It’s a film that should have been a major disaster but ends up being just a minor one instead, watchable enough in parts, with the lowest of expectations, but not enough to warrant the time and money that’s been funnelled into it.

The movie is as tired and middle-aged as Akeem himself; Murphy is oddly waxy and stately, and has no authority figures he can really play off.

It is a riveting, dreamlike evocation of this man’s tortured, unhappy life, whose transient successes bring him no pleasure of any kind.

Céline Sciamma’s beautiful fairytale reverie is occasioned by the dual mysteries of memory and the future: simple, elegant and very moving.

Introduction, like so many of Hong’s films, occupies a delicate middle ground between whimsy and poetry, between inconsequentiality and epiphany, between lightweight and light. My feeling is that Introduction is closer to the former in each case, and I wanted to hear more about and more from Young-ho’s troubled father. But there is an unmistakable and mature film-making language on display: a simplicity and charm.

The film is a contemptuous slap at boredom, at hypocrisy and at everything petty and mean. I’m not sure that it entirely transcends all these things, but there’s a rebellious spark.

If you have 152 minutes to sink into this morass of moral complexity and finely observed period detail, then it may well be worth it, although the ending is bizarrely, perplexingly abrupt. Perhaps there will be a follow-up feature.

As the umpteenth time loop movie we’ve seen of late, Boss Level never offers a convincing enough argument for the gimmick to be leaned on yet again, a mish-mash of better movies blended into something a little bland.

Here’s a tale of chest-puffing courage and one-dimensional heroism from Russia during the second world war: an old-fashioned patriotic epic with slo-mo action scenes, intestines spewed on the battlefield and a soppy sentimental romance.

The real chemistry here is with the four-legged ass, not the human one.

Miller is at the heart of the film; her natural and believable performance touches so many emotions, and makes them all look so real.

A film deeply rooted in a close-knit community, with excellent performances, a sophisticated control of narrative tempo and – at least initially – a tragic force that could almost be compared with Elia Kazan.

The script is full of such daft coincidences you keep expecting there will be a clever twist to explain – but no, it really is that lazily written. At least the cinematography (by Andrew Wheeler) has atmosphere and the Parisian shots are pretty.

The whole thing is really waxy and sad, like the immobile face of co-star Sylvester Stallone; although the chance to enjoy the always interesting, never-as-big-as-he-should-have-been Matthew Modine, still looking pretty fly with a shock of white-and-gold hair, is very welcome.

It’s rare that a film captures so acutely the strange yet exhilarating feelings of two foreign bodies learning to adapt to each other, plus the difficulty of quickly disrobing your new lover of their jeans.

While some of the beats might be a little too predictable and while the emotional wallop at the end might be more of a gentle tap, Raya and the Last Dragon works for the most part, a charming, sweet-natured YA-leaning adventure that acts as proof that Disney needs to focus on moving forward rather than continuing to look back.

This clever thriller teeters on the brink of abstraction, and walks a razor wire between horror and an incredulous absurdity meant to stand for how women must live in the modern world: the daily toll of living in fear of aggression, physical assault and withstanding the misogynistic structures that excuse them.

Emblazoned with mouthy Big Short-style info-dumps, and with a phone-selling scene reminiscent of The Wolf of Wall Street, Body Brokers outwardly seems to be aiming for high Scorsesian amoral operatics. But given the originality of Swab’s take, it’s a shame he couldn’t find the film a more appropriate style: at heart it is a more sober film intent on declaring its outrage.

The result feels a bit like being fed a plate of arthouse vegetables, a collection of not always easy-to-watch films, randomly connected and with a total running time of 58 minutes that, to be honest, is a bit of a slog.

The film is intensely, almost radically humourless, which is hard to ignore and in fact hard to bear, because of this film’s obvious resemblance to recent great movies like Booksmart or Lady Bird and particularly at times the hard-edged classic Election.

These mid-90s, north-west Brooklyn specificities are fascinating and relevant; to Biggie’s art, certainly, but possibly also to his death.

