Alien: Romulus remains a shapeless beast that never so much as hints at the disciplined elegance of Scott’s founding text. The action progresses rather than builds.

The final reveal is as unnecessary as it is predictable, and the pace can be as glacial as the setting. No matter. The Damned is powered along by suspicion, atmospherics and an unforgettable landscape.

Goth remains fiercely committed to the bit. West, a talented, ideas-driven film-maker, makes merry with contemporaneous tropes, yet falls well short of the substance or sleaze that defined Cruising, Hardcore, or the other films referenced throughout.

Taking cues from the lively cast, Nabil Ayouch’s third feature to make it to Cannes is scrappy, occasionally messy, prone to distractions, and never less than diverting.

It could be enormously clunky, but the quiet warmth of Fraser’s performance, the delicacy of Hikari’s direction and the ravishing location work just about distract from the teeth-smarting sentimentality. Soothing balm to kick off the cinematic year.

The coda veers into the conceptual chaos of weaker, later Paranormal Activity instalments, but it’s a promising start for the director’s proposed trilogy. Keep ’em coming.

It is often argued that The Strokes are the last rock stars and that their Manhattan peers are the last great bohemians. It’s an Americentric view, but it’s gospel truth for this appealing if impressionistic time capsule.

McConaughey and Ferrera prove the most delightful endangered bus companions since Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in Speed, exhibiting just the right balance between tension and comradeship.

One remains puzzled as to what these films want to be. Not nearly enough is done with the animal natures of the heroes.

Bombshell is entertaining throughout, but it offers little more nuance than a morning spent with Fox & Friends.

The viewer may struggle with the continuing inconsistency — the film is more comfortable with the supposedly compromised Elvis than the barely seen roots artist — but the audience is, at least, propelled back into the street in something like an elevated mood.

Now 85, Scott again proves there is nobody so efficient at pressing contemporary technology to the limits. He also draws heroic performances from fleshy human beings

The urgency of the project ironically detracts from the drama. The story is simply too recent and too fresh to yield any surprises on the big screen. The characters appear mostly fleetingly and without time and space for development. This is precisely why the genre demands recognisable faces with baggage.

Along Came Love (which has a deceptive title) does not torture the emotion or tax the brain, but, well acted and easy on the eye, it just about delivers on its early promise of knotty personal drama. It also has important things to say – implicitly for the most part – about the unjust expectations placed on women in French society.

Moving from his standard New York neurotic, Eisenberg does a convincing job of moving from frustration to a violent, active mania. Poots is better still as someone who can’t find the words to communicate her growing despair.

For all the extravagant special effects and efforts to tug at our heartstrings, what we get is more of an epic variety show than coherent space opera.

Nobody will walk away from Skywalkers: A Love Story raving about its soap-opera shenanigans. But as an exercise in physical unsettlement it could hardly be bettered.

The film – like its subject – lets the pomp and circumstance do the talking.

There are technical blips. Occasionally, the 3D character animation and frame-rate stutter in the margins. But the film’s approximation of temporal confines never leaves the viewer feeling stuck in a moment.

Her words are clear, unsentimental and so evocative that you can almost smell the weed.

The narrative parallels with Gladiator – taking in soft-edged shadows of the earlier characters – only press home the current project’s second-hand status. It’s no Gladiator. It’s no Asterix the Gladiator.

This is ultimately an inspirational yarn focused on the value of standing by convictions.

It is plainly the work of talented individuals, but it ultimately leaves you with little to show for your patience other than a pounding headache.

What we have here is something like a supervillain origin story, with Cohn spelling out almost every negative trait that now defines the former president. That makes for momentum, but the approach – supposing a man is made by other men alone – is also inherently trivial and reductive.

The wafer-thin characterisation and over-reliance on musical recitals make it hard to buy into the film’s premise of enduring love.

Adults and smarter kids will enjoy the digs at the pomposity of professional saints. Everyone else can laugh at the genuinely funny talking guinea pig.

The Creator sticks to a strong, pulpy narrative that never lets up in pace. There are vast action sequences and intimate, scruffy fight scenes. The film is, however, as memorable for its cinematic texture as its twists and turns.

Though Dawn of the Nugget is not on the same plane as a masterpiece like Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, it delivers zippy good-hearted jokes at a cracking pace without outstaying its welcome.