The opening section, mixing shots of the Earth from outer space with recollections from astronauts about what it felt like to see it for real, is deeply moving and beautifully edited. However, once the film settles into a groove of guilt-tripping the viewer and trots out talking head after talking head...the experience grows numbingly monotonous and painfully sanctimonious.

It might drift out of the memory just as easily as it drifted in, but there’s a goofy likability to Pacific Rim: Uprising, a primal thrill to be had, and a confident slickness behind it that means, despite a nearly two-hour running time, it doesn’t outstay its welcome.

The beamingly ingenuous Cruise, whose character is not burdened with any doubts or an inner life, somehow sells it to you.

It’s tremendously reassuring to find out that Spinney is just the sort of kind-hearted sweetheart you’d expect, a man who’s spent a lifetime making children happy. And it’s a kick to see archive footage and interviews with some of the old, non-puppeteer cast members.

Guggenheim largely dodges lodging her story within a greater political context; a choice, but a shame, for when he does, the movie gains tension.

This is a big dumb action movie in its purest, most honourable sense: fast, furious and frequently fun.

It’s an adventure which begins by being bizarre and hilarious but appears to run out of ideas at its mid-way point, and run out of interest in what had at first seemed to be its central comic image: humans turning into animals.

It’s hardcore, yet much softer-core than Noé’s earlier movies, without the terrifying shock factor of Irréversible and Seul Contre Tous, and without the visual brilliance of Enter the Void, and Love is preposterous and badly acted and talky in a way that porn films haven’t been since they were designed to be shown in cinemas.

Barbershop: The Next Cut is hardly subtle, but it is more nuanced than you might expect.

Star power aside, it’s a modest, reined-in entertainment, rejecting musical numbers for a simple whistled refrain, and clocking in at just two hours.

By the Sea’s uncompromising nature is its most admirable asset. It’s a vanity project that’s difficult to love, but alluring to unpack.

Garrel struggles to unearth anything new. The mechanics of the relationships on show fail to lead anywhere unexpected while the dialogue is often flat and on-the-nose.

Winocour’s ability to build suspense is solid but she’s less confident when it comes to following through. She toys with perversity but sticks to formula.

This is detached, flat film-making at its most bare. You figure out which lines of dialogue deserve to be underlined.

Portman has made a film with something serious and interesting to say about Israel, a nuanced portrait of the place that demonstrates a commitment to, and connection with, her home country. This is an assured, heartfelt debut.

Inconsistency is A Perfect Day’s biggest problem. The script is scalpel sharp in some places, flabby as the well-blocker in others.

There are laughs found in almost every scene, though not many big ones. There’s also the problem that no amount of parody can top the real thing.

This is a very good-looking film that represents a brave attempt to do justice to a very popular book; it manages it, just.

Rams is as curiously captivating as the bleak landscape in which the two protagonists site themselves.

There’s no doubting Heineman and his crew’s audacity as they venture close to the line of fire, but the commitment to observing dispassionately at all times starts to feel a bit like a cop-out.

ABCD2 is the latest film to recognise that – however you gender your gaze – there is an abiding pleasure in watching bodies in motion, and choreographer-turned-director Remo d’Souza keeps nudging more of them on.

The tone wavers between psychological thriller and absurdist melodrama, and perhaps suffers for not settling on either, but it’s grounded by two terrific leads.

The artists’ blathering about the creative process and the nature of existence gets monotonous. It’s the ordinary folk that keep the film on-track.

You’re never sure what the characters are capable of achieving and the bottled-up energy that comes out of that feeling runs throughout.

The film is in need of an edge that Peter Straughan’s screenplay fails to deliver.... Yet Sandra Bullock seems blissfully unaware of the film’s faults and delivers a performance that expertly plays on her strengths.

The script balances kiddie-friendly winsomeness and knowing winks for grownups, and is more tightly constructed than you’d expect, with even fleeting throwaway gags delivering plot payoffs later on.

This is an attractively unparochial drama with a bracing interest in excellence.

Spotlight never hits the heights of passion, but capably and decently tells an important story.

As high-class cheese goes, Truth slips down fine. It’s a noisy, one-note rally for the converted that gets your pulse racing even if you’re rolling your eyes.

This is no masterpiece, but it’s amiable slice of popcorn entertainment.

It’s a film in which Spielberg’s traditional reverence for the wonder and idealism of youth has had to compromise with wised-up survivalist toughness of the new YA mode. But what extraordinary visuals this films conjures up, with images that appear and disappear like quicksilver memes.

