motions, revealing ‘shocking’ twists about her past and building to an overblown finale. Madame Web argues that no one’s future is written, but it is very easy to see exactly where this film is going.

Coward’s brand of urbane casual elitism is rather past its sell-by date. But the problems run deeper in this energetic but scattershot version of a property which might have been best left to rest in peace.

The killer mascots may spring the coop, but this sequel never breaks free of its own conventionality.

While the titular criminal gang at the centre of this action thriller may be presented as supposedly quirky and unconventional, the film in which they operate is as blunt-edged and cliched as they come.

It is a manic, hit and miss affair complete with slapstick antics and wisecracking one-liners.

Theatrical, both in its single-location setting and its tone, the film manages to be simultaneously laboured but also oddly opaque.

Most of the story’s credibility goes out the door with the big plot twist.

As audience-friendly as they may be, the cast is left wading through the middle ground between the unengaging narrative and over-emphasised aesthetics.

Taylor can’t juggle the different tones, and as Sue tries to stay a step ahead of the crooks and the cops as her lies threaten to unravel, the film’s attempts at societal critique feel facile.

Infuriatingly manipulative and insufferably preachy.

Collateral Beauty never manages to shake off its all-too-deliberate air or willingness to follow the easiest path. Its life lessons are packaged with cloying, overt mawkishness which aren’t quite the feel-good home run Frankel seems to expect.

Attempting to celebrate the power of community and new beginnings, Sia’s directorial debut mostly serves as an unintended cautionary tale about chronic whimsy and outdated ideas.

Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series is comprised of page-turning, airport-blockbuster Scandi crime potboilers; Alfredson scorches the seventh, The Snowman, with such art-house intensity that it eventually melts into an exhausted puddle.