Its strongest element, aside from Eilish herself, is the generosity and empathy afforded to the experience of fandom.

The acting and directing are entirely terrible, the editing and pacing are so sluggish you’ll feel as if you’re going into a persistent vegetative state, the plot is tiresomely unthought-through, the split-screen shots don’t work and the musical score is so pointless and undifferentiated it sounds like elevator muzak.

It’s a bit silly and queasy, but the narrative motor keeps humming.

Shepherds and Butchers doesn’t know which it is: the twisty legal drama that’s going to herd us through the issue or the ferocious expose, laying out the quotidian grimness of systemic death. It’s better at the latter. Even though much of the action is penned in the courtroom, the horror – and the interest – are played out in the past.

Small, imperfectly formed but quite entertaining all the same.

The Sinners’ sexy-schoolgirl-corpse aesthetic – part Twin Peaks, part Ariana Grande music video – is too ineptly executed to truly offend.

There’s no denying Zappa’s personal charisma and devotion to his cause, nor his articulacy in its service. Winter has created a fascinating watch.

It’s all very 2021, and you can’t help wondering how it will age, but as a launching pad for the director and her cast, it’s a very serviceable platform.

Day’s rendition is heartfelt. But the direction and storytelling are laborious, without the panache and incorrectness of earlier Daniels movies such as Precious (2008) and The Paperboy (2012). A cloud of solemnity and reverence hangs over it, briefly dispelled by the music itself.

Although I can’t help wishing Blakeson could have given Pike’s co-star Dianne Wiest more to do in the final act, it is grisly and gleefully cynical entertainment. If Ben Jonson directed films, they would be like this.

This valedictory film allows sober recognition for all that he did.

Pink Wall can be a bit contrived at times, with situations that have been rather effortfully created. But there are strong, forthright performances from Maslany and Duplass as the lovers who were never meant to be.

The denouement when it comes is meant to be shriek of pure sci-fi horror; but really, you’d find better entertainment – and more energetic acting – watching a fish tank.

The constant shifting between Italian, English and Québécois-accented French adds an extra texture, and the performances are as sharp as the suits.

Graham uses darkness and a very sparse score/soundscape to create a truly disturbing work that relies not so much on gore as the uncanny in its most potent form: stillness, pools of darkness and just-visible figures.

The movie finishes on an unresolved chord, as if we have left the story months or years before the actual scandalous denouement. But it is arguably faithful to the mood of messy bewilderment and frustration that governs the ongoing situation.

The final serving of this three-part confection rarely strays from enjoyable, even if it doesn’t match the seductive sweetness of the first bite.

It’s a breeze of a watch and with the bar for studio comedy being so very low right now, it’s at least mildly inventive and likably goofy, enough to warrant a cautious recommendation (premium rental price: no, next time you’re on a plane: sure).

The parody versions of the songs here are pretty funny, as is Cage’s solemn devotion to his job, down to his insistence that he takes a pinball game break at intervals throughout the film.

Ben Hozie makes his feature debut with this semi-insightful, uncomfortably funny indie drama about a man who becomes obsessed with an online sex worker. It’s a film with a slackerish mumblecore vibe, and Hozie is refreshingly grown up about sex. But it’s hard to see how his film adds much to the conversation about intimacy in the internet age.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things holds a contained, idealized world – a trove of romcom enjoyment and small treasures I had no problem looping through.

Tom Hanks leads this handsomely shot but stolid and blandly self-satisfied western.

The film dissolves in silliness and whimsy, but not before it’s given us some surreal spectacle.

Dead Pigs is an unassuming topical entertainment (rather different from the movies of its executive producer Jia Zhangke), but diverting and well-acted.

Dosch brings a wonderful humanity and sensitivity to the role.

Every syllable of action, as we grind towards the broadly guessable finish, is jeopardy-free and interest-free. Wilson looks as if he is thinking about something else: the halting sing-song rhythms of his voice sound vapid, and Hayek is trilling, whooping and smirking away in a world of her own.

