Allynne and Notaro’s film is suffused with sweetness, but the slim, conventional story keeps the directors and their capable cast from really exploring the bonds that connect people, whether as friends or lovers. It’s an OK debut that, like Lucy herself, struggles a bit to find its footing.

The Worst Ones is trying to be both a kind of documentary about its own making and a drama about a guy making another film. Unfortunately, the two don’t mesh.

Like the fleeting highs and crushing lows experienced by gambling addicts, Treat Me Like Fire (Joueurs) starts off with energy and confidence, only to slowly succumb to cliché and implausibility once the initial adrenaline rush subsides.

Contradictory impulses dominate Creed II. This sequel to the 2015 smash hit is both emotional and formulaic, nuanced and shameless, determined to set its own course while slavishly loyal to franchise strictures.

Hyde’s fifth feature is an affectionate, perceptive observation about the quiet difficulties of family, even if the picture overstays its welcome with a melodramatic, predictable final third.

Although The Phoenician Scheme is transporting — an effect amplified by Alexandre Desplat’s lilting orchestral score, supplemented by selections from Stravinsky and Beethoven — the narrative proves to be fussy rather than delightful.

The abiding impression is of an intermittently fascinating film that is a minor work in the ever burgeoning Herzog canon.

At times the film feels almost subversive in its resolute lack of dramatic tension. And yet, as a melancholy mood piece, there’s a haunting quality to this handsomely filmed account of the slow attrition of faith, hope and purpose.

The abutting of Conor’s conscious and unconscious states justifies the pullulating images, but the film’s overwrought tone can grate.

A screenplay which could have benefited from another pass undermines the credibility of what comes before, and, despite a formidable intensity from Riseborough throughout, leachs tension along with plausibility.

Bastille Day is fun, for the most part, but the biggest take-home here is how easily Elba could slip into Bond’s shoes.

More a gloss than an insightful dissection, this documentary frustrates by sticking to the man’s surface, reducing his words to commendable sound-bites rather than deeply exploring them.

By unsuccessfully splitting the difference between being frightening and funny, the picture ends up residing in the same bizarre uncanny valley as its creepy title character, proving to be somewhat menacing but also awfully artificial.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is always faintly diverting but never particularly engrossing, putting the venerable movie star through his paces without really asking much of him.

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.

Part cringe-comedy, part diagnostic study of the modern pandemic of male loneliness, Friendship has several inspired moments, and strong performances from Robinson and Rudd. Ultimately, however, its determination to straddle both camps means it stretches itself rather too thin.

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.

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.

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.

As grimly gripping as Them That Follow is, the proceedings have a stacked-deck quality to them, which keeps this compelling tale from being truly galvanising.

It’s not that [Krasinski] fails, or that his film isn’t desperately charming as it goes about its business, but this is very familiar American indie territory, and The Hollars stops well short of innovation.

Both McGregor, close cropped, and Seydoux, in retro bangs, give tender performances, although there’s not much that’s new in the love story once you push the robotics aside. Tech-heads who rush to Zoe may leave the theater feeling under-charged.

A moderately engaging thriller that coasts along without ever evolving into the more riveting character study it has the potential to be.

This is an undeniably moving story, and Winson — who died in 2015 aged 106 — a man worth honouring, but One Life comes across as an orchestrated tearjerker.

Unlike Yankovic’s best songs, Weird’s inspired goofiness eventually runs out of gas, growing more and more outrageous without coming up with comparably choice gags.

Okja is fun, if sometimes over-egged, as an adventure romp, but flounders in overstatement when it comes to satirical intent.

Silver infuses some novelty into his Perils Of Pauline narrative, thanks to an extreme performance by Burdge, who plays the credulous lovesick naif to the hilt.

A production line effort with an eye on cashflow rather than the demented work of art Hooper loosed on the world, this eighth entry is above average for its attenuated series. Gore levels are as high as expected and, naturally, the finale leaves things open for further instalments.