While it is messy and frequently bewildering, Cuckoo does at least live up to its title, with a commitment to gleefully bonkers twists and a collection of entertainingly deranged supporting performances.

For all its unpredictability and nerve, the film too often feels snarky rather than subversive.

After the tense opening, coherent drama goes by the board.

Director Jeremy Sims allows this simple saga of renewal and survival to go a little broad and self-consciously crowd-pleasing, resulting in a comedy-drama without the original’s elemental grace and wisdom.

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.

Richards is such a fun interviewee that there’s no point kvetching about the film’s superficial treatment.

Returning director Dean DeBlois (who helmed the animation alongside Chris Sanders, as well as its sequel) has retained the energetic spirit of the original, and he’s helped by some fantastic CGI and a game cast, both of which lean into the fantastical charm of this tale of a hapless young Viking who discovers he is something of a dragon whisperer.

Federico Veiroj’s love of anti-heroes continues with this fifth feature, an enjoyably offbeat period character study wrapped in a thriller and laced with bone-dry humour that charts the rise of a conscience-free money launderer during the 1970s Uruguayan military dictatorship.

Emotionally intense and visually arresting, Evolution is rewarding viewing for those willing to enter its austere territory, but the technical virtuosity leaves it on the edge being perceived as of something of an academic exercise. It’s a film easier to admire rather than whole-heartedly engage with.

Ansari’s screenplay makes the most of the comedy talents of himself, Palmer and Rogen, with each getting their fair share of jabs and zingers. Yet Reeves is the star of the movie, givig the best comedic performance of the year.

The bleak warning of this environmental parable notwithstanding, this is arresting, frequently unsettling, cinema.

In the slim but powerful documentary He Named Me Malala Davis Guggenheim attempts to colour in a shy, yet deceptively stout-hearted schoolgirl and her symbiotically-close relationship with her father, indicated by the film’s title.

Wright’s moving performance and some genuine heart-felt and -breaking moments amid all this natural majesty make Land a journey worth taking.

This is a picture with first-rate fight choreography to match the quality of the martial arts talent involved.

he film’s unexpected narrative elements — including a few shots you’ve never seen no matter how often you go to the movies — make this a rewarding take on coupledom told with satisfying visual flair.

A solid, persuasively-acted account of the real-life mission to bring a Nazi war criminal to justice.

Tim Sutton’s idiosyncratic outsider romance contains moments of haunting oddness, but has a tendency to stab home its points and issues rather emphatically.

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.

Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson shine as these troubled souls drawn to each other as much as they are to their shared love of the venerable singer-songwriter, and the film’s musical sequences are easily its high point. But writer-director Craig Brewer stumbles when the couple step away from the stage, falling victim to an overly melodramatic approach that’s out of rhythm with the rest of the picture.

A story which might seem the stuff of high melodrama is given a very different charge by Franco’s characteristic rigour – an uninflected cleanness and clarity in Yves Cape’s cinematography, and a minimum of narrative frills, driving the narrative towards a conclusion that is one of this director’s starkest yet.

This conventional rock-doc is light on new insights — and its focus on Robertson’s viewpoint short-changes his former bandmates in this often-contentious group — but it tells its story with considerable affection.

It is as visually extraordinary as its predecessors and, while the film contains some of those earlier pictures’ weaknesses, the deficiencies are starting to feel like charming quirks in an otherwise transporting series.

Ripped from the headlines, keenly researched and carefully crafted, this fictional tale has near-universal resonance although some viewers may find it forbiddingly French in that talk, talk and more talk is as plentiful as are distinctive characters and punchy imagery.

The film takes commendable tonal chances, but too easily succumbs to easy jokes and unconvincing plot twists.

The latest film from Chris Renaud (Despicable Me) and his team is a madcap caper full of densely-packed sight gags, dizzying action set pieces and a healthy side-helping of Renaud trademark silliness.

The shared experience between the filmmaker and the subject of the film allows for a character study of depth and intimacy. However, the story itself – a slightly soapy ‘romance against the odds’ narrative – presents few surprises.

Atmosphere alone is not enough. Abramenko fails to generate much in the way of empathy with the characters, resulting in tension being diffused by the fact that it’s hard to care very much for their outcomes.

Running over three hours, and swamped with sex, drugs and over-the-top set pieces, this swaggering drama seems infused with the impetuous energy of its characters, resulting in a film that’s drunk on its own ambition, wildly uneven but never, ever boring.