Zoë Kravitz is a highlight as cocktail waitress turned cat burglar Selina Kyle.

It works on the assumption that a story about grumpy old gits united against a common foe has a universal appeal. True, to an extent, but what the makers of this film fail to realise is that it was the specificity of the Icelandic original that made it such a glumly hilarious delight.

Fortunately, the twin charisma assault of the two leads adds considerably to the film’s appeal. It turns out that watching two impossibly beautiful boys making cow eyes at each other might be just the escapist pulp we need right now.

It’s dour, certainly, but the sense of bone-tired exhaustion and crushed hope that linger like pipe smoke works rather effectively for this particular case.

Dern brings a hungry, manic energy to Albert, a sad and troubled woman who used LeRoy as a vehicle to process her own childhood trauma, while Stewart’s performance is typically interiorised and exacting.

For all the talk of gamechanging comedy genius, Saturday Night ultimately plays it rather safe: it’s closer to a Noises Off-style romp transposed to a TV studio than the blast off of a cultural revolution.

For better or worse, House of Gucci is a little too well behaved to become a cult classic. But Gaga deserves a gong for steering a steely path through the madness – for richer, not poorer; in kitschness and in wealth.

A crowd-pleasing, if slightly formulaic, documentary in the vein of Spellbound.

The screenplay is a rudimentary thing – scaffolding to support the set pieces – that starts to creak whenever it attempts any depth of character. But the action is terrific, with a screaming, tyre-shredding extended car chase around Lisbon’s tight, cobbled alleys a breathless and exhilarating highlight.

While there are no surprises here, there are visceral kicks to be found in the businesslike efficiency of McCall’s retribution, and the devilish glint in Washington’s eye as he delivers it.

It’s not bad exactly, but like many film-makers, Clooney is at his most interesting when he’s not afraid to make enemies.

If it’s a love letter, it’s the kind tinged with the grasping anguish and stab of bitterness that comes from knowing that the object of affection is almost certainly eyeing up a new favourite.

Amid the screenplay platitudes (“The crash is not going to define who you are; how you respond to it will”) and shameless advertising riffs (unabashed spiels about PlayStation democratising motor sports), there’s an intriguing story of alien worlds colliding that somehow seems tailor-made for Blomkamp’s preoccupations.

It may not be as significant to the Marvel canon as, say, Black Panther but the skittish wit and playfulness wins us over.

Denis’s usual panache with mood and imagery doesn’t mitigate that awkwardness, nor does it alter the feeling that, although both leads individually portray impassioned suffering brilliantly, there’s little chemistry between them.

One for the buffs. [17 Feb 2008, p.3]

The film has a cold, abstract beauty.

After four decades of diminishing returns, the fact that a guy in a mask can still take an entertaining stab at a somewhat jaded audience is oddly reassuring.

Whether Irresistible is the movie we “need” in such testing times is open to debate, with some already accusing Stewart of having gone soft. But as a non-partisan response to the craziness of “this system, the way we elect people” (which is indeed “terrifying and exhausting”), it gets my vote.

While the title seems to promise a dual focus and fresh blood in the form of Gaga’s Lee Quinzel, in practice, she is very much a secondary character who earns next to no screen time on her own and suffers from thin writing and cursory characterisation. It’s a testament to Gaga’s weapons-grade charisma and star quality that despite all this, Lee’s scenes are electrifying and she lands every last line like a punch.

At the very least it’s a fascinating historical document. However, the fly on the wall songbook approach is draggy and repetitive – this remains a flawed and slightly frustrating music documentary. [2024 Restored Version]

The film tackles issues of race, sexual violence and the low-level simmering cruelty that is a fact of life for those hardy individuals who make a life in the bush in the late 19th century.

The Champions ensemble takes this to the next level, showcasing a host of rising talent, with particular plaudits to Tevlin and Iannucci, both of whom have scene-stealing charisma and note-perfect comic timing to spare.

It’s functionally good-natured rehash fare, bogged down by some watery CG and a few uncomfortable dips into “uncanny valley”, yet buoyed up by Bailey’s winning titular performance.

The film is best when it sticks to children’s caper mode, jostled along by gentle toilet humour, bad-tempered barnyard animals and a scene of two kids driving a van across Manhattan.

Offbeat flashes of humour punctuate this stylishly enigmatic, Jean-Pierre Melville-inspired crime picture, but the momentum flags a little in a convoluted final act.

Kechiche is quite brilliant at using stretches of time to create space for actors to let their characters breathe. It’s a sleight of hand that makes the intimacy on screen seem as though it’s unfolding organically, deployed to particularly dexterous effect in one sequence that takes place in a bar.

It’s all perfectly inoffensive kids’ entertainment, but aside from the well-meaning but slightly jarring BLM messaging, it’s ploddingly predictable stuff.

It’s pleasant, frothy, unapologetically by-numbers stuff.

The film is obsessed with deconstructing good screenwriting, the way a line lands, and ensuring clear character motivation.

This is subdued storytelling that, while it drags a little in its pacing, asks tough questions about society’s relationship with elderly people.

It’s a solid, sensitively handled study of the aftermath of a trauma, elevated by tricky, unexpected revelations about Park.