It’s a likeable film which borrows liberally from everything and everyone, and if it’s put together by numbers, well, then it is done capably enough.

While Bad Boys for Life has a completely asinine story, generic action, predictable plot beats, moronic dialogue and truly reprehensible politics, I still had a good time.

It’s entertaining and amiable, but with a softcore pulling of punches: lightly ironised, celebratory nostalgia for a toy that still exists right now.

The Bad Boys are still providing innocent amusement.

It is a handsome-looking film, though it has a promo look to it occasionally, like a lavish tourist ad. I loved the horse’s-eye view Spender gave us at one stage, careering around the track.

Collette is a potent, unsentimental presence and Hardwicke and Banks know how to connect with the audience.

Eid proves a dolefully expressive lead, and Wolfgang Thaler’s ever eloquent camerawork is as fascinated by the discovery of bullet shells in the sand – a clue, and a warning – as it is by the punishingly craggy landscape.

Annaud’s film can’t help itself galloping off in allegorical bursts barely under his control, and intriguingly off-course from the kind of bold messages of national conciliation officially sanctioned Chinese films tend to convey.

There is no juicy high-concept baddie this time around, but there is a lot of enjoyable hokum and cheerful ridiculousness.

Amusingly tacky and offensive though it is, proceedings grow a bit monotonous, because all the tunes have pretty much the same beat and everything is pitched at the same hysterical, OTT level.

Where to Invade Next is a romantic film, equally affecting and annoying in its simplicity.

A gentle and charming entertainment.

Born to be Blue is a curious mixture of fact and fiction, cliche and originality, style and emotion – it never truly soars but by throwing the ingredients of Baker’s life together and producing something different, it’s never less than intriguing.

Sergey Shnyryov is superb as Petrov’s fictional counterpart, and the present and the past are smoothly sutured together by deft editing and an insistently mournful string score, although it’s sometimes a bit repetitive.

It’s an engaging portrait - film-making which works from the ground up.

It’s all fairly indulgent. But Sunset Song also has a viciousness that stops it falling too deep into a slumber

Gitai has chosen stylistic cinema over propaganda, and he is a director who regularly gets bogged down a bit in form.

McKay’s attempt to cover so much ground is admirable; and the outrage that courses throughout is deeply felt. But his busy execution...feels labored.

The peripheral interviews with the extended Spicer family are as compelling as the central quest; this is a film with rare honesty and nuance in a field that frequently feels queasy.

It’s a good, solid little picture, but it’s not that great, and certainly not noticeably more accomplished or compelling than many of the other music-themed docs that come out each week with less fanfare.

A dopey splatterfest that features one-dimensional characters and a draggy first act that’s eventually won over by creatively immature gross-outs and absurd violence.

A macro argument is being filtered through people’s local concerns, but without getting to know the subjects, you can understand their suffering, but can’t feel it.

Every other scene showcases a northern treasure (Coogan, Thomson, Tomlinson, Stansfield) and looks, feels and – crucially – sounds true to its sweaty-hazy, slightly cramped corner of history.

It may only be a repeat of earlier ideas and plotlines, but compare it to the fourth films in other franchises and Pixar’s latest is an amusing and charming gem.

Cheadle’s got the cred, and the period evocation is tremendous. It’s just that I’m not sure he has all that much to say

What sealed the deal for me – by a whisker – was the gigantic physical comedy that Dempsey, Zellweger and Firth uncorked as they try to get through the hospital revolving door as Bridget is about to give birth, the traditional romcom rush to the airport having been re-invented for this maternal drama.

Performances are uniformly impressive, with Stapleton guaranteed a place in the pantheon of creepily charismatic Australian screen criminals.

It’s a film so cartoonishly outsized that it almost renders the first film restrained by comparison

It is a bit stagey, but heartfelt and well acted.

The script could have done without the odd bout of heavy-handed chess symbolism (“a king for a king”) but it’s a solidly entertaining drama with an intriguingly unconventional lead.

Unassuming, likable entertainment.

Without stridency but with a clear sense of purpose, director Tonje Hessen Schei compiles a mix of original interviews and footage and archive material and simulations to explore the history of drones.

The film is very capably made, with forceful, potent performances from Waterston and Fassbender. That franchise title is, however, looking increasingly wrong. It is a bit familiar.

Even though The Wave is fiction, there comes a point where it ceases to be nail-biting fun and just an exercise in voyeuristic cruelty.

