The Forgiven is a decidedly uneven piece of work.

Director Nash Edgerton never really sinks his teeth into the delectable darkness of his hero’s nemeses, struggling to maintain the right acidic tone.

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.

Instances of alchemy abound in the narrative — walls are converted into projectiles, brick courtyards into hungry beasts — but the same magic can’t improve soap opera-like theatrics, the overuse of expositional dialogue or an eagerness to flit between action scenes.

There’s pleasingly little sentimentality and much honesty to be found in Hirayanagi’s screenplay, particularly in its acknowledgement that new experiences can make you lose, as much as broaden, your mind.

Even when the lines uttered sound more like a statement than an actual conversation, Sen remains a master of everything he controls as Goldstone slowly inches towards its bullet-riddled finale.

Although much of the film is effectively claustrophobic, it is too bogged down by exposition to fully take off.

The Cured is at its sharpest when drawing acute political parallels. As a zombie film, the shocks are few/

Guardians of the Tomb, however, takes itself far too seriously, aside from the woeful running commentary provided by the thoroughly expendable Gary as the team plods from one dusty spider-filled room to the next, a sense of repetition quickly setting in.

A shattering portrait of a luckless woman unable to pull out of the tailspin that is her life, Where Is Kyra? is a powerfully moody character study anchored by a remarkable performance from Michelle Pfeiffer.

Admirers of Soderbergh’s experimental tendency will applaud the film’s execution – it was shot on the iPhone 7 Plus – while this story of a tenacious woman fighting all odds should have added appeal in this #MeToo moment. For a mainstream genre piece, however, the narrative execution is a little too cavalier to guarantee audience satisfaction.

The result is both a compelling, damning cultural observation and testament to Greenfield’s own visual artistry.

The unflinching rawness of the action has considerable impact while undercutting the dominant jingoistic tone. Despite the team’s tactical strengths, their plans often suddenly unravel because of unanticipated elements, resulting in stomach churning injuries.

A dazzling, studious exercise in found footage excavation and reconfiguration, laced with tongue in cheek.

It’s not until the end credits roll that one realises that Monster Hunt 2 is essentially an amiable detour in a bigger story, or enterprise, since Wuba is no closer to fulfilling his destiny. Yet when you have a star of Tony Leung’s magnitude selling out with such panache, it seems churlish to complain.

Able to generate dread and awe with equal skill, Annihilation is an absorbing amalgam of genres and influences, all coming together to produce a dazzling creation as vivid as the hybrid life forms our heroes encounter on their perilous journey.

Trying to split the difference between trashy and classy, Red Sparrow is a sleek, juiced-up espionage thriller that overdoes everything: its brutal violence, its dramatic flourishes, its hairpin plot twists, and most certainly its sexpot shamelessness.

Writer-director Chen Sicheng dials the original’s lewd humor down a notch, but still mines stereotypes for easy laughs with Wang delivering his trademark high pitch comedic star turn.

So lush with gorgeous detail it’s like a piece of highly-textured haute couture, there’s also a sharp social message behind the elaborate seams.

Burke — perhaps best-known as the grown-up version of the scary baby in the last films in the Twilight saga — is outstanding as the fragile, yet determined heroine who is terrorised beyond the bounds of sanity but has to remember that she might be doing all this to herself.

For over an hour, Permission unfolds as a mildly amusing romcom about two modern Brooklyn couples facing commitment crises. Toward the end, the main plot, about a straight pair experimenting with polyamory, takes a dramatic turn.

On the whole, 15:17’s slavish adherence to reality ends up arguing that, sometimes, a little Hollywood phoniness can go a long way.

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.

Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) has fashioned a slightly more earnest variation on the typical MCU movie — one that is still fun and funny, but also rooted in a desire to speak meaningfully about racism, global culture clashes, and the tension between hiding behind one’s borders and helping outsiders in need.

Theron will put to rest any doubts about her feel for comedy; the darker the better.... As Tully, Mackenzie Davis is radiant.

Fortunately, the time-honored theme of brotherhood carries the film over its occasional damp patches along with Ding’s assured handling of stunts and pyrotechnics.

Authenticity rules the day here, the contrast between the banality of daily existence and extreme conduct is the main point of the picture, all of it defined by an insistence on staying close to the actual events and refraining from any attempt at psychological observations or analytical motivations.

Gitai’s personal knowledge of his people and their deep-rooted issues lends West Of The Jordan River a powerful intimacy.