Mya Bollaers is a magnetic presence in this Belgian-French film that approaches the story of an adolescent trans girl and her estranged father with good intentions but a thuddingly unsubtle directorial approach.

It’s enjoyable, if familiar.

The film spends scant time exploring the implications of these darker themes, and doesn’t attempt to understand the root of Dreykov’s god complex. Instead, it’s more comfortable in comedy mode.

This kind of horror storytelling is only as successful as its final act. And, unfortunately, Never Let Go drops the ball, along with the bloodstained machete, just when it should be ramping up the tension.

As anyone who saw The Woman King will know, Davis has a formidable screen presence and serious action chops; for all its silliness, there’s plenty of fun to be had watching her slaughter the bad guys amid a diplomatic hail of bullets and canapés.

While DeBose is impressive, the contrived plot of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s movie hinges, somewhat preposterously, on rational, highly trained scientific minds devolving overnight into paranoid, murderous maniacs.

The result is an A-list B-movie that juggles moments of breath-taking visual splendour with much on-the-nose speechifying about sins of the fathers and eternal isolation, spiced up with some action-packed silliness that entirely undercuts its more po-faced pretensions.

Andrew Gaynord’s debut feature doesn’t quite hold together, but the atmosphere of twitchy paranoia is horribly effective.

James Hawes, who directed the entire first season of Slow Horses, clearly knows his way around the spy genre. Which is why this disjointed thriller about a brilliant CIA code cracker turned elite operative (Rami Malek) delivers at least some pacy thrills and globe-hopping intrigue, despite numerous issues with the screenplay, structure and casting.

Roberts relies heavily on imagery suggesting a confused reality ( characters are constantly fractured into multiple reflections) but the use of colour is an effective shorthand that clues us into Jane’s state of mind.

Sporadically goofy fun, a scrappy carnival of ripped limbs, severed heads and spilled intestines, all softened by an only partly parodic family-centred Spielbergian sensibility.

Good in parts, mainly due to the excellence of Vivien Merchant, Jane Asher, Julia Foster, Shirley Anne Field and Shelley Winters as his various conquests and, in a brief but memorable role, Denholm Elliott as a sad abortionist. [28 Mar 2010, p.57]

The cushioning effect of Ferrell’s celebrity and, judging by the closing credit list, an extensive and well-funded production team, mean that while this is a likable-enough film, it is an insulated and artificial construction.

This is a playfully sensuous affair that wonders what happens to slow-burn intimacy when mediated by the urgency of the online world.

It doesn’t help that Dominion spends a good deal of time trying to figure out what story to tell and which genre (or country) to tell it in.

There’s a real emotional heft to the storytelling and Caine, at 90, is a knockout.

The latest film from Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah) is strikingly beautiful, its widescreen vistas rendered in a scorched palette of dust and ochres. But the pacing is languid to a fault and it all gets rather bogged down in allegory.

The Gershwin songs are magnificent, and the climactic ballet a tour de force that won the great Hungarian-born cameraman John Alton an Oscar.

Ultimately, the question of what actually happened is just another red herring. The real point of the film is its heartfelt, if slightly trite, message: that it’s the wider world that needs to adapt and accept the differences of children like Minato and Yori, rather than the other way around.

While the changing moods of BlacKkKlansman seemed bold and audacious, the warring elements of Da 5 Bloods appear bolted together rather than alchemically mixed.

The sparky chemistry between James and Latif leaves few surprises in how it all pans out, but it’s an unexpectedly, disarmingly sweet film.

It’s lighthearted stuff and mostly benign too, save its unashamedly effusive stance on the monarchy.

The great missed opportunity of this film, with its glossy, handsome design and cinematography, and its genteel orchestral score, is how polite and unadventurous it is – something that could never be said of Dalí himself.

Much of the film’s appeal comes from its star, newcomer Max Harwood, who, despite a chiffon-wisp of a singing voice claims every frame with his knife-sharp cheekbones and charisma to match.

The debut feature from animation studio Locksmith is cute but familiar.

Some of the picture’s taut focus and pacing are lost to an unnecessary cancer subplot involving Eli’s family; like the journalists it follows, the film works best when it is tenaciously single-minded.

With slack pacing and insufficient focus, the film lacks the crackle of tension and propulsive efficiency of something like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The action sequences are splendid, it's magnificently staged and photographed, but there's too much pretentious moralising talk. [12 Dec 2010, p.51]

Despite a spirited performance from Comer and an impressive roster of supporting turns (including a scene-stealing Harriet Walter as Jean’s withering mother, Nicole), The Last Duel has a tendency to mirror its central battle’s attempts to address complex issues with the blunt tool of rabble-rousing spectacle.

This documentary shares Scorsese’s theme of obscene greed, while Kuala Lumpur’s neon nightscape gives the feel of a Batman villain’s origin story. The Penguin, probably.

Jumanji: The Next Level keeps things upbeat and lively, thanks in no small part to the introduction of two counterintuitively revivifying characters – curmudgeonly old codgers whose gripes and aches provide a jolly counterpoint to the teen angst that fired Kasdan’s previous instalment.