The film isn’t perfect, and there is a touch of orientalism about the obsessive-affair-with-Japanese-man trope (which surfaced also in Wash Westmoreland’s The Earthquake Bird in 2019). But there is also something well controlled in the movie as it maintains its cool, even pace and Alexandra Daddario’s performance as the vulnerable, secretive yet emotionally open Margaret is smart.

What’s missing from this fecund brew, which you could imagine being twice as long, is any kind of judgment or analysis of the subjects.

This is a film that loves its subjects and only someone with a biological revulsion to catchy pop or grand rock theatrics will dislike the film.

The crudest way to describe what transpires in John and the Hole would be Home Alone if re-envisioned by Michael Haneke or perhaps Yorgos Lanthimos in the broadest possible terms, a chilly atmosphere successfully evoked but without any of the thought or intellect that both film-makers would also bring to the table.

It’s an often subtle (even in its many XXX-rated shots) and surreptitious study of an industry built on explicit, aggressive imagery, an arresting film which, though it doesn’t stick the landing, thankfully delineates between the legitimate work of adult film performers and the toxicity, misogyny and abuse the male-dominated industry allows to fester and lacerate.

It’s a preposterous plot, with a damp-squib ending, and like an episode of Dallas, the dialogue gets phonier and phonier.

As compelling and as complicated as this fraught friendship might be, Hall’s script can’t quite find a way to take it – and the other pieces of Larsen’s novel – and turn them into something deservedly substantial.

It’s a powerful tale of human frailty.

While it’s ultimately a little too messy to work quite as well as it could have, given the interesting and ambitious ingredients, On the Count of Three is proof that Carmichael is a director to be excited about, hoping that perhaps he finds time to write his next script himself.

It’s an airless chamber piece, a self-assured gamble that pays off almost instantaneously thanks to the four impeccable performances at its centre, each parent processing, intellectualising and vocalising their anguish in different ways.

There’s just not enough here to make it a worthwhile retread through familiar territory, proof of Wright’s basic competency as a director but nothing more.

Flee is a remarkably humanising and complex film, expanding and expounding the kind of story that’s too easily simplified.

Business as usual has largely resumed in Wuhan, but Wang’s film contends that that’s just the problem. The same apparatuses of messaging and censorship are still in operation, ensuring that the full extent of the malfeasance may never be fully known

In a flawed yet fierce return to form, Ben Wheatley has crafted a phantasmagoric treat with In the Earth, an ambitious, atmospheric little woodland horror.

The lack of awareness of this event is another tragic example of black history being ignored. Only this time the record survived, and now we all get to share in it.

Coda is a mostly likable concoction, but one that’s just too formulaic and ultimately rather calculated to secure the emotional response it so desperately wants by the big finale.

With production designer Paulina Rzeszowska and cinematographer Annika Summerson, Bailey-Bond creates something almost unbearably close and oppressive, like the bottom of a murky fish tank. It’s a very elegant and disquieting debut.

Ultimately it is all a bit repetitive, derivative (particularly of other Asian horror pics) and somewhat sleep-inducing.

Compassionate and honestly told, it is a real empathy machine of a movie.

There is a sustained emotional seriousness in this movie, with committed performances.

In all honesty, the path towards the film’s final feeble twist is as discernible as a neon pink jacket on the ski slopes. But Let It Snow is well put together, from the spectacular location work to the strong use of sound to the sort of arresting imagery that recalls the haute body horror of Midsommar.

Dyer’s intelligent and sensitive performance does wonders for a character who, on the page, looks like a male fantasy: a cool-girl psychiatric case, fun-loving, free-spirited and up for anything.

Robin’s Wish is not a wide-ranging documentary about Williams’s life. It only briefly sketches in his career, from early ambitions of serious acting at the Juilliard drama school in New York to standup stardom (“he drained every scintilla of laughter out of the crowd”) and Hollywood.