If you’re going to do a send-off this huge, there are a lot of goodbyes to say, and a lot of loose ends to tie up. The fact that The Rise of Skywalker manages most of them and within a vaguely coherent story is something of an achievement in itself.

The tone is gently mischievous rather than exhaustingly wacky.

What I like about Among the Believers, a portrait of radical Islam in Pakistan, is how the first two-thirds of the movie strives to remain as balanced as possible.

There are no prizes for guessing what happens, but it’s a smart scary movie that relies on atmosphere and characterisation – not just jump-scares – for its effect.

God, it’s so obnoxious. And the worst thing is that it works. I was smiling and applauding at the end, then I had to take a long walk alone to wonder what was wrong with me.

The set-up is a bit schmaltzy and the only guesswork is how bitter the bittersweet ending will be, but Haro coaxes strong performances from the cast.

There aren’t too many weird or original moments in Bad Moms...but Lucas and Moore, who wrote the script for The Hangover, know how to clear the stage for talented performers that can spin gold from next to nothing.

JK Rowling’s creative imagination is as fertile as ever, and newcomers Law and Johnny Depp impress, but the second film in the series is bogged down by franchise detail.

It’s good-natured entertainment, though there is still something weightless and formless about the narrative.

Hanks delivers an internal and sympathetic performance. Eastwood doesn’t burrow too deeply into his protagonist’s psyche, other than to visibly demonstrate that he’s haunted by the landing. Still, Hanks, who’s uncommonly, well, sullen, for much of the film, goes a long way to convey Sullenberger’s conflicted anguish.

Ritchie’s film is at all times over the top, crashing around its digital landscapes in all manner of beserkness, sometimes whooshing along, sometimes stuck in the odd narrative doldrum. But it is often surprisingly entertaining, and whatever clunkers he has delivered in the past, Ritchie again shows that a film-maker of his craft and energy commands attention.

When you have two of today’s best working actors acting on a high-wire to do justice to two of the most recognisable figures of the 20th century, it’s best to keep the focus solely located on them.

A cinematic Jägerbomb: definitely not good for you, but gets the job done.

It’s a serviceable, watchable thriller, with very gruesome images.

For me, King Jack relies too much on violence for its dramatic voltage, but it’s a well-acted movie with heart – and it doesn’t outstay its welcome.

It’s coarse and it’s stupid, but it is, thanks mostly the two good performances and some stylish use of music and editing, a little bit moving.

The film plays like nirvana for Pee-wee fans.

Jon Cassar’s film rejects the recent revisionism that’s flooded the genre. His take – a straight rip-off of the classics – is weirdly refreshing as a result.

Manchester-by-the-Sea is a study of family dysfunction and the worse loss imaginable, but one held back by the fact it’s all filtered through Affleck’s withdrawn lead.

Unfortunately, with the big reveal having arrived in the first act, the film isn’t much more than an elongated debate that leaves you thinking: so what?

Mostly, the film is heavy-handed, with subtlety nowhere to be found.

The restrained performances and luscious location photography are enough to make this a film worth exploring, though it might not be a bad idea to down a few caffeine-rich drinks before settling in to watch.

As the proceedings grow increasingly more far-fetched, the story starts to feel thinner, any semblance of reality increasingly abandoned. What keeps Hunt for the Wilderpeople afloat are the full-blooded characters that populate it.

Unfortunately, on the whole, Schamus’ debut feels too self-serious to fully engage.

Q’s morality tale isn’t without laughs. The quizzers are adept at alluding to and meshing together the greats of English literature with crude dick jokes.

Inevitably, perhaps, it pulls its punches, and soft-pedals on any authentic misery that its scenarios might evoke. But its essential amiability and decency comes through.

The Lure’s premise alone will turn heads but once the novelty wears off the question will remain: where’s the story?

Ultimately, it’s a sweet movie with some good laughs and a phenomenal rap soundtrack, but it fails to rise above the pack.

Southside With You uses our affection for the Obamas to add urgency in the otherwise simple script.

Keough and Malone convey a palpable sense of yearning for one another during these sequences, but Kim and Bradley Rust Gray’s barebones script doesn’t match their efforts.

The ideas here were far more interestingly rehearsed in movies like Tropical Malady and his Palme-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. A diverting footnote to the main body of work, no more than that.

The world needs people like Foley, and this film argues that cameras are every bit as important as firearms in the current struggle. This movie, despite its somewhat simplistic form, acts as a fine tribute to the man, his work and the bravery of others who are called to his field.