A solid, spooky period chiller.

Gibney struggles to psychologically penetrate his cold antihero.

To suggest Krasinski is only interested in surface thrills feels at odds with the seriousness of his craft. Judicious pacing, clever cross-cutting and visceral sound design build tension, but there’s an absence of soul, and no satisfying sense of what the monsters might be a metaphor for.

Directed by Tina Gordon Chism, co-writer of What Men Want, the film is cute enough, even if key ideas aren’t especially novel: it’s lonely at the top; we need to connect with our inner child; everyone is insecure as a teenager.

Law is phenomenal – a petulant, powerful and vengeful man who has the court balanced on the knife-edge of his mercurial favour. Vikander is magnetic as Katherine, but, as with the depiction of Josephine (played by Vanessa Kirby) in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, the screenplay creates a strong woman of today rather than a credible figure from history.

But while the period details are slavishly recreated, there’s an absence when it comes to character details for the two women, particularly Bundy’s wife, Carole Ann Boone (Scodelario).

The film runs out of momentum, finding itself ensnared in a needlessly complicated web of intrigue and administrative shenanigans.

This is Day’s show all the way, and her performance remains the film’s strongest suit.

Indeed, I’d have happily watched Cox flirt with Rosanna Arquette’s museum curator for 90 minutes; her game attempts to parrot his Gaelic and a tentative kiss while gardening, knee-deep in soil, are strangely charming.

It’s undeniably entertaining stuff, but this choppy collage-style portrait of the formative figures in the life of the young Tony Soprano (Michael Gandolfini) is better suited to the needs of existing fans rather than those of Sopranos neophytes.

The sci-fi stuff is tedious, but Wiig and Mumolo are bawdy and brilliant as ever, their effortless chemistry bolstered by years of collaboration.

The film is at its most successful in the first half, which shows the genesis of a pop phenomenon...But once Portman takes over the role, as a jaded, jangled pop veteran, the picture becomes less persuasive.

Like its subject, the film is not particularly revolutionary or groundbreaking in its approach. But again, like its subject, it is a work of unmistakable quality and class.

Some pleasingly icky special effects add to the general sense of mouldering menace. Where the picture stumbles, however, is in its almost total lack of effective scares.

Charming and informative as it is, the film may struggle to engage younger audiences accustomed to more overt comedy in their animated movies and less grave-robbing.

Realistically, it was never going to match the instant cult appeal of the original, but it has a lot of fun trying.

Perhaps that is this frothy film’s strength: cherrypicking multiplex-friendly elements from a complex and still largely unknown life in a manner that leaves the audience wanting to know much more.

Shipton is a fascinating character – abrupt, ill at ease with the voracious press attention, but also possessed of a sharp, unusual intelligence that tends to veer off at jarring tangents.

Disbelief is not so much suspended as detonated.

There’s an atmospheric, unsavoury oiliness to the cinematography and an uncomfortable tussle of sympathies – director Carlota Pereda shows real promise as a genre film-maker.

The compelling Ellis-Taylor goes some way towards tying together the disparate elements. She is a magnetic, dignified presence, persuasive in both the more melodramatic elements of the story and in the academic journey.

The result is entertaining enough, particularly when Annette Bening whirls through a scene.

A Man Called Otto taps into a seemingly unquenchable audience appetite for stories of cantankerous grumps redeemed by the healing embrace of community.

It’s slick, unchallenging and perfectly enjoyable, but it’s hard to see the point of a remake of Ron Shelton’s 1992 mismatched buddy movie about a pair of basketball hustlers who reluctantly team up.

The cluttered parallel story structure – the fates of several different individuals over a period of two years are woven together – results in a series of mini-scares rather than a gradual build to a big one. And since we already know the fate of most of them, all the diseased yellow lighting and oppressive sound design in the world can’t engineer much tension.

Sunny, soulful, if a little montage-heavy at times, this is a more conventional film. Hekmat’s magnetic star quality, though, is unmistakable: she’s a free and fascinating presence.

When Fine encourages him to elaborate, Wilson isn’t especially articulate, but his emotional responses to the individual songs are often lucid and revealing.

Wry rather than uproarious, it’s a little uneven at times. But Suleiman is a master of slow-burning, cumulative humour; this is the kind of comedy that creeps up on you.

I think Beau Is Afraid is best described as an amusingly patience-testing shaggy dog story that asks: “What if your mother could hear all those unspeakable things you tell your therapist?” Parts of it are hilarious. Other sections sag. Some will find it insufferable.

A climactic fight that takes place in the eye of a hurricane is appropriately silly but lacks a sense of fun.

[A] charming sequel.

May December also comes coloured by the lurid downlight of tabloid culture. It could be a pastiche of a psychological thriller, or a playfully misdirected daytime afternoon soap.

It’s maliciously effective, up to a point: an enjoyably lurid piece of classy-trashy psychological warfare. Unfortunately, both the plot and the performances boil over in the third act, and the film loses much of its icily calculated cool.

Alma Pöysti is luminous as Jansson, bringing to life her playful, pleasure-seeking artist’s spirit.

Very silly, but pulpy fun.