What an extraordinary story of sexism, violence, diplomatic bad faith and dishonesty on an international scale.

Chock full of delightful narrative surprises, imaginative genre tweaks, and warming performances from its two leads, this low-budget romcom-horror story is worth seeking out.

Director Robert Connolly’s adaptation is a very gripping and polished film, commandingly performed and directed, with an airtight sense of tonal cohesiveness – despite lots of, well, air in the frame, derived from countless mid- and long-shots capturing barren exterior locations in a fictitious Australian outback town.

There’s a real tragic power in this almost unbearably brutal and shocking movie from writer-director Jasmila Žbanić.

It’s a film trapped between a low- and a highbrow version of a story we know all too well, landing firmly in the middle of the road.

Kulumbegashvili’s style is confident, if derivative. Her technique now has to evolve away from these self-conscious influences.

Synchronic is frankly just silly and tedious, with faintly absurd and jeopardy-free time-travel scenes and a dramatic focus hopelessly split between Dennis and Steve’s separate but equally tiresome lives.

Within the first 15 or so minutes of Apple TV+’s Palmer, something clicks in, a feeling of overwhelming familiarity, an inner voice quietly realising, “Ohhh, it’s that movie.”

At its worst, it feels like an insufferable vanity project. But it’s pugnaciously well-acted, flavoured with vinegary insights and rage-filled denunciations, and a hilarious set piece of scorn about how awful film critics are.

There is a great, moving story to tell about the real Sam Bloom – but this film only gets part of the way there.

It’s pretty basic boilerplate, scary-movie stuff, with tropes and tricks that have already been extensively satirised elsewhere.

Baby Done is funny; it’s sweet; it means something. Most of all it’s charming.

It’s a throwaway film that perhaps I shouldn’t have enjoyed as much as I did, but Mandy is such a deliciously sour character.

The autistic characters feel more like dramatic tools to improve the circumstances of neurotypical people, rather than fully-fledged humans who think, feel and act on their own terms.

There’s nothing to fault in the performances, but the characters are filo pastry thin and slightly bland-tasting – like less complicated, less interesting versions of actual people.

Despite the heavyweight cast, the film’s production values are those of a kids’ TV show that might go out on a weekday afternoon.

It is a passionate drama of fear and rage.

[A] startling but sometimes frustratingly reticent and guarded documentary.

This is a strained, frustrating concoction that doesn’t do its subject justice. Flynn really can sing, though.

With a touch of Training Day, a smidgen of Eagle Eye, a dash of Eye in the Sky, a pinch of Ex Machina and an extra generous serving of all the Terminator films, Outside the Wire is losing every available award for originality, yet another Netflix creation born from its algorithmic cauldron, but taken on very basic low-stakes terms, it’s a competent enough January time-filler.

This movie is content with congratulating itself for being on the right side of history, with little attention paid to questions unanswered and history unresolved.

A head-smashingly redundant waste of time, talent, energy and resources, a shockingly early yet entirely convincing contender for worst film of the year.

The Dig is actually not a very earthy film, though there is intelligence and sensitivity and a good deal of English restraint and English charm, thoroughly embodied by the fine leading performers Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes.

Thankfully, we only see glimpses of the footage of tortured women on the hideously believable nemesis’s camera, so ultimately the movie – just about – feels more like a critique of the character’s woman-hating mindset rather than a vehicle for it.

Apart from anything else, it’s a spectacular action movie that begins with a shot that had me gasping: a Hong Kong protester on a rooftop is cornered by police and, in an attempt to escape, he tries climbing down the unstable scaffolding on the front of the building, with other protesters at street level screaming their alarm. The result is heartstopping.

Watching this film is a nightmare in all the wrong ways.

The scene with a jetski on the edge of a waterfall deserves points, but this feels disposable: the Chinese New Year is earnestly referenced as part of the film’s strident and faintly humourless patriotism.

The film never behaves as if it is anything other than a realist coming-of-age drama but there is something else going on.